Jaunting Along

Persian carpet, Saudi Arabia It is always the personalities that are the most interesting in any place, but the most treacherous to write about. Both in terms of getting it wrong, and, in the event that they may one day discover your perhaps less-than-flattering description of them, also in terms of getting it right. Fem often shakes his head in bewilderment when I describe people to him; I ask him why, and he says, “But she is your friend ,” as if that meant I must cut off my sense of discernment at the root. Of course, at this stage I could quote Jane Austen's Mr Bennett, “For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours and laugh at them in our turn?” except that, of course, I am entirely without foible myself. But, truth to be told, I like my friends most because of their foibles rather than otherwise, they are more interesting, if necessarily more complex and complicated.  But before we can even get to characters, there is the context. The first few times I...

One of the cars I drove as a woman in Saudi Aramco, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia It’s sweltering here, 47 C the day that I took the car in to be re-gassed as the air-conditioning unit wasn’t working adequately. Fem (my husband) had been asked to undertake that task before my arrival but said he didn’t want it standing around for a few weeks, leaking gas. Leaking? That was the first I heard of it. So, with five kids in the house (two visitors) and a beleaguered Doris  (our South African house-keeper) trying to maintain order and wash all our clothes and clean the house of two months of Fem and abandonment, with the fine Saudi dust having settled over everything thanks in part to a 17 day dust storm in June, and with dust bunnies under the beds which the elder visiting child would point out to Doris leaving her greatly disgruntled (as if she had anything to do with the accumulation of dust in her absence),  I took myself off to the Triple A (Arabian Automobile Association) ...

Early days in Ixopo; Grandpa's cousin Lesley, after whom my mum was named This always brought the conversation to talking about God, albeit in a convoluted and circuitous manner. God was the Elephant in the Room those nights, often alluded to, never referred to, and almost certainly not deferred to. After all, He wasn’t there.

Tending the fire for the evening's bath water: the fire heated up the drum in which water was stored T he boys themselves had a story to tell that night. Just the week before, Gerald had had an encounter with the fire in the furnace that was lit to heat the drum, from which we drew our bath water every night. If not too many people bathed at night, the water managed to stay hot enough that we could wash the breakfast dishes in the morning without having to relight the fire. Lighting the fire was a great treat in our every day at Lynn Avis.

A grand-daughter's memories of Lynn Avis LOOK AT ALL THE FIRE FOLK!                          LOOK at the stars! look, look up at the skies!                           O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!                                                                                   The Starlight Night, Gerard Manley Hopkins It was a still day. The veld so dry, there was a haze in the air, and motes from the ...

Mum as a young woman Considerate to the last, mum died on a Saturday morning when the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and I could be with her. 

Purple Hearts:   Poem for my mother I found this poem in amongst a book of papers my mum had put together. I wrote it many years ago, and sent it to her, along with a few others, in a letter typed on my IBM Selectric typewriter (anyone remember the "golf ball" typewriter?) Mum kept all my letters, and recently took to sticking them, together with other  sundry papers that were important to her, into a book.  She wanted to ensure all her affairs were in order before the end.  She died yesterday, at home, in her bed.  It was just the two of us in the room, and I was talking to her all the while, and stroking her hair. This last Monday, barely able to talk, she had insisted my brother phone me so that she could tell me, again, that the day I was born was one of the very happiest of her life.  Considerate to the end, she waited so I could be with her, on a Saturday morning, with the sun shining and the birds singing, to slip away Reading thi...