life – Page 6 – Sunshine in London

Why I’m grateful for today

There are so many factors that shape who I am. And who I am constantly becoming. Life, my family, relationships, circumstances, choices, my faith, my personality, decisions, events. Today marks the anniversary of a pivotal event in my life.

November 12 fell on a Friday in 1999. It was a normal working day in Cape Town for me. I was the PR manager for an NGO that trained unemployed people to start their own small businesses. My work took me all over the Peninsula to visit training centres and fledgling enterprises. Trainees learnt business skills to run spaza shops (small retail businesses from their homes), or skills such as sewing, leatherwork, knitting or butchery, to run a business from home. It was rewarding work, and I loved my job.

On this Friday, I had an appointment to go and meet up with a new entrepreneur in his home in Guguletu, to hear about his new business. I had been given directions to get there, although road names didn’t feature too strongly: “Turn left at the other school and go down and when you get to that station turn right.” I had a good idea where I needed to go, as I was familiar with the area, and I double-checked with the new entrepreneur’s trainer where I needed to go, and off I went.

I took the main route off the highway, Duinefontein Road, that heads through Manenburg and on towards Guguletu. Manenburg is notorious in the Western Cape for gang activity, and I always drove through the area with due vigilance and caution. As I headed towards Guguletu I couldn’t find any of the landmarks, and it was no longer clear to me where I needed to go. After going backwards and forwards a few times, and nearly running out of road, I chose not to venture into the unknown. I decided to go back to the office to get better directions and reschedule my meeting.

I drove back along Duinefontein Road. Cape Town had recently been hit by a freak tornado, Manenburg being the area most acutely affected by its brief appearance. Many houses had been destroyed, three people had been killed and a number had been left homeless. There were a few makeshift, tented camps where people lived until their homes were rebuilt. One such camp was on the grounds of a school that I drove past.

I looked at the brown tents and felt sad that people had lost their homes. I was also aware that there were hundreds of school children pouring out of the school and across the road. I wondered why they were finishing so early (it was mid-morning), I was concerned that many were crossing the road without checking what traffic was coming and going. It was in the middle of those thoughts that I heard a gunshot. And then a sound I can’t describe – perhaps a thwang – as a bullet hit my windscreen and I was showered with shavings of glass.

The bullet ricocheted off my windscreen without penetrating it. The trademark spiderweb left by the bullet on my windscreen was in line with my head. I thought, “I’ve been shot at. And God’s protected me. Perhaps I should go to the police station.”

I didn’t look to see where the shot had come from, I didn’t stop or slow down or speed up, I just carried on driving and thinking logically what I needed to do next. I knew the police station was just down the road and to the right. As I approached the intersection, I felt it would be unsafe to turn down that road. So I continued on to Guguletu to go to the police station there.

All the while, I felt calm and just kept thinking, “God’s protected me. And I need to report this.”

I turned down the road to go to Guguletu police station, and when I was about to park my car, it suddenly hit me, “I’VE BEEN SHOT AT AND I’M TERRIFIED AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO OR WHO TO SPEAK TO. AND I’M SO SCARED.” I began to shake and sob and my face and cheeks wobbled beyond control.

I turned my car around, and decided to drive back to my office. By now, my legs were shaking too and I don’t know how I managed to drive, or see through the tears.

I still felt the need to report this to the police, so I went to Mowbray police station, near my office. I cried all over the front desk, I could hardly get the words out, and the kind and patient officer took my statement and gave me a case number. I asked her if she wanted to see my car, and she said no. I felt sad for the state of Cape Town, and that more attention would have been paid to this in a more peaceful world.

I drove quietly back to my office, my colleagues and friends were astounded and open-mouthed and didn’t really know what to say. Then hugs and words of comfort abounded.

As an amusing aside, one of my colleagues told me to drink sugar water. “It’s good for the shock. My mother’s sister-in-law’s aunty’s nephew took sugar water after a cupboard fell on him, and he’s never had nightmares.”

I was able to chuckle at that, as I called my husband to tell him what had happened. I had stopped crying, but started again when I spoke to him. He came to me right away. And then I went and fetched my boys and went home. My boys were so shocked, but were just glad I was fine. Thank the Lord children don’t agonise over what if – I was there and I was fine. And that’s all that mattered.

