Getting ready to go away on holiday, making lists and buying essentials. Walked down several streets to have my hair cut and coloured — how I miss being a natural redhead. Vanity of course, but none of that coppery auburn mass of shining hair can ever be replicated. Sat while Tisa (not her real name) massaged my scalp and chatted to me about her new fiance whom she has only known for five months. She wants to ask him if he has ever been married before but is too shy. She is 21 and he is 47 or 57. She is in awe of him being an older man and he is going to manage her business and ‘run her life’ after they marry next month. I could see my jaundiced expression in the mirror. Young women and troubled men of an age to know better.
A gorgeous byronic beast of a black-and-white cat named Sylvester lounged on the counter and watched us with benevolent detachment. Her fiance is allergic to cats but Tisa says he will have to get over it, because men are men and all very necessary but a cat is the cornerstone of a girl’s life. An intreresting menage a trois this will be…
Then went off to a new mini-shopping mall up in the mountains. I don’t do shopping malls and would much rather go for small family-owned shops and farmers’ markets but I zipped in and out almost as if I had not been in there at all. Discovered when I got home that I have delicious little jars of anchovies and dark green extra-virgin olive oil and a locally made Taleggio cheese but no dish-washing liquid.
There is a storm brewing in the Overberg, black clouds and fierce humidity. We stopped near the dam on our way home to collect home-cured bacon and smoked butter from Sean the artisan producer, looked at the waters of the dam turning black with cloud-shadow. Hanging planters of ivy-leaved pelargoniums scarlet and a shocking pure white, great colour against the raw brickwork.
Came back to whirling and squeaking puppies with slimy rawhide chews in their mouths. The kind of cold slimy chews I wll step on in the kitchen when I am half-asleep and think I have trod on a dead snail. But the furniture is still intact.
And now back to Nanowrimo and editing, more lists to be checked off and suitcases to be taken down, quilts put in, extra towels, buckets and spades. I feel quite giddy with pleasure.
Posted by louisey 