A three duck hole and a bit of purple prose

The recent rain in Port Elizabeth has left me with a medium-sized relatively shallow hole in my driveway.  As this is Port Elizabeth and not Cape Town where rain water elegantly disappears, the rain also caused mud and puddles and other weather-related hazards, like a medium-sized hole filled with water in the middle of my driveway.

 

Normally I just drive around it unless my somewhat-iffy driving skills desert me and then I just drive through it. The lovely owner of the farm saw it as well and now wants to cover it up. Great landlord that he is - I first said yes and now I am sorry.  To establish the scale of the problem lovely landlord phoned me.

 

"How big is the hole,"he asked.

 

"I don't know," I answered.

 

"How can you not know?"he asked.

 

"I haven't measure it. But if you allow for a tight squeeze it will fit three fat ducks," I answered.

 

Silence followed. "What do you mean three fat ducks?" he then queried - rather hestitatingly.

 

"There are three fat ducks sort of swimming in it. They can't really swim, so they mostly just splash around in it." I am still trying to find a word for "squeezing ducky-self into medium-sized hole filled with water and simultaneously trying to get rid of other two ducks in medium sized hole as to make the swimming experience slightly more comfortable."

 

More silence. (Landlord clearly getting with the new metric system)

 

"Are they swimming bum to bum or bum to head?"

 

"Bum to head."

"Ok, got it,"he says. (I can imagine making a note to go measure hole as soon as crazy tenant left for ).

When I came home he had left a note on my door. "Three-swimming-duck-sized-hole fixed.  Will fix one-fat-pig-sized hole in fence soonest."

Love that man to bits.

Wish all my problems were that easy to sort out. My favourit nail polish is a pale purple-grey called Lucky Lavender.

In Cape Town Lucky Lavender is considered highly popular. There is something akin to the running of the bulls in better shoes if the local salon gets it in as it is fairly scarce. In Port Elizabeth some beauty guru - am still trying to figure out who the hell it was - has declared that "purple" nails look like the wearer is ill or devoid of oxygen or very cold.

 

Now "Lucky Lavender" is not purple. It is a gorgeous creamy colour that reminds one of of the lavender fields in France. It is elegant and fun and goes with almost all outfits and most of all it makes me happy. Except that because of the above beauty edict I have to jump through flaming hoops to find a bottle of Lucky Lavender in PE - and now have all my spies in Cape Town on high alert with immediate instructions to buy all availble bottles should it be spotted on the shelves.

You can imagine my surprise though when I visited a spa in Port Elizabeth for the necessary maintenance-related spa-activities when the therapist exclaimed: "Oooo I love the colour on your nails."

"Lucky Lucky Lavender," I replied.

"We must so get it for the shop," she said.

"So you must, I agreed, whipping out bottle with the right codes and everything else.

Clearly dealing with almost anything over here is like a three duck hole - you either sink, swim or get stuck between two other ducks unless your nails are a gorgeous lilac.