The Rissington Christmas Rag - December 2024

          30 Years of Rissington Inn

            1995 – 2025 and counting ...

Yes, unbelievably, Rissington turns 30 next year. Just to keep this relevant for the young, that makes us the same age as Harry Styles.

I actually share a birthday with Harry and I am currently exactly twice his age – but with fewer tattoos. And a lot less hair. Actually, I probably have nothing in common with him at all except a birthday.

All of this does however mean that I have spent exactly half of my life here at Rissington. And it’s been a great half. And now it’s almost Christmas. What more could we ask for? A choir, maybe? Well, there's one near the bottom of the Rag. A really good one.

Throughout 2025, we shall be celebrating our three decades with fresh branding and plenty of exciting new ideas ...

There’s more on the recent updates coming up below and you should stay glued to Instagram and Facebook for great prize-winning opportunities. (Search for RissingtonInn). We shall be giving away a free stay every month on social media from January to December 2025 and you wouldn't want to miss that.

We are also keeping our rates the same for the next two years, which means you can stay at Rissington in one of our budget rooms for R690 per person, including bed and a stupendous breakfast, at any time until the end of October 2026. That is 35 Euros. Or 20 British pounds. We are still wonderfully affordable - and we always give free upgrades to our regulars if we possibly can.

SO WHAT'S NEW?

Well, quite a lot actually. For starters, if you look at the names at the bottom of the page (when you get down there), you will see plenty of new people in amongst the older ones, as the team gets some youthful, fun and professional new members to pep everything up just a tad. Don’t worry. All the faces you already know are still here too, but they now have some sprightly youngsters to keep them on their toes and to do some of the heavy lifting. And for those who might remember him, Andrew is back in the bar. He left us for a good few years to sell shoes in Acornhoek, but now he has seen the error of his ways and returned to Rissington to sell cocktails instead. 

We also have Simphiwe bravely helping the delightfully-formidable and idiosyncratic Philippa in the office, whilst highly-efficient former-postmistress Felicia continues to create an essential link between the housekeepers and the maintenance team. These additions mean that Rissington now has the largest staff complement it has ever employed, thus upping the service whilst keeping exactly the right vibe. I genuinely think our guests are enjoying Rissington more than ever. I know I am.

So, we have the following either in place or on the way in time for 2025:

·         New uniforms - including a good fresh new look for the team’s evening wear - and with T-shirts, caps and fleeces also available for sale to guests who want to pretend they work here ...

·         New music playlists for the dining room combining some African genres with classic soft rock and gentle acoustic. We love it. 

·         A noughts and crosses board on a rock by the pool and a rather spectacular R selfie-spot in the rose garden (which doesn’t have any roses but has wonderful plumbago). Finally, Rissington panders to the age of the selfie! 

·         Huge upgrades to the access off the R40 main road to Rissington. The entrance has been widened and paved. The lighting has also been improved, as has the signage. There's a new nursery up there too, variously known locally as Hippo Grove, Hippy Groove and Hippo's Grave.

·         Those leaving early for the game reserve can now select an individual picnic breakfast daily from a range of choices on a broad à la carte picnic menu. You can have a different breakfast picnic on every day of your stay, if you like.

·         Bowls of honey, lemon slices and fresh ginger now go out with all tea trays. We also still have our delicious welcome drinks and the excellent free home-made biscotti.

·         More home-made sauces and relishes are accompanying many of the main courses. East African style, learned on our travels.

·         Freshly-dampened napkins are situated at the tables for hand-washing before meals.

·         New blackout curtains have been added to all the rooms that needed them.

·         Three of the superior rooms – Kigelia, Mahogany and Baobab – have new bathrooms, along with an upgrade to king-size beds in the bedrooms. Ivory and Sycamore’s bathrooms have had an uplift as well.

·         A new hiking and mountain-bike trail is under construction on the next-door property with direct access from Rissington, excellent birding and interesting (but not dangerous) wildlife including kudu, bushbuck and bushpig. Bicycles are available for hire, with a guide on request. Routes vary from five to ten kilometres and include some jeep track and some single track.

·         A new horticultural expert is supervising an overhaul and upgrade of the Rissington gardens as well as growing fresh herbs, fruits and salad items for use in our dining room.

