Watching the Hadidas pecking all day across a wide expanse of grass, I’m thinking beyond the obvious. There are worms down there and other numnums with wings, a load of legs, all not quick enough to avoid those long beaks. The birds are patient and they need to be. Their daily life is spartan. I started counting the pecks, all the way up to 100 and there are still 20 birds out there, pecking. The ground is authority to them, a solid backbone of earth, the truth of survival. And that’s what thinks me.

In our human world, we don’t need to peck. Or do we? Authority presents, finite, solid. Think about a work situation, a relationship, the rules in church, a community, even inside a family. Rules is rules. Rules is solid ground and, for a while, a safe landing. But for those of us who peck at the authority of said safe ground there is the likelihood of holes, holes we made, I made. In this scenario I am destructive. I create holes, but not only that. In my hole-making I discover a lower world, a hidden one. Down there is a change of soil at the very least, an interesting revelation, mine. I also pecked sideways and up, into the fabric of authority, into the above and beyond of confines and restrictions and was always surprised, nay astonished, to find I only ever had one friend who appeared alongside. RIP Kathy. Together we got quick and grew silent. We could move like shape shifters along old oak corridors and past evil matrons and in the dead of night. I’m not sure of our agendas beyond gentle mischief. We just wanted to peck at authority, make holes in the nonsense of scratchy grey nickers and galoshes on Sundays, at church every five minutes and nobody allowed to move sideways on any accepted subject. Life was stifling, but not for us because we always found mischief in everything and anything; a latin word, the shriek of a head girl on a mission, the way everyone took everything so seriously.

I laud her now, my dead friend and say hallo in these words. Tomorrow I fly home from SA, from 18 degrees to 7. I will go into the authority of an airport and my own tension will meet the onslaught of everyone else’s. I will feel it all. This bit can be stressful and challenging, all the doubts coming in, all the fears. For me, there is no fear once on a plane. My discomfort is within the terminals, and yet, and yet, here lies opportunity along with authority. The perceived authority is within the walls of the concourse, but is it? Yes, to an nth degree but where is the vowel in that, the ‘I’? So I peck holes. I smile at everyone, knowing they are tense. I say hallo and ask for help and pay a compliment. A lot. I laugh at myself, skidding along the moving floor, dithering alongside the underground train in Heathrow, trying to read the information, and more. And I make a little mischief, I play, I make fun, have fun, because it isn’t fun if nobody makes it.

I remember you, Kathy, spoke of you today, wee elfin friend. We did no harm, but by golly we pecked holes in authority, back in the grey nickers, Sunday stifle-days. We lost touch over the years you lived out here in SA and then found each other in London. 45 odd years later and see us in a wine bar, big glasses of Chardonnay and we hadn’t missed a beat. We laughed and remembered as if we were still 17. Thank you my pixie friend, my co-mischiever. I’ve never met another.