Category: random

Why I didn’t like record shopping with my older brother

Today is Art Garfunkel’s birthday. The curly-haired half of one of my childhood favourite bands turns 69 today. Bridge Over Troubled Water takes me right back to our home in Mufulira in Zambia. And to records. Remember them?

An awesome album

I loved Simon and Garfunkel. They were not wild like the Rolling Stones, they didn’t wear tight pants like Tom Jones did, they were just right. To a young girl living in Zambia, who didn’t like wild, or tight pants, they were super cool.

I remember two brothers coming to visit my sister and me in Mufulira. It was one of those complex situations that brothers and sisters can relate to – I liked J, he liked my sister, she liked R and R liked me. No win situation. Anyway, I told them both that I liked the song, Bridge Over Troubled Water and, maybe to impress J a little, I said that I especially liked the words. R said he knew them off by heart (show off) so he could tell me them. I got my pencil and paper at the ready. He proceeded to tell me the words, but I didn’t realise those were the words – I thought he was telling me a story. I listened, and I remember thinking, “Where is this all going? Tell me the song words already.” Was my face red when I realised what had just happened. Duh.

My husband and I were lucky enough to see Paul Simon on his Graceland Tour in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1987 at Rufaro Stadium. It was an amazing experience. But I couldn’t help feeling sad that he and Art Garfunkel had by then headed off in their own directions. I watched the DVD of their recent reunion concert and even all these years later, I can understand why I liked their music then. They were really pretty special.

So fast forward to Cape Town in recent years. My brother-in-law is as mad about music as his younger brother (my husband), and both have formidable collections of CDs and vinyl. Different tastes, but identical passions. In an effort to keep vinyl alive, we gave him a turntable for his birthday a few years back. Since then, he and my sister-in-law have had a series of vinyl evenings at their home. They invite about 20 people round to share a meal, a few beverages, and to bring along their favourite record.

The first time, we all had to bring both our best and worst track, and then each person had to vote for each track in turn. Which became increasingly hilarious as the evening progressed and we discovered how different everyone’s taste in music was. Nutbush City Limits by Tina Turner (along with Jennifer Rush’s The Power of Love) is on my top ten worst songs list, and it was played as someone’s favourite. One person had Tiny Bubbles by Dean Martin as his worst track of all time. He hated it so much he didn’t have the record, so his forfeit was to sing it to us. His rendition was far more memorable than it was tuneful.

My husband chose Bridge Over Troubled Water as his best track. No-one could say anything bad or negative about it. It shot to the top of the list and won the best track prize of the evening. I guess the song is like that. For me it’s part of the soundtrack of my life, and I will always love it.

The song that won the un-cherished award of worst track of the evening was Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep by Middle of the Road. If I’d still had that seven single (remember those? 45s?) I would have brought it with me for the same category. When I was about nine, I was given a record voucher (I think I might have called it a record vulture when I was that age) for Christmas. I was so excited because it would enable me to buy my first. record. ever. How cool was that?

My brothers, sister and I headed off into the centre of dusty Mufulira to the big departmental store to redeem our vouchers for stuff. I was beside myself. I had enough to buy an LP and a seven single. I chose a Springbok Hits album. If you are from the sub-continent, you will remember those hideous compilation albums of very badly rendered cover versions of current hits. I was thrilled. Come on, I was nine.

Now, on to the seven singles …. hmmmm, what to choose? What to choose? Along came my elder brother to help me choose. With his encouragement, which may or may not have come across as a threat, I bought Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep. I can still feel the deep disappointment I felt at having to buy such an awful song. Those were my first record purchases. Pretty bad. And even worse.

Just before we left Cape Town last year, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law had a farewell party for us, in the form of another vinyl evening. It was a really wonderful, memorable and special evening where we all ate well, drank better and laughed more than ever. The hard rockers among us insisted on playing air guitar and “dancing” (you have to air-quote there) along to their numbers; some played air guitar on their legs, another played air drums with two pencils just above a bald guy’s head, one shared stories of heartache at a high school dance, when he introduced his track of choice, and all the while our laughter provided backing for tracks like Radar Love by Golden Earring, Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water and Neil Young’s Harvest. After a track-off, Neil Young emerged as the evening’s winner.

So, happy birthday, Mr Garfunkel. Thank you for the music and, today, for the memories.

Sunshine signing off for today.

You can find out more about these tracks at www.allbutforgottenoldies.com Seriously.