·         Interesting new, flavoursome, mild-spicy vegan and vegetarian dishes, inspired by our travels, have been introduced to the menu, in addition to our range of popular meat and fish dishes. We ensure that vegans are fully catered-for on all our menus.

·         Improved disabled facilities are going into the two disabled-friendly rooms.

·         We have upgraded our fences and security systems with more guest-friendly access control.

·         The bar verandah, terrace and pool areas have some new furnishings and fittings, making more space to sit, to lie and to loll. LOL. And talking of the pool, the Hillside Suites' private pool now also has a hand rail for ease of access.

·         We offer room service and a concierge service in person or on WhatsApp, with team members fully trained on activities, maps and local expertise.

·         Remember all the rooms have their own Nespresso machine and we now also serve cappuccino and espresso in the dining room for breakfast at no extra charge.

·         We are working hard at improving Rissington’s sustainability programme, increasing solar power and reducing our dependence on the national grid. We continue with our highly-successful recycling plant and we are streamlining our water usage.

·         Rissington now has spectacular unlimited 100Mbps high-speed WiFi available at no extra charge throughout the property.

SO, DON'T YOU DARE ... 

With all these new touches, please let’s finally do away with the idea that we are rustic once and for all! I like to think that,when people say we are ‘rustic’, they are actually mistranslating the Afrikaans and Dutch word ‘rustig’, which means calm. Or maybe the French ‘roustique’ would be a translation of the name of Rusty the Rissington Jack Russell.

I see it on a lot of other lodge’s reviews as well, where self-appointed wannabe interior designers comment on ‘dated interiors’ but I think it maybe tells us more about the reviewer’s own pretentions and a misunderstanding of what is actually, to my mind, ‘classic’ or even ‘delightfully retro’! No interior designer has ever been anywhere near us here (in a professional capacity, that is, anyway). Just as most people don’t have an interior designer coming to their homes, we just buy things we like and bung them in where we think they fit. It doesn’t really take an expert to do that. Just (I hope) a bit of taste! And it makes our little lodge all the more homely.

I recently stayed in one of Cape Town's (to-remain-unnamed) iconic hotels and although the views were incredible - day and night - it demonstrates just perfectly that, no matter how wonderful a hotel's location might be, the offering still needs to be good.

So yes, there it was: the 'marn-tin' as Capetonians call it, standing there in all its glory in the window of my 27th floor room. But that was where the wow-factor fizzled out.

There were dozens of besuited staff lurking aimlessly around the reception area, but there was only one person serving dinner (cold, as it turned out - or rather by the time it turned up) and charming as the waiter was, he was totally overstretched ... and then couldn't produce an invoice.

The basin in the bathroom drained out through the ill-fitting plug faster than it could actually be filled. The only light bulb you really couldn't live without (by the pitch-dark wardrobe) had blown. The safe was broken. The telephone (yes, how quaint) by the bed was dead. All of that was just a lack of management - and there is much more I could say and haven't - but the interior decorating was the strangest aspect of it. You're in Cape Town, yes? With one of the best views in the world, why is there a furniture design plan on your wall of an 'escritoire'? And another one of a bench? I mean what were they thinking? Perhaps that you might, in a bored moment on the 27th floor of a Cape Town hotel with a view of Table Mountain, want to knock up a desk for yourself with the available materials? And take it home with you? Or leave it for the next occupant so that he (or she, because lots of girls build their own escritoires these days) could write their list of complaints from it?

The hotel was badly-cleaned and poorly-maintained, with a great view but it was the interior designer who made the most ridiculous impression of all. And isn't making writing desks a bit of a rustic art, anyway?!  

FOODIE CORNER

After a long trip such as ours, we have all inevitably come back changed people in many subtle ways. I am finding it hard to settle. I love being at home but I miss the nomadic lifestyle where we had something new to see and do every day. I loved the rituals of the camp and I revelled in the planning of each day's activities. I loved being master of my own destiny as much as I loved being at the mercy of the elements and of random officialdom; I loved the freedom to plan and to change the plan.

We took a lot of exercise: hiking, climbing, kayaking, lifting heavy items in and out of the car, climbing on its roof and tightening equipment.

