freckles_and_doubt | falling on my head like a memory

1991-1992 were years of desperate drought in Zimbabwe; I have very vivid memories of driving back from Cape Town through the Lowveld during university vacs, with red, scorched earth and leafless trees in all directions, and skeletal cattle and donkeys wandering dazed through the devastation. At the height of the drought there were animal bodies all over the roads. I hated it, and still do; that parched, hopeless, ungenerative feeling hits me on some sort of primal level which possibly has something to do with the several generations of farmers in my immediate family history.

As a result of this, as you may have noticed, rain makes me uncomplicatedly happy. Today's is dense and soaking without being hard; yesterday was something of a heatwave, so I have the double pleasure of rain causing all the little plants to perk up their drooping heads, and me to perk up mine. There was enough lightning last night that I woke up several times with the bleary conviction that someone, possibly one of the cats, was flicking my bedroom light off and on. There's still thunder at intervals, which in Cape Town always makes me want to pat it on the head and go "Awwww!" - that's not real thunder, but it's so sweet that it's trying, just for me. Things I Still Miss About The Highveld: proper thunderstorms.

Of course, it's all my fault: last night I braved the house in order to thoroughly water the three little islands of fertility I have identified as worth trying to save from the blasted heath occasioned by the Army of Reconstruction. Therefore, today it rains. I am a small, perverse, localised rain goddess.

Said Army, incidentally, are somewhat thwarted at the moment as the tile supply place, cursed be their incompetent name, have crowned the initial solecism of ordering completely the wrong tiles (they gave the Evil Landlord the wrong code for the ones he wanted) by discovering that the right ones can't be found in the country, and would have to be ordered from overseas at great expense and about three month's delay. We are Miffed, TM.

This is the extension bit on my study, a few days ago, before they finished the plastering and put in the ceiling. It also seems accidentally to be some kind of minimalist abstractionist photo that's all about postmodern deconstruction and interesting light.