This place is a circus. Yip, home sweet home has finally lost the last shred of sanity it was clinging to with french manicured fingertips. And all it took was a couple of days of London-type weather to send my quaint little Sunninghill loft over the edge.
We, as South Africans, take our climate foregranted. We take the ability to dedicate one of our balconies to the laundry as normality. We take the afternoon outing to the park with the puppy so that it can actually piddle on a giant piece of grass and socialise with other four-legged creatures as a given. We assume that our newly planted patio gardens will get enough sunshine and that the chilli seeds we just found a home are in no danger of drowning... but then we never thought we'd see 48 hours of solid rain pouring down in a river down our windows in Johannesburg at the end of April.
That phrase 'April showers' only applies to Europeans with their chic trenchcoats and elegant designer umbrellas. Right? Wrong! Apparently, Joburg has forgotten it's an African city and gotten itself all confused with the land of Guiness and artery-clogging pub lunches. And, in the process of getting all muddled up with mud it has turned my delicately balanced world on its rain-drenched head...
My laundry rack is now in my dining room, wedged between the kitchen 'island' and the dining room table. Underneath it is a the 'little heater fan that could' switched on all day long (I can hear the green people screeching already) in a desperate attempt to actually get some laundry dry so that my once-a-week housekeeper can actually do ironing for the first time in weeks. I am a woman on the edge – if I have to see another plastic laundry basket overflowing with damp, soggy clothing I may just sell it all, move to an island and make bags out of grass while hubby carves coconut sculptures for the tourists.
As un-hinged as the laundry situation makes me, it pales in comparison to the effect the rain is having on my adorable, cute and (used to be) perfect puppy. Do the maths...
1) Too much run + mud = no afternoon walk in the park
2) No afternoon walk in the park + lots of unspent energy = one seriously unimpressed puppy.
3) One seriously unimpressed puppy + one freelance writer on a deadline = bored puppy who reverts to 'chew anything' mode to get attention. (RIP my gorgeous gladiator flip flops that I got last season for a steal *sniff*)
4) Wet grass + cold weather + fear of raindrops = puppy not peeing outside which means an apartment full of soggy newspaper and smelling a little 'funky' (I am very grateful for those Glade plug-in air fresheners – we are now the proud owners of one in every plug socket of the house)
Then there's my garden, well, my little excuse for a garden/art installation (a few potplants and an old rusted pennyfarthing). Turns out plants can get too much water – who knew? I've always thought it was my forgetting to water the little greenery exhibits that led to their demise *sigh* Anyway, you know it's bad when you have to tip out each pot when you get a gap in the rain just to pour off the excess water. The soil's not just soggy, it's become a riverbed. The good news is that I've discovered with plants would win if there was a 'Survivor: Potplant edition' – it would appear that Lavender and Rosemary refuse to be beaten. While the geraniums and sweet peas and blue bells are looking like hubby does when he has the flu, the Lavender and Rosemary are as fresh and vivacious as the day I planted them.
Add to the above a freelance copywriter/ stay-at-home desperate housewife, a hardworking hubby who likes to come home to a clean & tidy castle and an 18-year old bright young thing who works as hard as she parties, all confined indoors within a 120 square metre duplex. Yip, the Winderley circus is in town... at least until Joburg remembers it's African.
Comments