Hogsback Diaries- First Impressions Year 2000

 

By the time I’d unpacked and more or less settled into my very own little tumble-down Hogsback cottage, invitations were pouring in from several locals keen to get a first-hand impression of the newest arrival.

One fine Saturday morning, I was due for tea at the home of Don, a Botanist and his then partner Deon, an artist. Already I was missing a crowd of my Cape Town friends known affectionately as “The Moffia”, all of whom had shortly before my own departure from that city, upped sticks and moved en-masse to Darling. So I was looking forward to making the acquaintance of the Pink Sector of Hogsback and this was my first foray in to it.

Walking up the grassed ramp leading to their patio, my attention was drawn by the majesty of a near-by flowering tree I’d never seen before. Dinner-plate sized mauve flowers nodded gracefully along every branch and it was all I could do to take my eyes off it during introductions. My own garden was then still in the planning stages and I immediately determined to add this beauty to my list of intended acquisitions.  Made comfortable in an armchair while my hosts scuttled off into the depths of the house to rattle teacups and rustle up little edible treats, I decided to indulge myself with a closer inspection of the covetable specimen.

I sauntered over and leaned on the hip-height wall separating the raised patio from the gardens that stretched into the distance below, cupping my hands together to rest my chin in a fitting position of supplication. The sun was warm, the air still and clean, filled with birdsong.  Butterflies flitted charmingly; this was a moment to savour. My senses thus indulged, it took too many seconds for my brain to register that the tickey-creeper covered wall I had leaned on was not a wall at all.

It was a tickey-creeper, full stop…….severely clipped into a dense hedge and I was at that moment and in slow motion, busy plummeting headlong though it.

I heard an hysterical shriek from behind me as my disappearing ankles were gripped in a firmly masculine embrace. No Adonis, however could save me now, although the respite was welcome as I chose my landing place at the tree’s feet.  Deon hung on, determined I should come up, I that I go down. So there I dangled indecisively until we both agreed that he could let go. I lay there a while, not injured and certainly not dignified, all 3 of us wracked with belly-aching laughter and me thankful I’d visited the WC before coming out.

First impressions being what they are, every so often when Deon and I met on subsequent occasions, one of us would look at the other, the scene would spring to both minds and we’d both be off and laughing hysterically. The curious stares of onlookers would merely make it funnier. I can only hope my own tree dahlias are not offended by my chuckling while I busy myself about their roots.