Hugh's take on 2017, part 3

I'm starting this new thread a bit early, because I'll be away for most of September, and probably away from wi-fi for much of that time. Also, I want to make sure that Part 3 is long enough to allow a seamless continuation in the first few days of the new year.

So let's have a picture: the butter factory at Baynesfield. The structure is shale with redbrick facings. This is where Joseph Baynes's gravity-driven railway started from. It's also the site of the first milking machine in South Africa, first butter cannery, etc. etc. etc.

>1 hfglen: We will miss you in September, thank you for the picture. I have some photos of my area of the world I want to share sometime, but I'm not very good at getting them off of my phone. Ah well.

Just to show I haven't vanished off the face of the earth ... seeing I mentioned wildlife in another thread:



A springhare at sunset in Camdeboo National Park, Graaff Reinet.

And I didn't totally revert to illiteracy while away.

Mercator is a very interesting biography of the man who invented the eponymous map projection, in 16th-century Belgium / Netherlands. Much interesting material on his environment, political and physical, and his competitors and colleagues. I could imagine @pgmcc liking this one.

Slice of Life is evidently the book of a TV series I wot not of. Bought at a library book sale in Knysna and started immediately. Even though I grew up in Johannesburg and only visited London for the first time in 1966, I'm surprised how much I remember from personal or family experience of the 1950s chapters. Which reminds me of one of my mother's favourite stories. Her elder brother was a reporter with Reuters during WW2, and came back from UK in the late '40s with a London-born bride. So needless to say the family rallied round to welcome the new sister-in-law. Including a few bits and bobs in the larder as a start-up, notably a pound of butter in the fridge. B had great difficulty with this -- how ever long did a whole pound have to last?! Butter was never rationed here, and so if she wanted to sit down there and then, eat the lot and go to the corner caff for another, nobody would mind. Inconceivable!

The book is well written, and one suspects the pictures are selected from a vastly larger pool -- wish I'd seen the others! Recommendable to many Dragoneers.

Love the bunny, which reminds me, I've yet to make that particular curry you have mentioned.

Slice of Life sounds right up my ally.

I like the springhare. Those are impressive ears!

I seem to recall that some time ago @MrsLee was given a porkbush / spekboom / Portulacaria afra for her garden. Hope it's still alive. Lee, we thought of you while going through the Karoo to and from Cape Town. Here's a porkbush in its natural habitat near Graaff Reinet, on the road up to the viewpoint overlooking the Valley of Desolation.

Great pictures, Hugh.

>10 hfglen: Ah, sadly mine did not live long enough to achieve that grand stature. It died during a time of frost. I had put it outside when we were remodeling to move my mom in, and forgot to bring it back in.

>12 MrsLee: That must have been a very cold frost! Lootsberg Pass, not far from where the picture was taken, is closed by snow for a day or 3 most winters. Hopefully the next one will fare better.

The curious barista's guide to coffee. Everything you ever wanted to know about coffee. I do believe that one could use this as a textbook for running one's own high-end coffee-shop, which means that not all of the procedures are practical at home. There are a few grammatical lapses and questionable turns of phrase, but on the whole the book is well made. I saw only one error of fact -- we do grow coffee in South Africa, mostly in Kwazulu-Natal and Mpumalanga, and essentially all arabica, but nowhere near enough to meet our own needs, let alone have any over for export. And so we are omitted from his list of coffee-growing nations. That said, the book is a joy, not least for the pictures.

>5 hfglen: We had one in our yard the other evening that wasn't in the least bit concerned about us. I think s/he must have been hungry, grabbing great chunks of grass and wild onion out of the ground. One focused bunny.

Love bunnies!

>6 hfglen: I think I would really like mercator. I majored in geography. One of my favorite classes was cartography.

Further to Pete's comment at http://www.librarything.com/topic/254235#6188092, may I offer him this mushed, stressed and scrunched quartzite in Meiringspoort near Oudtshoorn, Western Cape?



(seen last weekend, good heavens!)

>15 jillmwo: The bunny in #5 was just as focussed, munching away at the lawn right in the middle of the camp quite unconcerned while great clodhopping hoomins stomped all around flashing lights at it. Musta known that in a National Park its comfort was the prime directive.

>17 hfglen: Oh, Hugh! You spoil me so.

And here's this week's Sunday picture: a Red-winged Starling at a restaurant on the Knysna waterfront.

>19 pgmcc: 'Tis pity that Pete doesn't read Afrikaans, and Langenhoven never allowed his works to be translated. If these statements were untrue I'd direct Pete to Sonde met die Bure, and draw his attention to the fact that Langenhoven inscribed a roadside stone near here with the name of his imaginary elephant, Herrie. (By the way, can the Netherlands Dragoneers tell me if the double meaning in the name work in Dutch as well as Afrikaans?)

>21 hfglen: I am not sure which double meaning you mean. Do you mean the name of the book? I was not sure of the meaning of the word Sonde, which I figured is most likely zonde or sin, or sonde can also mean probe. Don't know what the book is about, but that last one seems a bit weird... The name of the elephant means noise, but can mean trouble if used in the right way. It's also close to the name Harry, but that would be pronounced differently in Dutch.

>21 hfglen: Wow!

Thank you for this tread of really interesting and diverse information.

>22 zjakkelien: I was thinking of Herrie as a personal name and as "uproar". In that context in Afrikaans, sonde would mean "trouble" or "friction".

