Author: Admin

W is For Wolf

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The wolf has a special place in my heart because of what I went through at a particular time in my life. Floundering in a sea of self-doubt due to a betrayal in my marriage, I came across a book called “Women Who Run with Wolves,” by Clarissa Pinkola Estés.  Here’s part of the blurb for her book: “Within every woman there lives a powerful force, filled with good instincts and passionate creativity. She is the Wild Woman, who represents the instinctual nature of women.

 Okay, so I had the passionate creativity and I was a Wild Woman; I mean, I am bush baby, wild creature of Africa, after all. But what I didn’t have was good instincts. So I joined a group of women facilitated by a psychologist and we met once a week to discuss the principles of the book. Now, I’m not a joiner, and being raised in Africa where children were seen and not heard and definitely not encouraged to express themselves, I entered into this journey with these strangers, cautious and insecure.

But something shifted in me during that class which became the first step in my journey toward those good instincts. And then to as if to prove I’d chosen the right path, shortly after the class ended I spent a weekend up in Idyllwild, in the San Jacinto Mountains, not far from home with a girlfriend. There, in a kitschy little shop on the main drag, I saw this T-shirt with an image of wolf silk-screened on the front. The creature stared straight at me with eyes that spoke of instincts pure and true. I bought the T-shirt and actually wore it a couple of times. I don’t know when that stopped, but I do know that that image of the wolf along with the decision to rely on my inner compass guided me to that authentic self that had been there the entire time.  It took time and many steps but it began with a wolf.

V is For Vulture

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Jake, my Staffie thinks he can catch one of the local vultures on our hikes up the big hill. That’s because as the bird swoops across our view a little further down the hill, it looks as if it’s reachable. I’m talking about the turkey vulture, the kind we have around here, shown below. According to Wikipedia, along with the Andean Condor, it is one of the New World vultures, found in the Americas, up to southern Canada and northern Argentina. I always think of old cowboy movies when I see one above us, can almost hear John Wayne saying, “It don’t look good, Jeb, even the buzzards know we’re done fer, they’re just waiting for us to die.”

And then there are the Old World vultures, to be found on African plains as well on every other continent, except Australia and Antartica. I remember seeing one of these guys, an African White-Backed hunched over the carcass of a zebra when we took a trip to the Tsavo National Park when I was thirteen.

My favorite though is the Griffon also known as the Himalayan or Great Vulture, found in Europe, north Africa and Asia. It’s magnificent as you can see below. I say favorite because I’m quite fond of vultures. For one thing, like all creatures on earth they perform a valuable service. And, I don’t know, they just seem so unflappable. Get it? Unflappable.

 

U is For Unicorn

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I had my post on unicorns all written, but that was before I went off to Ayr, Scotland, yesterday to find some trace of my roots. All I had to go on was the memory of my dad’s stories of being sent off to Scotland from South Africa as an eleven-year-old to attend Ayr Academy. This was way back in 1921, which meant he had to go by boat. By himself. That’s all I knew.

I thought about this as my friend Joan and I took the three-hour train journey from Penrith, Cumbria to Ayr. For the millionth time, I wondered where all my parents’ official documents had disappeared to. After my mother’s death (five years after my father’s), everything got lost. It’s a long story. Suffice to say, I’d always wanted to visit Scotland, which my dad said was heartbreakingly beautiful. So when I made plans to visit Joan, I also made an appointment to check the archives in Ayr to see if I could find some mention of my father, or even perhaps the address of the relatives with whom he would’ve stayed while attending school. I also hoped to find mention of my grandfather who, along with my grandmother emigrated to Bloemfontein, South Africa around the turn of the century. All I remember about my grandfather was that he was the town engineer, and possibly the mayor of Bloemfontein. The other thing I remember was there was bad blood between my grandmother and my mother.  Other than that, I have no memory of them. They died when I was six.Misc 115

After arriving in Ayr, we  found our way to the archives, a cavernous room up dark wooden stairs bordered by stained class windows.  The only mention of my father was in a child-sized book covered in paper with 1921 to 1922 written in quill and ink across the top. John Archibald McCartney, born 25.8.1910, home address, South Africa. That’s it. No details and no local address. I ran my fingers over the entry. My eleven-year-old dad on file at the famous Ayr Academy. It was like reaching into the past, reconnecting with him after all these years. Not as the man who spoiled me, who told me I could always go home, no matter my age: my hero, who took charge of everything. Instead, here was a scared little boy sent to relatives he’d never met, who had to endure brutal rituals inflicted on new boys, loneliness, and freezing winters (after a life spent in tropical Africa). Here was a side of my dad I had never known before. I felt his vulnerability and my heart went out to him through the years.