It was a strange and scary and surreal experience telling people about what had happened, dealing with my own reaction but wanting to protect everyone else from feeling sad. Or anxious.

My husband, as a trained trauma counsellor, insisted on debriefing me that evening. We sat, cross-legged and facing each other on our bed, as he talked me through what had happened and asked me strategic questions about how I’d felt and what I’d thought. I know, without doubt, that that session was just exactly right. I’ve never had flashbacks, or nightmares, and I honestly haven’t relived that moment with anything but gratitude. My body had its own reaction six months later, when I experienced a series of panic attacks, but they were short-lived and I guess my body needed to vent.

Oh, and I didn’t ever do that interview. I just couldn’t.

In the weekend papers the next day, we read of an off-duty policewoman who was shot at – and injured – in her car in the vicinity of my event. It was attributed to a gang initiation ritual. Perhaps that was the purpose of the bullet that hit my car. I don’t know where it came from, I don’t know if I was caught in cross-fire or if the bullet was meant for me. All I do know, and am forever grateful for, is that the bullet didn’t have my name on it.

Sunshine signing off, with gratitude for today.

The college type

Yesterday I applied for another job. Yes, I am still on the hunt. I still have the boring task of seeking salaried employment, with slightly less desperation but equal amounts of post-application stress disorder.

For yesterday’s application, one of the items on the person specification was “keyboard skills”. I wanted to adopt a Will Ferrell pose, hand on hip and one eyebrow raised, and say, “Yeah, I tinkle a few ivories, in my own classical, yet syncopated, infantile way.” And then I thought that would be super-lame. (And that’s different from everything else I say, how?)

I then realised that I do have some mean keyboard skills. I have worked on PCs, Macs, laptops, word processors, electronic typewriters, electric typewriters and, way back, I learnt to type on an ancient, massively heavy manual typewriter.

Working on those machines, I developed muscles in my fingers in places where I didn’t know I had places. When we made mistakes, we had to use typewriter erasers and backspace the heavy machinery before retyping the letter. When we typed to the end of a line, we would grab the return lever and push the carriage way to the left to start a new line. We had to take out indemnity insurance in case the machine fell and crushed us to powder. It would.

And all of that took me back to my year at commercial college after I finished my first undergraduate degree. I went, kicking and screaming, into that college year at the insistence of my parents. I honestly felt it was beneath me to do a course that taught me typing and bookkeeping when I had a university degree. How embarrassingly arrogant was I? My parents thought it would be a good and practical idea. I hate to say it, but they were right.

Not only did I have fun there, but I learnt skills that I have used in every job I’ve had. I learnt shorthand, which I still use today when I interview people. I learnt touch-typing, which has been useful regardless what machine I have been typing on. And I met two characters who will stay with me forever. Let’s call them Mr M and Mrs P.

Mr M was our book-keeping lecturer. He arrived at college every day in his smart three-piece suit and hair neatly parted. He had a gap between his front teeth that caused him to whistle every ‘s’ through the lecture room. He would close his eyes, nod his head slightly and say, “Ladiessssss, ladiesssssss, ladiessssss!” (We were only females in the class – it was the 80s and it was Zimbabwe).

He would explain everything to us in precise detail, and we would practise and practise until we got it right. In bookkeeping there is no room for error, so being kind of right was never an option.

We had no Excel spreadsheets or any other programme that would work things out for us. We had no calculators or adding machines. We had to work with ledgers and journals, make credit and debit entries, and make the columns balance. All by ourselves. In our heads. I know the accountants and bean-counters out there will be tapping and trilling the tips of their fingers together in delight, but really – it wasn’t as much fun as it sounds.

Mr M would get exasperated with us “ladiesssss”. And he would be delighted when we got things right. Then he would say, “That is execkle what I am tokking about!”

One of my classmates would get equally exasperated with Mr M. She would battle with the concepts and try and make her columns balance. And then she would yell out, “Yussussss, Mr M! I can’t do this!”