A brief plot synopsis is that for some reason he bought a used tram from Cape Town, and it was too heavy for any known team of oxen to pull, even multiple teams. Then the circus came to town and went bust; he went along to the auction and tried to kickstart proceedings by bidding for the elephant. Nobody else did, and so he ended up taking Herrie the elephant home. And found that Herrie could pull the tram. So family Langenhoven packed up and set out on holiday. He gave out they were going to the beach, which the neighbours assumed meant Mossel Bay, where everybody from Oudtshoorn (his home town) went. So being naturally perverse he set out in the opposite direction, explaining that since the Suez Canal was cut, Africa had become an island and so whatever direction they went they'd get to a beach eventually. Several days later they got to a bend they couldn't negotiate in Meiringspoort, and set up camp there for several weeks. (The spot is now about an hour by car from Oudtshoorn.)

>25 hfglen: So do you mean that Herrie is a regular personal name in Afrikaans? In Dutch it isn't, in this context it would just be a funny name for an animal, and the personal name would be Harrie.

Do you think the meaning of sonde as trouble comes from the Dutch word for sin? I could see the one growing into the other...

>26 zjakkelien: Harry (so spelt) is a quite common given name among the English-speaking community; many Afrikaners pronounce it Herrie and associate its bearers with trouble. You're almost certainly right about sonde.

The Trouble with Harry

>28 pgmcc: One of my favorite movies!

Two (!) new books arrived this afternoon:

The Trains now Departed by Michael Williams and
Skyfaring by Mark Vanhoenacker

In the "flesh", so to speak, they look even more appetising than on the catalogue. My crystal ball says some library books are going to go back unread in order to make space for them.

The passage between the Knysna Heads is noted for unpredictable currents, shallow draught and sharp rocks. No wonder it is said that Lloyds won't insure shipping using Knysna harbour because of this passage.

>31 hfglen: That looks dark and moody! It looks like a good setting for a dark fantasy or post apocalyptic novel.

>32 SylviaC: That's what I like about it. Do I dare admit that I used a wrong setting and inadvertently underexposed it by two stops? One day I may give you a corrected version.

They shaped our century. Potted biographies of the 100 most influential (in the opinion of the unnamed editors) South Africans of the 20th century. Probably too many politicians, but maybe you need that many to include the good, the bad and the ugly, and we have plenty of the last two. Some artists, writers and scientists too.

>33 hfglen: Hugh, you did not make a mustake; you were simply giving your subconscious creativity the opportunity to produce this beautiful, atmospheric picture. That's what I tell people when I screw up; why shouldn't it work for you.

Joking aside, I do love the shot.

The Birth of the Pill. "The past is a different country; they do things differently there." I've long since forgotten who said this, but it is appropriate in this context. The subject of the book is pretty much what it says on the tin. But it is also meticulously researched and very well written, not without the odd momentary suggestion of a sense of humour. If I had to whinge about anything it would be the typeface, which looks like Century Schoolbook, which I associate with excruciatingly boring school maths texts and so find hard going. However, the author gives us an insight into one corner of pre-WW2 social history which has changed irrevocably and beyond all recognition in the 1960s and '70s. In so doing, he throws a possibly unintended sidelight on how hard it would be for any time-traveller of my or any later generation to adapt to (for instance) life in Victorian times, if such travel were possible. I'm sure there is space for volumes on "what happened next" or possibly "what happened next door".

>35 pgmcc: Thank you, Pete! That's not a million miles from what I told myself ;)

>36 hfglen: That one looks interesting.

>38 SylviaC: *cuts notch in edge of keyboard* :)

The Trains now departed. An imaginative, sometimes lyrical, look at a few aspects of British railway history. One chapter concerns vanished mainline stations, and that triggered a memory. Way back when there used to be a part-work aimed at "younger readers", called Knowledge -- does anyone else in our beloved pub remember it? It had an insert in the middle called "Knowledge News" (inevitably), and one week the story was all about the demolition of the Euston Arch and what an act of sacrilege this was. Would it be too much to claim that the article was an influence -- even if no more than minor -- persuading me to look around my own home town? Back then Johannesburg had more than a few Victorian delights, most of which did not survive a possibly unfortunate bout of prosperity in the later '60s. Most of the replacements (like the replacement Euston IMHO) have aged anything but gracefully.

Other chapters invite us to consider some of the absurd lines that Victorian and Edwardian entrepreneurs established and watched going belly-up. What on earth were those responsible thinking of when they put money into the Shrewsbury and Montgomeryshire? All it seems to have achieved is to mess up the Abbey Foregate in Shrewsbury, a place those of us who have enjoyed the Brother Cadfael stories must necessarily hold dear. But on the other hand, what about the crack, named trains that abounded a century ago? At least here we still have our own Blue Train, even if only wealthy foreigners can afford to ride it (tickets from Pretoria to Cape Town on this cost just twice as much as your average bucket-shop air ticket from Johannesburg to New York, which seems somewhat excessive but may explain the demise of the Golden Arrow, Cornish Riviera Express and others). And yes, we too had good food on trains back in the days of when. Did British trains also invariably serve the soup just as the train went over endless points as it went around an industrial area?

All in all, a most enjoyable nostalgia trip, even for non-Brits. I shall donate the book to the Railway History Society library in the next few weeks, so it will soon appear in @Railwaysoc's catalogue.

