Sunday Times

It’s Sunday morning. Sunny and bright, with delicious cool air wafting around full of ozone to awaken the senses.  There was a huge herd of impala on the ‘lawn’ this morning. Youngsters skipping and scaring each other; adults munching happily on the assorted herbs that now grow in patches where the lawn used to be.  The golden sunlight shimmering off their glossy hides – honed by a summer feast of grazing and browsing in the reserve. The bare bones and staring eyes of winter long forgotten.

I love Sundays. There is a wonderful feeling of time being my own on a Sunday. It’s a fantasy I know but sometimes it actually works. Who knows maybe my internet connection will actually work today and I can post this note onto the Roof with the Monkeys.

Yesterday the wind was blowing all day. We are not used to wind here – it makes us edgy and want to travel (any excuse). We had visitors. They told us that there is a cyclone somewhere off the coast of Madagascar and that’s why it’s windy here.  

The lions have left us alone for too long now. I am missing them. I should leave some new cushions lying artfully around and hope to tempt them back for another pool party. So there are no new dramas of the leonine kind to report of late.  But we do have spiders. They are early this year, but suddenly there are golden orb spiders everywhere in the bush. There are also tiny web spinners all over the house.  We have grasshoppers too. The ground is exploding with them, ricocheting off the walls, and off your back as you walk.  They keep jumping in the pool and have to be rescued – repeatedly. Every year someone gets a chance to shine. So this is their turn.

For a while there we had stink bugs. Ugh. Tiny black beetles that come in to the light in the evenings. If you move them, or brush them by accident , they release a horrible acrid smell that lingers and clings for far too long. The skunks of the beetle world.  It’s a powerful trick for ones so small, and you DON’T want them to fall in your food.  I wonder if this scent could be bottled and sold as an appetite suppressant? It could work.

With the first sip of winter in the air though, the stink bugs are dwindling and losing enthusiasm for jinxing our mealtimes.

There is Man Flu in the house. I should draw a cross on the door.

and so on with sunday; sunlight and bird calls, and soft clean air. The mountains are purple blue in the distance, under downy pillows of plump white clouds; butterflies are flitting about in the waving grasses. It is peaceful, calm... for now.

ps sorry apparently adding images was too much to ask...maybe later