Our friends got married in Tulbagh over the weekend. In a beautiful chapel, on a wine estate, in the pouring rain. We didn’t get to the church on time because the road from the farmhouse to the highway was under … Continue reading
I love English newspaper magazines. I would buy all the rags and broadsheets on a Sat. and Sun., whip out the style/travel/food/magazine bits – and take them with me on the road to read over the next couple of weeks. … Continue reading
When I first saw the light of day, my parents were utterly stumped. I was supposed to be a boy and my high-pitched girly wails interfered with their well-laid plans. They only had one name picked out, Giacomo, in honour … Continue reading
Camparigirl and I were wondering what it would take to bring our libidos out of retirement. It had been a long, fragmented and exhausting week and I was telling her how thrilled I was that no-one was going to expect … Continue reading
“Quite often I feel as if my soul is in the past and my mind is in the future”. To say that Luther Gerlach is in love with the past would be too reductive. It might be more accurate to … Continue reading
Our friends got married in Tulbagh over the weekend. In a beautiful chapel, on a wine estate, in the pouring rain. We didn’t get to the church on time because the road from the farmhouse to the highway was under … Continue reading
Guilty pleasure #56 is watching Masterchef Australia: partly because I have a secret crush on Matt Preston – one of the resident judges. He makes me smile every time I see him: decked out, as is his wont, in matched … Continue reading
Text by sofagirl My first, openly gay pal was a guy called Mark. We worked together at an Advertising agency in Johannesburg. I was 19 and the Creative Department secretary. Mark was a budding art director. I was fascinated that … Continue reading
A few days before July 10, 2009, Sir Edward Downes, Conductor Emeritus of the BBC Philharmonic, and his wife, Lady Joan, travelled to Switzerland. Lady Joan was in the final stages of cancer and Sir Edward was completely blind and … Continue reading
When in emotional doubt, it’s not Carl Jung I resort to but Leo Tolstoy. Leo and I have been conducting a love affair of sorts since my teens, when I first opened a four-volume paperback of “War and Peace” and … Continue reading
Camparigirl: I open the drawer that holds my five bathing suits and I honestly can’t decide which one to wear. Memorial Day week-end, glorious weather and my first day at the beach. And my attire choices are all so sad … Continue reading
A blistering heatwave has hit stretches of India, with temperatures reaching 45C/112 F. Until the rains come – in the form of seasonal monsoons, millions of regular folks are taking to the streets looking for ways cool down. As winter … Continue reading
It might be a bit presumptuous of me to give advice to parents, as I am only half a parent myself – I raised two step-children which, let me assure you, is a very different ballgame than having children of … Continue reading
These fantastical bird’s nests reminded me of Horton the Elephant. One of my favourite Dr Seuss characters. Horton is a game fellow, who meets Mayzie, a bird who thinks she needs a vacation. What happens next always made me smile … Continue reading
The young woman who washed my hair at the hairdresser today me told that she is in love. And this time it’s for real. I asked her how she knew? And she listed her new fella’s virtues – he doesn’t … Continue reading
“Really, it’s like being on a permanent cruise”, the nurse in charge of rehabilitation remarks. I look at her skeptically: if she were trying to convince me, she hasn’t found fertile ground. I hate cruises and their veneer of forced … Continue reading
When the urge strikes, or a sense of guilt takes over, I become a fury: the patio floor will be scrubbed clean; the closet will be emptied, sorted and vacuumed; the garage will be reorganized; the kitchen drawers will be … Continue reading
I was at my favourite coffee spot the other day – which is attached to a bookshop – when I noticed these two little books that made me smile. “Don’ts for Wives” and “Don’ts for Husbands” were written by an English woman called Blanche Ebutt in 1913 and I … Continue reading
Baking has always seemed like a science to me: I’ve heard stories of epic fails – and tasted epic successes – so entering the arena always felt daunting. And unnecessary. Sofabrother is a great baker, my mother Glenis is too. … Continue reading
If you are new to LA and have noticed that women you just met and briefly socialized with bid their farewell with “we should do lunch sometimes”, let me break it to you: don’t count on the lunch invitation ensuing … Continue reading
We love urban art at campari & sofa. Show us something beautiful created by a hip young thing with a spray can – and we will happily walk past a fancy gallery, grab a coffee and sit on the sidewalk … Continue reading
