Three old favourites by John le Carré

Let me begin by saying that I don’t usually read spy thrillers. So the fact that I’ve not only read several John le Carré novels, but have some of them on my “favourite books” list, is quite remarkable. For years John le Carré’s novels had been on our bookshelf (Willie is a fan), but I’d not […]

Carve Beyond Reality – Wood Carving Contest in Kenya

Ru-an Hsu, one of the organisers of World Wood Day, (see World Wood Day – 21 March 2013 ) sent me a link to a beautiful video of a wood carving contest held during August 2012  in Kenya. It shows the wood-carvers at work, and they get to talk about what inspires them in their designs. […]

Rosie’s new blog

Our dog Rosie now has her own blog! From  Life with a Neurotic Cat . . . So why would I, a dog, want to have my own blog? I suppose I could say “because I can”, but it’s more than that. I’m a smart and opinionated dog, and since Lisa (female human) won’t let […]

World Wood Day – 21 March 2013

As some readers may already know, this blog is primarily about nature in Africa. We love trees and wood! So it is with great pleasure that I want to promote World Wood Day 2013.  The inaugural celebration of World Wood Day is being hosted in Tanzania with a series of specially designed events. I had […]

Hanging about in the tree tops

What do you do if you’re passionate about trees? You climb them of course! If they’re trees the size of the one in this post, you are going to need mountain climbing gear and some serious climbing skills though. Two years ago Leon Visser – a Cape Town based tree-surgeon – visited our area to […]

Looking back – what did you miss?

This is essentially a “best of the last eighteen months” post i.e. since my last post of this kind (See: 7 Links: A Peek Into My Archives). So if like me, you were too busy to keep up with your blog reading this year, have a look and see what you missed. Or if you’ve only […]

New Year’s Day beach walk

This is a guest post by Willie for Notes from Africa. Full of energy we planned to start the new year with a nice outdoor excursion.  Well, the original plan was to go “kloofing” (swimming/paddling) down through a long mountain river gorge. But too many other people had the same idea and so we (group of […]