"The past is a different country; they do things differently there." That's the first line of The go-between by L. P. Hartley, a book which has been on Mount Tbr for a very long time. I should read the rest of it someday.

>41 Sakerfalcon: You reminded me of the last line of the last episode if Lovejoy.

"The past is a different country and Livejoy doesn't live there anymore."

>41 Sakerfalcon: Thank you, Claire. The LT reviews suggest to me that this might be the only line in the book that I would enjoy reading.

By the way ... has anybody seen or heard of @Seanie lately? Knowing of her love for the colour purple, I was put in mind of her by an unsettling item in this morning's Mercury.

It seems there is a Canadian model called Catt Gallinger, who shares Seanie's fondness for this colour. So much so that she (the model) has several purple tattoos (you distinguish these from bruises how?), and recently took this even further with something called "sclera staining" -- essentially having the white part of her eyeball tattooed. Fortunately only one eye; the procedure was less than perfectly successful, and she can no longer focus with that eye. I hope Seanie doesn't fall for this idea ...

>44 hfglen: I saw that news item too. I have to admit the headline was enough for me. Eye ball tattoo! It takes all sorts.

>45 pgmcc: Would you agree, then, that in this context "unsettling" may include "puke-making"? I can't help thinking that the young lady in the story got her just deserts, in a manner of speaking.

Sometimes you gotta know where to draw the line on following fads. Sheesh, I can't even bring myself to pursue the relatively safe surgery to restore eyesight to near-sighted folks. Too many books I haven't read yet to be messing with my eyes!

>44 hfglen: I see her occasionally on Facebook. So many of our lost regulars are still there at least.

>47 MrsLee: I gather from the story that the tattooist was her boyfriend. That would seem to be another no-no.

>48 hfglen: Emphasis on, "was".

>49 pgmcc: lol

Skyfaring. A frequently poetic account of what the author loves about his job. His first career was as a management consultant; in this phase the part he liked most was flying from place to place. So he enrolled in a training course and landed a job as pilot with British Airways. At first he flew Airbuses around Europe; he now flies 747s on longhaul routes. I see one LT review considers his facts banal; perhaps they are if you're a pilot. They come over as fascinating if like me you regard flying as a passenger to be a rare privilege, and as a pilot to be impossible. Haters of present-tense text may bridle at his use of that style to highlight his most formative experiences; I found it a useful way of setting those paragraphs apart from the exposition that follows. As for his use of English, it is a worthy example of the assertion that many Belgians, Dutch and Germans speak better English than most mother-tongue speakers of the language. If you have flown anywhere recently or even more if you are about to do so, this book should be in your "read very soon" list.

The Nature of the Beast is another of Louise Penny's Armand Gamache mysteries. Having cleared the corruption out of the Sûreté de Quebec, Gamache has retired (one suspects, not for long) to Three Pines. Where there is a nutty 9-year-old with a hyperactive imagination. And so nobody believes him when he comes in to the bistro with a tale of a huge gun with a monster on it ... until he is found murdered a day or so later. One LT review flags this as Ms Penny's most unbelievable story yet, but has the grace to note that it is based on a real-life event. Given the RL background, I have to say I don't find the rest all that incredible. It's well written and keeps up a good pace, and if @MrsLee hasn't already read it, I can imagine her enjoying doing so.

>52 hfglen: Hmmm, I will read it if I come across it, but as a rule, I have found the Gamache novels a bit depressing and dark for my taste, so I stopped seeking them out. They are excellent reads though, if one is not susceptible to such tones.

>53 MrsLee: There are some between about no. 5 and 10 that are very dark, but now that he's retired the tone lightens up significantly.

>54 hfglen: I think I read an interview of Penny where she said that the books moods reflected her own, and she was in a dark place for some time. Hopefully, she is now in a happier place?

And so to this week's picture:



We're in the Outeniqua (from a Khoikhoi word meaning "man laden with honey", which fits) Mountains, looking across the valley from the eponymous pass, which carries the main road from George to Oudtshoorn. Across the valley is a gravel road, the Montagu Pass, which carried the main road for 100 years until Outeniqua Pass was built in the 1950s. Above it is the railway line between the two towns. Almost invisible unless you know where to look is a third pass. The infamous Cradock Kloof was opened in 1810 and rapidly gained a name for being the worst road in the Cape Colony -- an achievement, considering how dreadful the roads were at the time. It's now a footpath, starting just to the right of the outcrop bottom right, wandering up towards the railway line and disappearing to the right of the peak.

>56 hfglen: There would be quite a view from that railway! I can just barely make out the railway line, and can only imagine the footpath. Another lovely picture, Hugh!

>56 hfglen: That is a stunning landscape! Thank you for sharing the pic and for telling us about it.

I'm a fan of the Gamache series and you're reminding me that I need to catch up. I've only got as far as A trick of the light which is one of my favourites so far.

Thank you, Ladies! There is a railcar that does tourist trips up that line almost on demand, and yes, one of the selling points is the view. Actually the views from Outeniqua and Montagu Passes are also great, and the latter has the advantage of a winery at the top. (They do a CHEESE platter, but buy in the edibles from the farmers' market in George.)

