memories

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Island Blog – Wild Choice and I’m In

Family here, so flipping chaos and a lot of noisy fun, all twinkle girls and good champagne and hilarity. Such times give me a good peek into the lives of my children, although they aren’t. Children I mean. They’re parents, scrabbling for a way ahead, just as me and himself did a long time ago. Now that himself is up there sorting God out, no, not him but hie mummy, I have the peaceful mind they all long for. It will come, I tell them, although nothing will be gentle nor easy en route to that peaceful place. Stuff and regrets and inner failures and other ridonculous and fabricated memories will see to that. Memories, I have long learned, grow brambles. They do. Twisting and suffocating and blanking out the light, they persist like imagined dragons. They are not real, but they feel real. We all have them and especially those who say they don’t. I have gone to free a blaring sheep, entwined like a stairway in said thorns, getting too close with my bramble freeing gloves on, only to watch the wooly eejit pull away with nothing but a dump of shit left behind. It thinked me then and it thinks me now. Choice, the need for recognition, the power within an helplessness. I’ve been there, done that in my time. Not no more, not now I see the lack of efficacy in such, the damn weakness.

The thing is that nobody is going to, nor is able to, save anybody. Just me. I got that and by golly (can you say that anymore?) I learned this, that the world owes me nothing, life owes me nothing, my spouse owes me nothing, nor my kids, nor my work, nor my longings. It is up to only me. Everything is. This, plus that, equals power because I get to choose. It doesn’t matter when I finally understood this, no matter the crash and burn I had gone through, the shame, guilt, regret. Time is, so they say, an illusion. What I do now, how I live now is with choice in my always head. I can choose my morning waking, slept well or not, my progress through my day, because it is mine, my response to news, messages, invitations or lack of them. I can choose to be spiky, fun, naughty, mischievous or a grumpy shit with a gloom cloak about my skinny shoulders. I can rise or I can fall.

Today my whacko son came for a coffee. I can hear many of you asking, genuinely, ‘Which whacko son?’ and I get that and feel so very lucky. I have four of them and all whacko, and a daughter who is the only whacko with girly bits. I have no idea where they learned this spontaneity, this ‘lets go’ thing but they have and I’m still up for lets go, so we did. We drove up a bit on Tapselteerie and parked. Then we headed to the shoreline which is definitely more tumble-stumble, wrinkly and sodden than in my memory. We laughed, slipped, negotiated through obviously very high and recent tides, the sprawls of bladderwrack, and other whitey, browny greeny and yellowy seaweeds proffering a wonderful opportunity for an arse crack all along the volcanic shoreline. He held onto me, helped me over and around and through the sink bogs, over the tumps and tumbles as we embraced the freesing blast of stories from the north. The spume and wave flight was white as snow, rising with the gulls, the clouds dark but moving fast with the wind, passing like thoughts which don’t deserve to last. The sea was so alive, the hail blasting at our grinning faces. And then the sun, a momentary lapse of reason, proud fire, until the clouds regained control. We loved it all, laughed through memories of his childhood and my motherhood with five whackos and their dad who thrived in the wild, the lunatic weather, broaching the thin places of an ancient island, spouting stories every time someone who is open comes along, someone who chooses to be tough, to find a way through, to let go, to find the mischief.

Always a choice. May 2026 fire a rocket through old thoughts, old ways. May the grey clouds get bored of hovering over the wildfire of someone who has grown tough through all the whatever shit, and who has chosen to be who they are, no matter the what, the who, the which, the when, the why. I’m in.

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Island Blog – Etymology and Widowology

My Thesaurus is tired. I can feel it as I lift it from the table, the pages all autumn now and threatening a fall from the Binding tree. Undoubtedly there will be a new and upgraded version by now, because words are being daily introduced into the world of etymology. I don’t know when I bought it, yonks ago. Being a wordographer, a lexicographer since I was about five and very full of myself and my ability to show-off my newest words, ones that never got past my dad, but flew completely over the head of everyone else, including my ma, home life was a bumpy road. Just imagine that, being that mother with this upstart of a child. Must have been difficult. My voice was too pure, my confidence too out there. Being encouraged, as I was, by good teachers left me in a lonely world because at home I was just too out there, too sure, too much of a show-off. I get it now, but it still leaves the stain of spilled childhood on the garments of my adulthood, and, of course, as a result, I grew less confident, more absorbed in self-doubt, the inner questioning about whether or not (probably not) I would ever ‘fit in’ and it all grew loud enough to confound. I had clear memories. No, ‘they’ said, just remembles, the false memories of something. In came the mubblefuddles, the anticipation of something, everything, going wrong. I remember the falter, the doubts, the strong feeling that, no matter how well I showed off, I was, actually, invisible. Teenage years were ghastly, although I do know there were times of fun and inclusion and I can hear, if I really listen, myself laughing, really laughing without having to look around a group for any judgement.

