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April
13
Helen
is pregnant and going to present me with a third grandchild. Never
expected to be so excited about such news - but I am. Unlike Helen
and Mike who at first were thoroughly taken aback, if not depressed.
Now they appreciate how magic it will be - especially when they are
in their 50s and 60s.
As
I write I can see, beyond the balcony, a pack of seals hunting fish.
Too many seals to be able to count them - 50 say? They were there
yesterday in the evening glow, foaming about while their babies
frolicked and leapt from the sea, when a school of porpoises almost
cut through them.. No friction between the two groups it seems. But
surely they were hunting the same fish?
Have
spent days researching the 1890s - perhaps the best-recorded era in
our history; a time when everyone who was literate seemed to spend
their energy writing notes, diaries and letters in the absence of
computer games, intangible e-mail, videos and transitory television.
On Sunday, however, I took a break and we walked the west end of the
mountain contour path with Pam and Ernlie Day. I expected it to be
a predictable and somewhat dreary stroll, for one could see the whole
sweep of the route, but it turned out to be what Ernlie called a
sensory overload.
Pam pointed out to us one species of fynbos after the other. The
groups of species changed almost every hundred yards, so that by the
time Ernlie and I were halfway on our longer hike, we could absord no
more. By then we had seen half hillsides of wa-boom protea;
acres of pink ericas, and countless flowerinbg bushes on all sides.
I finally identified the blombossies, with their strong
honey-like fragrance, as meticalis (check), and the
tight-foliated miniature towers with blossoms on their tips as
penniasis (but I need to check again). The other thousand
species will have to wait until I can absorb them.
Mist,
preceding the hot days, has kept the coast relatively cool and
relatively green. A trip to Caledon today, however, showed how hot
and dry it is in the valleys hidden from the sea by the first line of
hills.. The dead wheatlands are baked brown, where they have not
been blackened by fire. Fires burn in the undulating grainlands on
either side of the road; the air grey with smoke and rasping on the
throat. When we got back, I found francolin perched on the doorpost
next door, feeding beside a lush green lawn. Arum lilies are
springing up both inside and outside our front garden - but we are
warned that porcupines will "come
in the night and eat the whole lot. . . and all the flower bulbs
they can find. That's
why you have bricks under your gate; so the porcupines cannot dig
their way under". This
is the wisdom of the gardener next door. He also says: "Whales
are the best weather forecasters. When they jump and play, it will
be a fine day. When only their tails stick out of the sea, the wind
will blow. Wait and see."
He adds with some disdain., "Those
yellow flowers you are looking after next the path outside your gate
- those are weeds." |
