How social media can 'find' you a holiday

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One mother's jour­ney to find a house swop on Facebook – the ins and outs, pros and cons

We recently found someone with whom we are swop­ping houses. Or, as she puts it, swop­ping lives. Because when you move into someone else's home, use their car, feed their cat, flick through their photo albums on a rainy day, stock their fridge with your food, and sleep in their beds, then you've prac­tic­ally taken on their lives, haven't you? Continued

The cutest little Indie Coffee Shop in Africa — Wolves

Wolves Café

Wolves Café in Illovo, Johannesburg, is the brainchild of three friends and cre­at­ives, and is undoubtedly one of the hippest hangouts in the city. One of the tal­en­ted own­ers, Angie Batis, is not only the stel­lar cre­at­ive force behind a pop­u­lar blog as well as the Creative Head of a well-known ad agency; she also bakes the coolest cup­cakes and delect­ables for Wolves. Co-owner and hus­band, Shane Durrant, is the lead singer of pop­u­lar local band, ‘Desmond and the Tutus,’ and together with a friend, they cre­ate the magic that Wolves is known for. Continued

Humanearth — local, young artists with a conscience – 'til Saturday in Cape Town

Humanearth

Wessel Snyman Creative describes itself as a 'pro­gress­ive fine art gal­lery on Bree Street'. I find the build­ing with rel­at­ive ease, con­sid­er­ing I usu­ally have to ori­ent­ate myself thor­oughly on Google maps before ven­tur­ing into the Cape Town city bowl – I'm such a sub­urban, I am ashamed to say. When I'm all grown up and fin­ished driv­ing my five-year old from a to b, I'll stay a while in the centre of Cape Town and get to know it better.

But for now I find my way around via a com­bin­a­tion of car ticket dis­trib­ut­ors (what do you call the guys who charge you to park in town – they're not exactly metre maids, now, are they?) and maps on the Internet. I can't do map books, they're too con­fus­ing. Continued

It takes only one person – the story of Zulufadder

Zulufadder

“The world is filled with chil­dren and adults who need help. I was never ter­ribly con­cerned by for­eign aid work, nor by Africa, says the founder of Zulufadder, Mari Maurstad. “But when you meet with chil­dren of whom you had pre­vi­ously only seen pic­tures, then another room in your heart opens. You then real­ise that all the energy you use to sat­isfy unne­ces­sary enter­tain­ment, that same power can be used for some­thing so much more rewarding.”

Zulufadder is a children's trust star­ted six years ago to help chil­dren mar­gin­al­ised by HIV and AIDS in the rural areas around Eshowe in Zululand. It began when the former Norwegian act­ress, Mari Maurstad, met Aurelia Mhlongo, whom she calls a 'female ver­sion of Nelson Mandela' where she was strug­gling to feed chil­dren soup once a week in the Umlalazi Reserve ... Continued

Christmas without the turkey ...

Have you ever noticed how inap­pro­pri­ate a huge meal (tur­key and all) is in our warm South African cli­mate? The thought of toil­ing over a stove and oven for hours only to pro­duce a hot meal to con­sume on a boil­ing day is fast los­ing its allure for many. Add to this the con­cern for the ordeal though which the tur­key goes in order to make it onto our table, and it becomes appar­ent why there is a grow­ing upsurge of turkey-less Christmas din­ners. This is not a rant about eat­ing a veget­arian meal (even if mod­ern meat pro­duc­tion is energy and resource intens­ive and any­thing but humane). I risk much ire from meat-loving fam­ily, friends and read­ers if I begin to expound.

However, one can choose to know more about where one's meat comes from, if you do decide to go for a joint of ham or a chicken. A num­ber of small farms are now pro­du­cing organic and truly free range meat, sold more often than not at local mar­kets (although Woolworths is known to stock the odd organic chicken, and Wellness Warehouse in Cape Town stocks Spier free range chick­ens). ... Continued

Get away from it all this 'xmas — retreats for the soul

@ Temenos

If I could, I would gladly escape the mad over-commercialisation of Christmas this year and opt for time-out in a retreat in the back of bey­ond. Whilst this isn't pos­sible — I have fam­ily com­mit­ments — I can provide, for those lucky souls amongst you who can choose from the won­der­ful options below to head for the hills, a list of retreats that provide a real space for introspection.