So much tacenda, so many things to be passed over in silence; as if in acceptance, which it wasn’t in the main. I remember embarrassment, humiliation, rejection, judgement. And, bless me for this, those voices still ring. This is learning, I tell myself. I am not my past, I tell myself. I am not the girl/woman they saw, no. She is mine. I see her. I like her, love her with all her wordingness, her need to be seen, loving her chance to ‘show off’ but never to put another down, never that. Just me being me. I don’t need to hold the floor over others, don’t need to be better than another, don’t need to win at games, to be the best. It just isn’t in me. I just want, always did, to be the weirdo wordo that I am and to be allowed.

Many years ago, whilst living in Glasgow, when I wasn’t just me, we went to a well-known fish restaurant in Leith. On the river and well-established, this place was always booked up. We sat for a pre-dinner drink at the bar. The waiting staff were young and beautiful and very professional. the lights twinkled inside and out there, shining up the river in twinkles as the dark came down. An older woman walked in, my age now, but not then. I watched her, sassy at 70 and colourful, not hiding her wrinkles, not trying to be anything but herself. ‘Usual table?’ one delicious young waiter asked, smiling wide and proffering his arm. She dipped her head, yes thank you. He waltzed her to a small round and elevated table still in the bar and with a lovely view of the twinkly river and all who wandered by. She was so collected, so herself. I noticed, on her olding finger, a golden wedding ring, loose but there. She ordered a large glass of red and some water. Her clothes were cloth and colour, long and swirling. She seemed to have no problem being alone, but I did pick up a something lonely. Couldn’t explain it at the time, know it now. We were called through to the restaurant after that and I didn’t see her again, nor ask about her, but I do remember thinking this. If I ever get to that place of aloneness, I want to be like her, with welcomes and flirtatiously beautiful waiting staff who recognise and welcome, with a small table to yourself and with a view of others walking by and with the twinkles of uplit water just over there.

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Island Blog – Peppers Ghost

Last family gone now on a very long drive south complete with two girls, one sausage dog, one cat, one hamster, two bicycles, a ton of kit in back. Ten days of bonkers, of opportunity grabs, of endless and fun-filled action packed crazy. In other words, normal for my family. I have watched them fly huge kites, slice the sea-loch into tiny particles, wheeling and squealing and all the way up to sunfall, catch fish on the flow tide, barbecue, dig a fire pit, build dens, bond with a friendly deer, watch stars, straggle over rocks at low tide to gather big mussels for supper, and so much more. I have those memories. It wonders me that I have them at all, that they all still come. This island roots them all, even though they spin away into very different worlds. This is home and, as always, I am the one to wave them off. I’ve been doing this wave-off thing for decades, for ever, because I was always the one to stay home. It was as it was. And still is, certainly now in the autumn of my own life.

The silence is deafening at first. Any car passing by isn’t a goodness me here they come. I don’t hear the quad, heavy laden with way too many kids, careening down the Tapselteerie track. The sea-loch is calm and in one piece. The evening is gentle, soft, empty, and yet full of echoes, laughter, children, questions, invitations, halloes and goodbyes. My home is at rest. And, although my head quick-turns at an approaching car or at a tumble of high voices sneaking through an open window, or at a sudden flash of someone small. running, laughing, shouting something, I know t’is peppers ghost, an illusion, a memory, a wonderful memory, just one of a million and they’re all mine.

