Hi – Sunday morning seems to have established itself as my favoured blogging window. Watched the debate on global warming last night and re the subject of air pollution have just found out why my eyes are streaming. Thought I had suddenly developed hay fever brought on by lurking clouds of volcanic dust or weird pet allergies via our three, over-hairy dogs, but their guilt-slates have all been wiped clean – ‘twas the dreaded scented candles that caused my malaise! Packing them off as Christmas presents to my least favourite people (the candles, not the dogs).
Talk more about global warming next time – got to go turn the heating on and bag up more candles ready for posting...
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An English Boy’s Wanderings in Africa; an extract:
... Friday night was ‘club night’, a gathering of the clans, a pouring out of immigrant pomms and never missed. Almost every die-hard ex pat mine employee and their families converged lemming-like on Wankie Colliery Club. While the kids all played in the pool or just ran around, their parents got drunk. That was the norm.
Unbreakable metal chairs, metal tables and metal umbrellas were clumped al fresco-esque across the beer garden. Almost Parisian-like, dressed in yellows, whites and blues, people gathered for their weekend working class soiree amongst ornate goldfish ponds and miles of terraced bougainvillaea. White-suited waiters rushed about with trays of bombers and gins and the kids all sucked up cokes and cream sodas and crammed their bellies with potato chips and foot-long chunks of dried meat called biltong. That’s what happened on Friday nights. Because we were living in Africa and in Africa, everyone went to their clubs on Friday nights and forgot about work and school time. I heard my mother say, ‘shit it’s hot’ and everyone agreed and ordered more bombers and gins, and if we were in hailing distance, cool-drinks for the kids.
When the lights were turned on, every able-winged insect within a hundred yard radius revved up its engine and homed in on the beer garden. Swarms of clickety-clackety bugs and scratchy, creepy creatures dropped in drinks and down cleavages; most of them harmless, though some were armed with stings and nippers large enough to fell a buffalo. One such beast found its way to mother’s hair; half the size of a T-Rex, this six-legged, airborne catamaran crash landed somewhere between her right ear and back of her neck. This provoked a scream, a vertical uplifting of her entire body and a vicious, round-house sort of a slap at the offending insect. Unfortunately, having already been mentally disarmed by six gin and tonics, mother forgot about her cigarette, stabbed herself in the neck with the hot bits, swore she had been ‘invenomated’ and ran off to find a mirror...
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