Skimming Stones | Sula's Blog | Sula1968 A South African poet, potter and mother

Hiking is one of the first things that Cliff and I had in common and it is so good to get out, stretch legs and commune with nature.  With children however we have had a few hiking blunders.  This time we took a child not fully recovered from a viral infection on a hike which took us 6 hours.  (The …

Ahh after the lightning strike my week in pics took a down turn but here’s the latest. Not only will the chickens have a lovely new home soon but it was very special to watch Cliff and Fjord working together on this.  So much gained.  Watch this space for the finished product. The source of marital unimpressedness.  I was so …

This year we had a lot of fun over Halloween.  On Saturday night we went to Jo’burg Zoo for Halloween fun.  I don’t know if this is an annual event, I stumbled across an advert for it on twitter and booked.  The crowds of people were dressed up.  We dressed Fjord as a mummy, wrapped in bandages, so many people …

Tis the season to feel grumpy.  Drowning in a tinsel tsunami, every shop is decked in obscene materialism, shouting blasphemy, I don’t picture baby Jesus in a manger, I envisage a furious Jesus, upending merchants tables in the temple.  Tons of shitty plastic toys will end up as litter. Just as festive season dread invoked rising bile, along came the …

On Saturday I attended the book launch of my cousin Jackie Barnard’s book The Monster Living within.  After reading the book I feel so proud of her, not only for writing and publishing the book but for her bravery and will to take every possible positive lesson from this shitty hand dealt to her by Multiple Sclerosis. Jackie is one …

If last week was all about baking, this week was all about fabric.  With some baking in between. The school asked me to tie dye some shirts for the school concert at the same time I made myself a T-shirt to dye.  The results were rewarding.  You can look at the easy step by step instructions how to tie dye …

I have done tie dye projects a few times.  Usually dunking the items in buckets of dye which is only really suitable for doing one colour.  Recently we used a tie dye kit which had 2 colours with spray bottles.  this was successful but a little awkward as the items had to be held and sprayed.  It is hard to …

I have been baking Christmas cakes, lots and lots of them.  A very special ingredient is ginger preserve which I had always bought from Woolies.  Recently I never found the time to go to the shops to replenish stock and it occurred to me that this must be something which I can make.  I looked up a whole lot of …

Whew I’m bad, so little time on Skimming Stones, so much time in the kitchen but next week may be a bit better and there will be at least one recipe and hopefully the final post about our Namaqua trip. We have been getting out too little.  On Sunday afternoon took a drive to Marievale bird sanctuary in Nigel.  Next …

One of our favourite annual activities is visiting Ludwigs Rose Farm outside Pretoria.  The best time to go is for the first flush in early October.  It turned out that we were a week early as some rose varieties were still in bud form.  This weekend 8-9 Oct will be the best time to see all the roses in bloom.  …

For many years a feral cat has lived in our garden.  It was not welcome, I love birds.  Cat’s and birds are a recipe for tragedy.  This year when we realized that cat is not going to leave, we started to feed it.  This cat is a very wild animal, we have never in all the years been able to …

The first day of our spring flower trip included a visit to Clanwilliam and ended spending the night in Lambert’s Bay. Isabella’s restaurant overlooking the harbour, proved to be the axis around which we gathered for tea (for the in-laws), beer (for me) and later a family supper.  Sea weathered fishing boats stamped with that special West Coast essence posed …

We paid the price for morning dawdling in Lamberts Bay, arriving at Namaqua National Park at 4pm on 4 Sept.   It seemed almost too late to enter but were advised that cloudy weather forecast for the following day would render flower viewing redundant.  Gazanias had already tucked in their petals as dusk approached.  Still cheerful daisies blanketed the landscape in a …

The personification of Honneklipbaai would be Shane MacGowan from the Pogues.  A diamond in the rough, a place where dreams dress as scruffy diamond mining boats. Visiting Hondeklipbaai was part of our flower seeking journey.  Entering the town we pulled disgruntled faces on being met by shabby houses strung together with overhead power cables.  Hardly in line with the quaint coastal …

This morning I’ve been walking around singing “Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my garden of delight”, I’m known to walk around singing and making up my own words to real tunes.  I’m sure you can find a clementine somewhere in the town of Darling but at this time what you will find in magnificent abundance are wildflowers.  I’m …