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Island Blog – Feelings Left Behind

We can lose years of feelings, yet remember moments burgeoning with them. When someone died, or was born, we know the date, but have quite forgot the feelings around that event. We get a glimpse of joy, of sorrow, of relief, of anger, of being there, as a person, remembering, perhaps, what we wore and who was there. Feelings flitter away. The sense of presence, of engagement, of inclusion, seem, to me, to float into the already past of such events. It thinks me.

How many of us can accurately come up with a date, when asked, one which includes lockdowns? Not me for sure. I start off answering a question, one that requires a datal fix, and I founder. It was four years. No, that cannot be. ok, 6 years. No again. And. I trawl, literally trawl as through a whole expanse of ocean, sky, time. I can feel my arms reaching back, lifting as I try to gather in an answer, wanting so much to gain a hold on ‘that time’, but I cannot. Then, when some semblance of datal knowledge (did I just invent a word there) arrives between you and me, I find myself alien to the facts, because I cannot find the feelings. This happened. I know it did. You just told me it did. But i am not there without feelings, so, basically, I am not there at all, although I was. I did get a glimpse (stupid word btw) of a sudden rush of something, but it was gone in a second, and I couldn’t hold it back.

There are so many memories I want to haul in like a fisherman, to pull ( with my own strength) into the boat I am now captain of, and to spend time bobbing in the salt, the wind, the sun, the storm, picking through those times, feeling them in my fingers, remembering them as I was then, as everyone was then. A memory bank, like other ocean banks where living is visceral and immediate, and time is but an illusion.

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Island Blog – Thing is…..

We all have to deal with today, the to and day of it, and it can stretch out like a frickin slimy mud walk through slicktastic brown sink. Or it can be a dance over a chalk-easy dance floor. Mostly not that in my experience, but I have danced that way, and that dance needs remembering. It is so easy in a life to forget the times when we did dance over easy, only remembering the sludge trudge.

At a certain age, I have noticed in this brown sink/dance easy life, that I am watching my agers fold into a complicit fold of flesh and obeisance. It confuddles me. I also get it. Thing is, choices in life have an a habit of (apparently) removing themselves. It can seem, and this is not just about olding, that individual authenticity puffs into the sky, losing gravitas and voice. Who am I in this time? Who was I ever?

I know those questions. I have rolled and sparred and fought with them for years. This is what I think, mostly for my peace of mind, I confess. There are those who rise above the concrete of their lives and keep shouting. There are those who don’t mind the concrete. There are those who do, but feel they don’t have the strength, voice, power, to push through, and, let’s be honest, concrete is a big opponent.

I watch my children. Strong and feisty questioning Fivers. I know their lives are not easy, not plain sailing. The tought times, I remember. A child is born and there’s a load of shenanigans at the pub and mucho celebrations, and then reality kicks in. And it goes on, and on and on, and then some.

As a septuagenarian……jeez, the length of that…….I have finally learned to greet every day with thankfulness. I say thank you to my bed as I rise. I salute my cafetière for my strong black coffee. I say thank you that I have purpose for the day. Thankfulness for every single thing seems to lift me. It encourages me to grab any opportunity.

It really helps.

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Island Blog – Nicky and her Sass

The past few days have been all about memories. I have them, yes, but, in my current melancholy state, as I impatiently await my levitation from radiotherapy tiredness, I don’t allow myself to indulge. It’s not just the tiredness, but the aloneness, and the the Lonely. When someone gets to the beyond of 70, that someone can be forgiven for believing they are now elderly. I am not elderly. It’s quite a word, now that I look at it in print, like a kind of dismissal, or the onset of such. I hear writers name my age thus, in the kindest of ways, my grandad, my granny, the old girl next door, but for the one inside the body and mind of such labelling, it sits not easy. So what to do? I don’t know because I never, ever, thought I would get here and the here of this here seems to have blasted in very recently with handcuffs, a takeover. Perhaps this last few months of……I won’t say illness because I have never fet ill, so let’s call it astonishment. There I was, quite joco, getting on with living alone and learning with faltering steps to realise that I am my purpose now, when that feels like a whole load of shite because my purpose was, and for decades, all about others, and then came this tiredness. I am bored with hearing from others that they are tired. I am bored with myself hearing me even thinking it. Why is that? Well, I know that consistent tiredness is an ask for change. Obviously I don’t include those recovering from surgery or illness, but I meet so many who are just, well, tired of their lives. Too many, and I don’t fix, I am gentle, but my hands are itching to guide them out of their familiar, which is consistently depleting their beautiful energy. I digress.