We also ate well, mostly from the roadside stalls and dukas. There was little meat to be found and we became past masters at creating tasty curries and stews with fresh red onions, tomatoes, green peppers, sweet potatoes, okra, spinach, beans and occasionally real luxuries like carrots. There would be a chorus of "ooooh carrots!". There were no mushrooms at all and fruit was mostly limited to bananas and naartjies/satsumas with occasional apples. "Ooooh apples!", they cried.

We livened up the dishes with lots of fresh ginger and garlic plus whatever spices were to be found along the way.  We drank water as the ubiquitous cold drinks (or sodas, as they are known) are horribly overfull with sugar.

So what's the point of all this? Well, we are still eating like that. We ate so healthily and exercised and slept so well on the trip, that we are carrying on with that and - accidentally because there was no interesting bread to be found in most places - the one item we have cut out almost completely (as well as potatoes) is gluten. I have never really understood this before, but I am loving gluten-free pasta and bread and biscuits.

The funny thing is that genuine celiacs or coeliacs (those with a genuine gluten intolerance and/or allergy) seem to get upset with other people who give up gluten for their own reasons. I just find gluten-free food to be somehow less oily and lighter. But I also find myself apologising to coeliacs for eating their biscuits. It's bonkers really. It's like apologising to the Indians for eating their curry! And anyway, I still eat muesli, so I am not a total fraud.

OVERHEARD IN WOOLWORTHS:

Hazyview’s Woolworths Food is a fascinating microcosm of the town. We have the wealthy mamas (the wives and mothers of the politicians, poachers and traffic cops) looking for high quality meat and vegetables; we have the down-to-earth locals marvelling at the price of a pineapple and, yet more, wondering at how much the price of that pineapple increases if Woolworths cuts it up for you; we have the kugels (look it up) from Johannesburg, down here for their week of timeshare and looking for apple-scented hummus, pumpkin seed salad sprinkles and pots of fresh pomegranate rubies; we have the singles wondering why all the meals seem to be for two or four; and we have the rest of us. 

You overhear some fascinating conversations and, unlike normal people, Woolworths clients don’t seem to move away to take phone calls or to measure their tones. They feel that it is important for the whole world to know what they think. (As one, this morning, said loudly into her phone for the entire store to hear: “Nobody cares any more, love, whether you have a girlfriend or a boyfriend or a cat or a dog, nobody gives a damn. Just live like you wanna live.")

The other day, at the veg fridge, I saw two khaki-clad rangers from a well-known private game reserve and I promise the one said the following to the other:

“You should try one of these, boet, I am telling you. They’re great. It’s not actually meat but it’s the next best thing. They ripen slowly which is so handy. It’s called an avocado.” Wow, the wonders of the bush.

TRIP ADVISOR CONS

Still on food, this a great story, although not a new one. I really like this journalist's style. It just shows how easy it is to show up the luvvies and the braggarts and to take them for a spectacular ride.

In case you missed it, here’s the full saga of The Shed at Dulwich and how it became famous as a top restaurant without ever even having existed.

THE SHED AT DULWICH

THE SERIOUS TOPIC - OVERTOURISM IS A VERY REAL ISSUE

We read more and more about overtourism and how different places are dealing with it. Unfortunately, no matter how hard you try to put people off, you will still get those tourists who are determined to visit the very places that are already over-run. And why shouldn't they, I guess? It's a kind of 'my-turn-to-see-it' mentality, along with a need to 'do' places, as in "We have DONE Cape Town many times".

Venice has famously banned cruise ships altogether, has instituted a limit on daily visitor numbers to the old city and also now added an additional entry fee. I see that Pompeii has also just introduced a limit of 20,000 visitors per day. Twenty thousand?! Can you imagine sharing any location with 20,000 people? It’s like being squashed into a stadium.

When we visited Machu Picchu, almost 15 years ago now, it was drizzling which meant that there were fewer visitors than usual - probably only a thousand or so – but the site receives 1.6 million tourists per year, averaging out at almost 4500 people milling around there every day. The day before our visit, the authorities had closed the historic Inca settlement to the general public so that Tom Cruise could tour it on his own. Isn’t that bizarre? But I suppose it gives the place a break from the trampling hordes when Tom is there communing with L Ron Hubbard through the ancient stones!

