By Oxcart To California and Other Tall Tales

I am in bed with a cold. I have hosted this particular virus for over a week, and am sick of it.  Of course, I am jolly lucky to have the opportunity to stay in bed, but what's to be done with it?

Play with my new iphone. Curiously, when it comes to technology, inheritance laws go into reverse.  This slick, black piece of wizardry belonged to my youngest daughter, Hannah, who in keeping with an old family tradition, handed down her old phone to her father when she upgraded.  Her father couldn't get his head round it, so I blagged it off him (another old family tradition) and after removing chess, rail, and news apps, thoughtfully uploaded by H, I have made it my own.  So, from my bed, I have ordered groceries, brushed up my Spanish (on habla espanol... pero no mucho) composed three fifths of a poem, started a short story, watched Earthflight on iplayer and listened to an audiobook entitled,'By Oxcart To California'. Five minutes into it, and you know why it's free, but as a student of American history, it had its charms.

I recall a story, which could be true, told by our driver en route from Fairbanks, Alaska, to the nearest bit of The Arctic Circle with a 'You Are Here' plaque for tourists.  I am British, brought up without central heating, raised to tough it out, but I am wiser than I look, and would not willingly submit to an Alaskan winter. So, the tale goes, there was this old-timer, who'd logged and panned and hunted since the '50's (1950's) and would, come autumn, take up his post atop his shack, and shoot a moose that he'd then butcher and store for winter sustenance.  Then one Christmas, a year or so ago, his grandson visited with his Gameboy.  Gramps takes to this Gameboy like a duck to water, and as his family was about to leave, says, 'I've had it with this life, for God's sake, get me out of here.'  He now resides in 'Dunhunting' a Seniors facility in downtown Fairbanks.

This is as it was told to me, as true as that.

Finally, sometime around noon, the iphone began to pall, and I reached for my laptop. Scrolling down the list of bookmarks, I discovered this blog. Refusing to worry about the last time I'd made an entry, I started to idle with blogspot, punching the 'Next Blog' tag hundreds of times. Well, what an insight into the human condition! Babies, rock bands, polemicists, recipes, quiltmakers, ancestry-seekers and a run of much the same in Portuguese.  I amused myself for hours.  That the Atlantan Freemans started out as Toothaks was the most memorable piece of stuff (evidently, as it's the only bit I remember), but I did find a few interesting botanical blogs to which I hope to return.

Happy New Year!

First things first - Rosie called me today to ask me where
blue and red Pingu were (DVD's) AND that she's now wearing 
big girl knickers!  WOW!! Conversation with a two year 
old, who is mastering the art at an amazing rate, is sheer 
joy - particularly to grandma!


Good to talk to Ray yesterday. Now speeding out of Omaha, 
Nebraska on his way to Chicago, Illinois he has spent two 
days with John Onumbu and his family. We met John, a HUGE 
Nigerian student, hot from Port Harcort, in September 
1980.  He needed digs, and we, down to one income with a 
new baby to care for, needed his rent! 


John filled our small house with life and colour. I 
remember especially the lime-green shirt with a peacock 
motif that he wore on arrival. I also remember realising 
at once what a mistake it was to cook spaghetti for his 
first meal with us!  John was kindly, gracious and 
immense. He quickly became part of our family - watching 
in fascination as Ray cleaned house, changed baby and did 
the washing. I believe I managed to persuade him that it 
was NOT unmanly to do such things.  My powers of 
persuasion must have been sufficient, for he has stayed 
married to his American wife Linda for more than twenty 
years!


With John began a love affair with Africa that was to 
bring about many changes in my life decades later.


Anywhere In The World, This Is Your Home


Technically, my first trip to Africa was the belly dancing 
escapade across Sinai, but the Bedhouin who escorted us 
kept, with very good reason, themselves to themselves, so 
I feel no particular attachment to the place.  (Well apart 
from the awesome day spent on Mt Sinai. I found a cleft in 
a rock and sat there imagining Moses petitioning God to 
allow him to see His face...See Exodus 33 v 22 )  We were 
privilidged to meet their families on one occasion.  The 
wives and children must have been utterly bemused at the 
strange customs of these white women; nevertheless they 
taught us one of their dances and sold us beads...


I became Nomantombi Mlombile's adopted daughter in August 
2002.  I was a Global Teacher, funded by the UK Gov't 
Millenium Commission to go to the village of Lower Kroza 
(Eastern Cape, RSA)to help the staff of the 
school 'implement the School Development Plan' - a task 
which was the most surreal enterprise I have ever 
undertaken. Nomantombi, the elderly widow of an Archdeacon 
in the Anglican Church, and owner of the most secure Kraal 
in the village, had been persuaded to host me.


I will describe a typical day on the Kraal on another 
occasion, for now I want to record here my love for and 
gratitude to this remarkable woman.


