Zulu Love Letter

my Zulu Love Letter

We stopped by Shakaland again on our recent visit to KZN with my sister. While I was there, I bought another Valentine for Vince. A Zulu love letter.

Zulu Love Letters are African Beaded messages given by Zulu maidens to their lovers as symbols of their love and affection, each bead color of the Zulu Love Letter conveys a different message. The one I bought used only four colors:

WHITE: symbol of hope, purity, cleanliness and true love.
GREEN: love sickness, jealousy, I have become as thin as a blade of grass from pining for you. 

BLUE: faithfulness, if I were a dove I would fly through blue skies to reach you. 

RED: intense love, longing, my heart bleeds with love for you.

Happy Zulu Valentine's Day!

My Valentine hat

I have to send a love shout-out to my Valentine's Day hatterer, Merlyn M. I met Merlyn at a SecretsEats dinner. She was the only one in the room wearing a hat and I was immediately sorry that I hadn't thought to wear a hat myself that evening. I wasn't going to miss an opportunity like that again. So when I received an invitation to a special Valentine's Day dinner party, I seized the day and gave Merlyn a call. No stranger to wearing a cocktail fascinator on Valentine's Day, I commissioned Merlyn to create one for me to wear to the party.

@ Foil with another (not Malcolm) hat-topped hair stylist

My hair stylist Malcolm insisted I come to the salon so that he could affix my fascinator before the party. Turns out I wasn't the only one at Foil Salon in the Grayston Shopping Center who was wearing a Valentine hat!

To commission your next hat or fascinator, call Merlyn at 0835707795.

Summer Love at Valley Lodge

 Homegrown Valentine's Day bouquet!

Happy St. Valentine's Day from Valley Lodge!

Valentine baobab tree

I ♥ Toni the cheetah!

dining room table set for Valentine's Day brunch

un bijou

Brunch in the garden instead of the dining room ... because we can!

Eggs Benedict with asparagus, a Valentine berry compote with pomegranate and passion fruit seeds. Mango & Orange juice. Bloodies. Bellinis. Kenyan peaberry coffee.

The Thorntree Farm free range eggs from Jackson's in Bryanston's Riverside Shopping Center are the best. The yolk is that European dark orangey-yellow.  De-lish!!!

My Graffiti Valentine

V - ILYF - D

What better way to celebrate Valentine's Day in Joburg than with a commissioned piece of graffiti art?

Happy Valentine's Day from Joburg!

Looks lekker!

Valentine Roots

un dîner en tête à tête

We had our pre-Valentine dinner at Roots Restaurant at the Forum Homini Boutique Hotel in the Cradle of Humankind.

Dinner began with a red rose and some bubbly in the boma.

special Valentine's menu

The food was divine and the wine pairings were superb! All South African except for the French Purple Malbec (!) with the main course. I want to remember them all!

Happy Pre-Valentine's Day!

Fini.

Pop art!

"First Love" by Justin Abelman

Pop on over to Killarney Mall to see a popped up art gallery through February. The ArtZone pop-up art gallery is coordinated by Shani Krebs, artist, author and survivor of a prison sentence in Thailand. Shani's art is exhibited and his book, Dragons & Butterflies: Sentenced to Die, Choosing to Live which describes his ordeal in prison, is for sale.

Another artist and author, Capetonian photographer Gené Gualdi is represented in the gallery as well. Gené was the former kept mistress of a big Bollywood producer in India for six years. She later escaped and moved to London to produce films herself. Her book Bollywood Blonde describes her journey. And her photographs of India on display are stunning!

Cathy and Justin

We visited the pop-up gallery however at the invitation of Justin Abelman. Justin has a pretty interesting story himself. He started life as a professional flamenco dancer (!) and met our friend Cathy on a South American cruise ship where they were both performing.

American-born Cathy was a professional singer and is now a theatrical producer with her husband Tim Plewman in South Africa, as well an Education Manager at the Mamaearth Foundation and the Director of Making Your Mind Up. Busy lady!

Justin studied graphic art in school and worked in the advertising industry in London and Johannesburg before focusing on his painting and art. He opened a frame store after advertising and started exhibiting his work in the corner of his shop. His admirers grew and grew and he sold more and more paintings and for the past few years he has been concentrating solely on his art.  

His international travels and Eastern European heritage have greatly influenced his Naive School form of painting. His paintings have graced the covers of Readers Digest and 16 of his works have been reproduced as a series for upmarket greeting cards. His is writing the forward and providing the cover art for a soon-to-be published book on Naive Art. 

 To view more of Justin's work, you can like him on Facebook and follow him on his blog.
 

a corner of  "The Lime Tree"

PS If you haven't picked up a present for your Valentine yet ...  shame on you! But lucky for you, Justin just might be your savior. He hides a secret heart in all of his paintings. Some are easier to spot than others. You and your special Valentine could look for it together!

No dinner reservations necessary for Valentine's Day @ the HESC

We had a heck of a time getting a restaurant reservation for a romantic Valentine's Day dinner. Mosaic? Their reservations website said "do not even think of asking about Valentine's Day!" 500 at the Saxon? Booked up for months.

We finally did get a reservation for the night before Valentine's Day at Roots, the third restaurant on my list. It all worked out though because only a few days later, we were invited to a Valentine's Day party on the 14th. (Haven't been to a VDay party in years! Can't wait.)

We saw a restaurant at the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre that was most definitely not on my list ... their ‘vulture restaurant’!

This is a brilliant idea. First of all, it gives the HESC a place to throw the leftovers from the cheetah and wild dog feedings. And secondly, the different species of vultures are classified as vulnerable to endangered in Africa.  They need all the help they can get.

On the tail end of the large predator food chain, they are dependent on other vulnerable and endangered animals for the food they eat. And they face a range of threats themselves such as poisoning, persecution, electrocution and collision with powerlines, drowning in farm reservoirs in drier parts of the country, shortage of safe food supplies and loss of suitable habitat.

Watching the feeding sessions of rare African vultures swooping down into the vulture restaurant is an awesome experience. We saw white-backed vultures, hooded vultures, occasionally the lappet-faced vulture and Cape Griffon, Marabou Stork and bateleur eagles.

Now that's some Valentine's Day party!

It is a little disconcerting to see all the vultures circling above your head though ...

I imagine the other animals at the HESC are all set for their romantic dinners on Valentine's Day too.

Meat is most definitely on the menu for the African Wild Dogs ...

Unfortunately it is still a liquid diet for Gertjie and Matimba at the Rhino Orphanage. (Not that liquid diet.)

Matimba and Gertjie

So much better when you share the love with other species ...

an ostrich joins Gertjie for a Valentine's Day toast