Here's this week's picture. Not far (as in some 30 km) from the previous, this is part of the scenic (old) route from George to Knysna (the former after George III of Britain, the latter from a Khoi word meaning "hard to get to", which was very apt in the early 19th century). The stream has the remarkable but apt name of Silver River.

Lovely, sylvan woods as well as Silver River.

In #59 I mentioned a cheese platter. Here's the doings for two:



From left to right and more-or-less top to bottom: 3 cheeses, bread, olives, biltong, chilli-something, tapenade, nuts, crackers, smoked ham, grapes.

>55 MrsLee: I'd say she is, or was when she wrote this one. I gather there are more recent books where he finds himself cleaning corruption out of the Sûreté training college. How dark those are, I don't know.

>62 hfglen: Yum yum! Is biltong what we call jerky?

>64 MrsLee: I'm given to understand they're at least closely related. Though maybe you don't find jerky made of kudu or ostrich (both premium-priced forms of biltong).

No, we are more likely to find it made of elk, venison, salmon or boar. At least if you know a hunter. :)

Ombria in Shadow. Unlike some LT reviewers, I found the ending tied up loose ends satisfactorily. Did those reviewers miss that the city and its imaginary image had changed places in the 2 or 3 chapters before the last? That said, it's not the world's most straightforward tale, but none the less enjoyable for that. And Ms McKillip's writing remains a joy.

>67 hfglen: Ombria in shadow is one of my favourite McKillips. I've never had any issues with the ending! I agree that you have to read her closely though - Winter rose is another one where people have missed the point and been dissatisfied.

>62 hfglen: That cheese platter looks delicious!

>68 Sakerfalcon: Er, ahem, Claire, I think you have the wrong touchstone for Winter Rose -- it's pointing to a book of the same title by one Jennifer Donnelly. The Durban city library website tells me that the right one is to be found in one of the branches I must visit in the next day or 3, so I'll keep an eye peeled and thank you for the recommendation.

>69 hfglen: Thanks! I've fixed the mistake. My fault for posting quickly and not checking.

Deep South A travel book by Paul Theroux always has to have something going for it. In this one he explores what outsiders might think of as a part of his own country. Even after 150 years, the former Confederate States remain vastly different to his home in Massachusetts, and he gives one to understand that the differences and problems aren't likely to soften significantly any time soon, though there have been measurable changes over the last 50 years. In a way this is a very political book (which cramps writing about it here), and in that way it reminds me strongly of home.

>68 Sakerfalcon: Found Winter Rose easily, and have read the first 5 pages. Looking foreard to the next 260. Many thanks, Claire.

You are welcome! I'm always happy to enable fellow McKillip fans :-)

>73 Sakerfalcon: and >67 hfglen: she's one of my favorites as well. I may need to revisit some of her novels soon. I don't remember having a problem with Ombria in Shadow but as I recall it was written in the wake of the 9/11 events and consequently it was perhaps a little darker than most of hers. My personal favorite is The Book of Atrix Wolfe. I fell in love w/ that one.

>72 hfglen: Just chiming in as another McKillip fan. I'm re-reading almost all of her stuff this year and next and am enjoying it even more the second time around. I hope you get hooked and read all her books :-)

>75 BookstoogeLT: Thank you. I think Winter Rose is about the last McKillip I haven't read that the Durban library system has, and I've not seen her works in bookshops around here. So getting hooked may be no more than a shortcut to frustration. That said, I would certainly pick an unfamiliar one of hers up, given a chance.

Darwin's Notebook. The local publisher and ISBN floored LT, as Amazon is evidently unaware of this phenomenon. British and American readers will find the identical book on LT with different imprints in the two countries. This is a very short (155 pages) and simple biography done up to look like a notebook. It manages to cover all the important features very readably, and so makes ideal bedside reading.

And for this week, may I introduce this Cape Fur Seal, seen in Kalk Bay Harbour. Yes, they used to be caught for their pelts, but since that has ceased they no longer fear humans. They are known to be aggressive, so it was probably foolhardy to be close enough to take this picture (which is uncropped) with a standard lens.

>76 hfglen: It looks like Darwin's Notebook will have to go on my list.

>77 hfglen: Glad you got the photo and escaped unscathed!

>76 hfglen: it's always a promising sign when a fairly prolific author has few available copies around in the library/2nd hand book systems. She's strangely hard to get hold of here in the UK as well. There's been a recent re-release of some of her works as ebooks, finally!, which has helped.

Currently reading: The Emperor's Last Island. The immediate reason for picking this one up at the library is that there was much hoo-ha last week at the announcement that there is now a weekly scheduled flight from Johannesburg and Cape Town to St. Helena, which is advertising itself as a holiday destination. The fare is not much more than your average flight from Johannesburg or Cape Town to London or, if you choose the right bucket shop at the right time, New York. And I still don't know why one would bother, especially after reading 3/4 way through this one. Not that the book is in any way bad, just that despite the place being within the tropics, neither it nor its most famous inhabitant cry out to be better known. At least to me.

Just stopping by, since I'm back in the pub, and I must say how much admire the lovely pictures.

Thank you, Cindy. Your reward this week is two pictures and a silly story.

Here is a field near the small Western Cape town called Darling. The place is named after a Governor of the Cape Colony in the latter half of the 19th century if I got the story right. Just imagine being a lad from here trying to chat up a girl, and she says "where are you from?" Oops. But that's not the story for tonight.



and a closer view of the flowers, which, as you can see, grow abundantly in every damp ditch for miles around. These arums are known in Afrikaans as varkblomme (pig flowers, literally).