I wonder whether Tom has a Cruise ship and, if he does, whether they would allow it into Venice? Twenty million people visited Venice last year. That equates to 400 visitors for every person that lives there. The Venice situation is being described as the world’s overtourism tipping point.

Our recent trip to East Africa really opened our eyes to the dichotomy presented by the need and the desire for tourism, juxtaposed with the dislike of being socially and environmentally overrun.

Africa is certainly handling the issues better than most. The continent has to contend with so much more than Venice does. Overcrowding might be a ‘first world problem’ but the tourism centres of southern, central and East Africa have bigger issues and they have to come up with new ways to look at the overtourism problem, solve it and benefit from it. This seems slowly to be working.

Whilst scenes like those shown in Lungi’s photo above (taken in Amboseli) undoubtedly occur, there are so many glorious parts of our continent just crying out for visitors. Lovely places like Tarangire, Katavi, Ruaha and Selous in Tanzania. Like Bangweulu, Lochinvar and Kasanka in Zambia and Liwonde in Malawi. And in northern and western Africa too.

Yes, the Ngorongoro crater can get crowded, but if offers game-viewing unlike any other place on earth. Yes, the Serengeti can be a bit of a bun-fight at times, but get out on the plains and you have them to yourselves. In early July, at the height of the migration, we drove through massive herds of wildebeest in the western corridor, with nary another vehicle in sight. Even in dusty Amboseli, we left the crowds behind and found wonderful pelicans and flamingos among the gorgeous water-birds of the lakes.

All of these factors are solutions as much as they are so-called problems. The downward spiral can be so quickly reversed into an upward spiral. Here are some upbeat thoughts and positive spins:

·         For every job created, more mouths are fed and bellies filled, making poaching for food less likely and saving under-pressure wildlife populations from being turned into bush-meat.

·         The more the income, the more spending can be justified on protecting elephants from ivory-hunters and rhinos from being poached for their horns. Ngorongoro has pushed up its crater entry fees to a staggering US$295 per vehicle per day plus $70 per person. These increases were instituted ostensibly to ‘put people off and keep numbers down’ but of course this doesn’t work in reality. The people still come and the park’s income simply climbs and climbs as the bush and the wildlife come under more and more pressure but if that income is going back into the communities (and as long as the wildlife is not suffering) then so be it. Last year’s earnings were 176 billion Tanzanian shillings – that is 65 million US dollars.

·         A broad range of tourism is desirable. For the record, we were the only private vehicle in Ngorongoro and in most of the places we visited. All the others were commercial safari vehicles owned, mostly, by a handful of big operators and they can be overwhelming. Backpackers and self-drivers are just as important as high-end tourists, though, and are in fact more likely to get off the beaten track to areas like Lake Tanganyika, the Udzungwa and Usambara Mountains; to Zambia’s Kafue National Park and Zambezi flood plains; to Zimbabwe’s Matusadona and Matobo; to Kenya’s Mount Elgon, to Uganda’s Kidepo and Rwanda’s Akagari National Parks. The fact that so many people have never heard of most of these places, is indicative of the problem!

·         Spread the pressure and share the spoils. Put away the begging bowl and stop selling off wildlife assets. It’s a unique opportunity to make and to keep tourism relevant to the younger generation in the region and to educate as well as to entertain the visitors, while proving to the surrounding communities that the setting aside of land for the protection of wildlife is worthwhile on every level and can be self-sustaining.

·         Visit the less well-known reserves if you want to avoid the crowds – making tourism relevant to more people and saving animals as well as saving face! Stronger cashflow in these more-remote places will enable the authorities to improve infrastructure, maintain campsites and create artisanal employment.

·         I realise that it is hypocritical of me to complain about overcrowding in East Africa. After all, we were there too, weren't we? But I will be digging around for new experiences in the future. I have had my go, my crack of the Serengeti whip, and I have seen Machu Picchu. Give me Kruger and Great Zimbabwe any day of the week. The experiences we had on our journey were a salutary reminder of how relatively-unspoilt and empty are the Kruger National Park and other South African gems like the Karoo National Park and Addo. There are very few charter flights and buses too.

