Fidler in the Hood: Though April showers may come your way
With no one being hatched, matched or despatched and April showers still coming our way and a lull in the social calendar, what is a scribe to do?
HELLO one and all. Another week of life in the fast lane, but this time your scribe needs some help please. The weekly insert is really for the community to tell what’s happening in the neighbourhood. If it’s a case of ‘nothing happens round here’, well, that’s okay – no news is good news.
ALSO READ : Fidler in the Hood: There’s a ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ of Uvongo
The rest of the country can have its full dose of political in-fighting whilst South Coasters just get on with their pleasant way of life, watching the outside world go by.
April Fools’ Day
With no one being hatched, matched or despatched and April showers still coming our way and a lull in the social calendar, what is a scribe to do? It’s anniversary time here – exactly 54 years since arriving in God’s own country after leaving the UK on April 1, 1965: the date should have been a clue for being the original April fool. Missing the plane continuing its flight from Las Palmas, Canary Islands, to Johannesburg, your scribe eventually arrived in RSA on April 4 after chasing a girl out here. The downside was being dumped a short while afterwards and the upside, of course, has been a lifetime of adventure in Africa. In retrospect, it has been one helluva roller-coaster ride.
Easter celebration
Last Thursday, ‘Shafts’ (Self-Help Association for the Seniors) held their annual Easter champagne breakfast and get-together and the CO has been badgering for us to go along to Shafts for some time.
Made to feel welcome with invitations to join and offers of pancakes, bacon-and-egg butties, champagne and orange juice (Buck’s Fizz?) and the use of ‘skottels’ – all free – our first reaction was incredulity.
But then, it’s typical of life down here amongst the sheltering palms – friendly, welcoming folk who make you feel at home right from the start.
Yorkshire lad
There was good crowd in attendance and many members, like us, had left the misty British Isles for South Africa and all it had to offer: a place in the sun, and a way of life which one could never have in not-so-jolly UK. Your scribe asked one ‘northern’ man why he came out, or why he was still here, and he pointed to the blue sky with his braai fork. “Because of this, and that.” Meaning a braai by the beach, sun in the sky and great way of life. Mind you, he was ‘a bit odd’: from Leeds, Yorkshire and doesn’t like football! Now that is odd. He does, however, like Pontefract cakes. It takes all sorts, even if they are liquorice all-sorts, made in Pontefract.
See the show
Liz Curran, the wee Scots lassie from Margate Retirement Village and active member of the entertainment committee, reports that the next film favourite will be ‘The Glenn Miller Story’ (1954), with James Stewart and June Allyson on Sunday, April 21, at 2pm. This is the film which dramatically changed your scribe’s life musically, influencing him to become a life-long fan, collector and historian of all things Glenn Miller. Liz invited yours truly to come along and bore the pants off everyone with his own ‘Glenn Miller Story’. Members of the audience will be woken up before the ‘big picture’ starts. See you there.
HAVE YOUR SAY
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