Whilst many accom­mod­a­tion options call them­selves retreats, the word has come to mean a space away from it all with little to encour­age indi­vidual explor­a­tion and med­it­a­tion. A retreat in this art­icle means a with­draw­ing, a retire­ment or a period of retire­ment for reli­gious exer­cise or med­it­a­tion. Any of the fol­low­ing places will allow you  'time out' and some will even provide guided retreats. Whilst spir­itual, none are religion-specific, and every­one is wel­come ... Continued

3 very quick, perfect for summer, local meals (and a dessert)

I'm not fond of cook­ing. No, let me reph­rase that. I actu­ally enjoy whip­ping up a meal, par­tic­u­larly if I can use ingredi­ents from the garden. I don't like labour­ing over it. It must be fun to make, and it must taste good. And most import­antly, I mustn't have to spend half the pre­par­a­tion time try­ing to trans­late things like deci litres into some­thing more measurable.

I've put together a list of three such recipes — they're quick, they pro­duce a really tasty meal (usu­ally) and they're from local cook books (well, most of them). If they're not local, then at least they include eas­ily sourced local products ... Continued

Give the gift of a Heartwood Tree ... or get one for yourself

Heartwood Trees

OK, so here we are a few short weeks to Christmas Day and I haven’t done one stitch of Christmas shop­ping.  Not only have I not done any Christmas shop­ping but I also don’t have the faintest idea of what to get my fam­ily mem­bers.  If any­one else is in my boat then read on because you might be inter­ested in Heartwood Tree Gifting.  I think it’s a genius idea and as Alexander Smith said, ‘Trees are your best antiques.’

Heartwood was foun­ded in 2009 by Jenni Rowe and was cre­ated with the idea that small things do count and that gifts should not be instantly for­get­table.  A gift can be a sus­tain­able sym­bol and what bet­ter gift than a tree; it’s the gift that keeps on giv­ing!  There are so many won­der­ful trees: the wise Oak, the peace giv­ing Olive tree and the mourn­ful Weeping Willow. Continued

New manager for renovated Tswalu Kalahari Spa

Corli Schoeman

Corli Schoeman has been appoin­ted man­ager of the newly ren­ov­ated Tswalu Kalahari Spa. Corli comes to Tswalu from the award-winning Pezula Spa & Gym, Knysna, where, as Spa Manager, she headed a team of 25. Previously she man­aged the Wellness Centre at Marlin Lodge, Mozambique where she intro­duced a col­lec­tion of nat­ural, island inspired products and treatments.

“With her inter­na­tional exper­i­ence and extens­ive train­ing Corli will provide an out­stand­ing spa exper­i­ence to guests, indi­vidu­al­ised to exceed expect­a­tions,” says Tswalu MD, Russel Binks. “I’m pleased that she has joined us at the same time as we have com­pleted our out­door treat­ment area and indi­gen­ous spa garden to expand the spa and offer guests another dimen­sion to the exper­i­ence.” Continued

Pezula hosts free rugby coaching clinic for local kids

Pezula’s Field of Dreams came alive on Wednesday (17 November) as scores of local young rugby hope­fuls arrived to meet some of their rugby her­oes and attend a free hour and a half coach­ing clinic.

This was part of The JAG Foundation’s Big Boy Scooterthon (15–21 November), which saw three Provincial Super 15 Players, Nick Koster, Tiger Bax and Tim Whitehead, trav­el­ling 1000 kms from Cape Town to Pezula and back on Big Boy scoot­ers. Along the way they stopped to host four coach­ing clin­ics for pre­vi­ously dis­ad­vant­aged kids. Continued

SA's Got Talent Top Three to perforn at Cavendish Square on Saturday 13 November

SA's Got Talent

SA's Got Talent Top Three to per­forn at Cavendish Square on Saturday 13 November at 13h00: Cape Town really proved that they have tal­ent at the finals of SA’S GOT TALENT last week with the top three and win­ner all hail­ing from the Mother City. Cavendish Square has organ­ised a her­oes wel­come for Cape Town’s top tal­ent, and ALL of the top three will per­form at the Centre Court next Saturday 13 November from 13h00.

