Life, friends, but not as we know it

Having got all that pent-up angst about truthfulness off my chest, I am now taking a break between bouts of Nanowrimo. Standing at 17 000 words and not all that much  of it usable. But I have some structure and plenty of dialogue.

One of my favourite bloggers has a faulty computer and cannot read or post. I miss you Akannie. Two blogs that were my daily standbys, including Elegant Blessings.

 

My puppies are beginning to nip. Such sharp teeth. If humans don’t have leathery skins and fur, that is not their problem. They race around squeaking and growling, and tug or chew at fringes or tassels or cords with a reckless gleam n their eyes. Then they collapse into exhausted sleep, their floppy heads lolling on my feet. When they hear my voice they wag their tails furiously with love. They are little mad butterballs of love and playfulness.

 

Life is wonderful, they squeak. Watch me go! Love you, bite you, eat you up!

It is terribly hot and there are flies, bees and cicadas all around the house and garden, a steady thrumming of insects, hammering at closed window panes and crashing back and forth across the cool dark rooms. I have placed great deep pink perfumed roses in a glass of cold water on my desk and the fragrance fills the room. Hot pink, the colour of a blush.

My elderly neighbour in his tattered shorts and faded shirt is digging a hole for a new double-flowered dombeya tree alongside the road. Younger than springtime am I, he sings, Softer than starlight am I/ Younger than springtime, June or September…

Two centuries ago, one century ago, life was not very different here in the old Cape Colony. Jean T and Charlotte are walking past with deep baskets full of green figs for making fig preserve or konfyt. My neighbour is baking wholewheat bread for the week. I have just come inside from watering  a small pomegranate tree that is descended from the cutting of a pomegranate tree that once grew in a Jewish merchant’s garden in Baghdad. I will create a fabulous salad of peeled orange segments, spring onion, wild rocket and mint and pomegranate seeds like wet red rubies. Dressed with honey and lemon and oil, black pepper. a few fragments of Maldon salt.

I shall have friends around, sitting out in the sunshine, blinking and tanning themselve. laughing and eating off wooden platters. Dolmades, rolled vine leaves with rice and pinenuts, smoked trout on brown bread, spicy potatoes and  grilled courgettes and slices of eggplant with Parmesan. Tender pink moons of cantaloupe. All my friends gathered around, eating scoops of jewelled pomegranate seeds and making wishes. Humming to ourselves, Younger than springtime am I…

Life is more extraordinary than  my strangest dreams. Gratitude comes up in me like a golden river running through paradise. The dreams of happiness and living ever after.