Animal, vegetable, or mineral?
Thursday, March 2nd, 2006It has been raining pretty much incessantly here all week. The towels that I left on the line on Sunday afternoon have been getting almost-dry, and then are rained upon again, and so I left them there. I decided that enough was enough this morning, and went to move them to the line on my little porch.
That’s when I discovered that things have begun nesting in them, and that butterflies have got caught in the fibres. I had to take hold of one by the wings and pull, successfully detaching all but three stubborn legs from my nice, clean infested towels. Normally this would distress me more than it did, but I’ve been driving around Namibia a lot lately, and there are so many butterflies that I have become accustomed to seeing their innards splattered over windscreens and wipers, their vaguely, painfully fluttering wings festooning the radiators of vehicles in morbid decoration. So I wasn’t too phased about leaving its little legs stuck in the depths of the towel; just about picking the legs out afterwards. The thought of finding bits of butterfly limb, post-drying, in places where butterfly limbs aren’t meant to be does not appeal.
I’m going to soak them in bleach and hope that does the job instead.
On the plus side, tiny green sprouts have made an appearance in the basil corner of my little tub of soil. They are definitely fledgling leaves, and not dandruff from the woodworm-crazy beams. Despite the terrific excitement, I successfully resisted the temptation to dig them up and have a good look, and also to dig up the ones that are not sprouting to find out what the problem is.
I think that this shows remarkable restraint on my part.
