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

Arriving at a Lifelink benefit tea, the words “Pregnant and Alone” on the brochure jumped out and gut punched me. A kaleidoscope of memories whirled like leaves in a mental hurricane. I was 20 again. Telling my parents that I was pregnant. Telling the father from a phone-booth in Davenport centre and his echoing response “It’s your baby”. The horrible …

The Zone of Interest is a beautifully written, terrible book. On Goodreads I gave it 5 stars (and I’m mean with those stars) but I cannot recommend that anyone near or dear read it. At a book lovers gathering I was given the book on condition that I read it. It took over a year to meet the challenge, after …

UPDATE Jan 2017- Sadly the Angela Day business is no more.  I’m devastated that the web page with recipes has also been shut down, there were so many that I wanted to try. Since baking Christmas Mince Pies using the online Angela Day recipe, I have wanted to visit the Angela Day Kitchen.  The ground almond topping, elevates those to …

Strangely I don’t think I’ve ever seen a black widow (button) spider before.  Now I discover that there’s one living in my herb box.  Discovery made when we found it preying on a carpenter bee stuck in it’s web.  Not entirely comfortable with this fact as I now read that their venom can be fatal to children.  PS, the first …

Glancing at the travel tab here on Skimming Stones you will see that we love exploring South Africa extensively. We travel hundreds of kilometres on dirt roads. We have visited isolated places like Die Hell and Tankwa Karoo National Park. We have only had car break downs twice, and both flipping times have been in Harrismith. That kind of syncronicity …

  In 1999 my father married Charlotte at the Little Church in van Reenen. It seats 8 people and is the smallest consecrated church in the Southern Hemisphere. When the minister walked in to the full church with guest spilling out the back door, to conduct the wedding ceremony, he exclaimed “Hallelujah! It’s a revival”. Caught up in wedding festivities …

Last year I wrote a few poems for submission to be included in the Dragonian Series by Adrienne Woods.  One was selected, this is one of the others on the topic of unconditional love. LOVE LIKE RAIN Love like rain gives and gives and gives Without question or condition Falling on undeserving barren ground Feeding the seeds of scattered dreams …

School registrations in Gauteng for 2017 can be summed up with many choice words, “disaster” is probably the most family friendly to use in this instance.  Our government got clever, not really their strong suite.  They decided that in Gauteng only online school registrations will be accepted.  In theory this has potential.  In reality it falls way short of the …

The day after reading Zululand Gold, we set off to visit Hilltop Camp and Mpila Camp in Hluhluwe / Imfolozi Game Reserve Zululand. This recent read added another dimension to our trip. This sequel to Zululand Snow proved to be equally enjoyable. The three main protagonists undertake an adventure in search of the fabled Kruger millions. Ian Tennant weaves elements …

In 1994 I was a very hard up single mother. My world was constricted by financial strain and the pressures of solo motherhood. The whole ‘ME time’ concept was foreign. Shopping was necessity driven and focused on growing children. I remember eating pop corn for supper so that the children could benefit from the small portions of protein in the …

Four years ago at Mpila camp at Hluhluwe / Imfolozi game park in Zululand we had a night straight from a horror movie (except it would have seemed a bit far fetched). In short a man tried to rob us and a hyena almost made a light snack of my sleeping children. We were staying in the tented camp. This …

Between the Hluhluwe / Umfolozi gate and Hilltop Camp, the bushveld reminded us of life where man has not throttled nature. As the dusty road ascended to Hilltop I felt a Carpenters song coming on. “I’m on top of the world, looking down on creation…” tra la la. While we were mere visitors, the permanent residents, Nyala, Samango Monkeys and …

Sometimes the classic old recipes really are the best, I’ve had this one since my teens. What we in South Africa know as crumpets go by a crazy number of names, griddle scones, flapjacks, pancakes and more. It gets very confusing, what we call crunchies the Americans call flapjacks, and so on. Anyway here is my very simple but yummy …

Discovering the Green Lantern Inn, in Van Reenen stirred unadulterated delight. This joy was marred by irritation and disappointment. How could we have missed this gem before?! We travel the Johannesburg / Durban route at least four times a year. I don’t even remember passing the Green Lantern signpost previously, so daft as the establishment has been around for well …

I was given a copy of Zululand Snow to read and review.  The category YA (Young Adult) can be restrictive, these days brilliant books of mass appeal such as Lord of the Flies, To Kill a Mockingbird and even Catcher in the Rye would fall into this category and below the radar of some adult readers, simply because the central …