Articles

SOMETIMES public facilities can set an example. In the case of the airport in Bloemfontein I would say, avoid the food at all costs (a way overpriced, poor selection of uninteresting grub) but do check out the gardens. Just outside the arrivals hall there is some very...

This is a stranger you smell first, long before any sighting. I was walking with my dogs on the mountain behind the tiny town of Smithfield this morning when the scent reached me: delicious, sweet and spicy. The strong wind blew the smell in all directions but I knew...

Just back from a few days in warm Durban and woke this morning to the second snow fall of the season. Last one was just a half hour long. This one seems set to continue for a while; it’s a couple of hours now and no sign of letting up. A vintage seed planter in the...

One of the bird feeders with its new white roof

The front garden of Trading Places this morning with roses being snowed in!

Althea Hofmeyr and her four rescue dogs stayed at Trading Places in Smithfield last night. This morning they woke to snow and a changed landscape. Here they are about to leave for an exciting adventure: a drive through the Free State farmlands blanketed with snow,...

We’ll keep the bikes locked up and cosy today: Bike rack tells of snow

All lined up and nowhere to go … our colourful watering can brigade will stand idle today as the snow does the work for us. Jolly watering cans wait for warmer days

It looks like a fairy story I think, the entrance to my old stone barn. The snow has stopped falling in Smithfield, but I’ll enjoy the photographs of this morning’s flurries for years to come. Magical blue gate entrance to my old stone barn

DETERMINED to avoid xenophobic attacks in its townships, the municipality of Mohokare into which Smithfield falls, has been meeting with foreign informal traders living in the area to find a way forward. Shadrack Buyeye, local economic development manager for the...