Morning Mirror Edition 98 30th June 2004


In This Edition



1. Quaking In Our Boots
2. Congratulations
3. Condolences
4. Tidbits
 Smalls

Quaking In Our Boots



Old age has its compensations....

For one thing, as you get more wrinkles, so his eye sight is rapidly failing and he cannot see said wrinkles. Just make sure you always place yourself in dim lighting or alternately get him a sub standard optician....

Secondly and more importantly, you also find that you are fast joining the acoustically challenged.

Now this has great advantages. One being, you can go to weddings, twenty firsts and those irksome sort of occasions that you are forced to attend, and you cannot hear that dreadful music. Of course you also cannot hear people talk very well, but the odd nod, smile, smirk and frown is quite adequate to ensure that you might not be invited to any more functions of this nature.

But more importantly is the fact that you cannot hear his nasal utterings at night.

Now He Who Must Be Obeyed (abbreviated to "HeeHoo" by Mack the Knife) is a most considerate snorer if there is such a thing. He can wake himself up happily when a crescendo has been reached and turn over in peaceful oblivion to start the next symphonic shuffle. He generally only snores after a spot of imbibing and is then oblivious to a swift poke in the ribs, jab in the solar plexus or kick on the shin....

But after 25 years of connubial bliss my eardrums have taken such a massive beating that they have quietly, slowly but surely, given up the fight and a merciful acoustic membrane has settled over the hammer, the anvil and the stirrup which affords great relief and will no doubt ensure another 25 years of connubial bliss.

Further auditory assault comes in stereo in our home. Heehoo lurks on the left with his melodious rhinal mutterings while the Toy Pom of advancing years lurks on the right with what must undoubtedly be nasal polyps.

In days of yore when we were all young I would long for them to sync themselves somehow miraculously, so that at least there was some sort of timpanic melody, but now, its easy, I just roll over onto my good ear and lose myself in marvelous auditory oblivion.

However last Thursday night the beleaguered city of Bulawayo was treated to an earthquake that registered 3.1 on the Richter Scale. An earthquake of minute proportions compared to other less fortunate areas in the world, but an unusual occurrence in our seismically pampered lives.

As luck would have it the good ear was facing the ceiling and HeeHoo had spent the evening a one of those suspect meetings in the hallowed halls of the Bulawayo Club.

His tonsils had been aquiver in anticipation of a good snore and when the first murmuring of the quake reached my auditory canal and began to reverberate in my tympanic membrane, I certainly did not anticipate something out of the San Andreas fault emanating from his hallowed personage !!

As the seismological grumbles commenced and grew louder and louder, windows shaking, roof sheets rattling, until the epicenter itself crashed around my pitiful eustachian tubes, I was girding my loins for a massive assault on HeeHoo, who was by this time fully awake and alert, and was quite obviously not the nasal offender this time round !!

The Meteorological office in Bulawayo the next day really blotted its copybook by announcing t the nation that this quake was as a result of geological disturbances in the region of the Nyamandhlovu aquifer where indeed the epicenter of the earthquake had registered the shock waves. Totally untrue according to those folk who live along the aquifer, but as the met office hangs it's heads in shame, we all know exactly what it was don't we !!

Nothing to do with poor old Nyamandhlovu but I feel quite justified in throwing accusatory glances in Heehoo's very direction !!

Congratulations


ENGAGEMENTS

CHARLIE AND PAM STANTON, OF LIMERICK FARM, MBALABALA ARE THRILLED TO ANNOUNCE THE ENGAGEMENT OF THEIR YOUNGER SON, LINDON CHARLES, TO NICOLA SUZANNE, DAUGHTER OF SUE ROBERTS OF LIVERPOOL UK, FORMERLY OF FALCON COLLEGE, AND MIKE ROBERTS, OF WALES, UK. THE BEST IS YET TO BE

Condolences


TIDBITS

I don't feel old - I don't feel anything until noon.
Then it's time for my nap.
(Bob Hope)

A WISH FOR YOU
When you're lonely, I wish you love.
When you're down, I wish you joy.
When you're troubled, I wish you peace.
When things are complicated,
I wish you simple beauty.
When things are chaotic,
I wish you inner silence.
When things look empty,
I wish you hope.
I do not wish you joy without a sorrow,
Nor endless day without the healing dark,
Nor brilliant sun without the restful shadow,
Nor tides that never turn against your bark.
I wish you love, and strength, and wisdom,
And gold enough to help some needy one,
I wish you songs, but also blessed silence,
And God's sweet peace when your day is done
R.H.