”Today this book goes to production to prep for print. Sometimes a book comes into my realm that just demands to exist. Impossible Skies is that book. I am more than excited to see it on the shelves, I am literally aching for it to be born. Walter Meyer’s brother, Frans Meyer has created something…
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St. Paul (Based on true events) It’s not easy to convince a beautiful woman to live on a sunken volcanic crater midway between Australia and Cape Town. But if, in the early nineteenth century, you are the wife of a rogue French nobleman whose freebooting and smuggling escapades have caught the attention of the law…
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A misty morning with coffee. After two days of wind and driving rain, it had to happen. The Northeaster relented, allowing the moisture-laden air over the cold Atlantic to slowly condensate into a silent wall of fog. It eagerly slides over subdued cumbers and onto the seaboard. And up in our glen, it seeps into…
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Smell. In the end, it all comes down to remembering a scent. It’s common to say that we are the culmination of past experiences and our link to these, the good and the horrible, is by memory. Undoubtedly, few senses are better at instantly transporting us to our long-forgotten past, than the unexpected whiff of…
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The nobility of a humble weir. Nothing beats seeing an erosion ditch silting up. Allow me to elaborate. Annually, South Africa loses 12.6 tonnes of valuable topsoil from every one of the country’s hectares. This is three times higher than Australia. At the risk of depressing the reader further, one should also bear in mind…
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Wiping out at Big Bay. My son convinced me to don a wetsuit a year or two ago. It wasn’t a pretty sight. The putting-on process, me — eventually — dressed in it, and later, the attempt at using it in some moderate swell. It wasn’t such a swell idea. As a teenager, I was…
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The 106 to Ludwig’s Garden. The mundane often provides a real eye-opener. It shouldn’t be overlooked as an opportunity to improve one’s perception of our surroundings. The current lofty R26.05 per litre we are paying for petrol changed my wife and me into MyCiti-bus users. The unexpected upside is an altered view. The fuel increase…
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Of rain frogs and fog horns. The frontal wind emulates the sound of an approaching underground train, leading to waves of rain. Cape Town’s winter weather washes the woods behind Lion’s Head, leaving it dark, dripping and quiet. Then one wakes to beautifully clear and optimistic calls. At first, it sounds like a nightjar. A…
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Kruger at dawn. The raspy calls of red-billed francolin, timid-sounding hornbills and the grunt and blow of hippos slowly fill the crisp morning air. Hyaenas laugh uncannily, celebrating a night’s successful scavenging. Few places on earth greet an early riser with more natural splendour and sheer apprehension than a bushveld dawn. The Kruger National Park…
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The bedding change happens on Fridays. Being a bachelor for 11 years changes one’s attitude. My 21-year marriage ended abruptly in 2009 when I was 41 years old. I think divorce attorneys are schooled in imitating the old anecdote: revenge is a dish best served cold. Over the following years, the proceedings imposed a reinvention…
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