With the corner of my eye, I saw the rabbi, standing on the side of the road, flailing his arms, trying to catch my attention. I stopped. It’s not the beginning of a rabbi joke – I was actually on … Continue reading
When I was in London late last year I was stunned by the amount that people were drinking. I had honestly forgotten that it was perfectly ok to have two or three with lunch, a couple of cheeky cocktails pre-meal, … Continue reading
If you can think of life, for a moment, as a large house with a nursery, living and dining rooms, study, and so forth, all unfamiliar and bright, the chapters which follow are, in a way, like looking through the … Continue reading
Sofabrother likes to try his hand at confectionary every now and then. Mark works fulltime with Knead Bakery – so baking when he gets home is the last thing on his mind. But we had some friends around for supper … Continue reading
Thomas Lamadieu is inspired by slivers of space, the shards between skyscrapers, reflections in puddles, chinks around corners. He takes the photo, adds in a few lines, shifts perspectives and what you thought you saw then is not what you see now. … Continue reading
The roar of the helicopter breaks the silence of the otherwise undisturbed plains. A man leans out and fires a couple of tranquilizer darts into the thick hide of the rhino. Dust kicked up, grass blades flattened, a handful of … Continue reading
I was standing in line at my local supermarket the other day when the man behind me gasped. I looked up from the mag I was browsing, to see what had got his goat. At the check-out till ahead of … Continue reading
Recycling is second nature. I haven’t kept the tap running while brushing my teeth in 20 years. My toilets have been upgraded to low flow; the water I drink is filtered rather than bought in plastic bottles. I don’t microwave … Continue reading
There are two questions I get asked with an annoying regularity. They come as a pair. The first is: “Why aren’t you married?” This one I despatch easily – I either go for the laugh – “still waiting for that … Continue reading
“Research psychologist Jonathan Haidt describes the mind as a small rider, the conscious, sitting atop a giant elephant, the unconscious. The rider thinks he is in charge and can tell the elephant where to go, but the elephant has his … Continue reading
We have a ‘normal’ history with food in sofafamily. We sat down to dinner together every night: with instructions to finish what was on our plates. Most times that wasn’t a problem. But there were certain things we hated. Most … Continue reading
The year I spent studying in Florence is a blur of long nights in an old shared apartment in the center of town, walks along the narrow streets to the University building, the ice-cream cones from Vivoli and the double orders … Continue reading
This is part of an occasional series of interviews in which we ask older women to look back on their lives and pass on some words of wisdom to younger women. Graziella Arcovito, 78 years old Some boyfriends come with … Continue reading
The last seven days have been filled with the horrors of humanity on it’s worst behaviour. We’ve taken to throwing bombs at our problems – and during the past week we exploded a marathon, decimated a wedding party, destroyed a … Continue reading
Since becoming an US citizen, I have been experiencing all kinds of treats previously not open to legal aliens: voting, volunteering in the Presidential election, whipping out my blue passport when re-entering the country, by-passing the immigration lines (alright, I … Continue reading
When the Nieces and Nephew come for dinner – I try to cook something they like, will eat with the minimum of fuss, that allows us to sit easily around a table and chat, that gives them good nutrition … … Continue reading
Last Summer, my mother suggested a strange outing: “Will you take me to see Marilyn Monroe’s gravesite? I think she is buried in Los Angeles”. It turns out Marilyn is buried in a pretty, small and serene cemetery just behind … Continue reading
I woke up to a torrent of rain – it was still darkish, at 7.15am, and my plans to take Jack out for an early amble and breakfast evaporated. He was sticking firmly under the duvet at my feet – … Continue reading
Last week I had lunch with one of my best friends, who happens to be a chef, and about a decade younger than me. “I have been trying to eat better” she mentions. As we kept on talking about her … Continue reading
A great WordPress.com site
My new life as a farm wife
photography & food from beautiful Oklahoma
a serious case of wanderlust
The Adventures of Danda and Yaya
Life after fifty; one cocktail at a time
A passion for food and fashion.
Come travel with me...
The unapologetic pursuit of beauty, anti-aging and fun
Life after fifty; one cocktail at a time
My opinions on food, retail and other things that interest me