Neighbours and wine

Everybody needs good neighbours

This afternoon, I was ready to go out for a walk having had a soaking bath, I expected the weather to have improved. When I stepped out, it was wet and drizzling, not wishing to run the gauntlet of inclement weather, I returned indoors to watch old episodes for Columbo.

In aid of good neighbourliness and social interaction, I have met with my neighbours in the village complex courtyard for drinks, for about 6 weekends. Wine and port, biscuits and cheese, a lot of conversation, some banter, and laughs.

Today, we met indoors, a table set up in our shared corridor and two glasses of port or rather the South African variant, Cape Ruby, later, I was not tipsy, but I had enough to make me feel a bit sleepy in the head.

Sometimes, you wonder what you need to do in a day to make it eventful and worthwhile, then you realise, it does not really matter if you make the best of the moments and cherish the company you have. For that alone, we are grateful, and we can chalk it down as a fulfilling weekend.

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Beyond dwelling to possibly revelling

Things are no more the same

There are so many things two months of total lockdown have changed in our lives and I had already put myself into a kind of seclusion for two weeks already whilst the government tried to figure out how best balance their public relations against essential public health.

The many things I have missed range through socialising, human interaction, travel, eating out and basics of human touch, from handshakes, hugs, kissing, conversations with strangers and dare we say copulation, though I will have to wait a lot longer to experience the emotionally rewarding qualities of that with my beau.

Last night, my neighbour slipped a note under my door asking if I would like to meet up in our courtyard for drinks. We had over the last three months had conversations in the secluded long corridor of our apartment wing with the suggestion we have drinks together.

Our little neighbourly drinks

The weather permitting today having been quite dull for most of the day with a slight chill, it was convenient for us to meet in the courtyard, their ground floor veranda looking out onto the meeting place. She brought the wine; I brought the chocolates from Groot Constantia and the four of us conversed for just over 2 hours.

That was my first social event in months, and we think we’ll do it again next Sunday. Whilst we sat there, other occupants of the village walked by, some stopping for conversations beyond the greetings. There was one who had lived there for 26 years and we were just meeting for the first time, I having spent over 6 years in the village.

More social beings than apartment dwellers

We have a large village of 5 apartment blocks, but hardly a community that knows each other. I cannot identify more than 7 people I share this village with. This is the kind of society I live in. We were inadvertently social distancing long before it became a requirement for our safety, health, and wellbeing. We have settled into being just apartment dwellers when there is more that unites us in this situation.

What needs to change in our psyche to create more neighbourly acquaintances, I cannot say, but I have always been proactive in know my immediate neighbours. It is very likely that as we adjust to the changes that would greet the new world of existence, some adjustments would come to give the village less of occupancy of apartments and more of there being lived in by people.

Our little courtyard gathering.

Opening the mouth of the father - Part 5

The fourth part of this series Opening the mouth of the Father – Part 4

This was a hard knock

Yes, we were Knocking on the door, at the gates of Nineveh of Nebuchadnezzar the Great, the doors as imposing as if impossible to open, needing 40 horses to turn the hinges, the entrance to a fortress where if we had the wrong password we would be bone meal to Cerberus the “friendly” 3-headed dog whose snarls made you quake in your boots.

With ears like that of cat burglar safe breaker we heard each tumbler drop as we deciphered to code to enter the safe, to retrieve from safe-keeping our bride. As if we were soaring to the mile high club, at 25,000 feet we got a canary but not ours, time was fast ticking away as we reached 30,000 feet and were presented with a cuckoo, not very funny, not amused, let’s play on.

An eagle flew by with its prey in its claws at 35,000 feet, if we were to go any higher, we might well reach for the stars; our bright and radiant star, the beauty came out of the highest clouds into glory at 39,000 feet at which point the quip was asking the pilot if we had enough fuel to reach our destination – there was still more to do in this ceremony, but I already had my bride beside me, if only I could now elope.

My clothes or rags on parade

Indeed, bale out we must in parachutes made from all the material purchased to make my in-laws look good for their daughter’s marriage, they even had change-ins to boot.

This list was making me listless as the MC was making a mockery of the whole proceedings and people cooed, wowed, singing the praises of the in-laws all bedecked in colours and instructions that almost drove us to distraction just weeks before – Just it was two traditional dresses for the parents designed to their tastes – that had to be right or nothing will be bright.

Do fish drink at all?

Lest I forgot the father’s mouth opened more to the tipple of fine whisky and gin than to the letting go of his prized goose. Whisky and gin can do much to a man and even I was about to be featured in a drunken orgy of negotiating the bride price as head rocked from side to side with the hat I wrought and the cane landing with thuds on the ground, even that I bought – the list, remember, it was in the list too.

Ah! The bride price, no sale price said the quip as he noted I had no cows nor yams as tradition would have dictated, the cows had been slaughtered for meat and stew, the yams pounded to a pulp – drinks would suffice, and drinks it would be.

Before I could drown away my sorrows, that small business of drinks had to be sorted and this ephemeral source of oral pleasure that had me bedwetting as a kid, discomfited the incontinent, heaped disgrace on the inebriated and had you visit the lavatory in hours for disposal was part of the bidding price.

Pour it all out

I will drink to that said the quip at which point pouring a mug of lager over his head would have been the most pleasurable thing to do, I could not get disillusioned, but someone is taking the piss.

Presentations started, the drinks were like I had conducted a smuggler’s day trip to Calais with a lorry, I was afraid we were going to leave behind us alcoholics and worse.

Whiskies and gins we presented by the carton and 3 in all, single malt scotch but not too expensive, then 6 cartons of wine, the preferred lager was Star so we had 4 cartons of those and Guinness of the large bottled variety came in 5 cartons.

The malt drink of choice was Maltina in 10 crates of 24 bottles each and soft drinks which we call minerals were offered in 15 crates, other fruit drinks in 9 cartons.

Now that we had gotten thus far in the programme and that was just part of the bride price.

To be continued...