Our office practice lecturer was Mrs P. She wore faded cotton frocks that were tightly belted with full round skirts. She wore her hair in a bun and wore pointy spectacles. Seriously. She had stumbled across a fashion style in the 1950s and heck, if it ain’t broke, why fix it? She stuck with that fashion forever.

Her hair was so tightly squeezed into a bun, I was sure sometimes she had grabbed some scalp along with her hair and tied it right in with the bun. That usually explained the raised eyebrows and ears that moved round the back of her head. And a constant, scary grin.

She would totter around in her sling-back heels, occasionally tottering over, and tell us about what good office practice entailed. She would also regale us with tales of her and her husband’s other life in Spain, but that’s material for another day.

She would always start the day with, “A-kay, ladies! Today we’re going to talk about how to watch paint dry. A-kay? Any questions? Good,” and she would then ramble on and on. None of us really listened. We just watched. I think the tight bun prevented her from forming the letter ‘o’.

I left college that year with a diploma in hand, a bunch of valuable skills and a plate full of humble pie. I hated it when my parents were right.

Sunshine signing off for today.

Movies and other moving moments

Yesterday I took a tube into central London, and then took a walk into a small, dusty town in the north of South Africa. I witnessed a whole lot of life, South African and international, learnt a lesson about myself and ended my day with a dance and a funny movie.

My new blogging friend, Lisa at Notes from Africa, asked me the other day if I’d followed the London Film Festival, sent me a link to the website and mentioned the South African movie, “Life, Above All”. I checked out the website, wondered how we could have let the Festival go by unnoticed, and booked myself a ticket for the final screening of the South African offering. I also signed us up for a newsletter for next year’s Festival. Thanks, Lisa!

It was an amazing movie, telling the story of Chanda, a young South African girl living in small rural town in the north of the country. The central theme is her relationship with her ailing mother, following the death of her infant sister. It deals, poignantly and thoughtfully, with issues such as child-headed households, AIDS orphans, infant mortality and the stigma of AIDS. I can see that the movie would be an Oscar contender, it is beautifully made and the acting is outstanding. I had hoped South Africa had moved beyond the extreme stigma as portrayed in the movie, but I don’t know what life is like in rural South Africa. The movie made me feel sad, on so many levels, but I’m glad I saw it. And I would recommend it in a heartbeat.

On the way in to Leicester Square, I had to change tubes at Waterloo. Walking through the endless underground walkways, I heard the most amazing music in the distance. When I realised I was walking away from it, I turned back to see where the sounds were coming from. Upbeat, fabulous sounds of an electric guitar – it sounded like Eric Clapton on a caffeine buzz. I even considered throwing caution and inhibition to the wind and dancing like no-one was watching.

When I got close to the source of the music, I saw the guitarist was a really scruffy looking guy. I took one look at him and turned away. I felt so ashamed. I had been drawn to his music and then turned off by how he looked. I turned around again and stood and listened to him. His music was brilliant. I threw some money into his guitar box, and he flashed me a toothless grin and thanked me. I walked away, humbled and shamed.

When I got to Leicester Square, I walked to the Square to sit in the park and write in my notebook. The park was filled with carnival rides – oh, the disappointment! I wondered what Charlie Chaplin would think. I walked around for a while and then went to collect my ticket for the movie. As I stood in the queue, a creepy man came up to me and said, “Are you here for Essential Killing?” I said, “No,” and he said he had a spare ticket. I wished I’d said, “No, I’m here to watch a movie. I left my weapons at home,” but I was too slow.

After the movie, I walked back towards the tube station. The Square was filled with people and as I walked I saw face-face-face-face-face-face-face. So many faces blurred into each other and I felt overwhelmed by the crowds and the people and the faces. Soon as I could I headed down the stairs to the tube. There were more faces coming up the stairs and, in the midst of all of them, I spotted Francesca Annis. I don’t know how I spotted her among the millions, but there she was. If you don’t know her, she is a beautiful , accomplished English actress, whom I first saw playing the role of Lillie Langtry in a mini-series called Edward the Seventh.

And then back to my flat and off to a Zumba class. Our instructor’s been away for a few weeks but last night she was back, the music was cracking, she was smiling and we danced.