A young friend came to stay. I haven’t seen her, as she was to us, for well over 30 years. She has grown her own family since then, been through her own troubles. She, like me, has sunk and risen and flown and sunk and risen again, and retained herself, her energy louding my little home into light and fire. She led the marine students in that faraway time of innovative benign research on marine life among the Western Isles. She was dynamic and determined, focussed and bonkers. She still is, and that is what rocked me, me, the elderly, the not needed-anymore. And, yet, I was there with her, once, inside the memories.

She loved being here. Out there, walking the old walks, covering remembered ground, at one with the weather, sun for ten, hailstorm, rain, sun again #normal, and she didn’t rest for a minute, hungry for the memories that I try to avoid. It thinks me. We did good here, me and himself. We launched many such hungry girls, and lads, and we shifted the shift in their lives. We did that. Himself with his utter and complete commitment to being at sea for as long as possible, and me with my gift of cooking barrel loads of nutrition at times when those I have spoken to, other elderlies, would have gone to bed with a not me, help yourself, thing. I never did that, not once, no matter the exhaustion. And, I am proud of that.

She is gone now and. her going has left me drained of breath. She is so vital, and that thinks me too. She sees me as, not granny, but as someone I cannot get a hold of. To her 20, I was at least 40. She calls me inspiration, naughty, out of ordinary, and more. A changer. I am working on believing that. And, these memories that haunt, the ridiculous wishing to walk back into those wild, exhausting, purposeful times, and to not be ‘elderly’ and alone, and not to cower down and hide and resist and all that bollix has led me to get forward (not back) into my frocks and bare legs, no matter the toothy north wind, and then to purchase turquoise button ankle boots.

Maybe the energy this trixy minx left here just found her sass.

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Island Blog – My Fabulous Friend

I fly round the switchbacks on my way to the harbour town. I do. Fly. Oneson suggested, only the once mind, that I might consider a more ‘sedate’ model of automobile. Only once. I snorted but it made me reconsider my nomorethan40 thing when traversing the skinny island roads, what with their potholes and that falling off edge, depth at least 7 inches at certain points, enough to take the belly out of a sassy mini cooper. I know how to drive. I taught my kids to DRIVE round corners, none of this hesitating and going into dipfh lock, or whatever it’s called. It’s just a hill, after all. You may see only sky for a few yards but there’s a beauty in that. Sun in your face? Enjoy it. Your biggest problem will be with the visitors who won’t let you pass, no matter the light flashing and the hooting and the almost landing inside their boot. I digress.

I used to think those 10 miles a real travail. A dull and necessary pain in the arse, but not now. Not now that I am free to go wherever I like, and whenever. I am meeting a dear friend for lunch, a strong woman, a fighter, with guts of steel and the light of a rainbow in her every move. We have history, naughty times, fun memories, shared pains and joys. We meet at the top of town, where, to which, I have flown, and take our seats in a huge conservatory overlooking the harbour. There are new owners now and the place has had a facelift and a half. Jazz and blues play from the speakers and the sun shines in like a beacon. This beautiful hoist of granite was a naval lookout base in the war years, when I very much doubt it looked as good as this. We immediately connect, my friend and I and are laughing within minutes. We are 25 again, the world our oyster, none of the ensuing troubles in our minds, none of the pain or sickness, none of the losses, no guilt, no olding fears. She became the voice for the island’s young people, the lost and abused. She did more for this island than can be imagined. We talked on this. I said ‘I could never have done what you did, what you do, don’t have the head for it.’ After 2 wonderful hours, we said farewell for now. We will meet up again, been too long, covid and dementia and death and la la la tiddleypom. All that olding shite. Her eyes are bright, her face as beautiful as it always was, her spirit strong and feisty.