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I scoured school annuals and other documents but there wasn’t any other mention of my dad. However, there was a clue, a remote clue, that his father’s name was James, which is also my dad’s brother’s name. We left the Archives for Ayr Library where another search ensued, this time for a James McCartney, who I knew had two other brothers. Unfortunately I didn’t find anything, but vowed to do more searching online, which would now be available to me after my personal appearance at the library. It was time to leave. We made our way to the train station, me, with a copy of the page listing my father’s entry into Ayr and a lilt in my heart. I’d had a visit with my dear father. There would be more. I vowed to return, but this time to roam the highlands as he had, and maybe I would have a chance encounter with a McCartney from my line of ancestors.After Joan took a photo of me in front of Ayr Academy, we headed for Glasgow to have tea in one of the many Willows Tea Rooms, showcases for the work of one of Scotland’s foremost artists and architects, Rennie McIntosh, who is recognized as the leading figure in Scottish Art Nouveau and Scottish Arts and Craft where I had haggis, a dish my father  never recovered from. I however, loved the stuff.

On our way out I saw the Royal coat of arms of the Kingdom of Scotland and the United Kingdom: two unicorns support the Scottish arms; a lion and a unicorn support the UK arms, representing the 1707 Union of England (whose traditional heraldic symbol is the lion) and Scotland. As a result of its heraldic use, two gold coins were issued in Scotland known as the unicorn and half-unicorn, both with a unicorn on the obverse. There! There’s my unicorn in the title of this blog.

“I believe in unicorns not because they believe in me but because beauty and love just are.“

T is For Tasmanian Devil

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One of my favorite cartoons was Warner Bros, Taz, the Tasmanian Devil. It tickled me to see that look on his face when he was foiled. Kinda like “huh?” It was also those little bowlegs and big chest, and the way he whirled around. Portrayed as dim-witted with a notoriously short temper, little patience, and a voracious appetite, he was best known for his speech consisting mostly of grunts, growls and rasps, and his ability to spin and bite through just about anything.

 I was surprised to find how different Taz looks to the real Tasmanian Devil, as you can see below. The size of a small dog, the animal comes from the Australian island state of Tasmania. It’s characterized by its stocky and muscular build, black fur, pungent odor, extremely loud and disturbing screech, and ferocity when feeding. Well, that’s a match to the cartoon. But what really surprised me was that, according to David Owen and David Pemberton, who wrote the book, Tasmanian Devil—A Unique and Threatened Animal, the character of Taz was inspired by Errol Flynn. Now, how’s that for a head spinner? (Speaking of spinning.)

 

S is For Staffie Extraordinaire

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That would be Sweetpea, my Staffordshire Bull Terrier who died on this very date three years ago.  Now, I can’t go on too long about this because it’s still a very tender spot. So I’ll just leave you with an excerpt from my memoir Loveyoubye.  This was not long after my husband left me and a couple of months before dear Sweetpea died. I still have Jake and now Fergie, both of them Staffies.

“Sometimes, Sweetpea sat opposite me in the other chair (of my new bistro set), butt sideways, constantly having to shift her paws to stay put on the small round metal seat. She and Jake had worked it out; he never once tried to sit there even if she wasn’t around. Every now and then she did her little throat-clearing thing and stared off into whatever direction she happened to be facing at the time. Whenever I spoke to her she would turn, ears fully pricked, white-rimmed eyes boring into mine. I’d say something like, I love you, or You’re so beautiful, and her ears would relax, and if she were human I could go ahead and tell you that her face would soften, her eyes would crinkle at the edges, and she would give me a look as intimate as any I’ve ever shared with anyone.”

R is For Road Runner

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I was going to write about road runners. You remember the cartoon, where Wile E. Coyote chases that funny little stiff legged bird all over the desert and always comes off second best? Well, I decided against that after what happened yesterday. It all started when Joan, Donna and I went on a little sightseeing tour to Lowther Castle, west of Penrith, Cumbria. To get there you have to travel along narrow roads lined with hawthorn hedges, through rolling verdant fields dotted with sheep and tiny gamboling Spring lambs. (It took everything not to stop and cuddle every one of them). Threaded through the fields are centuries-old low dry stone walls built with local rocks. I felt like I was in an episode of the British TV series All Creatures Great and Small, expecting country vet Alf Wight to come whizzing past us on his rounds.

On the way, Joan told us that Lord Lowther, the 8th Earl of Lonsdale owned everything we were seeing from the village of Askham  to the location of the horse driving trials in which the Duke of Edinburgh used to participate to the castle. Loads of history everywhere I looked, reminding me that this is what I yearned for growing up in Zambia, that I had yet to discover in America. I drank it all in, feeling that same love of everything English, remembering my heritage on both grandfathers’ side: London, city of my mother’s father and Ayr, Scotland, where my other grandfather was born. (Where in just three days I had an appointment to scour the records for mention of the McCartney line–more on that later).