I do wish the worst dancers wouldn’t stand at the front. Then I wouldn’t notice them. And I wouldn’t blog about them. But they did. And I did. And now I just have to. I can’t help it. It’s not they weren’t coordinated or anything – their clothes were a perfect match with their shoes – it’s just that, well, they couldn’t dance. (Anyone know Allan Sherman’s I Can’t Dance? Cue the music.) Maybe that’s why our instructor was smiling so much.

One had attitude – her facial expression was all sneezes and whistling – and the other did exactly the opposite of everyone else. Every time. We went right, she went left. We lifted our hands and brought them down. She did the opposite. We went forwards, she went backwards. Bless her for trying, but I’m not sure she’ll do an Arnie and be back.

And then my day ended with watching a mindless and very funny DVD. My husband and I snuggled on the sofa to watch Date Night – what a funny movie! Steve Carell trying to out-badmouth a gangster was just hilarious. We laughed so much.

Tears, laughter, a little bit of dance, a whole lot of life and one blog. In the words of Will Ferrell in Anchorman, “It’s boring but it’s my life.”

Sunshine signing off for today.

This blog’s seriously going south

It’s Friday and I thought it would be rude not to start the weekend with another little lesson in forrin! Grab your coffee, wine or beverage of choice and sit back and travel with me to Africa – it’ll be festive!

I’ll take you to the lands of my youth. So we’ll learn a little more Zimbabwean (the home of my high school days) and a little more South African (my university days, early motherhood and beyond). Some words will take my fellow sub-Saharans back in time, others will make you frown, but let’s just have fun. Let’s.

(My granny used to stay with us for a few months at a time when I was a teenager. She loved her chair in the lounge, and she loved watching TV. She would often say to me, “Shall we turn the TV on?” And I, cocky little teenager that I was, would say, “Let’s.”)

Starting in Zim: my brothers were party animals loved to go out when they were teenagers. (They are bothhhh older than me – seven and five years. Respectfully.) While I never heard all the detail of what they got up to (I’m the little sister, remember?), I would often hear them talk about a festive chick that they met or saw. This usually meant a girl who was easy on the eye, especially if the eyes were covered in beer goggles.

In contrast, we would all talk about graubs (grorbs), who are male or female, and just the opposite of festive. We tried to avoid graubs at the school dances, because the goal was to get lucky and find someone to grapple with on the dance floor. Especially if it was a slow shuffle. Now even I am laughing out loud, because I haven’t even thought about those words for years!

I have some outrageously embarrassing stories about school dances that would send certain family members running for cover, but I will spare them and move on, swiftly!

So, the word graub leads me, phonetically, on to graunch. I know I used this word in my blog post on Monday, with reference to the doobie dude graunching his hubcaps on the kerb. No doubt you guessed, but it means to damage, scrape, or do grievous bodily harm to (caution: exaggeration at work) and its use is usually accompanied by a screwed-up nose and graphic noises and descriptions.

Here are a few Afrikaans words (I won’t overwhelm you with too many) that have snuck into everyday South African English. Well, into mine, anyway:

Dof (dorf): dim, switched-off, not very bright or clever
Onbeskof (ornbeskorf): cheeky, otherwise, difficult, facetious
Deurmekaar (d’yearmakarr): all over the place, confused, disorganised
Ingewikkeld (too difficult to explain pronunciation!): complicated, involved.

In South Africa, and I think again it has to do with the direct translation from Afrikaans, it’s not polite for someone to throw you with a stone. This means to throw a stone at you. I find this turn of phrase hilarious, and it was made more so by a neighbour of my sister’s some years ago, in SA. She told my sister about her baby and how she had recently changed her baby’s diet. The new food regime was causing a, well, disruption to her baby’s usual digestive activities. With the result that my sister’s neighbour was concerned with the consistency of the result of said activities.

“Yoh,” her friend said, “it’s so hard, you could throw a dog dead with it.”

And with that, shall we end this ridiculous blog? Let’s!

Sunshine, dof, onbeskof, but always smiling, will see you Monday!

She’s mad about the royals

I had heard about his mother’s 42nd cousin, twice removed, and we were set to meet her and her husband in their home on the west coast of Scotland. I had heard hints of “royalist” and “talkative” but nothing prepared me for the day we would spend in her company.