Home again, I walk the fluffy dog who (or is it which?) will be a baldicoot tomorrow after a wash, cut and blow dry with Heather, and a load cooler and with that dark stripe down her spine as if she was a tiger, once. I wander beneath the louring trees, heavy now in a way I see as tired. We are tired of this heavy leaf cover summer thing. Look at the bracken all flopping and brown and can we go that way please? But, much as I am loving the surprise, the sun, the strange late weather, it is holding them in stasis, requiring more leafness and more standing up and wotwot. I remember, in Tapselteerie days, feeling just like that. I am so, so tired of holding up my leaves, husband, children, guests, visitors and even though I smelled autumn on the morning breeze, it’s as if summer is refusing to ungrip her grip. I tell the trees this, and they remember. I will have said the same thing to them all those years ago, and, bless them, they absorbed it and probably waved at me in recognition. We feel the same, they said.

Much like my fabulous olding friend today.

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Island Blog – Take Another Look

Let us take a look at Olding, from another aspect. Olding can be dire, upsetting, astonishing, in fact, but if we look at it through laughing eyes, it can also be hilarious, not just to those who are nowhere near missing the edge of any pavement, but to we who know how it feels to be anxious about exactly that. Stepping out of a body in some level of decline is to free a mind. It allows a sense of humour to engage with a strong spirit and a still beating heart. Look back, my friend, at what you achieved in your life, how hard you worked to get it right, to BE right for those you loved and whom you still love, here now, or gone too soon. Remember that time you lifted other flagging souls into your arms and carried them over stony ground, through fire, over oceans of shit. You did all of that, we all did all of that, and yet the memories of the times we have faltered or failed, said nothing or said too much, halted instead of running towards justice, fairness and inclusivity always leap to the front of the queue. We judged, yes we did, unfairly. We decided what came next and now we might regret that. We were unkind, dismissive, rude, even. So what? Do those ‘faulty’ memories define us now? I say a bit fat NO to that, even though I can be guilty of such regrets. It thinks me.

Why is it that we daft humans can always find and build on, the times we got it wrong? Do we stand as our own judge? I think we do, but we can also judge others wrongly. We can look at how the world is changing, decide we don’t like it, it isn’t familiar, and diss it all, but I can remember my own ancestors doing exactly that when I was young. I laughed at them, behind their backs of course. Old fuddy duddies the lot of them. Young people move too fast, mumble their words, wear extraordinary, or skimpy clothing, and not enough of it to cover an egg, let alone a whole set of buttocks and they speak a language definitely not grounded in the Oxford English Dictionary. We have come full circle, it seems. However, in my observations of self, I can see that, if this Oldies attitude is allowed to surface and thence to take over, like pond weed in an untended body of water, it clouds vision and grows stagnant. Lord save me from stagnant! How will I do this, how will I bring in the light, clear my own weeds, unblock the blockages that prevent a free flow of fresh clean water, bubbling with oxygen and all of life? To embrace the unexpected, to show interest in it and enthusiasm for it, even if I, the Oldie, must only sit on a bench as observer, is to engage with the unfamiliar and to embrace it.

The Oldies I remember first, and with deep affection, are just bones now but the light they brought to my skimpily clad, fast moving, mumbling life, fraught with agonies and doubts and angst, stays with me to this day. They might have been on that bench as life flowed past their rheumy eyes, but the sparkle was there, the stories just waiting to be told, the mischief alive as a pixie in their hearts and minds. Despite their loneliness, sickness or restrictions, these people could still delight, as was their intention. Not for them the moans and groans, not for them the lack and loss they all must know so well, not for them the criticism of a younger world, young and determined to get things right once and for all, in new ways, ways that really will save humankind from the fiery pit.

My granny, who had endless health issues that she never allowed to control her mood, and I sat on a bench once. My legs dangled miles from the ground as I watched my jelly shoes swing back and forth. I was bored and grouchy. What can you see? she asked me. I looked up into her wrinkled and beautiful face, saw the pearls at her neck, the softness of her jumper, the smile on her lips. I turned back to the view of passers by, with shopping trolleys or dogs or husbands at hand. Nothing! I grumped, and swung the jellies some more. Right, she said, now cover your eyes and look again. I covered my eyes. What can you see now? she asked. Oh, Granny, I can see fairies and dragons and there’s Alice in Wonderland, and Pooh and Piglet! I heard her chuckle. Good, she said, me too. Let’s follow them, shall we?

And so we did.

