A New and Exciting Year!

Only one resolution this year; lose a couple of kilo’s. The other ongoing battle is with my daily word count – must increase my output if I’m to finish Empress Gold round about the promised date – middle of this year (weak grin). Good intentions go awry, getting sick is never allowed for and eats up chunks of precious writing time. Try to hold off local lurgies by avoiding sneezers and snifflers – damn near impossible and, as winter moves into her annual share-out-the-bugs mode, most people expect a fair drubbing from colds and ‘flu. Anyway, time to soldier on and quit moaning; stock up on cough sweets and paracetamol. Smelling of Olbas Oil isn’t so bad, at least I can breathe.

One more thing... though based on fact, my last couple of blog entries might have come across as a little on the lewd side; for that I apologise. So no more frighteners, I promise – the story can only get better – to harness a famous quote: ‘Keep it simple, stupid!’

*

A fresh look at, An English Boy’s Wanderings:

... Took a few days for mother to recover from her son’s premature, close encounter beneath the mango trees, but recover she did, and I think, by the onset of that following weekend, I had been forgiven. My dad just winked at me and grinned. Weeks rolled into more weeks and then into months; then mother fell out with Aunt Ann, sounding the death knell for our short though pleasant stay with Wankie Colliery.

Swept, shovelled and trashed, my cherished world was once again committed to the dustbin. My beloved mango trees and swimming pools were consigned to a world of ever growing remember-when’s and my reluctant father prepared our little Morris Minor for its first, great trans-Africa journey. Mother had demanded her own nest to bustle over, and why not? That universal, two-women-in-one-kitchen-doesn’t-work prophecy had sunk its teeth in. But first, before we waved goodbye and headed eastwards, we partook of one last, reconciliatory family outing – a day’s picnicking at Victoria Falls. So, with ten bob’s petrol in the Morris’s tank, Thermos flasks, folding chairs and a plethora of Spam sandwiches crammed in her boot we headed north, following in the steps of one intrepid, David Livingstone towards the great Zambezi River and the aptly named, Mosi-oa-Tunya, the smoke that thunders.

We travelled in convoy. Dad’s brother insisted on going in front; he’d been to The Falls before and for whatever reason was convinced that should we travel otherwise, might well perish along the way. The fact that there was only one, sixty mile stretch of road leading there, seemed to him of little relevance, so, as self-appointed lead scouts, he and Aunt Ann, by right of their earlier start in Africa claimed their place at the head of the wagon train. My dad huffed and puffed about it, but for the sake of a peaceful outing, gave in, still muttering brotherly obscenities under his breath and glaring daggers through our windscreen at the sprout-green, Vauxhall Victor trundling along in front. Mother didn’t care; happiness was a day’s outing to anywhere in any weather and she would smile at whatever presented itself to her view through the window. She had developed a habit of total detachment, riding with her bare feet spragged against the glove box she would stare out at Africa’s abundant hills and forests, content for her mind to drift wherever it pleased.

‘Such beautiful trees,’ she warbled and flicked her ash through her opened quarter window, happy as a sky lark; this was her Africa, her faultless paradise, a land of perpetual blue skies and warm sunshine. Behind our little car, three other families tagged along for an excuse to sit in the sun, pool their sandwiches and flood their innards with cold beer, all of them saddened by our imminent moving away from Wankie. However, back then jobs were plentiful and most agreed that in-laws were best regarded from a distance – I think my mother demanded a healthy buffer zone of at least three hundred miles...

*