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I broke my foot on New Year’s Day 2026 – how’s your year shaping up? Not my actual x-ray, but a pretty good replica The moral of the story is that I should not be doing housework, I think: I was breezing into the garage to fetch the mop after having vacuumed up after the previous evening’s festive braai in a near gale force wind which had blown much of Blouberg beach through the sliding…

Yoga pants are great, don’t get me wrong, but what you have to beware of is the colour and patterns on them: When I walk the mad lab every day (okay almost every day) I see that the latest fad is lounge wear is snakeskin. Now snakeskin (fake of course, because well, no cruelty to animals) per se is not too scary and can look rather stylish in a suit, bag, shoe or wide length pair of…

It is all too common that educators become frustrated when their students appear to be disengaged in class, especially in high school when the teenage eyeroll and standard answer of ‘boring’ prevail and are no help when trying to find a way to captivate a tough audience. Over the years I have heard many excuses from teachers to sidestep their responsibility to connect with the young people in…

The internet thinks I should lose weight. Now let’s not knock them for this noble goal, despite its unlikely outcome. My problem is not exercise. I love my walks, I promise, and don’t particularly mind even (God forbid) a diet. It’s the relentless advertising that discombobulates me! I have purposefully set my feeds for ‘no diets or fitness ads’ and yet they keep coming. If it’s not that…

Percy Bysshe Shelley’s formidable sonnet is a hope-filled reminder that even a powerful politician’s reign is ultimately transient. Power is ephemeral. For those of you not familiar with the Romantic poet’s work, Ozymandias tells the story of a ‘traveller’ in the desert who encounters a gigantic ruined statue of an ancient despotic ruler, who demanded that this massive sculpture of himself be…

S*&t Rock Painting: Sean Mongie 2009 My eldest son studied Art at high School. This was a Grade 10 block-mounted painting he completed in Grade 10 (as well as successfully managing to daub the dining room table and even the family Toyota Condor with blue oils… but we won’t go there.) Trying to overcome the artistic, teenage surliness I asked mid-masterpiece (perhaps that was where I went wrong)…

Photograph: Mike Lukovich: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Attached to every bellicose Trump cruelty or dangerous asininity there is a posse of laughing limpets who snicker at his every ‘joke’ and applaud like silly seals flipperslapping his every move. For a long time it has been obvious that ‘cruelty is the point’ with this wannabe-king, whether it is the fatuous AI video, like the recent…

1. Your value as a human being is not linked to your matric results. Whether you achieved excellent marks, or are disappointed in your performance, you matter. You are worthy of respect. 2. Be mindful of your friends’ emotions This is also a time to celebrate with those who do well, but also notice and support classmates who are stressed or even devastated. Reach out to them all. 3. Not every…

The only thing more ubiquitous than Ubers and food delivery bikes in an urban setting are narcissists. I considered this phenomenon while observing a pair of Cape Spurfowl (I think that’s what they were) in the bush outside my home recently. There these dun-coloured birds were, (They look like boring guinea fowl): I saw them by sheer chance, perfectly camouflaged as they were in the middle of a…

I was coerced into going to the Barbie movie. I even wore a pink polo neck, although I baulked at wearing my pink coat, fortunately, because my girls let me down by pitching up with only pink make up… Faders! As I sat down next to one of my daughters, I muttered, ‘This had better be satirical!’ I don’t remember playing with Barbies much as a child, although I do remember turning my chest of…

I have been accused of over-dressing for the South Pole when I go to bed in winter (from someone who wears a beanie to bed I might add – I have photographic evidence). But I must confess, I do like to be warm. And if my feet are cold, I cannot sleep. So, fast forward to this year, and I needed new socks. Unable to nick the man’s, I headed off to the shop to purchase appropriate black hosiery. I…

I’m a Narnia/Secret Garden kind of girl and The Secret Garden beneath 47 On Sea in Bloubergstrand does not disappoint. In fact it is one of Blouberg’s best kept secrets – even some locals are unaware of its presence. Once you have purchased your coffee and cake at the coffee shop, you can either watch the parade along the quaint Stadler Road, with the magnificent On the Rocks Restaurant and…

The problem with multitasking is that sometimes one of those metaphorical balls in the air inevitably comes tumbling down on your head. In the last year I have had three massive, lead, wrecking balls crash down on my life and the way that happened was brought home to me in a physical way last weekend when I got caught in a storm… literally. To set the scene: it had been raining off and on in…

Nikwanto was dying. At 15, he’d already had two kidney transplants and the second one was failing. He was a year behind his peers at school, in both stature and academics, because of this, and was frequently absent in order to undergo dialysis. It had been whispered to us that there was not much more that could be done for him, yet he remained a jovial, mishievous Grade 10 student at Holy…

One of the downsides of walking the glad lab is that she has a healthy gut life and ALWAYS has to go on our walks. Besides the obvious embarrassment of standing there while woman’s best friend poops in public, it forces one to stop midstride on your hike. And you have to look.. somewhere. She may have no shame and be perfectly fine with squatting next to a busy, public road, but I do feel she is…

Magda Fitzgerald, Alma Mahler, Sylvia Plath: just three artistic voices stifled by their husbands’ voices, their genius subsumed by their more famous spouses. Were these men incapable of nurturing artistic talent in their spouses? Were they jealous of their wives’ talents, or did society’s demand for women to play the wife, mother and nurturer destroy their chances of being truly great? Is art…