Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Sun on water, thinks he's people, dry spot, blue knees and patience.


1. Victoria Falls: I wasn't prepared for the size of the it, or the wetness: the spray is just like rain, sometimes torrential, sometimes just drizzle, sometimes heavy fog. Within minutes we were soaked to the skin. The sun shining through the spray makes rainbows everywhere, so the place looks like something out of a 1980s children's cartoon: 'Princess Khalisa, we have reached the Palace of the Chromatica and now we must return the Amathysteria to its rightful place, restoring life to the Rainbow Empress.

2. Baby baboons playing in creepers. One had an old corn cob, one a dead flower and the other a piece of straw. They were practising their climbing while clutching these treasures. The parents were sitting up straight with their legs bent up and their hands hanging louchly off their knees. 'They look so human,' we all said. But then I wondered when I had last seen a person sitting up like that. (Picture by Rosey Grant)

3.Walking along the photograph trail -- it's a great view of the falls with no spray -- and feeling our clothes drying on us.

4. A thumb-sized grasshopper with bright blue knees.

5. A German man carefully photographing the sort of yellow butterfly that sit in a circle on bare earth.

Livingstone, Zambia

Done, moon and Irish fairy tales.

1. A meeting that is over by 9.30am. 2. A big full moon is stuck on next door's chimney pots. 3. By my bed is a large and comforting boo...