And so it came to pass one sunny day that the daughter of a wealthy Afrikaans family in the Western Cape was arranging her wedding, and nothing but the very best would do. So at tremendous expense they imported a top-ranking German (why German? I haven't a clue) florist, who insisted on importing all his material at even more prodigious expense, and wouldn't let anybody see his creations until it was too late. And what greeted the eyes of the status-conscious bride as she swept in to the reception venue? That's right: varkblomme. Lots and lots of hugely expensive, imported varkblomme, looking tireder than the ones growing in the ditch outside.

The Job. Another incredible but highly entertaining tale by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg. The usual fluff, and enjoyed as such.

>83 hfglen: LOL, hilarious story!

We call those calla lilies, and they are a personal/family favorite! I have a few in my yard, but in the middle of February, in 1953, during a huge snowstorm in a small valley in the extreme northeast corner of California, my mother wanted them for her wedding. Happily, her brother lived in the Bay Area and was able to bring them for her, along with some other beautiful blooms.

I have heard many people here express disdain for them since apparently they have funereal connotations.

February you might just find some around here. Just imagine the cost flying them to northeastern California! But yes, I've seen them in funeral bouquets. However a better reason for treating them with disdain if you're the Upper Crust of Cape Town society is they're dirt common in every ditch -- as the picture shows.

That's so funny! I guess it's like a sunflower bouquet here. They're everywhere, but I still love them.

>83 hfglen: and >85 MrsLee: Any reference to calla lilies brings this story to mind:

In 1937, Katharine Hepburn included a line from The Lake in the film Stage Door, thus making fun of her biggest failure. The line became one of Hepburn's signature catchphrases: "The calla lilies are in bloom again, such a strange flower, suitable to any occasion. I carried them on my wedding day, and now I place them here in memory of something that has died." (quoted from Wikipedia.)

Finished The Knysna Story at last. Dressed up as history (which it is for about 30 pages) it is mainly a hymn of hate against any kind of human use of the environment, or progress. This style was very popular in certain circles when the book was written, but this example has not aged well -- rather like the concrete the author deplores.

PS to The Knysna Story, which mentions that one Victorian Englishman, younger son of minor nobility, settled there and tried to make his farm a replica of the family estate back Home. In the course of doing so, says the book, he even imported bees from England. Why, one asks oneself, considering there was no shortage of local indigenous bees. Most of his work was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1869, along with much of the southern Cape forests. So I asked an acquaintance if he knew what became of the English bees. Turns out that there were two importations of bees known to be less aggressive than the locals, but both seem to have faded away. However, says my beekeeping acquaintance, there are two distinct strains of "Cape" bees in the area of the original farm. In one the bees are like Capetonians -- laid back and working to a schedule that sees nothing wrong with only doing the job tomorrow. The other, he says, work like Johannesburgers -- always in a hurry, and having to wait until yesterday for the job to be done is far too slow. Yet the Government experts swear that the bees are genetically identical, and wouldn't hear of hybridisation with the imports.

Finished Winter Rose. Beautifully written as always, and seriously spooky. Definitely one for reading during daylight hours only, even though the cold winter she describes hasn't happened here for millions of years!

And this week's picture. The part of Cape Town we used to call the Malay Quarter is now called Bo-Kaap (upper Cape), and is in an advanced state of Chelseafication. Nonetheless, it is about the most colourful part of town, and sports an excellent Cape-Indonesian restaurant (others are available nearby), a spice shop with a comprehensive range on offer (found long pepper, mace and Chinese 5-spice powder, none of which are available at home, and an old dear who was determined to give me her roti recipe, complete with mimed actions), and a good museum -- all in the street in the picture. In the background you can see the city centre and Devil's Peak.



An old Cape legend says that one of the first Dutch settlers was a man called Van Hunk, who enjoyed his pipeful of tobacco inordinately, and so found it more peaceful to go up the mountain than stay home for a smoke. One day while doing so he fell into conversation with a stranger who challenged him to a competition to see who could produce the largest cloud of smoke. Van Hunk won. Only when the stranger cursed him to spend the rest of time raising clouds, did Van Hunk notice that he had cloven hoofs. And so to this day when you see this cloud formation on Devil's Peak (you get one guess as to why it's so called), somebody will observe that Van Hunk is smoking with the Devil again.

>92 hfglen: Pretty! Love the story, too. :)

What a lovely town!

>92 hfglen: Great picture and great story.

That town is beautiful! Love all the colors!

So bright! Thanks for sharing it, Hugh!

Thank you, all. It is a pretty part of town. The houses, though tiny, are all over 200 years old, which is unusual in this country.

Way back at #31 I posted a picture that >32 SylviaC: said looked post-apocalyptic. In truth, it was, as Knysna is still recovering from the worst fires in almost 150 years. I suggested (#33) that one day I'd post a correctly exposed image of the same scene. Here it is, at last.

And yes, I have been reading. Dumas on Food is almost unreadable, but one dips in from time to time. The Durban ILL system disgorged a copy of A Handful of Honey. I'm inclined to agree with the LT reviews that suggest this is Annie Hawes's weakest book. I'm about 1/5-way in and find I'm picking up almost anything rather than struggling deeper into Morocco with the gits she's travelling with. The winner in this dismal liturgy is Churchill's Wizards aka A genius for Deception. Only started this last night and I'm already well over halfway. And it's a 600-page brick.

