Sitting in the lounge watching Sports News after supper last night, Jeanette suddenly lets out a shrill exclamation, pointing behind us:
“Look what Bennie’s brought in!”
In the middle of the carpet lay a cute prickly baseball, like an enlarged hand-grenade waiting to detonate, with Bennie standing proudly over it, tail wagging at his achievement.
About a week ago, in the middle of a dark and wettish spell, this very same scene enfolded, and ended with Clayton incarcerating that particular prisoner in a plastic laundry basket in the garage, ready to be banished to the paddock next door at first light. Alas, next morning, we were stunned to find that the critter had escaped up the steep slippery plastic wall of his cell and over the parapet to freedom!
A hulk on the Thames in readiness for transport to Australia and the like.
So, to avoid a repeat performance by this Houdini, Clayton went off to fetch the Philip Pirrip-style hulk so that the banishment process would not be delayed. I reached for the torch/flashlight, which had just arrived from Cape Town in our shipping load, to accompany the prison-warder on his Australia-like journey to the outer fence at the bull paddock. Tyler decided that he would also take a look, to see what the paddock looks like, under the cover of Night.
Night. Dark night. Reikorangi dark. A darker shade of dark, once you go beyond the line of the trees.
Tyler appointed himself as chief torch-bearer by democratic process, and strode ahead, illuminating the upper branches of the trees and investigating the undergrowth at the edges of the pathway, like an ack-ack searchlight illuminating the blackness. No untoward critters to be seen, especially other errant hedgehogs on whom we might unwittingly tread. Bennie remained in close attendance, most interested in the fate of his prey.
Almost at the destination fence. The torch goes out without warning and we are plunged into Reikorangi darkness. Only Bennie can see where he is going. Bugger.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Our chief torch-bearer bashes the torch against his free hand a few times and we are once again in the world of the seeing.
“This torch is one of those things from the eighties,” explains the 1997-model young man, emphasising the decade as if it belonged to pre-historic times, “Granny told me all about those olden days, when you had to bang things with the flat hand to get them to work. Torches, radios and even television sets sometimes needed a sharp smack on the side to get them back in working order. They even had to push motor-cars to get them to start sometimes. Can you imagine?”
Yes, I thought. Can you imagine?
In today’s world of touch-screens and instant automatic everything, perhaps the eighties do seem a bit antiquated to the younger generations. I’d forgotten how we used to smack our black-and-white when the picture went entirely snowy. Thanks for the reminder, Tyler.
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