Iceland – hot pools, lava, glaciers and icebergs

“While I was growing up I never heard the word ‘happiness’ except on the lips of a crazy woman… My grandfather was once asked, sympathetically, how the people at Akurgerði, who had lost their breadwinners at sea, were keeping. He answered, “They have plenty of fish.” In the same way, if someone asked how anyone was, we invariably replied: “Oh, he’s fat enough.” – which meant he was well, or as they would say in Denmark, he was ‘happy’. If someone was not well, one said: “Oh, you can see it on him.” And if the person under discussion was more dead than alive, one said: “Oh, he’s a bit low.”, “He’s off his food these days.” or “He’s packing his bags now, dear fellow.” Of a mortally ill youngster it was said that it did not look as if he would ever have grey hairs to comb.”

The Fish Can Sing by Halldór Guðjónsson Laxness

If you’re considering a trip to Iceland, get yourself fully vaccinated, let 15 days pass, book your tickets, pack your cozzie and some wind/rain proof outer layers, grab your passport and go!

Also, take your life savings. You’ll need every penny. Continue reading Iceland – hot pools, lava, glaciers and icebergs

Summer staycation

Book cover“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

There’s a very bad joke that goes something like this …

“Where are you going for your holiday?”
“I’m going to Romania.” (pronounced remain-ya)
“Wow! That’s exotic.”
“No, I’m going to ‘remain-here’ – get it?”
“Ah … not so exotic.”

[best said in a strong South African accent] Continue reading Summer staycation

The Journey, not the Destination: Goats, Wine, Mountains and Mafia #SAroadtrip

“I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone,” said Gandalf. 
“I should think so — in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them,” said our Mr. Baggins.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien 

road trip south africa

We were about 60km outside Port Edward when we realised that we might actually be in real danger. Continue reading The Journey, not the Destination: Goats, Wine, Mountains and Mafia #SAroadtrip

Heat, dust and the ‘Big Four’: unlikely lessons from the Pilanesberg

“The Go ‘way birds do not feed on ticks and have nothing to do with the game; you find them where there is no game, and it always seemed to me that it is not concern for the game at all, but simply a combination of vulgar curiosity, disagreeableness and bad manners, that makes them interfere as they do.”

Jock of the Bushveld by Percy Fitzpatrick

dangerous animalsIn some strange supernatural way,  the ‘bush’ ‘calls’ to me. I’m not sure that this is a concept anyone but South Africans can truly understand. When I’ve been away for some time I begin to have dreams of giggling hyena and hooting owls – both by day and at night. My heart grows a little achey and a restless feeling mounts in my spirit. It beckons ruthlessly, and eventually I must answer. Continue reading Heat, dust and the ‘Big Four’: unlikely lessons from the Pilanesberg