·         Let’s face it. Kruger has imposed visitor quota numbers in busy periods for many years now and I have never heard anyone complain about them. South Africa appeals to all markets and caters for them all but we have somehow avoided being overrun and we have remained affordable. There is a middle ground and in South Africa we seem, remarkably, to have found it.

For reference, here are a couple of Tanzanian newspaper pieces with Tanzanian reactions to the Tanzanian problem.

MASS TOURISM IN THE SERENGETI

TANZANIA TACKLES CONGESTION IN SERENGETI

Out of interest, on a similar topic and connected with travel, as flight-shaming is a thing, here is the latest map of projections for the world in terms of achieving carbon neutrality. In Africa, Gabon and the Comores are doing well and Mauritania is clearly taking the issue seriously. Sadly, I think the only country telling the truth is probably Morocco.

The recent COP summit has also finally got stuck into tourism, which is a good thing.  We definitely need to work on getting and keeping tourism sustainable. Travel is important, enjoyable and educational but it must also clearly be sustainable.

TOURISM TACKLES CLIMATE CHANGE 

COMPETITIONS

Now, on a more cheerful note, it’s time for the competition answers from the October Travel Special.

For the Six Pics Fix, the top three entrants EACH won two nights dinner, bed and breakfast for two at Rissington. The winners names are below but first, here are the answers:

1) Nyamepi Camp on the Zambezi at Mana Pools - alone!

2) Coco at Lake Chala, crater lake on the border of Tanzania and Kenya, near Kilimanjaro

3) Mombasa’s famous tusks at Uhuru Gardens on Moi Avenue 

4) The Likoni ferry from Dar-es-Salaam to the south coast. (I was arrested for taking this photo and then released quite promptly.)

5) The Gombe Stream National Park, where Jane Goodall carried out her research into the behaviour of chimpanzees

6) Lungi jumping into Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe, which is currently sitting almost empty, with the water level at less than 10% of capacity. It's not surprising there is constant load-shedding in Zambia and Zimbabwe.

In the Quiz-cum-Questionnaire The winner gets a three-night stay at Rissington for two on a bed and breakfast basis, with a return domestic flight, transfers to Rissington from KMIA (Nelspruit) airport and a full-day open vehicle game drive in the Kruger National Park thrown in.

1) What is the kiSwahili for a green pepper? Pilipili ya kijani (with the generic for a pepper being the rather magnificent pilipili hoho)

2) What year and model was our Land Cruiser? It was/is a 2018 200 VX. 

3) Which country, of the ones we visited, has been governed by the same political party for more than 60 years, what is the name of that party and what does it mean? Tanzania's CCM. Chama Cha Mapinduzi, meaning The Party of the Revolution.

4) We visited a vegetable farm and nursery on Lake Naivasha. Guess a) how many broccoli plants they had in their hothouse and b) how many they were able to send to Nairobi on a given day. It houses 3 million seedlings and can deliver 500 000 per day to various farmers around Nairobi on a given day. That's a lot of broccoli!

5) How many Tanzanian shillings does it cost to fly as a passenger in a hot air balloon over the Serengeti? One million six hundred and ten thousand shillings. Or US$600.

6) If it is nine o’clock in the day, Swahili time, what time is it in western time? It is three o’clock on the afternoon.

7) Toyota or Land Rover (give reasons) Opinions obviously (!) differ but more and more Land Rover drivers are seemingly conceding that Toyotas are more reliable although (they maintain) not as much fun. I have to admit that doing the trip in our very comfortable Land Cruiser did feel a bit like cheating but ours is such a magnificent car and this is exactly what it was built for. I would argue that it is the most verrsatile vehicle ever made. We drove it up and down rocky mountains and cliffs, traversed awful awful roads, forded rivers and drove through the flooded edges of numerous lakes and carried (at times) five people with all their camping gear in great comfort and without a trailer. Sometimes we were astounded at the amount of kit others were carrying and wondered whether they even knew what some of it was for. We lacked nothing and carried nothing that we didn’t use. So yes, Toyota!

