Its a very orinery life here in the village. I did my bi-monthly stint at the local youth club last night. Its one of the opportunities to catch up with gossip. Now that I have a little more time to shoot the breeze with neighbours and friends, some of the minutiae of village life brings me in mind of The League of Gentlemen. Not that I'm suggesting that Royston Vasey is a patch on Stow, although we do have some of our very own homegrown locals. And I'd judge our wee shop safer to venture into. They even sell stuff there, too.
It was my mum's 80th at the end of February. She is healthy, sounds happy and is well settled in Kloof. Her leg, which has been painful for sometime now, is curtailing her physical activity, and she's a little forgetful, but apart from that doesn't have any other complaints. We spoke on the weekend when she phoned to tell us about the very unexpected death of a family friend. Gawie Krause was the 50 year old son of one of my dad's oldest friends and a very successful businessman. He'd been in management consultancy type work, I think - in Dubai, in the years it was quietly transforming itself from a Middle Eastern fishing village into an economic powerhouse and before many Westerners knew of its existence. He returned home from a run on Saturday and literally dropped down dead. Probably the best way to check out, but shocking that it came without warning, and at a relatively young age.
The past month has fairly flown by and spring is in the air. I've bought a car in the interim - a good second hand Fiat Panda - and so have wheels again. I rather enjoyed the challenge of doing without one for the month I was carless. Shopping and appointments were planned with military precision; owing to the high cost of public transport locally and my physical limitations. That said, with petrol costing £1.05+ per litre, I'm not easily pursuaded to make unnecessary car journeys in any event. Callan very thoughtfully delayed her homeward bus journeys on shopping days and helped me lug our shopping bags of "messages" between shops, bus stops and home. Phil, our household's fearless and very experienced public transportation-ist, kept me right with bus protocol. He also pretended not to be with me on a few occasions when I negotiated keener bus fares. Whilst my maxim is if you don't ask you don't get, and I do love a bargain, I think he views it as confrontational. Or "making a fuss". Very un-British.
Phil's adjusted well to work after his time in pasture and is enjoying being a Samsung tech support bod. The vast majority of the calls are to do with widescreen tellies. And elderly folk befuddled by all the buttons on the remote and telly's menu. Who can blame them? It used to be that one pressed a button and one was entertained. No longer ... Nevermind, a "factory reset" is to telly what "alt-ctrl-delete" is to computers. Although the timing, sequence and execution of buttons needing pushed in quick succession challenges even the most dextrous. His patience and empathy seem to result in success most of the time, and this gives him a sense of satisfaction when dealing with frustrated callers. He says patience is somewhat lacking in the younger agents, and he's concluded this comes with maturity.
Now that spring is springing, and after a quiet period, we're again inundated with Couchsurfing requests. We were to have hosted a woman from Norwich just after the Easter weekend. She's had to curtail her adventuring to Scotland though, due to an ankle injury, so we've taken a raincheck. Our first lot of visitors is a family of 4 Americans (who are also Couchsurf virgins, so they're likely feel a little awkward first time round) and then a repeat visit from a couchsurfer-turned-friend - who stayed with us last year with her sister. She's bringing her eldest son with on his maiden international outing, and is really looking forward to introducing him to the UK. As we're unlikely to get a holiday abroad this year, the hosting in some way compensates by bringing the world to 7 Mill Court.
My ex-colleagues sent me the most thoughtful goodbye email, accompanied by a very generous gift voucher from Amazon (the internet vendor of just about any- and everything, but which pioneered online booksales in the heady days of the Dotcom boom), which encouraged me to fulfil my "wishlist". If you're familiar with Amazon you'll know this is a very useful feature which allows you to keep a note of books which you don't intend to necessarily buy. Or not immediately anyway. Mine had been populated with a long list of books, some more than a year ago. Now, any bookophile will know the extreme self discipline which must be exercised to prevent onesself from just checking them all out using Amazon's 1-click, and I was impressed by my prudence and self control. Having initially almost dismissed the email as spam and inadvertently deleted it, I rapidly popped a good 3/4 of the wishlist in the checkout basket. They arrived last week, and will be voraciously consumed at leisure.
It was sad to hear about the sudden death of Anthony Minghella yesterday. I don't know if you are aware of the Alexander McCall Smith series of No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency novels. Minghella had bought the film rights and made the first one into a feature, which will be screened on BBC this weekend. The lead role is played by Jill Scott, an American soul singer, and it was shot in Botswana. If you've not yet read any of the books, I can highly recommend them as an alternative perspective on an African theme - optimistic, gentle, hopeful - refreshing compared to the usual gloomy portrayal. His writing style is beautiful, they are truly a joy to read. I wonder what will happen with the next 13 episodes which the Beeb and HBO commissioned Minghella and Richard Curtis to produce?
Callan returned home from school yesterday, having committed herself to the five fifth year subjects she'll be studying. This follows a term of intensive specialist advice and counselling to guide the students towards deciding on a career post school. She has made some unwise academic decisions recently and her attitude borders on slacker at the moment - due in part to high academic grades. Whilst its perfectly acceptable to coast through life, one is very unlikely to achieve one's potential. She has some, and then some ... potential, that is, just waiting to be realised. Throughout it all, and much to her consternation I've refused to co-erce her into anything other than considering options, as I think it is vital that she take responsibility for her choices and understands the consequences of the decisions she's made. Its been a rather trying time, but I'm hopeful we're over this hump. This being teenage-hood the next one won't be far off. Ah, nostalgia kicks in ... how I long to know so much again.
My career break days have been constructively filled and I'm finding them enormously fulfilling. My portfolio of skills also now extends to amateur plumbing, which I'll away to in a bit, as one of the showers needs some maintenance. (I should stress that amateur, rather than the plumbing, is the operative word.) But I'll have a go at most things. I draw the line at tinkering with electricity though. My days consist of dog walking, contemplating, socialising, creatively food conjuring, the odd bit of housework and then attending to the plethora of other important stuff which just has to be done. Its go-go-go and the days fairly fly by. I've even started getting up an hour earlier to fit more of life in, as morning is the time of day I function best at. There are some interviews pending in the next two weeks for some interesting part time work.
Right, I'm off to hone the plumbing skills.
Wednesday, 19 March 2008
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