A Thunderstruck Guardian Angel

At about 1 am this morning I was woken up by what some people called a spectacular thunderstorm.

I had a few more descriptive four letter words for it. I discussed the situation with the frog, the geese, the mongoose, the ducks, the crazy-little-window-pecking-bird and the swallows this morning and they all agree. Thunderstorms are terrible things. If we were a democracy of 10 we would have outlawed it.

I am unapologetic about my obsession with weather. Despite living in Port Elizabeth, mostly because I really am too lazy to move and I REALLY love my house, I remain a true Capetonian at heart hence the obession with weather - and an unabashed fear for thunder and lightning.  Of the millions of things I hated about living in Johannesburg thunderstorms featured in the top 5.

So when the weather woke me up at 1 am last night, I wasn't happy.

To add to my unhappiness in general I received a flirty sms from Love Interest who, in his defence, is clearly not aware of my hatred of thunder and thought it an appropriate time for messages about being awake in the middle of the night. (Should stop adding more and more incidents to my flirting failure list).

First I looked in on the frog who likes to jump around in the garage at night. Have given up on evicting frog and have now named him Arnie. I have started putting down a 5 litre container of water for him as I fear that his stubborn refusal to leave might kill him and at night he can be observed happily swimming in it and then jumping around the garage. Frog was crouching down at the back of the washing machine where he no doubt was assembling his significant arms cache to fight the unknown enemy launching an arial assault.

Found  mongoose in a corner on the stoep. Looking longingly at me standing by the sliding door.

"You can't come in," I said. "You might have rabies."

Mongoose looked offended. I would be too but I couldn't think of another excuse and wasn't going to add to my weather woes by having a half-wild mongoose in my house.

I wasn't going to wake up anybody else - thought I would check on them in the morning.

When 6 am came and went without the normal Egyptian goose-induced riot on my roof, I became worried. Walked outside. Found the geese sitting on the low branches of the pine tree.

"Rough night?" I asked. They looked at me a little bedraggled.

"The thunder! I know!" I exclaimed. The geese were quiet. "O come on,"I coaxed. "It is no worse than the time that the dearly departed Sydney lost his leg." (Sydney is dead now, so maybe it wasn't the best time to bring it up).

The ducks, who seemed to like the fact that there is now a slightly bigger than a three-duck-hole in my drive way waggled past to go for an early morning swim.

"Well good morning," I say. "Glad to see you all survived and we don't have fried duck this morning."

The ducks looked at me funny. The geese looked appalled.

"I wasn't thinking of eating any of you," I said.  Then remembered I decided to stop making apologies.  

"You clearly lost your sense of humour," I say to the geese. The ducks at this stage were happily settling into what is, by my measurement, the new five duck hole - they didn't appear to need more cheering up.

The swallows, sadly, were nowhere to be seen. Guess last night might have been one thunderbolt too far for them. First they had to deal with losing the second story of their house (even though I explained that one of them did an appalling job on the construction) Next they violently rejected my efforts to glue their nest together and proceeded to destroy it - to the mongoose's great distress as he became quite fond of sniffing it.

Put out food for everybody though hoping it will revive the spirits.

Then the crazy-little-window-pecking-bird appeared starting, as usual his incessant irritating pecking at every single window in the house. I have a friend who swears that my guardian angel is a crazy-little-window-pecking-bird but really, if he was, I will ask Arnie the frog to shoot him in the knees. Surely mine is slightly more glamorous - however I doubt if you would find one more resilient as in our thunderstruck little corner of the world it was the only small ray of normality we' ve seen for hours.

Wool shop angst

Am trying my best to wrap up projects for the year including my beautiful crocheted blanket.

Let me just pause to point out here that I am using the word "beautiful" to substitute a litany of swear words I use to describe this blanket but am trying to be the epitome of zen now that I have 364 days before 40.

I saw a picture of the blanket in a magazine. After two glasses of wine I thought: "I can do this." Uncharacteristically I didn't start off in a rush and realised halfway that I will need double the IQ, tripple the charm and about four times the dexterity to finish it. I read the pattern. I thought it sounded easy. I went to buy a conservative amount of cotton yarn for it. It all started so well...

When I ran out of wool I was quite proud of me - went back to the wool shop - regular readers will remember this as the hotbed of octagenarian gossip, discussions about love, the occassional ladylike scuffle over 100% cotton yarn and the Sewende Laan like dramas over men with their own hips.

So I went back to the wool shop for another conservative amount of cotton yarn. The lady at the counter looked at me curiously. "Did you underestimate the amount of yarn you will need?"she asks peering over her glasses. "Yes," I said. "Give me the pattern that I can work out how much you will still need," she kindly offered.

An offer, I couldn't take up as I made, what seemed to be a mortifying mistake, no knowing how many little blocks I had done. "Not nearly enough," it turns out is not the correct answer.

So, to be on the safe side, I thought I added a few more skeins of yarn and off I went happily thinking I will finish my project.

By the third time I had to go back for more wool, I was hearing James Bond music in my mind, walking into the store with my sunglasses on buying a few other colours of yarn just to throw the judgmental yarn-mistress off my tracks. It didn't work.

"What!" she exclaimed. "You still not done? Are you crocheting a tent?"

Normally I would have mumbled something here about having a full time job, needing to go to gym as to support the chocolate habit, must at least attempt a social life, having a book that needs editing, have four geese that needs regular reprimanding, a crazy bird who must be fed and thanked for pecking at every window of the house, a lovely mongoose who needs apples and conversation and having recently conquered insomnia so now not crocheting at 3 am in the morning anymore. The new zen me with less than 365 days to go to 40 however does not make excuses anymore, so I just smiled. I want to add that I wish I was crocheting a tent at this stage as my efforts still only managed to produce what can only be described as a small blanket.

Unfortunately this spurred her on to more condemnation. "Please bring me the pattern that I can work out how much yarn you need! And go count how many blocks you have done!"

By the fourth time that I needed wool, I just gave up. Told my one 75 year old friend I will buy her a chocolate milkshake  if she will go buy yarn for me. She did it beautifully.

Bribery and corruption clearly is the only way to go.