A Rainy, Book-editing September

With an unexpected sport reference or two.

[September 2025]

Details from a new piece.

Dear friends, family and collectors,

September was a quiet, rainy month here in the south of Việt Nam. The typhoons are having a prodigious season this year, with the storms sparring for Super Typhoon status. The word "typhoon" most probably finds its origins in the Chinese word Dà fēng 大風 which translates as "big wind". So far, Typhoon Ragasa has been the only super typhoon so far, with wind speeds of 215km/h, peaking at 295 km/h. For my cricket-fan readers, that's almost double the speed of the fastest ball ever bowled in cricket (which, just for the record, was in Newlands, Cape Town during the 2003 Cricket World Cup bowled by the King of Speed, Shoaib Akhtar). And also, artist friends and colleagues take note, for a newsletter that has not yet set foot into the realm of sport, this is how you make both of your dads and your husband smile with pride in one fell swoop. That's three birds with one ball, beat that, Mr Akhtar.😂😎

For those of you who grew up in a South African household you will understand the sanctity of the DSTV sports channel "Supersports" on Saturdays and Sundays. If a big rugby game is scheduled then the Saturday afternoon game is usually paired with a braai. Soccer fans, you ain't got nothing on these rugby supporters. They are loud, sizeable in stature (and girth) and will wake the baby three houses down with their merriment or vitriol (or sometimes both; especially if you are the one New Zealander in the room and your team has just again lost out to the Boks). The reason why sport has popped up, is partly to blame on me pondering a good metaphor for wind-speed and partly because my four English students (ages 8 to 10) recently had to learn the word "cricket" in class, as in the sport not the insect. Which was an interesting term to explain to a group of Vietnamese kids who has never in their life heard of it, and has only very recently learnt of its insect namesake. I am very sure that my 8-year-old boy still has no clue what either is.

A homage to Saigon. 2025. 17.5cm x 12cm. Fineliner pen on watercolour paper.

What an interesting start to my newsletter this month. Believe me, I am as surprised as you are by the almost 2 paragraphs of sports references. Moving onwards, I am very excited to announce that my first 50 copies of Hi! My Name is Sam is being printed as we speak. If you missed the I am planning to have a small launch party celebration at my home here in Vietnam in November. I know that 50 copies doesn't sound like a lot, but to me it is a milestone, and I plan to honour it appropriately. As I have mentioned previously, for the time being my book will not be available in South Africa. So if you would like to purchase a copy of my book and you are in South Africa, please let me know ASAP then I will make sure to bring it with when I visit in December. I have also been told that Amazon is in the process of establishing itself in the South African market, so there may come a time when my book will be available for purchase there. For my friends and readers who live internationally, the book will be available on Amazon by the middle of November. I will send out a newsletter with the link when it is available for purchase.

*[If you missed the June/July newsletter about my new children's book Hi! My Name is Sam, please read it here.]

"Hi! My Name is Sam" proof #2.

I hope you enjoyed my sport references. May your October be filed with pockets of peace and unexpected humorous references.

With all my love,

Nicola

PS. As always, if you enjoyed my musings and know of anyone who might also enjoy my ramblings please forward my blog post to them, your support will be greatly appreciated. I would also love to hear from you. So any responses or comments or creative stories of your own that you might have and would like to share with me, please email me!

PPS. I know it is a Brave New World when I need to start ending off my newsletters with the statement that this newsletter was fully written by me using my fallible human mind and fingers (hands?). I have never, and will never use AI to write it for me, as the writing of these newsletters serve as a kind of month-in-review for me, and that is invaluable. Same goes for my artwork and illustrations. All images, photographs, illustrations and artworks which you see in my newsletters were created by me, by hand in the real world.