helter skelter

After all the heat and summer swelter, yesterday a night wind blew in cloud cover and the temperature has dropped more than ten degrees – it is now 21C in the kitchen. Strangely all the monkeys have gone. No more little faces at every window hungrily watching every move and waiting for a door or window to be left off the latch.

Well there was one that slipped in this morning. He left a turd artfully poised on the corner of the dining room table like a small brown place setting . Once spotted he started to panic and couldn’t find the tiny gap in the door by which he had come in. I stepped back as, once before, a monkey had panicked and jumped straight through one of the big panes of glass. He was fine – not a drop of spilled blood – but may have had a small headache for a while – we will never know about that. So we waited for this one to find the gap of his own accord – which thank goodness did not take too long once there was no pressure.

Had to clear the decks a bit this morning. Felt I was drowning in piles of papers. Maybe the ghosts of all those trees wagging their phantom twig fingers at me in disapproval.

So September 11 again hey. Where were you when the twin towers went down? Certainly something no-one can ever forget. Thanks to live broadcasting anxious faces all over the world looked on in total horror.

I remember the day here. Something wonderous was happening in our back yard. Six bull elephants had wandered in from the bush and were browsing the trees up against the house. We were watching in wondrous amazement. Seen against the familiar constructs of our simple dwelling, the elephants suddenly looked really huge – or the house looked small. Then the phone rang…….. turn on CNN right now – a familiar voice instructed in a tone that left no room for discussions. We did so, and while the elephants moved slowley past the window we gaped in stunned silence at the awful spectacle of New York on fire.

Then the second plane came in. It felt like the end of the world, and it was in a way, certainly as we all knew it. And who in the world has not been affected in some way to greater or lesser extent? The madness of human beings at play in the game of life.