It’s a funny thing but this time last week I was in South Africa in Pretoria East Hospital sitting with my Dad who was attached to a remarkably noisy array of machines some of which blinked, some gurgled and some which went ‘ding’ like the number 57 bus to Highbury circa 1970. I suppose ‘funny’ isn’t the right word. There is nothing funny about a father who has VERY nearly died from complications arising from serious infection and multiple myeloma […]
Death in waves
Well I finally handed in my MA manuscript last week. It was a huge relief especially as last week had been a terrible mess. The cold I mentioned in my last blog had grown worse and worse until I was finding it hard to stay out of bed for more than an hour at a time….the hour being just enough to get to the shop or to stumble down to the riverside so that at least Grace could bound about […]
Blackbird in Blue
I am watching a juvenile blackbird. She is incredibly excited having recently discovered the concept of flying and launches herself at everything with huge enthusiasm but seems to have still a bit of a problem with depth perception. She doesn’t care though. She’s just kind of..well …‘plummeted’ from the roof, smacking into the top of the fence and whammed down onto the grass popping back up, yellow beak high, with a Russian gymnast’s flourish Ta daaa! . It’s bloody glorious! […]
Summer of ’69
I was born on Midsummer’s Day in 1969, which makes this Sunday a rather large birthday. I think I am finally on top of the dizzying G-force effect of hurtling through time towards an age which tops Zambia’s life expectancy….which occurs the first time you actually realise that no one will ever call you ‘young woman’ again ….and which gets you ‘that look’ when people ask you if you have children and you reply ‘not yet.’ I did initially decide […]
Its all about the interpretation.
Please do not adjust your sets…normal transmission will begin again shortly. I promise. Inspiration got sucked away last week in a flurry of London commuting and misguided miscommunication but have ordered some more on the internet and am told it will take 3 to 5 working days. In the meantime, as I cannot show you MY interpretive dance, here is a photo of a Makishi dancer to convey my current mood! I’ll be back as soon as possible! Makishi Dancer: […]
Mind Full of Windmills
Was it a windmill? I felt for the last month as if I was charging towards something important. I felt heroic, gulping down hope and inspiration, speeding like a bullet towards something huge and exciting just ahead….and then pooffff…. The thing I was chasing evaporated. I find myself scrabbling hard but beginning to fall slowly backwards into the pretty padded cell that is my life in Cambridge. Jobless again. Lonely again. Bollocks. I miss the Zambian sky. (c) T. […]
Red Hot Chilli Pepper or the Ballad of the Flaming Owl
‘The owl is on fire!’ The Chilli-Elephant man has returned from an overseas business trip and been in bed on his chilli farm in Livingstone for a mere four hours. The phone has rung and now he is trying to make some sense of the farm manager’s frantic shouting. ‘Mr. M! Mr. M! Come quickly! . The owl is on fire!!’ So begins the tale told by the red hot Chilli-Elephant man one steamy and sticky night in Livingstone town […]
Livingstoned
Forgive me folks..its been a while since my last blog session. I am in Zambia at the moment. In Livingstone in fact, in the Business centre of the Zambezi Sun hotel listening to the sound of a band playing marimbas (wooden xylophones.) It is the first time in ten days I have had a decent enough connection to post and apologies for the lack of illustrations.From this room I can hear the distant thunder of the Victoria Falls. It has […]
Sensuous?
Its raining….that cold rain that somehow drips into the top of your shoes and catches you on the ear even if you are wearing a hat and twirling a brolly. I went for a walk in it to try to snap myself out of the lethargy that has cocooned me this afternoon but it just made me more melancholy. I had to go to Boots chemist to get some sun screen for my trip to Zambia in a couple of […]
Norway 1: Zambia 1
I am in a taxi with the mother-of the –groom, Toni, and the groom’s sister,T. We are holding our breath. The taxi waited five minutes to collect us and the meter already reads Kroner160…….£16…….$32. I croak something about ‘hellfire’ and the mother-of the-groom turns, eyes blazing to the driver. The groom’s sister, and my partner in crime from childhood, looks at me and grins. This driver is going to need therapy.By the time we are back at the hotel the […]
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