Tag Archives: landscape “Let’s dance! Put on your red shoes and dance the blues…” David Bowie died earlier this month (January 10, 2016). There is no denying his influence over the zeitgeist of the era I grew up in, and the news of his death stunned me like a blow to the solar-plexis. All over the world, tributes have […]  Winter in Britain… What a wet, bone-chilling prospect! This winter (2015-16), the northern part of Great Britain was inundated by floods after the pre-Christmas storms Eva and Desmond, and then had to brace for record cold temperatures and snowfalls. Two years ago (2013-14), Britain experienced the wettest winter on record: the south was battered by winter storms that ripped away beaches and made […]  Another year draws to a close… I find that the period of “limbo” between Christmas and New Year is a good time to reflect on the past: on the trials and accomplishments of the year that is finishing. This time in 2014, I wrote: “This last year has been a turbulent one: wars, acts of terror and insanity, […]  The Spitzkoppe, meaning “pointed dome” in German, is a granite massif rising out of the flat Namib Desert – a plain of gravel and sand that extends to the Atlantic Ocean a hundred miles away on Namibia’s west coast. Part of the Erongo Mountains, Spitzkoppe is the remains of a gigantic volcano which collapsed more than a 100 million years ago when the ancient continent […]  Ever since reading Heidi as a child, and “studying” Switzerland in Grade 3 Social Studies, I have dreamed of walking in the flower-filled meadows of the Swiss Alps. When my husband and I planned to visit some Swiss friends last year, I thought my chance had come. Alas, being geographically challenged as I am, I didn’t realise […] |
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