ZAC’S WINDOW
Moving to Glee is a little like the end of a romantic comedy. The lovers have re-united and they live happily ever after!
I am in the honeymoon phase and as with any new place or relationship, it is enchanting. Walking back down from le phone booth, a sunset so out of this world can catch my breath and leave me open-jawed in wonder. Sunrises so picturesque, it feels like I have stepped into an inspired painting. Even the flowers hold magic and gather up discarded chicken feathers to display them as angel wings.
And the night sky! Shooting stars so long, I could call a friend (if I had the signal!) and they would still have time to peer out of the window and catch the glorious sight. I think the best, surprising joy though, are the fireflies! I haven’t seen a firefly since I was a child. Mad little fairies blink blink blinking to who knows where. It’s all just magic. Not so much the harry hairy spider who jumped off the sugar bowl and onto my arm, or the one early morning when I walked barefoot to the loo and stepped on a poor unsuspecting bull frog!
And then we had an intruder of another kind at 2 in the morning.
Zac alerted us from his important post outside. I grabbed a torch and a hiking pole and as the three of us girls went outside, Zac shot into the house and ran into the bedroom to watch from the window to see how things would play out!
Portia was yowling in the chicken coop and all the other hens were grumbling. I shone the torch around, couldn’t see anything and hoped it was nothing more than a fowl family squabble.
When Zac was satisfied there had been no blood spilled, he joined us at the coop and set up an almighty howling to accompany Portia’s yowling. Faye and Rosie joined in the mad morning song, so I went back to bed!
In the morning, I let the hens out. Everything seemed to be in order. Later that day, Zac redeemed himself by pointing, with his nose of course, to a laying basket high up on the shelf. I climbed up the ladder the chickies use to get to bed, and inside the basket….a cat? I grabbed a towel and threw it over the basket. I hadn’t really thought this through as the basket was attached to the coop with a nail. I couldn’t get it down. As I was tugging away, a head popped out of the towel. A Mongoose! Not a rabid looking specimen, frothing at the mouth, but a veritable God among Mongooses. Black and grey with a magnificently quaffed tail. Monsieur looked at me with a mixture of surprise and distaste. One, I had disturbed his breakfast. Two, I am definitely the first up close and personal human he has ever seen. Monsieur didn’t like the look of me one bit. In a black and grey flash, he jumped past my head and made a mad dash for it. Rosie and Faye raced after Monsieur in hot pursuit. And Zac?
Zac ran into the bedroom to watch from the window!
Apart from the howlings and yowlings at Glee at 2 in the morning, we often hear grunts and chee chee and tee hee coming from the trees. M counted 15 monkeys one morning. I don’t have access to Dr Google, but I’m sure they eat fruit and bugs and things. Do they eat chicken? Definitely not dog, they are very shy of my lot.
In the beginning, the dogs would chase after the monkeys into the forest. Some sort of altercation must have transpired because things have changed. If the monkeys move into our valley, the dogs, following Zac’s example, run into the bedroom, sit on the bed and shake. I am glad they don’t chase them anymore. What if they were baboons?
Just prior to lockdown, I was thinking about how lucky we are not to have baboons in the area…Well!
Zac shouts most of the way to and from town, mostly at cows. But his favourite game is to hang out of his window and ‘catch’ trucks, the bigger the better. He’s hilarious. As we rounded the corner of the gravel road, even Zac was stunned into silence.
Two huge primates ambled serenely across the road. I think one smiled at me. He might have even winked! Now baboons are grey, yes? And butt-ugly, yes? These had pink faces, rather debonair looking, with black, full coats from head to….tail? I don’t remember now, just that in my mind’s eye they have taken on gargantuan proportions. They could have been really, really tall men in ape costumes doing a tabletop with arms on the ground. But with the Corona shutdown looming, there can’t possibly be an interpretative dance production in the area….?
They say these things come in threes and if I could have run to Zac’s window, I would have!
The sun was sinking quickly and I was still up at le phone booth talking to my parents. They are both in their late 80’s and I adore and miss them terribly.
I walk back down to Swanky, but I’m not really concentrating for I’m texting and walking. Something makes me look up and I see Rosie’s nose three inches from a black object. It’s fat and almost fills up one half of the road.
As I walk nearer, I see that Rosie is sniffing a slick black and orange danger signed Puff Adder, one of South Africa’s most dangerous snakes! A foreign bleat on a loop comes from my throat. I’ve been a voice over artist for well over 20 years, and never in all that time have I ever discovered this rare vocal range. I almost forget about Puff, this achievement is so astonishing. I turn and run bleating on high for Rosie to follow. Luckily, she does. Now, Puff is lying in the road on the way to my house, it’s growing darker and darker and it shows no sign of moving. We wait. The sun is nearly gone and still Puff teases us with its ownership of MY road! Rosie, Faye and Zac are delighted when I turn into the long grass to find a detour home just before night fall. The scariest bundu bash I have ever, ever done.
If the chickens set up a yowling in the night, we are not leaving Zac’s window!
APPRECIATIONS
Rosie, Faye and Zac for being the best companions I could wish for.