Stop quacking and eat your chips

I am fascinated by “only in London” moments. Like overhearing a bunch of Catholic priests, on the tube, discussing the merits of Alice in Wonderland in 3D. And then discussing what Johnny Depp is like in real life: is he weird or is he quite normal?

Yesterday, as I walked alongside the large dock next door to our little dock, I noticed a woman arrive at the water’s edge with a large bag of what I thought were Maltesers. She ripped open the bag, took out a smaller bag from within, and proceeded to pour the contents into the water. She then continued to do the same with packet after packet. As I approached her, I said, with some bemusement,

“I thought those were Maltesers you were throwing into the water.”

At this stage, there were about a million ducks, seagulls and swans frantically flapping around and stabbing at whatever it was she was chucking out for them.

“As if I would throw Maltesers into the dock? When I eat them myself?” she said.

She then told me her son had gone to Asda (she rolled her eyes as she said this – perhaps she prefers our local Tesco to this other supermarket chain?) and bought the wrong kind of crisps (I call them chips, some of you might call them potato chips).

“No-one will eat them, so I thought I’d give them to the ducks,” she said, as she threw the contents of the final packet to the screeching and now-hyperactive water population. Thank goodness he hadn’t bought the wrong brand of beer.

I heard on the radio this week that obesity in the UK is seriously on the rise. Watch out for the ballooning weight of the duck population in south east London too, if they survive the preservatives. What was she thinking?

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:

  1. Dof (dorf): dim, switched-off, not very bright or clever
  2. Onbeskof (ornbeskorf): cheeky, otherwise, difficult, facetious
  3. Deurmekaar (d’yearmakarr): all over the place, confused, disorganised
  4. 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!

Forwards, sideways and blogwards

We would really love to go home to Cape Town for Christmas. But last night, I said to my husband that if that isn’t going to be possible, maybe we should go up to visit his family in Scotland for Christmas. And then I said, “Imagine the blog I could write about that!”

Which reminded my husband of how much he had thought about me at university earlier this week. They had a lecture about confidentiality and the lecturer opened his presentation with a cartoon of a Catholic priest in a confessional box, listening to the distressed confessions of his congregant. The priest’s thought bubble read, “I’m so going to blog about this.”

I realised that that’s me! I know that I have always had a keen sense of the absurd and I do notice funny things that others might not. My family have often listened to my ridiculous stories and then said things like, “It could only happen to you.” I disagree. It could happen to anyone, anywhere, but I notice and remember! And I have a compulsion to tell everyone about it. (That’s a topic for another day!)

But that’s me. And somehow lately I have noticed that my blog radar scans the horizon and it beeps and zooms in on everything I see around me. It’s like I have a renewed sense of observation. I also find myself formulating my blog post in my head. Do you do that?

Which also got me thinking about my blog. It’s so freaking random! I know that I write, largely, about being a Saffa living in London. And about Saffa slang. Oh, and Zimbabwean slang. And music. And London. And my husband’s Scottish relatives. And about his Scottishness. Oh, and about job hunting. (Yawn.)

And then I realised that my blog reflects my life right now. It is not going the way I had expected. And the thought occurred to me that my life in London is a bit like my sister’s drag racing. Fast, for sure. Exciting? Of course. Fun? That goes without saying. But not what you would expect. Let me explain.

My sister is married to a champion drag racer. He is one fast dude. He has a rail that could make a grown man cry, and a collection of Chevies that is, well, embarrassingly awesome. With a passion such as this, it’s not surprising his family have all come alongside him. Well, to a certain extent. He and my sister and their son and daughter, have regularly taken part in drag races. Not in the fancy rails, but in street cars and on a straight 80 metre course at the racing track.

We went with them to some drag races in Cape Town when they visited us there on holiday. My brother-in-law’s sweet Chev Lumina caused a stir and he had men lining up to drool over his engine and say, “Please can I race against you?” Boys never grow up. Their toys just become more expensive.

My sister then told me about an experience she had had of drag racing in Zimbabwe. I will relate the story in Sunshine-speak.

My sister is one mean driver. And competitive to boot. It was her turn to race. Out of a dust storm of revving, her vehicle emerged to take its spot in the starting dock. She manoeuvred the car this way and that until she was in exactly the right spot. She eyed her competition with that look that I know so well. Eat my dust, she thought. She glared at her enemy and growled, and that drag racing music came up all around. Eye of the Tiger, I think. And then it all went into slow motion… she watched for the cue of the green light … the crowd grew anxious with anticipation … she revved once more and the light went green … this was her moment. GO!