Performing will be win­ner, James Bhemgee — a former street sweeper and unem­ployed tenor, runner-up, Constable Madalene Abrahams – a local police­wo­man and third placed group, Limited Drum Corps, who also come from very humble back­grounds and had to bor­row drums for their show stop­ping per­form­ance ... Continued

The Creature from Planet X — an anatomist looks at science fiction

Creature from Planet X

The final lec­ture in the GIPCA Great Texts / Big Questions series will be held at UCT’s Hiddingh Hall at 5pm on Thursday, October 28^th.  Entitled ‘The Creature from Planet X: an ana­tom­ist looks at sci­ence fic­tion’, Professor Alan Morris of the University of Cape Towns Department of Human Biology will give a lec­ture explor­ing how sci­ence fic­tion movies (think Avatar) paint a pic­ture of what is a very pos­sible reality.

Professor Morris who prac­tices as a pro­fes­sional archae­olo­gist in the excav­a­tion of human remains describes him­self as a ‘self-confessed sci­ence fic­tion spe­cial effects junky’.  The movie Avatar had a huge effect on Prof Morris because the ‘writer and dir­ector of the movie not only cre­ated a world of weird creatures but obeyed the laws of com­par­at­ive ana­tomy’. Continued

Duran Duran in South Africa from 7–12 December

Duran Duran

You’ve got their cd, you’ve listened to them on the radio and heck you prob­ably have a couple mixed tapes with them on it stuffed in the back of your cup­board, but now you can see them live! Duran Duran rocked us through the 80’s and early 90’s and now the ori­ginal band mem­bers, Nick Rhodes, Simon Le Bon, John Taylor and Roger Taylor will be in South Africa from 7–12 December 2010.

Not only will this be a treat but South African gui­tar­ist and singer-songwriter Arno Carstens will be on stage as a spe­cial guest artist ... Continued

Geoffrey Murray joins Justin Bonello on "Cooked — Out of the Frying Pan"

This month Zachary’s Executive Chef, Geoffrey Murray, will appear in an epis­ode of Season IV’s Cooked with Justin Bonello on DStv’s BBC Lifestyle channel.

The epis­ode shows Geoffrey Murray and his team with Justin in Zachary’s kit­chen at Pezula Resort Hotel & Spa in Knysna, pre­par­ing and cook­ing some of the dishes from Zachary’s menu, includ­ing seed loaf, green tomato rel­ish, octopus carpac­cio and salami.

The focus of the series is to show how Justin, who has made his name cook­ing in the out­doors, copes with work­ing in a formal kitchen.

After three sea­sons of Cooked, and hav­ing pub­lished the first Cooked in Africa cook­book, Justin will be seen cook­ing in top haute-cuisine styled eat­er­ies and fam­ily res­taur­ants where he attempts to mas­ter or at least gain insight into a smor­gas­bord of cook­ing styles from around the globe. Continued

Fish Recipe for National Braai Day ...

Angel Fish Braai

Braai Day is an act­ive cel­eb­ra­tion of South Africa's rich cul­tural her­it­age and its unique national pas­time, the braai (our ver­sion of the Barbecue!).

Ahead of National Braai Day com­ing up this Friday 24^th September, we are delighted to have received this mouth-watering recipe for Angel Fish to pre­pare on the braai for those of us that prefer fish to meat! Sue-Ann Allen's cre­ation sug­ges­ted for fish-lovers, Angel Fish basted in an Apricot Jam and Chilli Dill Butter Sauce — served with Asparagus and flash grilled Vine Tomatos, sounds both healthy and deli­cious! Continued