We arrived at her wee croft that nestled on the water, sapphire blue Scotland at its finest. We picked our way down the steps to the front door where we were welcomed by a warm, effusive and enthusiastic Scottish woman. I’ll call her Betty. She hugged us and told us she hated what we were wearing. Look, it was the 80s but not everyone loved the big, permed hair, flowery pants and pink, plastic shoes of that era. And my husband, mulleted and moustached, was dressed in his Miami Vice best.

We were invited indoors and soon saw that “royalist” was no exaggeration. “Talkative” took no convincing either. Her little home was beautiful from the outside but sadly tasteless inside. The brightly patterned, textured linoleum flooring screamed in competition with the striped and floral wallpaper, and every corner of the house was filled to bursting with recent royal memorabilia.

The walls were adorned with framed photographs of the royal family, her kitchen boasted tea towels bedecked with smiling monarchs, and a glass-fronted dresser groaned heavily under the weight of her prized possessions. Charles and Diana smiled from mugs, plates, cups, scarves, towels and pictures, while Elizabeth and Philip, along with the Queen Mum, greeted us from more. Betty giggled with excitement at her forthcoming trip down to London for the wedding procession of Andrew and Sarah (Fergie, as she was fondly known).

“Ma frend’s go’ us a seat on the route,” she told us. This, evidently, was access to an office or apartment that overlooked the road along which the royal wedding procession would travel.

Betty talked. Non-stop. For the entire day. When she was wondering what to say next, she would think on her feet and say, “Och, well, so there y’are, well, I don’t know, so, tell me.” That usually stretched sufficiently to bridge her to the next thought, and so she would continue. Sometimes she would just repeat “Och, well, so there y’are ….” until another thought popped into her head. And that way no-one else could get a word in edgeways either.

Mr Betty arrived home from work at 5pm. He walked in the door and, without saying a word or greeting anyone, went through to his bedroom, undid the top button of his work-shirt, removed his shoes and replaced them with slippers, and returned to the dining room table. He sat down and waited for his tea (evening meal). That’s what happens every day. She took him his tea, talking to us through the house as she did so. He said nothing. He never does, apparently.

Betty returned to the sitting room and perched herself on the arm of the sofa, where my husband’s long-suffering aunt with whom we’d travelled that day, was sitting. Betty sat next to her and began her segue-monologue. While she did so, she took out her handkerchief from the cuff of her cardigan and, with a hint of drama, shook it out in front of aunt’s face.

“D’ye like ma perfume? …. It’s a new one. …. It’s called Fergie.”

Och, well, so there y’are …. the colourful tartan of my married-into family. I just love it.

Sunshine signing off for today!

London and fine jazz – a Shaw thing

We battled public transport. We crossed a bulging river. We ran the gauntlet of a cussing hobo. But we got there. And it was worth every ounce of blood, sweat and tears to get there. Ian Shaw is one splendid jazz singer.

My music-mad husband has this thing about Joni Mitchell. He loves her music, her lyrics, her everything. A while ago he discovered that Welsh jazz singer, Ian Shaw, had made an album entirely of Joni covers. So he bought the album. And now he has a bit of a thing for Ian Shaw. Not really, but kind of.

Ian Shaw lives in London and one of his favourite venues to perform at, we have discovered, is the Vortex Jazz Club in Dalston, north London. We bought tickets for his Saturday night gig there earlier this year. Being the weekend, the usual tube routes were disrupted, so our only option was to travel by bus. As we always do, we allowed ourselves an extra hour to get there. Buses were late, diverted and voluminously far apart. We resisted every urge to turn round and go back home again, but we eventually got to Dalston and walked and walked and walked.

We turned around and walked back the way we came and discovered the road to the club was right next to the bus stop where we’d alighted. We turned down the road, and saw the lights of the club. It lifted our hearts and we hoped we hadn’t missed the entire show. Our final hurdle was to walk past a dodgy, tatty and foul-mouthed homeless person who drank from his brown paper bag and called me a word I don’t even like to think. The evening was not turning out the way we’d planned.