I had noticed that she regularly took meals into the 
rondavel (my room was in a large five bedroomed 'flat 
house' ie not round... )One day she told me the story of 
the man in the rondavel, 'the son of my oldest brother' - 
he was dying of AIDS and he needed to go to the hospital 
in Kokstaad. I insisted she take 100 Rand for a private 
taxi (about £10 then) so that she could visit him. Within 
a week, he had died.  I was enormously impressed by her 
courage; South Africa was in denial then about the AIDS 
epidemic because of the shame attached to the disease. 
Even to the extent that her nephew's death certificate 
listed, 'natural causes' as the reason for his death.


For ten pounds, I bought the loyalty and love of 
Nontomole's entire family.  Her sons and daughters are 
professional people - teachers, administrators a doctor 
and an airline pilot, but they have welcomed and treated 
me and my family with great warmth.  On the last day of my 
assignment, Mama took me round the entire kraal, walking 
me through every room in every house and said, 'Wherever 
you are, anywhere in the world, this is your home.'

This Is The Life

I am typing this sitting on the swing seat in my garden. It's 70ft by 35ft (garden, not swing)_- which the mathematician in the partnership informs me is a golden rectangle, and I can quite believe it.

If memorial garden were not such a sad concept, I'd call my  garden that, for everyone I care for is present here, as are many of the places I have visited over the years. My mother, who's seven year anniversay falls today, loved sweet peas - they are aiming for the trellis at the sunny side of the shed.  My marriage to Ray is commemorated in the violets and primroses which are abundant here.  Thirty eight ago they were the posy I carried and were wreathed into my hair.

The evening primroses are the descendants of an ancestor grown from a packet of mixed wild flowers I bought at the Post Office in Talkeetna, Alaska. The iaxias, pineapple lilies and osteospernums redolant of South Africa and the beautiful white dogwood and the columbines take me back to the Pacific Northwest... I have one rose - a double-hearted white one that fades to yellow called 'The Swan', planted in November 2001, which takes me immediately to Stratford and fond memories of a dear friend -  far away now, with whom I enjoyed happy
hours in the company of the Bard.

Two Gentlemen of Verona - An Adventure in !Xhosa

It  was a privilege to escort our African friends to 'The Swan' theatre, Stratford for TGoV.  It was going to be a really exciting event for all of us - but especially for Nomvuzo who taught Shakespeare at the Senior Secondary School in Port St John's on the Wild Coast, but had never
seen a performance - anywhere.To say that our party stood out from the crowd is an understatement to say the least. Not only were our guests African, but Nomvuzo and Lindelwa
wore tribal dress. (I could have worn mine too, but it wasn't my night.)

The adventure began in the theatre lobby.  Coats deposited by theatre-goers were hanging on a rack and Landilesa had an idea they might be for sale.  He went and asked an attendant behind the desk, who obviously misheard the question and replied, 'Yes';  Just picture it, a black man
going through the furs and high quality woollens (in search of price tags as it happens).  We English are so polite.  No one said a word, but the horror on the faces of some of those present was really quite funny.  I nudged Nomvuzo who was closest to me and whispered to her,
urgently.  I now know what !Xhosa for, 'If you don't stop doing that you'll get arrested.' sounds like.
Can you imagine what it would be like to be experiencing live theatre -and the RSC at that -for the very first time?  Our friends were utterly spellbound.  They hung over the balcony and watched entranced. Audible cries of 'Yo, yo, yo ...' could be heard as the plot warmed up.

The audience were delighted ( I feared the opposite...) and it was soon evident that the actors were playing to one particular part of the gallery.

And What's This About Talkeetna

I defy anyone to find a weirder festival anywhere in the world than the Talkeetna Moose Dropping Festival.  It's true.  I have the tee-shirt. I believe I may even have a preserved moose-dropping somewhere too.

Alaskans used to make a living in two ways - fur-trapping in the winter and gold-panning in the summer.  I suspect they still do. The town has a wonderful Museum in the Little Red School-house.  You can wander in, buy the Moose-dropping Festival tee-shirt in a range of colours and inspect the fur- trapping and gold-panning paraphenalia of bygone days. Then for a couple of dollars more you can buy a map of the town with the preserved frontier cabins circled for you.

Each one made of logs with a bed, a quilt, a stove a candle and a wash stand. And on the walls, pin-ups of Betty Grable, Lana turner and Marylyn Monroe;  The frontier in Alaska was alive and well in the 1950's.
The gardens were still extant too.  I vividly remember a strawberry patch with a sign that read,'Please eat the strawberries and pull a few weeds' (No, I'm not making it up - go and take a look:



Alaska is still a frontier state to some degree.  The Anchorage Times has lifestyle and cookery sections just like the London variety - but the front page still carries tales of bar-room brawls and close encounters with bears. I will recall the story of my encounter with a bear on Mt
Eklutna when I have ceased to have nightmares about it.Www.talkeetnahistoricalsociety.org