She stepped on the gas and her car shot backwards. She managed to shift gear and finish the race in second place, but that was not what she had expected to do. It is easy to understand how it happened, and it is now one of my favourite racing stories. Ever.

The parallels with my life in London are just too obvious to mention. And I guess, along with that, goes my blog. I don’t always move forward. I turn down plenty of side streets. And I head off on a tangent when something catches my eye. I hope I don’t take you backwards, and I seriously don’t need to win. But thank you for coming along for the ride. I hope I take you to new and unusual places, that I don’t drive badly and make you carsick, and that the scenery is good.

Am I focused? Not so much. Am I bovvered? Not at all. Am I having fun? Hell, yeah. I really hope you are too!

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!

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.

 

Sunset over Greenland Dock, complete with one of our resident swans

 

Sunshine signing off for today!

Laughs in translation

So when you write articles in English for the Web, a basic requirement is to speak English. I know, because I had to pass a test. Fair enough. Clearly, this is not true for everyone who feeds our cyber knowledge base.

Some things I read make me laugh out loud. I know if I was writing in any language other than my own (and I don’t get it right with my own much of the time!), I would struggle, so please understand this blog is for s***s and giggles, no big commentary or criticism intended. Sometimes, the information we get is just not quite on message.

I have recently started writing articles for an online content company. My friend, Mandy, who lives – poor thing! – in Mauritius and writes the fabulous Complete Cook Book Blog (check it out – it’s one classy blog and the recipes are just yummy), encouraged me to apply for this online writing job. Thanks, friend! So now I write articles on really random and arbitrary topics – it’s fun, it’s interesting doing the research and they pay me twice a week! So far, I have earned enough to pay the rent for the windowsill in our ensuite bathroom. A few more articles and pizzas are on me. For two.

My limited earning is because of two things: I’m not quite used to the format and structure of the articles  but when I am I’ll jolly well churn them out. The other reason is my current tendency to procrastinate and multi-task at the same time. I can’t explain. I just do it. I get loads done while I do absolutely nothing at all.

Anyway! Yesterday I was writing an article on how to create your own bouffant. I know, I’d always wondered too. My research took me to a site that contained this:

“The bouffant hairstyle was all the anger in the 1960s.”

Naturally, this captured my attention. I read on:

“… gather a little part of hair from the face of your head …”

“… fringe is best for hiding a large forehead …” and

“For summer season, most women prefer updo hairstyles because they do not want their hair sticking on their beck.”

(If you’re South African you’ll be giggling especially at that last one – bek is a pretty vulgar term for mouth. I guess it could be directly translated as gob.)

The other day, while researching Chinese beauty tips, I found these pearls of wisdom:

“Mix dry oatmeal and water until the paste is spread on her face.”

“Learn how to keep your ID number? Before going out to sunbathe, you know that drinking carrot juice.”

“… white tea has many antioxidants in them and are useful in helping to grow old before.”

So now you know.

When I took my elder son for an interview at a prospective high school, we were taken on a guided tour of the school, shown the impressive sports grounds, classroom facilities and reminded, at every turn, of the school’s proud tradition and history. It is one of the oldest schools in Cape Town, and we certainly got whiffs of a bygone era as we walked the wood-panelled corridors of boys’ school excellence. I guess we would have got a similar whiff had we been shown the bathrooms, but we didn’t go there.

Our enthusiastic young tour guide walked us towards the Principal’s office suite and stopped en route to show us the honours board that boasted a list of names that, sadly, was too long for my liking. He informed us, “These boards have the names of all the school’s old boys who lost their lives in World Wars 1, 2 and 3.” My son went to another high school.

A delightful lady worked for our family twice a week when we lived in Cape Town. One day she called me at work, in a bit of a tizz. I asked her what was wrong, and she said, “The hoover. She does not want to hoove.” I knew exactly what she meant.

My sister, as a cute-as-a-button little girl, once said, “Patience is a virgin.” Indeed.

When my younger son was a little boy, I sat him on my lap to tell him a long story about I don’t know what. He was kind of wriggly and restless in my lap, and kept looking at me to see if I was finished yet. When I got to the end of my words, he looked up at me with his beautiful big eyes and said, “Mom. It’s rude, when your Mom’s talking to you, to say shut up shut up shut up. Hey, Mom?”