We got upstairs to the jazz room an hour and a half after his show was due to start. We discovered that Ian Shaw had not. Yet. Begun. His. Show. Woohoo! We sat at our table, exhaled, ordered two tall, chilled glasses of wine and Ian Shaw walked to the piano. Our timing, as it turned out, couldn’t have been better. The Vortex Club is a small, intimate jazz club with a raised platform at the front with a grand piano on it. The rest, as they say, is music.

We got treated to about two hours of fabulous entertainment. An accomplished, award-winning and crazily talented jazz singer, Ian Shaw opened the show with his version of Joni’s Coyote . Sublime. He then sang his way through a mix of songs from Joni (including a stunning cover of A Case of You – one of my favourite Joni numbers), Elvis Costello (Shipbuilding) and some songs he had penned himself – achingly honest and angst-ridden and wonderfully lyrical.

It wasn’t surprising to learn that Ian Shaw used to be a stand-up comedian. The witty banter between songs was brilliant. We laughed so much and it felt like we’d been treated to a double act. You had to be there, really, but his list of reasons for wanting to lose weight made me laugh till I ached.

He’s something of a national treasure. And such a pleasure to listen to. He loves performing locally and is a regular at the Vortex Club. We’re going to see him again next month. Only this time we’ll travel there on the new overground train. And this time, you’d better watch out, Mr Hobo – shake your filthy mouth at me and I’ll give you something to drink about!

Sunshine signing off for today!

Dude, that’s a car …

Yesterday we enjoyed a beautiful, chilly, Autumn, aromatic afternoon in Brick Lane. Apart from feasting on a delicious curry there – it would be rude not to, really – we soaked in the buzz and the vibe and the air of east London. Just not as much as some people did.

Brick Lane has a fascinating history and today has become known as the curry capital of the United Kingdom. Home to indoor markets, food stalls, curry houses and night clubs, it is also popular for fashion, fine art and graffiti. You cannot walk down Brick Lane without being accosted by restaurateurs touting their “very good deal” meals. I have not eaten in a restaurant there yet, because I just love the vibe of grabbing a takeaway dish, and finding a spot somewhere outside to sit and eat and watch the world go by. We did just that yesterday.

We waved off the formal establishments, and went into the Sunday Up Market. After checking out every exotic spicy food possibility you can imagine, we settled on Moroccan food. Pretty much all the meals – complete with rice or couscous and trimming – cost five quid a pop, you get a good-sized helping and it’s always yummy! We took our brimming foil dishes and plastic forks and went and sat on the kerb outside to eat our meal! It was really funny pulling our feet towards us as cars came past along the narrow road – otherwise we would seriously have had our toes flattened.

Next to Brick Lane — This is how we ate our lunch.

We became aware of a large, navy blue Audi gliding slowly into a parking spot on the other side of the road from us. What made us take notice was the sound of metal on metal as he glided into the car in front of him. With clearly no panic, he unhitched his vehicle from the other, reversed and then glided forward to position his car just right. He wanted to park next to the kerb, and seemingly had no objection to graunching his hubcab against the pavement – another crunching sound of metal on concrete. With no sign that he needed to extricate his car from the pavement, he and his passenger emerged from the car and set off – in slow motion – to the market. He was enormously wide-eyed and nattily dreadlocked, she was just wide-eyed. I have no doubt they had just spent the past hour parked on a middle island somewhere, Cheech and Chong style, their car filled with the sweet aroma of happy smoke. They glided off, wondrous and in awe, dude, of the market that lay ahead and oblivious of the damage he caused as he crash-landed his car.

Near Brick Lane — What you don't have to do in Brick Lane.

When we finished eating, we walked through the other sections of the market. In the busy-ness of Sunday, we looked at hats, paintings, light shades, jewellery, clothing, coats, shoes, T-shirts, lingerie, vintage clothing, designer clothing and anything else you can think of. There were displays and displays of designer watches – large plastic-faced, neon-coloured, cartoon-charactered watches – and I think, on some of them, you could even tell the time.

Sunday Up Market in Brick Lane — Famous for food and everything else.