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Island Blog – Through the Pond Weed

I am gradually growing used to city life, even as I absolutely do not wish to live in one. So many people, cars, bikes, streets, houses and windows. So much white noise, black noise too, sudden sounds of too many folk living cheek by jowl. A car bump, horns, ambulance alarms, a shouted caution or rebuke. Even the darkness falls with a clunk, although mornings slip quietly through curtains and under doors. I love mornings and today I took off for a walk around Blackford Pond, feeling the harsh resistance of pavements give way to a softer track, muddy around the stones. Benches flank the curve of the pond where I see ducks, moorhens and a family of swans with four healthy looking goslings, velvet grey, necks long, heads proud as they move with grace through the pond weed. Plaques name those long gone, etched in brass. ‘In memory of Jim and Mary, Robert and Matilda, who loved this place’. I remember this pond years ago, the banks less densely covered with spindly trees and ebullient water weeds, the body of water more visible. I exchange Good Mornings with dog walkers and joggers as we pass. each other by. The sky is white with sprachles of grey but no blue. Gulls cut through the white, a single hawk, pigeons. I miss abundant wildlife and must keep my eyes up to see any at all.

I am playing the waiting game, but it doesn’t feel like a game. Some day soon I will receive a letter with a date on it for an MRI scan and the process will nudge forward a few steps. For now, all I can do is to build strength, rest, play and keep my imagination under firm control. If I was at home doing this waiting thing, just me with my thoughts, I doubt I would manage such control. It is good to be here, with family distractions and in a completely different environment, despite the lack of wildlife, of space, and this constant movement of mass humanity. In quiet moments I watch people walk by under the window. Mothers or fathers with wee ones, old grannies, like me, with shopping bags, stout footwear and ice white hair. What is going on in your lives, I wonder, you tiny old woman, you, jogger with a dog, you young families with laughter or angst on your unlined faces? Are you well, happy, frustrated, sad, disappointed or thankful to be upright, well fed, free to walk, supported and loved? I wish you some of your dreams, because nobody gets to live all of them. Life has her own plans, after all. And it isn’t what happens to any of us that matters, but how we deal with it. Thus we make a deal. We say, okay, I didn’t want this, ask for this, even imagine this would happen to me, but it did anyway. How will I accept, with the spirit of fight, whilst concomitantly showing to myself and to the world, that I am bigger than my circumstances, way way bigger?

In my attitude of gratitude, that’s how, my acknowledgement of all that I have, all that love and support and friendship. Priceless gifts and completely free. I hold them close and, in doing so, the waiting loses density and gravitas and I am light as the swans on the surface, effortlessly moving with grace through the pond weed.

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Island Blog – A Warthog, Clouds, Shapes and Colour

I am quickly getting friendly with the heat. It bizarres me that I can go from 6 degrees to 36 and not only love both but able to adapt almost immediately. Walking off the last week plane (Orville from The Rescuers) into dazzling sunshine and a load of hot people, I felt my spirits lift. Of course there was relief in there, somewhere, after gruelling airport and plane-ness, but to feel the slam of heat in my favourite place is more than warming. There is air-con in this lovely thatched African home, cool tiled floors and plenty shade on the outside of In, not to mention a swimming pool from which I just rescued (hopefully) a huge centipede critter with a name like Chingaloolie, with a million legs and a body about 10 inches long, as thick as my dad’s middle finger. I paddled in, scooped it up in a sieve and laid it on the deck. I’m hopeful as I definitely saw its feelers wiggle. This life-saving thingy reminds me of swimming in a Corfusian sea past endless (it seemed) honey bees paddling like dingbats and with no hope of survival. I scooped them up on the back of one hand, holding it aloft as I turned for shore with a lopsided breast stroke. I managed about 8 one day and felt super delighted with myself as if I, alone, had saved all bees. Finding a rock I encouraged the enfeebled to move off my hand. No thanks, they all said with a little tail waggle. Lord knows what they were saying to each other as I became a little nervous of upsetting them into a stinging frenzy. They wouldn’t, I said, not after I saved them from Davy Jones’ locker, and they didn’t.