Freudian or not, I hope that’s not what you, dear readers, are thinking right now!

Sunshine shutting up for today! Have a fab weekend!

Does this make sense? I doubt

We went out for a pizza last night – a little celebration of sorts! As always, I had my accent radar on and tuned and was pleased that I got it right again: our waiter was a Zimbo!

We had a lovely conversation with this warm and friendly young man (as all Zimbabweans are), and he concluded that he had been following us around the world! He’d left Zimbabwe to live in South Africa before coming over to London last year.

I don’t mean to boast, but I can generally spot a Zimbabwean accent at 100 metres! Countless times we have been somewhere, I have heard a few words and I know that the person is Zimbabwean. Not that the accent is that different from Saffa, and I don’t know that I could describe the difference for you, but I can recognise it. My niece, who is Zimbabwean and lives in London, has a fridge magnet that states, “No, I am not from South Africa.” Rather like the one I’d like to have that says, “No, I am not Australian. Or Kiwi. Or from anywhere in Europe either, pinhead.”

We went out for breakfast with friends in Cape Town some time ago, and, as it was a cool and drizzly morning, we didn’t want to sit at a table on the balcony. We told our waiter we’d prefer to sit inside and asked if there was a free table for us. He glanced indoors and said to us, “I doubt.” That was it – I knew he was Zimbabwean, and he was!

Zim forrin is something else all together. I grew up with some of these words, and I know – having been away for so many years – there will be plenty of words to add or amend, so please feel free to give me your contributions, if you have any!

  1. Mush/mushi/mushi sterek (pronounced moosh): this means great, nice, wonderful, excellent, wicked. The sterek part adds extra emphasis. I used to use this word as a teenager, until I had it guffawed out of me by my cool Cape Town cousins who quickly replaced it with the much more street-cred-worthy “brilliant”.
  2. Penga: this means mad, crazy. When we heard about my husband’s job, we went penga.
  3. Neos/magic markers: growing up, it was a treat to have a set of these, instead of just pencil crayons. These are felt-tip pens. South Africans call them kokis.
  4. Kaylite: if you buy an electrical or electronic item, kaylite is the stuff that clads it inside the cardboard box. White, squeaky stuff that the rest of the world calls polystyrene.
  5. A few weeks ago I was chatting to my sister (who lives in Zim) and we were talking about Zimbabwean forrin. She said, “What about boppa it up with rekken?” Exactly, what about it? I said, “WTF?” (which means what’s that forrin?) She said, “You know if your hosepipe gets a hole in it, you use a piece of rekken (rubber inner tube from a bicycle or car tyre) to boppa (tie) it up and stop the leak.” Precisely.
  6. Sometimes Zimbabweans can’t cope up with things, when others might not be able to cope.
  7. There is a word that is not appropriate in print, that a lot of Zimbabweans use, which means very. I’ll illustrate. I was in Bulawayo with my sister some years ago and we bumped into a young friend of hers. After the usual exchange of pleasantries, she asked him how the recent youth meeting had gone. He said, “Eish! It was b….yf…ing difficult.” I asked her, afterwards, if he had just said what I thought he had just said. She said, “Yes. It means very.”

My elder son tore a ligament in his ankle, playing rugby, during his last year of school. He had to see an orthopaedic surgeon, and my husband took him to his first appointment. When they got back, I asked about the surgeon, what he was like, and my husband said, “He seemed fine.”

I took my son to his second appointment. Firstly, I nearly fell off my chair when I saw how fine he was (my husband didn’t tell me he was gorgeous! Well, I guess he wouldn’t…) Secondly, after listening to him chat to my son for about a minute, I realised he wasn’t a Saffa. After a while, I asked if he was Zimbabwean, and he was. Fortunately, he’d finished examining my son because we then chatted for about half an hour about Zimbabwe and everything we had in common through growing up there. My poor son shifted from moonboot to foot, shuffled on his crutches and quietly sighed. When we eventually left the rooms, he said to me, “I knew as soon as you asked him if he was Zimbabwean and he said yes, that we were in for a marathon.” Or words to that effect.

I was happy, mostly, when the ankle was healed and he had his last visit to the orthopaedic surgeon. Sigh.

Sunshine signing off for today!

Karma, grovelling and a parked car

We went out to some friends last night for supper, and apart from having some good old Cape Town natter and laughter (they are fellow Saffas), we all shared some interesting memories. Of good and bad times, challenging and fun times, and, for me, of times when I got things, well, just wrong!

