Mothers Day

It's Mothers Day. That means it's last Sunday. I know, I'm not observing the Unities of Time Space and Action. And it may well get worse.

So it's Mothers Day. We do not go to the Zoo. The people who do will be disappointed, because this is the Day that Karta the 27 year old female orang-utan decides to make her great escape. She twists 3 strands of electrified wire with a stick, piles leaves on the top, builds a pile of leaves and branches against the wall and climbs out of her enclosure. Everybody is promptly relocated to outside of the Zoo. They don't even get their money back, just a free ticket to come another day.

We, however, know nothing of this. We take my mother out to lunch at the Taste of Nepal, We eat goat curry, lamb curry, fish curry, and a little Nepalese fly hovers over our table. Through the window we observe a stream of young Koreans passing the swimming pool on their way to church a little further up the road.

Burping, we drive up into the Hills. We drive past our old house at Crafers. The occupants have built a fence around it and we can only see trees. We drive to Aldgate, admiring the autumn leaves. In Stirling we get out of the car. The liquidambers and pinoaks are glowing gloriously gold and yellow and red, someone is selling hot chestnuts, the air is like pins. There are too many mothers about the place. We can't get a coffee inside. We have to sit in a chilly gazebo outside the Konditorei, next to a slow dripping fountain and a depressing elkhorn attached to a post.

Before we go home we stop off at Mount Lofty to look at the view. There is a haze over the city and the rest of the view. People are looking at the identification boards in puzzlement. Where is everywhere? The tourists don't care but it's embarrassing for us locals. At least the sea is where it should be, gleaming like beaten copper in the late afternoon sun. But my mother doesn't believe it's the sea.