>99 hfglen: Hugh, it is a lovely picture but I think I prefer the original. I have grown fond of it.
:-)

>98 hfglen: It still looks pretty bleak! I like that single bird perched off to the side. It adds a little touch of life to the scene.

>101 SylviaC: Normally Knysna is one of the greenest and pleasantest parts of the country, but yes I did choose a viewpoint that doesn't show the green for this one. Not that a wider-angle view would have helped much this time. The West Head (off to the right) was almost totally destroyed by fire in July-August, and the East Head has been badly mauled for millionaire homes.

Churchill's Wizards aka A genius for Deception -- don't know what's biting the touchstone; LT records no fewer than 252 copies of this, and the touchstone in #99 works perfectly. It's been too long since I last finished a book, but maybe this drought is broken. A fascinating study of deceit, deception, misinformation and camouflage in two world wars. Scarcely a dull moment, despite the length (600 pages). Recommended if you like reading about "dirty tricks".

>103 hfglen: I have that book in the house. Your comments have moved its priority upwards.

>104 pgmcc: That sounds like a "near-miss" rather than an actual book bullet. Sigh.

And this week's picture is a character I met at Boulders Beach, at the southern end of Simonstown on the Cape Peninsula. The first time we went there in search of penguins, Better Half was annoyed that we had forgotten the binoculars -- until a procession of them walked across her feet, and Melissa and I scored a warning peck each for looking too closely at the chicks in a nest. Nowadays humans are restricted to a boardwalk and a small area of beach, while the birds have the run of, ooh, it must be nearly a kilometre of shelter between the houses and the sea.

>106 hfglen: Awwww!

>105 hfglen: I would say you should take the credit for it.

> Lovely!

>106 hfglen: too cute!

>106 hfglen: The Penguin is adorable. I was at the Georgia Aquarium a few weeks ago and had great fun watching the penguins; it would be even more fun to see them in their native environment. When they walk that close to you, are you able to touch them? Or is that dangerous/not permitted?

I was amused last year when I read Terry Pratchett’s Small Gods. He wrote that penguins were confused birds because they can only fly underwater.

>111 YouKneeK: There's a fence between you and them. If you go down to the beach, you would be on the same side of the fence. The rules say don't touch; these are wild animals and would probably respond with a painful peck (or worse). But yes, it is fun to see them -- if not smell them (their guano stinks) -- in nature up close. Sir pTerry is dead right. They look ungainly on land, like an elderly and grumpy waiter IMHO, but they swim like angels, like this one, also at Boulders by Simonstown.

>112 hfglen: That beak does look like it could be pretty painful!

Caesar. "A novel" in the title, and dialogue that the author couldn't possibly have heard, but otherwise very close to the events as far as anyone now living knows. An interesting, sometimes even gripping, read, but what a revolting bunch of people. Rome at the end of the Republic was definitely a good place to stay away from if you wanted to stay alive. I'll be keeping an eye peeled for more by this author.

A handful of Honey. It is quite amazing how, if there's any possibility of confusion of titles, the touchstones will start by selecting the wrong one. In this book (relax, I checked and changed the pointer) Annie Hawes goes to Morocco and Algeria with two (male) friends. In such deeply Muslim lands she manages to leave a trail of misunderstanding and chaos, while learning all she can about the places and people she visits. Considering she evidently has not a word of Arabic or Tamazight (Berber to us ignorant sods), her achievement is remarkable. And the title? In the desert somewhere near Timimoun, where she is wondering where to go next, a marabout tells her she must choose between a handful of honey or a basket of bees. We leave her setting out for Gao in Mali. But presumably she eventually made it back to her olive grove in Liguria, but by what route? And with what adventures?

Squirrels may not be anywhere near making the Big 5 for size and danger, but they just have to be right up there with the best of them for cuteness. Like this guy in Camdeboo National Park.

>116 hfglen: Your squirrel looks like a larger version of our chipmunks. The squirrels around here are generally a single colour, with bigger ears and a big, bushy tail. But it is definitely cute!

We have ground squirrels similar to your little fella, then we have the grey tree squirrels like Sylvia describes. They are all too smart for their britches and a pain in the @ss if you like to feed birds.

>118 MrsLee: There are American tree squirrels in some of our parks. The locals, as you say, are often too smart for their britches.

Defiance: the Life and Choices of Lady Anne Barnard, who should need no introduction to anyone who has ever lived in Cape Town and not been totally dead to the history of the place. Which would probably have surprised her rigid. She was born a Lindsay of Crawford and Balcarres in 1750, and after an unconventional youth, married Andrew Barnard, 12 years her junior and son of an Irish bishop, in 1793. When the British took over the Cape in 1795 he was sent to Cape Town as Colonial Secretary, and she came too. She acted as "First Lady" as the Governor, Lord Macartney, was a widower, and reported back to Henry Dundas, (effectively Minister of Colonies) on all she saw and heard. When Macartney's health gave way and he went back to Britain, the government was much less friendly to the locals and the Barnards, and they were greatly relieved to return to England when the Cape was returned to the Dutch in 1803. Her correspondence is a vital, and sometimes the only, source on life at the Cape in that period -- to the great relief of all interested successors. This book is the first proper life of the good lady to make full use of the Barnard archive, and is eminently readable. And if I could invite anybody to a dinner party, the Barnards would head the list!

