Spring – wonderful time of year – unless you’re an allergy sufferer. And here on the Highveld, the rains came late, so the dust and soot and pollen and mould spores have been clogging up the air and airways – and in my case, on my gardening radio show – the airwaves too, as we kept railing against the lack of big rain.
Let’s be honest, anybody who’s ever lived here will say that the afternoon thundershowers here are non pareil, fabulash, one of the things that make living in The Big Smoke worthwhile, and we all grumble when they don’t come – and then grumble when they do. Because that is the way of the Jozi inhabitant. I think most people aren’t happy unless they’re unhappy – so I’ve taken to driving really slowly with a huge grin on my face. (Possibly a leftover from having just finished “Eat, Pray, Love – I’ve decided that I too want a smiling liver…)
Thus, most of the mad rat-running, hectically fast-paced badly-driving in the rain individuals who cross my path must think I’m a complete loon (well, let’s just say it like it is…) – and seeing the sign which is actually to warn people of the two ferocious little people who inhabit the back of my car, “Cute, but Psycho”, reinforces the impression. So I reckon that I’ve put a bubble of fun and a refusal to get caught up in the national road-road psychotic way of looking at driving and finally, am going slow.
Which gives me the opportunity to observe all the beautiful plants in full flower, the Jacaranda and Australian flame trees laying down a Persian carpet of colour on the roads beneath their boughs – and all that makes having clogged up sinuses somehow worthwhile…
Now, where did I put my rainstick again? Time for a bit of mid-spring madness and a couple of garden dances…..
PS. It’s true. Johannesburg actually has many more Jacaranda trees than Pretoria!!!