8) Which would have been your top country if you had been on our trip (give reasons)? Most people seemed to go for Tanzania and I wouldn’t disagree. Although it is a much less relaxed country than it was 20 years ago, it still offers plenty of far-flung isolated spots to hang out. Lungi would go for Malawi because he found it the least intrusive. Claire said Rwanda, which surprised me, but I think she found it edgy. Tim went for Kenya (especially for the diving) and JJ I think would also choose Kenya, but largely because he seems to know almost everyone there! As for Coco, she has gone for Tanzania, her first East African country, which she says "stole all the magic" - not to mention the close-ups with lions, Marangu, Kilimanjaro and her ever-obscure falling in love with a whole roast chicken in a roadside motel in remote Biharamulo, west of Lake Victoria.

9) Which National Park in these ten countries would you most like to visit (give reasons)? Most people said the Serengeti and yes, it is marvellous and unique although it has issues, as we have said. I still want to go back to Mount Elgon (we were rained out this time) in Kenya and also to Nyerere NP (incorporating the former Selous) in Tanzania. And I still haven’t made it to the Bengweulu Swamps in Zambia. Next time. Zambia is close, after all.

10) What would have been your top experience from our trip (give reasons)? Answers here varied from rafting the Nile to ballooning in the Serengeti or climbing a volcano in the Virunga Mountains.  I can’t answer this. I think my top ‘experience’ was the moment I realised we had stayed in a total of 86 different places on the journey!

The first winners of the Six Pics Fix photo competition are Hans and Winnie Sondergaard, great Rissington regulars. Congratulations.

The second winner is Anne Pohl, herself an avid traveller and about to head off on a trip of her own to a fine list of top birding spots in Zimbabwe.

And the final winner is my good friend Ian Madgwick, who, as well as being a pilot on the World's (once) Favourite Airline and a foolhardy but determined Land Rover driver, is an artist and cartoonist of note. This was his sketch of the Land Cruiser as it set out northwards ...

You have all won two nights at Rissington for two people, dinner, bed and breakfast.

The winners of the 10-question Quiz-cum-Quuestionnaire are Peter and Sherryl Scott, who not only followed our every move on Tripcast but also had a really good go at the questions, putting themselves firmly in our shoes (which probably didn't really fit them at all) and looking at the journey very much as if they were about to set out on it. Congratulations on a really superb effort. Your flights up from the Cape are included in the prize, so come up as soon as you can and enjoy three nights and a complimentary escorted open vehicle morning drive in Kruger. You have really deserved it!

A NEW COMPETITION:

So, coming back down to earth for our Christmas competition this year, here are six riddles leading you to six South African landmarks. Which location are they referring to and where in South Africa are they?

1) A refectory ridge perhaps,
The ocean way below me laps;
Standing flat, high above the Mother,
I am just an icon like no other.

2) I was Bay of Rock, then a lagoon,
Here dolphins cruise and penguins croon.
By Coega’s coast swims many a seal.
St Croix is here, as is Jahleel.

3) The sea’s my home, a hollow shape,
This place of thunder, Eastern Cape.
A cliff detached. You have it right:
A polo, topped with dolerite.

4) I am Jim’s crossing of the Buffalo
Where Officers Chard and Bromhead bellow
“Fire!” to red-coated heroes encamped
In fortifications tight and cramped. 

5) Where wagons lurk in every frieze
With tales of conquest, war and disease.
I am Moerdijk’s paean to history
But whose exactly is your mystery.

6) I’m a peaceful defence which makes a crater
From two million years back, not one day later,
A meteoriticist’s deep-impact dream,
I’m a massive ancient astrobleme.

The winner gets a three-night stay in a hillside suite for five people. Answers to [email protected] by 15th January 2025, please, to go into the hat for the draw!

THE BOOK SHELF

Since I mentioned it in the last Rag, I have finished reading Jane Bryce’s Zamani. I really recommend it if you sympathise with the concept of maintaining a connection to Africa which cannot be broken. Jane conjures up beautifully, through personal experience, the joy, the sense of belonging and the idea of growing roots in Africa. Roots, unlike any other place on earth. Roots which cannot be torn up. 

We experienced this on our trip, as well ,and not for the first time. “Where are you from?” We are South African. “Hello my brother. Yes. We are brothers; we are all Africans.” 

