Green Point 23rd September, 2009

Today in the morning, shortly after the first daylight was showing up and I looked outside my bedroom window, I got a real fright.

The colour outside was very much that of a raging bushfire very near by. The noise of the storm and the trees swaying in the wind re-enforced that feeling.

Hopped out of the bed to have a look outside, not really knowing what I would find.

To my great relief – in relative terms – it was a gigantic dust-storm the likes I have never seen before in this part of my world.

As I am typing this a few hours later, I can form little dirt briquettes in my mouth from the dust.

It’s a bit like Kampala on steroids. In Kampala we are used to having this red dust in the air which is very pervasive and after a very short few hours of being there covers you and all that you carry with you in a fine red layer of dust.

My good old black leather pipe bag, which is commonly open on my table, very soon takes on a distinctive reddish hue. Not to speak about the laptop screen.

At the end of the first day I tend to look like I having gone through a full body henna treatment.

And the after effects become most evident usually after the first shower, back in J’Burg or Cape Town, on the white and fluffy hotel towel. It takes a few warm showers to get all that dust out of those impossible knucks and crannies of the ageing human body



This is, what the view from my house would commonly be


And this is my view of Brisbane waters on a sunny day

Today, we have a ‘sunny’ day and



This is what it looks like



The view towards Brisbane Waters on this day today

My little Merc is not always a shining example of a very clean car – I admit that. But look, what the last 12 hours have done



Driving to the shopping centre today in the morning to get the news papers, it was hard to look through this front window



And it’s only about 3 weeks ago that I spent 2 full days around the house, cleaning up, removing all the leaves, washing the decks, cleaning the roofs, and making everything look spotless (well….more or less). Even cleaned at least some of the windows!!!!

sometimes mother nature has a funny way of telling you to go to buggery