We soon came across a huge seating area with wooden benches and tables, where we could have sat to eat our meal! I guess we would have missed out on the doobie dude, so I’m glad we sat street level.
Mr Curly Tache walked past us in the market – he had a curly, waxed moustache, his hair was neatly combed and side parted, he wore a checked shirt and purple-striped tie, pink corduroy pants (trousers) and a blue jacket. This sartorial experiment was not alone. Brick Lane is filled with alternative, fabulous, colourful, fascinating, different and beautifully-dressed people. And ordinary folk like us too. This is no place for the fashion police.

In Brick Lane, you can clash your colours, scrape your hubcaps, haggle for your curry and buy second-hand wellington boots. Anything goes and no-one’s watching. Well, there are always people watching, but no-one really cares. It's blogger heaven.

giraffe restaurant, Spittalfields Market — And we always find sunshine in London!

Sunshine signing off for today!

Memories are made of this

Towards the end of the last century, I worked for a public relations consultancy in Harare, Zimbabwe. It was an amazing place to work and I loved my years there. The country was booming and there was much to share.

My colleagues and superiors generously shared their knowledge and experience. I learnt so much. Our clients shared good practice and news and progress and prosperity and hope. I learnt so much. We also shared more than our fair share of laughter. I laughed so much.

Our best laughs were with our wonderful receptionist who laughed until the tears ran down his face, no matter how funny things were! He was perfect affirmation and encouragement for any would-be stand-up comic (no names mentioned). He would have to take a few deep breaths before he could answer the phone when my friend and I were sharing stories with him at the front desk. Wiping the tears away with his handkerchief, he would say, “Ooh, you make me funny!”

I once had the task of gathering information from our local trade association. I called the association and explained to their receptionist what I needed. Very politely she told me that unfortunately their switchboard wasn’t working, she could therefore not transfer my call, and, with huge apologies for the inconvenience, asked if I wouldn’t mind calling back the next day. So taken with her courtesy, I said of course that would be fine, I thanked her for her politeness and attention to let me know what was happening. I then asked her, in light of the information I needed, who I should ask for when I called back the next day. She said, “Oh, you can speak to me.”

After a brief pause, I said to her, “So … do you think I could speak to you now?”

“Oh, yes, I didn’t think of that,” she said. I didn’t have to call back the next day.

One of our clients was the quasi-governmental body that handled the nation’s marketing of grain. They built some new grain silos in a small town outside of the capital, Harare, and we handled the official opening. We commissioned a jeweller to make a silver replica of the silos as an official memento of the event, we invited the media, we arranged the catering and entertainment, we sorted the logistics and the small, dusty town in rural Zimbabwe laid out the red carpet in honour of the occasion.

We got to the venue early and waited as the slew of dignitaries arrived. The media arrived, as did the local government officials, community leaders, businesspeople and others who considered themselves legends in their own lunchtime. The minister of agriculture was the guest of honour and he arrived amid fanfare and adulation from the gathered masses. The master of ceremonies welcomed everyone, outlined the morning’s proceedings and invited the local school choir forward for their opening number.

The boys and girls from the local primary school filed neatly to their spot at front and centre of the outdoor gathering. A few shuffles to the left and right and each one, not a hair out of place and not a sound uttering from their lips, took their place in the body of the choir. They watched in anticipation as their choirmaster strode out to take his place at front.

Nattily dressed in smart suit and tie, the wide centre parting of his hair matched only by the gap between his front teeth (the kind of teeth that can eat an apple through a tennis racket), the proud and grinning choirmaster’s moment had come.

His charges awaited his instruction, chins lifted, chests out, camera smiles at the ready. He lifted his hands in anticipation, eyed his gathered team and, as his hands began to flow, so the song began. With choreographed sways to the left and the right, hips swinging and fingers clicking in unison, the children began to sing, with all their hearts, “Sweet, sweet, the memories you made for me”.

I expected a traditional Shona song in honour of the gathered elders. But as the loud, beautiful and youthful harmonies rang through the dusty rural town, congregated and proud, I realised that Dean Martin’s classic was the perfect song. And I was grateful to realise, in that moment, that my best memories are made of moments like these.

Sunshine signing off for today!

So, as I was saying …

One of the things I was so hoping to do yesterday was to include some photos of our weekend adventures in London. I don’t consider myself to be technically-challenged, but boy did I battle! And then I gave up. Here’s my attempt to get it right today. And by the way, is this a phlog?