We approached Lowther Castle to discover it covered in scaffolding while undergoing a restoration from centuries of neglect. Joan parked on the road in front of the castle and I got out to take a photo. Ahead, a couple of workmen in safety garb worked on something I couldn’t see.

“Oh, look, Joan, there’s a nice bit of oak for your fire,” Donna said from the back of the car. I glanced around to see a perfect fireplace-size log lying under one of the many oak trees peppering the acres of lawn, took a couple of photos of the castle then headed back toward the car.

“Don’t forget to get the log,” Joan called.

Glancing around, I hunched over and ran across the short expanse of lawn, grabbed the log and charged back to the car. Donna and Joan exploded in laughter.

”You got the log!” they cried in astonishment.

“Well, you told me to, didn’t you?”

All the way back to Joan’s house, we laughed about me swiping Lord Lowther’s Log. From then on, Donna imitated me running across the lawn like the Pink Panther glancing over my shoulder before snatching the log. Every notation of Lord Lowther in any official literature or sign elicited hysterical hoots of laughter from the three of us. Making it even more pertinent, Joan had met Lord Lowther when he frequented the pub she owned in Great Strickland in 1983. The log will be joining me on my trip back home to America.

Q is For Quagga

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Now, I haven’t seen one of these curious plains zebras despite being dragged all over east and southern Africa by my parents to this game reserve and that. However, I have seen many a zebra, and giraffe and rhino and elephant and leopard and lion and all kinds of buck. You name a wild African animal and I’ve probably seen it.

Back to the quagga. Of course I wouldn’t have seen one of them: they’re extinct. The only one photographed alive was a mare in London’s Zoo in 1870. They were once found in great numbers in the highveld of the Cape Province and the southern part of the Orange Free State of South Africa. The name, quagga comes from the Khoikhoi word for zebra and onomatopoeic, being said to resemble the quagga’s call. Because of the confusion between different zebra species, particularly among the general public, the quagga had become extinct before it was realized that it may have been a separate species.

 

P is For Pot-Bellied Piglet

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Remember my blog on Finley, my Rhodesian Ridgeback? Well, here’s another couple of shots of one of these wonderful dogs. Only this one has company: a tiny pot-belly piglet. Too damn cute, eh? Here’s the story. The piglet runt was dismissed by its own mother. So, surrogate mum, Katjinga, an eight-year-old Rhodesian Ridgeback, took on motherly duties for grunter Paulinchen and seems to be taking the adoption in stride. Lonely Paulinchen was luckily discovered moments from death and placed in the care of the dog who gladly accepted it as one of her own. Thankfully for the two-week old mini porker, Katjinga fell in love with him at first sight and saved his bacon.

O is For Orangutan

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You can tell I like monkeys, can’t you? Did you know that orangutans have been called the world’s most intelligent animal in a study that places them above chimpanzees and gorillas, that they are considered closest to the human in evolutionary development?

Here’s a sweet story for you. After losing his parents, the three-year-old orangutan pictured above was so depressed he wouldn’t eat and didn’t respond to any medical treatment. The veterinarians thought he would surely die from sadness. The zoo keepers found an old sick dog on the grounds in the park at the zoo where the orangutan lived and took the dog to the animal treatment center. The dog arrived at the same time the orangutan was there being treated. The two lost souls met and have been inseparable ever since.


N is For Night Ape

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The night ape is one of the smallest primates in the world, about the size of a squirrel, commonly found in the forested parts of Africa. The Afrikaans term is nagapie (little night ape). Another name for the delightful little creature is bushbaby, which I adopted (see my blurb). Despite its size, the night ape is exceptionally vocal, producing loud shrill cries surprisingly like those of a human baby.

I can attest to that, I had a bushbaby as a pet when I was thirteen: Little One. We got him from one of those Congolese trader s who used to stand by the side of the main roads to the other Copperbelt towns peddling everything from monkeys to parrots. The poor creatures were almost always starving, some of them barely a couple of weeks old, after being taken from mothers who’d been killed for their babies. I died a thousand deaths every time we passed one of these men.  Thank God, it wasn’t that often.

Little One could fit into the palm of my hand when we got him. During the day, he slept in my dressing gown pocket, which I kept in my wardrobe. He got around by making kangaroo-like hops across my room or by simply walking or running on all four legs. When he got a fright, he’d shoot straight up in the air to a height of at least six feet with a loud shriek, his eyes almost popping out of his head. He loved to bounce from my dressing table to my desk to the curtain valance and then hang there before dropping down onto my bed. Mostly, I slept like a log. Other times, I’d call to him and he’d snuggle into my neck, making small tock tock sounds, his tail curling around my face in swirl of downy fur. And then one day, he got out. I was heartbroken. I kept a lookout for him for a long time.