Come to the Table. The author became addicted to French living while working as an au pair in Paris at the age of 18. She then went to Toulouse to study commerce, and ended up marrying a Corsican fellow student. They moved to Nottingham (her home town), and after a while opened a deli, ostensibly to deal with their homesickness for Corsica while keeping a safe distance from intrusive in-laws. The deli grew into a restaurant which is evidently very popular. They keep the place as French as possible (table d'hote only, no a la carte), and from time to time they run tasting / teaching / learning evenings. The first of these was a function in a nearby church hall -- her description of her husband's response to her censoring his somewhat risqué choice of music, and the punters' response to being asked to think about food and wine pairings, is hilarious. The recipes aren't bad, either.

>121 hfglen: That sounds like one I would enjoy!

>122 MrsLee: I think you would, if you can find a copy. The publisher isn't exactly the world's largest or most famous.

Here's a(nother) Grey Heron, this time in Camdeboo National Park by Graaff Reinet. It was hunting something in the grass, and the snakelike movements of the neck and shape of the head reminded me irresistibly of some small dinosaur. From which birds are descended, of course.

Great picture. Herons are so photogenic. That is a great shot.

I know @MrsLee said she liked the write-up in #121 of Come to the Table but I have added Defiance: The Life and Choices of Lady Anne Barnard to my list, based on what you said in #120. She sounds intriguing.

And just as @pgmcc noted, the photo of the Grey Heron is very cool.

>126 jillmwo: Indeed, you may find Defiance: the life and choices ... the easiest piece of Barnardiana to find. But if you stumble across Life at the Cape a Hundred Years Ago, By A Lady, or the two volumes of her diaries published about 20 years ago by the Van Riebeeck Society, or In the footsteps of Lady Anne Barnard by Jose Burman -- all of whose writings are worth reading, by the way -- don't fail to pick them up. Any way up, enjoy the good Lady's comings, goings and observations.

The Search for the Stone of Destiny. The sound of cuckoos calling throughout this book was almost deafening. The argument, such as it was, was a none-too-fragrant blend of faulty logic, wishful thinking and questionable fact. With that background, small wonder that one's mind frequently locked on to the poor typesetting and dubious proofreading. I see the one and only rating gives this one three stars. Why so generous? The only reasons I can think of are that the pictures of Scottish scenery are beautiful (they would be, of necessity) and the author presumably gained Brownie points for Gaelic enthusiasm. At least it can go back to the library, and I don't have to give this one house room.

Did you Really shoot the Television? Family history of three generations of Hastingses. Mildly interesting, as I grew up reading Eagle, which in this account seems almost to have been Mac Hastings's brainchild. (Though I think Mac had moved on by the time I graduated from the little-kiddie weeklies Robin and Swift.) Be that as it may, Mac Hastings comes across as eccentric to the point of nuttiness. In many ways the parts about Anne Scott-James, a voice one remembers fondly from My Word of blessed memory.

Saw this in a reconstruction of a century-old kitchen / scullery in Knysna Museum, and was irresistibly reminded of The Last Continent.



The awful thing is that I recall the soap powder from childhood of a long time ago. And have an extra smile every time I read the book and get to the Rincewind scenes.

South African National Society meetings so often have a used-book table with offerings that are often interesting and occasionally gems. This evening's meeting (talk on Herod the Great, as the greatest builder of all time) was no exception, and two previously homeless books now have a roof over their heads:

The Smithsonian Illustrated Library of Antiques: Clocks by Douglas H. Shaffer -- a Smithsonian guide with beautiful pictures, and
The Mystery of the Copper Scroll of Qumran, which claims a link between Akhenaten of Egypt and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Do I hear a faint call of cuckoos in the distance?

>124 hfglen:

So, how many small dinosaurs have you observed?

>132 suitable1: A couple, in museums and illustrated books. ;-Þ

Jan Smuts and his international contemporaries. Was it @jillmwo who had words to say about self-published books? Technically I suspect this isn't one, in that the publisher is a named company at a different address in a different province to the author, but the publisher is also a tiny company not heard of before or since. The book traces the biography of Smuts (arguably the brightest South African ever) through his overseas contacts, which is a good idea. It is meticulously researched and footnoted, as one should expect from a retired professor of history. We know that in this day and age it is hard to get "proper" works of academic history published, especially when both author and subject may be seen as "politically incorrect" by the present Powers That Be. But oh dear. The prose is leaden (the professorial voice shining through), and the English makes it all to clear (1) why neither editor nor proofreader is credited, and (2) that English is the second language not only of the author but of those he does credit with helping in the production -- both members of his immediate family. And so we have turns of phrase that need to be read several times to make sense, and names whose spelling varies from one sentence to the next. The pictures were probably good in the original, but have in general not survived the reproduction process.

V. Sackville-West's Garden Book. This has been well rooted on the slopes of Mount Tooby for so long that the old dear who gave it to me is no longer with us. So it's about time I uprooted it and moved it to another site. The book is a collection of Vita Sackville-West's garden columns written from Sissinghurst and published in the Observer, arranged by month but not by year of publication. Even 60 years after first publication, there is (probably) good information here, well written up. If nothing else, this documents what garden plants have come into or gone out of fashion since it was published -- especially rose cultivars, which she clearly loved. But also, this one could be mined as a source of information on climate change, in that she says what plants are hardy and tender where in England; or were in the 50s. I had a quiet smile at some of her warm-greenhouse suggestions; here in Durban they're almost all outdoor plants, and some might not be overly happy in some warmer parts of town! Here the way to grow these is "plan them, plant them, cut them back", sometimes all within a month or 2.

