Sea Salt & Honey 2

The most worrying word in Cornwall is...

Drekly!

Translated as “Directly’ and used liberally by workmen in Cornwall when you ask them to do a job. It will be done ‘Drekly’ they’ll cheerfully promise.

That’s when you know you’re in trouble; that roof will keep leaking, that tap keep dripping, that house remain unfinished, because Drekly is more Mañana than mañana is in Spain.

And there is a reason, foggy for us until recently.

8:00am and we check the Surfline app. One fine, 4-5 foot, offshore-wind-morning. Whoopee! By 9:00 am we’re turning into the beach car park only to find … there isn’t a single space vacant. Every parking is occupied by a tradesperson’s van; every van bristles with boards, every builder, plumber, electrician, bricklayer is out on the water. The sea is aswarm with black bodies along the break lines. And those not already in the water are running for it, board underarm, pelting towards the sea like it might disappear if they don’t immediately plunge into it.

Weird that, isn’t it? I’ve noticed it on surfing beaches in other parts of the world too: surfers running to the sea as if it’s their first time ever and the waves are going to cease in the very next minute. This behaviour has always puzzled me. But, I’ve come up with a theory. I call it the

Pee-imperative

It’s all about a form of Pavlovian conditioning.

1. Stimuli: neoprene, smell/sight of sea, fibreglass object clasped underarm.

2. Result:the subject needs to pee– urgently!  

Ah, the relief when s/he is waist deep in cold water but secretly awash in personal warmth.

Don’t wrinkle your cute nose, dear reader. There is a product called Piss-off. Does what it says on the can.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, at the start of the work day, at the start of the week, and unfortunately for householders, the surf was going to be good every day that week. It’s not that the  boys (and girls) weren’t going to turn up for work. They’d be there drekly… after they’d shredded a few.

So yeah, don’t be surprised if your Cornish plumber is late and has to shove aside a row of boards and a dripping wetsuit to get to his tools. He’ll finish your job. Drekly.

Photo by Belinda Fewings on Unsplash

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Time to continue the story of Koba, my San hero and her quest for acceptance in the indigenous community she was abducted from.

Kalahari Passage - Koba book 2, Chapter 20

We meet some new local characters, follow the policeman’s investigation and hear rumours of imminent war in the region. If you’d like to read on, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to this not-for-profit newsletter. Click on the link to see where 100% of net book income goes.

Chapter 20

After a night of rain and hail, Dominee Venter was surveying the damage to the vegetable plots in Tsumkwe. Cornrows lay flattened and the flowers of the squash plants had been shredded. There’d be no crop from either of these: but, worst of all, the topsoil had washed away. In desert sand like this, humus-rich soil was hard to come by.

Venter comforted his chin with his dirt-ingrained hand. Between them, he and the Bushman affairs commissioner had devoted eight years to teaching the indigenous people agriculture, but it was a fruitless task. Out in the veld Bushmen were peerless when it came to husbanding the wild food resources; he’d been on foraging walks and seen how careful they were to avoid disturbing a plant they said was still a child.

But they cared little for farmed food.

And on the rare occasions he did manage to get a Bushman interested in vegetable gardening, the harvest was inevitably lost to cattle or goats belonging to the Herero herdsmen who had settled on the periphery of the town. Their half-starved beasts regularly broke into plots where they ate the melons and trampled the corn. A person needed the patience of Job for this work, Venter thought.