Far from being politically-correct, we Africans are forthright in our dealings with others and in our politics. We are honest when it comes to whom we like and who we don’t get on with. Sometimes therefore we hear things about ourselves that we don't like. Jane’s introspection when it comes to dealing with other races and different cultures leads to some interesting realisations born, not out of obligation, but out of respect and fascination – as demonstrated by her relationship with Martha, who works in the Bryce household, among many others.

It’s a really good read. You can buy a copy on her website ZAMANI  There’s a link from here to the Amazon page.

I also promised that I would get back to you on Africa is Not a Country by Dipo Faloyin. The blurb for this book includes the following comments, among others, from reviewers: “Impossible not to relish”, “This book should be on the curriculum” and “Warm, funny, biting and essential reading”. Quite simply, I couldn’t have put it better. I read it in three sittings, the breaks just to gather my thoughts and to try to reassure myself that I wasn’t one of the ‘white saviours’ or the ‘arrogant colonists’ that he writes about. It is a genius book and its arguments are superbly presented. If you only ever buy one book that we have recommended, make it this one.

WHERE IS WOL(LY)?

For anyone looking for a good free bird app, sign up for Merlin. It lists 377 species for the Hazyview region – our Bird List for Rissington includes 194 birds. Just by way of comparison there are 712 species in South Africa and 375 in the whole of Britain and Ireland. Anyway, download it free – and then download the Pack for any country or region you are visiting, also free. No limits. The screenshot shows the species of owl that is currently nesting by the pool at Rissington.

The bird list also includes sounds and calls from the entire range of each bird's worldwide habitat as well as a call identification system and easy-find checklist. It really is a great app, produced by Cornell University in the US (hence US spelling).

You can download the app FREE from the Merlin website by clicking here MERLIN 

VISAS FOR REMOTE WORKERS

In another Public Service Announcement, for those interested in spending more time in South Africa than the regulation 3-month Visitor Visa, there is now a longer-term visa for remote workers. You can see more details here:

REMOTE WORKING VISAS

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

Too many Gen Zs can be damaging to your health. Just ask Kenya and Mozambique. In the good old days (or ‘back in the day’ as people seem to say now) if the government didn’t stick to its manifesto we used to write to the newspapers and sign our letters ‘Disgusted of Hazyview’. The Gen Zs have a different approach though. They take to the streets immediately (well it saves them going to work or to university for the day) and they demand their democracy back. It seems to work, though – and governments are terrified of them. These youngsters can be forceful but they are not generally dangerous, so they are no threat to tourism. It's a safe and healthy way of keeping politicians accountable.

In places, this has been a heavier and more thoughtful Rag than usual but if you don’t agree with me, you’re welcome to turn up here with a banner and demand that I change my mind.  This has been a highly thought-provoking year for me - and I thank deeply all those who have followed along, in person and online.

As we head for the end of 2024 and everyone stops working anyway, let’s all have a great festive season, with a very happy Christmas, Hanukkah or any other family celebrations we are marking. South Africa is one country which miraculously just keeps on spending and partying, whatever the state of the economy!

And to celebrate the end of another year, here's an absolutely wonderful version of 'The Circle of Life'  performed by the Stellenbosh University Choir. Sheer magic. And performed by Gen Zs, so they do know how to have fun after all.

THE CIRCLE OF LIFE

Have a great break and then come and see us next year when we start with our Rissington 30 Year Celebrations. It would be madness not to! And yes, I am sure to lighten up even more for those ...

A very merry Christmas from all of us.

Shirley, Natasha, Nonhlanhla, Nkateko, Anita, Lindokuhle, Sindile, Andrew; Gertrude, Dudu, Yvonne, Angel, Conny and Dellina; Futhi, Betty, Noggs, Patience, Bonisile, Rosa, Lilian, Maureen, Thandiwe and Felicia; Aubrey, Selby, Lucky, Peter, Thabiso and Coco the Horticulturalist; plus Philippa and Simphiwe in the office, whom you may email on [email protected] for all your booking requirements. Or simply book online on www.rissington.co.za and tell us all about yourself in the ‘Special Requests’ box. And, of course, not forgetting Rusty (aka Roustique) and Bruno.

And here's a reminder of what we look like, when we celebrate Christmas. It's tiime for the Rissington Carol Singers at the swimming pool. Have fun, everyone. Happy Holidays!