>135 hfglen: I wond er, is the author a second or third cousin once renmoved from the Sackville-Bagginses? ;) It had to be said.

>136 MrsLee: She was certainly odd enough! ;)

Ringworld's Children. I could have sworn I had a copy (unread) of Ringworld somewhere, but it doesn't show on my catalogue. I shall certainly read it if it comes to light. This was my first read of anything by Larry Niven, and I'm impressed enough to go looking for more. There are more than enough reviews on LT that I don't need to add to them.

Timeless Karoo may be a candidate for an honorable mention in the "best non-fiction" slot. Certainly it makes me think that when the cooler weather comes, there would be many worse things than a trip to the Karoo. I think I agree with Mr Deal that the absolutely worst way of experience this dry place is to race along the N1 at 120 km/h. If you're in that much of a hurry, fly; if you have any brains (as the author clearly has, in plenty) take the back roads, stop often, talk and look around. You'll be amazed at what you see.

After that book note, what could I show if not a piece of Karoo scenery? This is at the foot of Lootsberg Pass, not far from Nieu-Bethesda.



Now on to Graaff Reiniet and the world's best lamb chops.

>140 hfglen: Mmmm, lamb chops!

And yet again, that scenery looks very similar to some of our views here in the high desert area of Oregon and California.

>141 MrsLee: Inneresting. The furthest west I ever managed in your beautiful country was a patch of sagebrush in a valley behind Denver. As I recall (it was a long time ago), it even smelt a bit like some parts of the Karoo. Sadly, it didn't seem that the Colorado-ans kept sheep, or one could have explored the effect of feeding them sagebrush on the flavour of the finished product.

>142 hfglen: There used to be wars between cattle ranches and sheep farms. Yes, even to whether a man who raised sheep could be called a 'rancher.' Right in that area.

In a Nero Wolfe book, he mentions the delicacy of a grouse which has fed on sage.

Chronicles of Pern: First Fall Evidently a re-read, though I have no recollection if the first time round. Mind you, my LT catalogue does say it was in 2009. Clearly, the anno domini is showing.

>144 hfglen: You can get cream for that.

South Africa in the 20th Century. Decade-by-decade summaries, followed by year-by-year accounts of what the author believes to be the main events of each year. Interesting pictures aplenty, but the text becomes repetitive after a while -- quite a short while, in fact. No earthly reason to read this if you don't live here.

Reread of The Cat who said Cheese. Definitely a comfort read. I had forgotten the cameo part played by a swarm of bees, which meant more to me this time round than 2 1/2 years ago.

Irresistible Italy Equal parts tourist reminiscence and cookbook. The recipes look rather good. Maybe we should try one someday.

And where are the pictures? The computer with them on is in hospital having minor (I hope) repairs. Normal service will hopefully be resumed in a week or so.

>149 hfglen: Sorry to hear about the hospitalisation of your computer. I hope recovery is swift and complete.

Thank you, Peter. It seems it was only a speck of dust that has now been evicted from its embarrassing place.

So I hope you won't consider this the wurst possible celebratory meal:



Sausage platter as served by Darling Brewery, the esteemed microbrewery in the town of that name.

The Secret Society by Robin Brown. If the names of Rhodes, Milner, Beit, Asquith and Lloyd George relate to your history, then this is an essential read; if not, then maybe just an interesting one. It's all about how the super-rich Randlords formed a secret society to enlarge the British empire by, er, less than scrupulous means, and how their "wheels fell off" in WW2. Mercifully, the only surviving trace (apparently) of this society is the Rhodes Scholarships. While reading what the ostensibly great and good got up to 100 years ago, I couldn't help asking myself "And this bunch differs from the present lot how?" -- no names, no pack drill.

>151 hfglen: YUM! Put me in mind of "Cut me own throat" Dibble from the Prachett books.

>153 MrsLee: Infinitely better than C.M.O.T. Dibbler's wares, I assure you! These are (mostly) filled with real meat from real animals that ate real grass!

>151 hfglen: The sausages sound delicious, and I like the pun too. It's not the wurst I've heard.

I see I added about 130 books to my catalogue this year. The vast majority were reads from the library; a few books bought and then read. Only a few were owned books I'd somehow overlooked. Reads included a few from the @Railwaysoc catalogue, too. Not a bad year.

>51 hfglen: Just found this browsing old threads. I bought Skyfaring sight unseen right after it came out, after seeing a very favourable review in (I think) The Economist. After reading it, I count Mark Vanhoenacker among the great flying writers like
Antoine de St-Exupery and Ernest K Gann. (And Richard Bach, but only for his first book, Stranger to the Ground.)

>157 haydninvienna: Well, I'm glad you dredged it up because I missed a lot of these magnificent photos until now. I especially love the Heron!

>158 clamairy: Glad to have been of service! I thought the photos were pretty great too.

>159 haydninvienna: And yes, you should join the group. 🐲

Thank you both! And I heartily second Clam in >160 clamairy:!