I NOTE with sadness that Bridget Oppenheimer has died. She was by no means the end of the line, but she was certainly the end of an era. Much has been written about Mrs O and the Oppenheimers in general so I won’t dwell on that, but I would like to share with you a morning I shared with Mrs O many years ago.
I was with Radio RSA at the time, the overseas service of the SABC, and we were doing a series on outreach programmes in South Africa and Mrs Oppenheimer was very involved in the Women for Peace movement. I went off to Brenthurst, the Oppenheimer estate, with a colleague to talk to Mrs O about Women for Peace, but when we arrived she was literally up to her elbows in the slow cooker or hay box project, part of the Women for Peace programme. I wrote about these things just the other day, so we won’t need any detail, except to say that the hay box I bought from Mrs O that day lasted us for years. It was a large cardboard box with a polystyrene chip-filled cushion in the bottom with a similar cushion that fitted snugly over it. Apart from that hay box, I remember how gracious Mrs O was that morning and just what a splendid representative she was for Women for Peace. She will be missed.
And now birds. Our friendly neighbourhood cane farmer phoned late one afternoon recently and said, “Get to my lands along the west side of the main road, NOW, there’s a pair of crowned cranes there!” We leapt in the car and went, NOW, and indeed there was a pair of crowned cranes feeding in the gathering dusk, and alongside them a spur-winged goose. What a magnificent spot and a serious tick as we hadn’t seen either of them down here before. I phoned Andy Ruffle of Birdlife Trogons as soon as we arrived back and he said crowned cranes right on the coast was quite unusual, confirming a great spot and a worthwhile tick. Thanks, Farmer Mark Brand for thinking of us birdy types.
PS I have been asked about cooking in our hay box, or songimalelo, following that recent column on the subject. The last thing we cooked was a beef curry: First get everything going the way one would quite normally, bring it to the boil for five minutes, then put it in the songimalelo. We left it for about five hours, taking it out halfway through to bring it to the boil again. The curry was great. Don’t forget that there is also a similar thing to the songimalelo now available, the so-called peka dome, ask Tegwyn about it, 083 422 7415. I’ve also been asked about how long we keep the hot water geyser on for just the two of us. That’s easy, about two hours in the early morning, for morning showers and the afternoon wash-up. Time to get out of the kitchen, cheers!