Portobello Road Market after market after market!

Portobello Road — Colourful houses, colourful people and colourful stalls

Autumn in Notting Hill - don't you just love it?

And then on the Sunday we went for a walk around our South East London neighbourhood. Here’s what we saw:

South Dock — Our flat overlooks this dock

The Thames at sunset, with Canary Wharf on the far side of the river.

Roadside comb — In case you get caught with messy hair, especially near the Thames!

Roadside loo — Now that's what I call a public toilet! With a river view.

Steamers — In case you didn't know what to do!

Greenland Dock — And the sun sets over our neighbouring dock.

So there you have it! Thanks for travelling on this little journey with me. Tomorrow I will have words again.

Sunshine signing off for today!

How much is that doggy in the tube seat?

I wish I had reason to travel on London’s tubes every day. Not so much for the need to reverse, with force, into a jam-packed capsule that hurls itself at crazy speed through the nether networks of the Big Smoke, but so much for the entertainment that communal travelling provides. Every time.

On Saturday, we went to Portobello Road Market. On the tube ride there, we noticed a guy – who looked like he could have been Rod Stewart’s slightly less talented and largely less handsome cousin – who was seated on the end seat of a set of three seats. The other two seats were empty. Why? Because his dog – if you could call it that, he was more of a small elephant with a brindle coat and not so much a trunk, as a small briefcase – was lying in front of the other two seats. Dog owner was completely oblivious to the interest and annoyance that his dog was causing. I think he was oblivious to everything. Some young girls got on the tube and oohed and aahed over the brown heap of dogness, stroked his head and asked his owner what kind of dog he was. Dog owner remained expressionless, and I couldn’t tell if he answered them or not. Big dog became uncomfortable, pulled himself up to his full height and then climbed on to the seat next to his owner. After carefully turning himself round, he sat upright on the seat. And remained there until they got off at their designated station. Not sure how dog owner knew where they were but off they went. Huge dog in punk collar and gormless owner. It was unclear who was leading whom.

So onward and upward to Portobello Road. What an amazing and fascinating market, completely crammed with antiques, beautiful things, old and new things and things you would never want near your house. And that’s just the people! Actually, when we arrived, a few outrageously beautiful young men walked past us, and then some more, and then … I wondered if we’d missed the memo that Saturday was beautiful people day? Oh no! Then I saw a couple who clearly hadn’t got the memo either, and I felt better.

As you walk along Portobello Road you walk through market after market after market. Antique markets, flea markets, clothing markets, food markets … wonderful sensory overload! My husband, being the music lover that he is, is magnetically drawn to any music stall, second-hand record shop or CDs anywhere. He sniffs them out at about 100 metres, and he cannot walk past without clicking his way through every single CD on the rack! There was plenty of music to look at and he was in heaven, although he didn’t find anything he wanted to buy!

We browsed and we wandered and we bogled and we walked. We saw two cute little pug dogs who were attached to each other by a collar and followed their dreadlocked master wherever he went. Wish they’d stayed still long enough for a photo but their master was walking and they were following. We stopped for the most delicious falafels at Falafel King and then walked through Notting Hill to get back to the tube. We stopped at The Tabernacle (where we saw Diane Birch perform) for a coffee and then travelled home for X Factor!

On the tube home, I saw a young guy wearing a T-shirt that said, “No, I will not fix your computer.” And we heard my favourite station announcer at Waterloo, who I think always wished he worked on the Johnny Carson Show. He is fabulously enthusiastic and bubbles: “Helloooooo! And WELCOME to Wadderloo! Mind the gap between the train and the platform. And wherever you may be going to today, be well, do good work and have a nice day!” Even Londoners, sometimes, pay attention.

Yesterday was a beautiful autumn day in London. Church was great and late in the afternoon we went for a walk around our neighbourhood. I took the camera in case we saw a roadside shoe – Maura at 36×37 publishes photos of random roadside shoes and I’ve been dying to send her a London contribution. We saw a roadside comb, a roadside toilet and then, after walking along the edge of the Thames, watched a chilly sun set on a wonderful week.

Sunshine signing off for today!

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