Autumn has fully settled in, and my skin – slowing drying out as the Highveld turns from green to yellow to all shades of dusty brown – tells me that winter is just a few weeks away.  It seems sudden this year, but maybe every year I have the same selective memory and the same disbelief at the rapid passing of time.

These crisp Joburg mornings make me long for December, which must be my favourite month in South Africa, with its lazy heat and countrywide inactivity.  In an effort to recapture those carefree feelings, I went through my December 2013 holiday snaps – a blissed out, snooze fest of a time in Zinkwazi, on the Natal north coast.