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Smoke. Rain. No mirrors

The donkey launched itself up onto the river bank and made its way to near the small circle of rocks that was our fireplace, where it stopped and awaited the unloading of the bundle of sehalahala from its back. The sky was darkening somewhat more than the progression of the afternoon suggested it should, and it was cool. It would be wet, and the evening fire would be warranted, and whether or not we were high enough to source leholo or lekhapo, sehalahala is best for wet conditions. So said Martin the muleteer, and we were not about to argue

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17 April 2018

Coffee and quotes

I often grind some cardamom (elaichi) with my beans. It is something I read about, and which is not uncommon in the levant.  My local coffee shop once offered a “copperccino” , which claimed to be cardamom coffee, but I was disappointed to discover that they scattered a few pinches of powder on top of the milk foam. I say go big. Throw a few pods in the grinder…say 3 in a double shot, and taste the stuff. It gives it a warmth and smoothness which is difficult to describe. Warmth and smoothness is a fair description of the feeling

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26 March 2018

The culture of repair meets the culture of sales

Me:  Hello Shiraz! Shiraz:  Bob. Me (puzzled): Shiraz….? Shiraz:  Bob. Me (incredulous):  You can’t be called Bob…you are wearing a taqiyah…Bob’s don’t wear those! You don’t get Muslims called Bob! Shiraz:  No…you Bob. Me:…Ah!…No, I’m Andrew. Shiraz:  Oh!  Hello Andrew..how are you? Me: Hello Shiraz! I was in Shiraz’s shop arranging a repair to my twenty nine year old fishing kit bag. Actually it’s a South African army  “balsak”…that’s how I know how old it is…it was a special gift from Magnus Malan. All I had to do was give him two years of my life. “Ja…you guys went off

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15 March 2018

Coffee and quotes

“……..in the old days anyone with a bucket or a milk can could get a load of fingerling trout and put then wherever he wanted to, and that the first plantings done by the Division of Wildlife itself weren’t much more scientific than that. The result on the one hand was that a lot of already depleted native cutthroat fisheries were destroyed altogether by the introduction of brown, rainbow and brook trout. On the other hand, some thriving fisheries were established where before there had been no fish at all. You can apply revisionist criticism to all that if you

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4 March 2018

The ban on Broccoli

The South African department of environmental affairs is about to see to it that broccoli ceases to find its way onto dinner plates in South Africa, by listing it as invasive and requiring a permit to do anything with it. Dammit!  I like my broccoli!  What is it with them! Broccoli is tasty. It is only grown in small areas. It doesn’t harm anyone, and millions of us like it. Hell, some people are passionate about it. They say not to worry and that we will be able to get permits. I don’t trust them.  Broccoli, it seems, are guilty

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26 February 2018

The ‘Off season’

When I was growing up in fly-fishing, as it were, our literature back then (we used to read things called books!) was interwoven with the concept of the closed season. It seems to me that the closed season has lost its edge a bit. Not only in South Africa where several streams are now open throughout the year, but also in North America and elsewhere, where outdoor apparel has advanced along with the appetites of outdoors people to a point where images of people fishing in thick snow are commonplace.  I don’t express an opinion on all this, because I

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17 February 2018
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