Unintended insult

Twenty years ago in the UK, the putsch by the anti smokers began in real ernest. I remember it well. Smokers were abused without any consideration, being treated like some kind of vermin to be exterminated at all costs.

We had arrived from Africa where no such ideology existed, still to be imported from the First World. So it was a shock to find such a natural habit as smoking a cigarette was inscribed in the minds of people in the UK by the book of dogma and hate of Tobacco Control.

Being an alcoholic whose last drink was on November 20th 1981, I noticed how very reliant on booze the Brits were. Booze ok, smoking not ok.

So one day, during the last tranquil days before the anti smoking armageddon, I was sitting at my desk in our shop feeling happy, doing the books, with a cigarette in the ashtray, the plume of its silver smoke rising peacefully towards the ceiling.

A woman came in. She marched up to my desk and said aggressively,

“You shouldn’t do that!” indicating my cigarette in the ashtray.

Remembering my own past, and my release from the demon booze, and without actually looking up, I flashed back,

“Well at least I don’t drink.”

There was a gasp. I looked up at the woman. She had blushed a deep red. Flumoxed is not the right word. She swung around and marched out of our shop, never to be seen again.

Under the hosepipe

It’s been so hot here in the UK. People ask us if we miss the heat. No, we bloody dont!

I have told the story here about how my respected author and lecturer mother used to don her antique bathing costume and sit in the shade of her orange tree under the hosepipe to get cool on a hot African day.

Did I warn you that dogs ‘catching’ water from the hose as they play about on a hot day can drown? People don’t know that.  Vets do.

But I don’t think I told you the story of how we once had a real traditional English Christmas under a hosepipe.

English people, then, did English things in Africa. Like wearing serge gym tunics with neck ties for girls and shirts, ties and long trousers for boys at school, in the heat. I once taught at a very posh school where the headmistress tannoyed the girls that they would be allowed to unbutton the top shirt button and loosten their ties because the day was hot.

Christmas was very British for us. Roast turkey, and roast potatoes, all the sauces and trimmings, and, of course Brussel sprouts and a glazed Ham. The final flourish was a blazing pudding.

All this in the middle of an African summer.

One particularly hot summer, when we lived in the only single story house we ever had, we trained hosepipes over the roof and the front walls on Christmas day.

We celebrated Christmas under hosepipes until we could afford airconditioning.

Hot? Hell yes!

The Furlongs have tried closing windows early, and opening them late. We are hot.

Today we closed blinds AND windows early. It’s a test. Yesterday we left everything open and we cooked!

So we are in a darkened house with the fan blowing over ice. On the telly, we have the sound of pouring rain. I feel cooler already.

Today will be better than yesterday

I hope….

We never walked alone

Today is our Wedding anniversary.

Mr Furlong and I have been married forty five years.

Mr Furlong has made a most excellent companion.

He took on a women already having three children and treated them as his own.

He stood by me as I struggled with alcoholism.

He nursed me through a post partum stroke that handicapped me. He brushed my hair, put on my earrings, helped me dress, walk, bath, eat.

He stuck to me loyally as five children grew up and we dealt with all the problems of having little money, and large expenses.

We never once played away, or suspected each other of it.

We fought. We sulked. We got hurt. We annoyed each other. We stuck it out.

Mr Furlong is my best friend, and I am his.

Thank you Mr Furlong, we never had to walk it alone.

Love,

Mrs Furlong

Umona phansi

I have not been in Africa for twenty something years. So what do I know about what is happening now? But half of our family live there. Something horrible is happening to them in Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa.

There is shop looting and rioting all around them in commercial areas. It has continued unabated for days, co-ordinated to a ‘plan’. There are a few overwhelmed police hopelessly standing around who have run out of ammo – rubber or otherwise. Eventually after a very long delay a small army presence has pitched up. But the looting waves are still destroying all in their path like locust swarms, too huge to control.

Shops and shopping centres, warehouses and city and town centres have been plundered. There is nothing left in them. I am too fearful to even look at the news today which has come in a sunami over our WhatsApp media of choice.

