Hidden away in the Cathkin Valley near Champagne Castle in the central Drakensberg is a country store – more correctly the ‘Negosie Museum’. It is designed to take one through a nostalgic time warp into your childhood years of the 1960s, with household goods and foodstuffs of that period, still in original packaging.
Humankind has always had a penchant for gold. It’s actually a fever, gold fever, striking down all those with the indescribable urge for quick riches. Up north in the Limpopo province are the remains of South Africa’s first gold-mining company.
Delicate white blossoms tell us that spring is here. Not taking particular note of insects, flowers and birds in our gardens at other times, we now see the bees, tirelessly working their magic, and exult in the art of nature
Pretoria-based Etion Create has just been selected as one of the preferred suppliers in the Sofia offshore wind farm project in the United Kingdom, one of the largest in the world.
Four black metal pillars in a half circle, about three or four metres high, standing between two blocks of flats in London’s East End. To what purpose? Play things for kids? A work of art?
Actually the London Borough of Tower Hamlets was where the Stepney Gas Works produced coal gas for more than a century. Coal was conveyed by barge on the Regent’s Canal and converted here to gas for households, industry and the city’s streetlights. It made it a target for aerial bombardment in World War II. This now becomes an interesting story…
Britain has the allure of timelessness and tradition, and a language that is spoken widely. The age-old traditions the Brits so jealously guard have their roots elsewhere. Even their English language was a Germanic import, brought there by Angles, Saxons and Jutes.
As the Danes invaded in the 9th century, and even settled in places, the Wessex king Alfred kept them at bay. He is credited with saving the English language. But William the Conqueror’s invasion from Normandy in 1066 almost killed English. Fortunately three centuries of French at court introduced a lexicon that massively enriched modern English.
Mass air travel for all and everyone got millions flying to all corners of the earth. They clogged up tourist sites everywhere…
Though safe and reliable, aircraft are also noisy and pollute. Yet aviation is inextricably woven into the fabric of the global economy. Millions earn their living from it. Can we deny those the right to a livelihood? Can we deprive hundreds of thousands of tourist sites and businesses the income they have come to rely on since mass tourism started?
Covid-19 has bought us time to reflect on why we fly. We’ve got to flatten the flight curve.
Words cannot describe the spectacle of wildflowers that flourish every year on the West Coast and Namaqualand. Photographs give an idea, but you have to visit there to be caressed by soft air, to smell the earth and sea, feel the sun’s warmth, the silkiness of the petals, the lustre of the blooms.
This is a wish-list item that reminds us how magnificent nature can be…