The simple joys of camping

Cape Town – A friend – a women of strong views – is adamant: she will not go on holiday to any plac e where she cannot plug in her hairdryer. And I know what she means. The daily shower ritual is as essential to me as breathing. The day simply does not begin until I have stood in some hot water, done my face and put in some earrings. And yet there is something…

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How much is too much for a good school?

Cape Town – Every week I am supposed to write a column. And this week, it appeared that my ideas folder had run dry. That’s partly because I am much pre-occupied with the dreadful, all consuming task that besets the parents of Grade 7 pupils: the finding of a suitable high school. We did some research and went to some school open days last year (on the sensible advice of a friend, who said that…

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Can you do vitiligo, Joseph Fiennes?

In the summer my son Jack turned four, he started to develop strange white patches on the skin of his neck. Over the course of several weeks, the patches spread to his chest and right arm. The paediatrician was a little flummoxed and put in a call to a dermatologist. It was, she said, vitiligo. And so began our journey with a rare condition that most people know nothing about.

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Who is the real idiot behind the wheel?

This week I was waiting on a pavement in the Cape Town CBD, waiting for a lift. A car moseyed up one-way Long Street, slowed, stopped. Reversed ten or twenty metres, made a right turn and proceeded on its way. Luckily there were no cars right behind it, and all was well. I smiled, thinking: “Only in South Africa…” And it is amusing, in its way. But really it is indicative of all that is…

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Why we love old recipe books

old recipe books

Through the handing down of these familiar companions, our mothers were handing on memories and connecting generations over the love of what is both a daily chore and a source of life.

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