It is too hot to walk the dog except for early doors but not too early because Lady Leopard might not have managed her night kill and still be hungry, not that scraggy me would fill her belly. Even the big dog, although more her style, wouldn’t be enough. I’ve seen the size of her dinners half way up a tall tree, where she dragged it away from a hyena scavenge, impala legs sticking out like bicycle spokes, its glazed over eyes no longer with sight, whilst her Ladyship lounged on another branch, yawning. It’s too hot today to make foray over the decking which burns like fire under naked feets. The good news is that, once I got the hang of the mechanical options, the washing will dry in about 30 minutes, unlike back home where clouds (obviously watching for the chance of mischief) gather and merge to dump their load just after I’ve gone back indoors. I watch the dragonflies, rainbow coloured, dart and dive through the garden. Electric blues, vibrant reds, butter yellows, like the birds that sing and whoop, screech and chitter through the acacia. So much colour so much life. I read and watch, startle at a bark. Baboon? They come, you know, without any idea of boundaries, leaping and bouncing through gardens, over high walls or to swing down from trees in search of food. The abundant Grenadilla hangs heavy with fruit and they love it. But, no, it isn’t baboon, this time, but a neighbouring dog with a talent for impersonation. I relax back, for now. I remember the last time I was in Africa, inside a wildlife reserve and working on my laptop on the stoep. I heard the bark of the head male, a massive creature with big yellow teeth and scarpered inside just in time to hear the roof drumming with baboon. Mothers with babies a-clung, exuberant teenagers and himself, the patriarch. I ran to lock the windows and doors. They pull doors open. In no time they were gone leaving my ears ringing with their screeches and thumps, my heart beating so fast I had to hide in the loo to calm down. It took me some time to ginger back out.

Yesterday we did walk through the reserve and enjoyed a stand off with a mother warthog. Her piglets squealed around her and we were careful, very careful, not to get in between her and her young. Those tusks are big and she will charge in a flash. She wouldn’t budge off the track. We inched forward as everything in me screamed TURN AROUND! My African son held my hand tight and slowly we moved onwards. She watched us pass, through those piggy eyes, as if we were no big deal but for the rest of the walk I was on tenterhooks. I had always considered warthogs to be hideous creatures but this far-too-close- encounter. showed me how stunning they are with that red-dust colouring and those fine lines. Nonetheless I would rather see them ways off from now on. Driving into town I see a male giraffe, his head way higher than the trees, whilst overhead huge vultures wheel and loop through the blue. Nothing compares to such sightings, so close, so free to roam, so endangered. Much of what I will see, have seen, will be nothing more than a picture in a school book in the not too distant future, a sad thought indeed, albeit an inevitable one. At least I have seen, with my own eyes, the real deal, watched it lope, run, pounce, climb, swing, charge. I know the Go Away signs, the body language, what not to do in the event of trouble and these come with feelings and memories not many future generations will ever experience.

A scoot into town for a coffee and I am thrilled to be remembered. The welcome from Cosmos at the Rock Fig was warm and smiley and the coffee as I remember, hot, strong and delicious. Thence to the material shop because I plan to sew a story using soft linens, threads and wools. Sewing without a scooby as to what will reveal itself, just working on instinct and with colours and shapes already seen, the insects, birds, animals and people, is deliciously freeing, the result oftentimes a complete surprise. It thinks me. A life is painted this way, starting at the beginning, being curious, trusting instincts, with courageous application of every small step. Looking back on my own life I can see the patterns and shapes I never saw at the time, not believing that these apparently insignificant choices and decisions I made could ever become a whole painting, become just that. We need the bland hues, the times we thought nothing much was happening, would ever happen, for the vibrant lifts of rich colour to really show. Life is a lot about waiting for something to present itself, a new path, a new relationship, a new opportunity and those times demand and require a patience we find lumpish and pale, like yesterday’s porridge. But Life has her plans. All we need to do is to show up and to keep showing up; to fake courage and a can-do attitude no matter how grey our sky, how full of colluding clouds; to keep taking another step and, most of all, to be curious like Alice, however old we might be in years. It is easy to falter, to fall and we all do it but there will be someone nearby who is upstanding. Reach out a hand and hold on tight, eyes wide with the looking and something or someone will appear to colour up the bland, to inspire, to startle our canvas into electric life. A new way to work with the old things is like sunshine on a rainy day, an eyelet through which we can see for miles. They were always there, the miles. We just needed a wee rest for a while.