Barefoot, beached, bush-whacked.

 

Not trains, planes and automobiles, not exactly, trains, boats and automobiles. And the wide, wide Wami bubbling chocolate towards the aquamarine of the Indian Ocean

And my home for a day. Or two. Treated like a Princess. Though there was no need to peek beneath my matress for a pea; I slept better than I had done in days.

And in the morning I drunk in the view, a broad baked butterscotch biscuit bay and a burnished sea

I took a walk. And found a boat, beached, still beautiful though. Like an old queen lounging on the sand.

And I discovered I wasn’t here first …

Not by a long way: serval, genet, mongoose, bush pigs, hyena, monkeys … they’d all been up before me. All night perhaps: the mongoose indulging in a midnight feast of crab.

And then to the forest, where shade is strung and big butterflies hang on the no-wind, hotly hissing cicada air

Elephant swim in the sea here I was told. I didn’t see evidence of that. But we did meet this chap who was in a dreadful hurry, shooing us off and out of his way. I like to think he was beach bound.

So we left him to it and enjoyed the last peachy kisses of a long hot day and went back for a cold beer.

And I thought how nice it was to play at being a writer …

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