I can completely understand how some people, with basic education can be manipulated to loot. Commerce looks rich. Simply take the goods it sells. It is faceless, entitled, wealthy. How could it own so much in the face of poverty? The shops are full of food, furniture, clothes, cars, white goods, electronics. The owners must be rich. They have desireable things that should be shared. Ubuntu.

I can understand how some can be incited to looting. It is a different generation now than the time when I taught ‘my men.’ But a question I was often asked was why should people pay for water when the rivers were free, or why should they pay for electricity when a fire made it. These things were free at home in the countryside where their wives and kraals were. ‘My men’ had many wives and very many children. ‘My men’ are the fathers of middle aged children now, and many many grandchildren. They are the ordinary people living in the townships probably, or if they have been lucky, they still live in the countryside where basic needs are free.

So I believe the violence is being incited from high up. It is a political manoevre. Ordinary people, lacking understanding of how the wheels of commerce turn, are being fomented by a few to crumble their own infrastructures. They are taking from the rich who steal from them. They are destroying their own economy. And the government is allowing it.

Today, I think the looters must be tired. I hope they are. Plundering is hard work. Everyone is exhausted.

And the defenders of property, those who own it, of all races, have miraculously formed themselves into quasi military units in a civilian attempt to protect lives and property. Those men haven’t slept for days. They also need a break!

I will now see what the news is of today…

I only know one thing for sure, last night Ramaphosa slept better than the people in Kwa Zulu Natal did.

Tomorrow HE will have food.

Handicapped or disabled?

Goodness knows why us handicapped people now have to call ourselves ‘disabled’ instead of handicapped.

What was wrong with the word handicapped, I ask you?

Disabled implies I am less able than abled people. It’s really discriminatory. We can mostly do everything abled people can do, but maybe, we do it differently, like walk slower, use a wheelchair, speak funnily, have one leg or hand, eye or foot. I refuse to be disabled!

We are handicapped. Doing stuff for us, is harder than for people who are more common human beings. Our lives are just like a horse race where some horses are weighted to control the race. The handicapped horse is no worse nor better than any other horse, his performance has been capped by the weight he carries.

Sometimes, things are very difficult for me to do. I might have to ask for help. At those times I never think I’m ‘disabled’. I think of myself as being like a horse in the race of life. I just have been given a life-weight that makes it more difficult for me than the other horses around me. They have different problems.

My achievements are therefore more amazing than if I had lived my life without my handicap. I seldom moan. I do not feel a victim. I do not expect everyone else to grovel to my patheticness, nor offer me special favours. I have accepted my life-weight. My inner ‘ME’ has not been soured. Shit happens to everyone, in lesser or greater dollops.

I have collected up many brownie points for my next life, and facilitated others, all those who have helped me, especially Mr Furlong, to do the same!

Disabled? POOH!

Warriors

The Furlong’s are not a sporty family. Being genetically very fair, with a red-head gene, running anywhere for more than two seconds results in flushed red faces and bulging eyes. It is such an ugly sight that, as children, one decides not to go the sport route ever. My school life consisted in avoiding all sport, period.

Last night’s football game was awesome to watch. How can any human being run for so long and remain upright? Or in control of their minds? Or even aware of other players around them? I am glad England won. I hope they win the whole jolly lot. They are modern warriors.

Last night Mr Furlong and I remembered our African roots. Chaka’s warriors were legendary. They were reported to be able to run all day without stopping, their speed being one reason for their blitzkrieg. The other was their fighting tactic of encircling the enemy and constricting them to their death. The Mfekane was a terrible thing. It rearranged the whole of Southern Africa.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mfecane

Ex president Zuma of South Africa (a Zulu) has fomented a few old Zulu warriors to arise. They have collected at his homestead in Nkandla. Of course they look nothing like their forebears as most of them have beer bellies and look very unfit. They also could not run for a whole soccer match without collapsing in a puddle of grease and cow hides. But they look scary just the same and could cause trouble. Its nothing to be sneered at. The pride of tribe runs in every vein, even The Furlongs!