I told them of a time some years ago when we were living in Zimbabwe. I was working as an in-house PRO for a computer company and, at the end of a busy Monday, I left the office and went to my car, which was parked in a central parkade. For some reason, that day, one of the parkade exits was closed so all the rush-hour traffic was heading towards the same exit, and nothing was moving fast. I stopped behind a long line of cars on the downward spiral towards said exit, when the car behind me rear-ended me. It made such a noise and I was not at all pleased. Livid, actually.

I stormed out of my car, ran to the rear bumper to see what damage this idiot had caused. I sighed and I sobbed and, to be honest, acted like a right proper prima donna. The poor guy who had driven into me was apoplectic with apology. He was, well, grovelling. He said, “I’m SO sorry, my foot slipped off the brake and I just couldn’t help it. I’m really really sorry. I don’t know what to say. I’m so so so sorry.”

Being the ungracious wench that I was, I raised my eyebrows, allowed him to grovel a bit more and soon realised there was no damage to my or his car. Did I let the poor guy off the hook? Hell, no. I held on to his anguish and squeezed it in my palm till the sweat dripped from his brow. I cast him a sideways glance, turned on my heel, gathered my voluminous skirt and flounced back to my car. I might even have flicked my hair.

And here’s the thing. When I had jumped out of my car in anger, I left the motor running. The keys were in the ignition. And when my car door slammed, it slammed shut. Locked. My car door was locked. And I couldn’t get back in. All the cars in front of me had long since moved on, and the queue of cars behind me was growing apace and growing impatient. I. Could. Not. Get. Back. Into. My. Car.

Now what? Where to turn? What do I do? And did I mention that I was seven months pregnant? I’m just saying…

The poor guy from behind me could see something was amiss. Mainly because I couldn’t get back into my car. He walked towards me with something that looked like power, or maybe it was my karma I saw glinting in his eyes.

“Can I help you?” he ventured.

“Umm, I’m locked out of my car. The keys are there,” I said, tapping helplessly on the closed window of the locked car door.

“Maybe I can help you, let me see what I’ve got in my car,” he said as he ran off to his car to fetch something. He sauntered back to my car, and was that smugness I saw all over his face? He brandished a massive bunch of keys and said, “Let’s see if any of these work.”

He tried about five keys in my lock, and on the sixth attempt managed to unlock my car door. He held the door open for me to climb back into my car, and waited for me to gather my pride and dignity and pull it all back into the car with me. I looked up at him and said, “Thank you SO much,” before I slumped behind the steering wheel.

I don’t know what I was feeling at that moment. Angry. Embarrassed. Bemused. Blonde.

“No problem,” he said, as he turned on his heel and, dare I say it, swaggered back to his car, whistling, and twirling the keys around his fingers. I could swear I saw a fist pump before he jumped back into his car. But I couldn’t be sure of that as I’d already screeched off into the blushing sunset.

If ever I’ve had comeuppance run and slap me in the face, it was at that moment. It taught me the value of grace and reciprocity. And the value of the Biblical truth of “do unto others” … because when karma bites, it really hurts.

Sunshine signing off today.

Do not operate this book while drowsy

Laughter is my therapy of choice. And as you know, I’ve needed plenty of that while we’ve been in London. After the disappointment of Sunday’s so-called “comedy” (and I am making those quotation marks with my fingers), I found a good laugh in an unlikely place yesterday: the library.

Having read Vikram Seth’s beautiful Two Lives not so long ago, I decided to try another of his literary masterpieces. It was not available in our library, so they ordered it from another library. I got a letter last week, telling me my order was ready for collection.

I went off yesterday to collect my book. I walked up to the counter in the library and said, “I’ve reserved A Suitable Boy, and I received a letter last week to say it was ready for collection.”

The delightful young librarian behind the counter looked at me, cocked his head slightly and said, “We don’t deal in suitable boys,” and then added, sotto voce and conspiratorially, “we’re a library.”

He offered me my choice of unsuitable boy but I wasn’t too interested!

So, with the help of a forklift, he brought the hefty tome over to me. I had no idea I could read and build muscle at the same time, but I have now begun a new, hard cover relationship with 1,474 pages of Indian fiction. I think it’s going to be a very long relationship.

A laugh in a London library while lugging literature. Therapy doesn’t come better – or cheaper – than that!

A less-wordy-than-usual-and-definitely-always-less-wordy-than-Vikram-Seth Sunshine signing off for today!