Dodo Au Go-Go

LittleOne has reached the age of treats now. Which means we have a lot more treats in the house. The treats have, for various reasons, focused on chocalatey delights. But not any old chocolate. Plain Cadbury chocolates have been given the thumbs up. Terry's Chocolate Orange has been deemed too strong (we're working on this), and Caramello Koalas, with their liquid caramel centres, have not been a hit (I get this, LittleOne - it took me ages to like them too). Smarties have been a ...moderate hit. They're often on the "please, can we?" list at the supermarket, but LittleOne's intake at home can be quite low. Even when I suggest them with rattling, dancing packets. Which means there are often Smarties in the cupboards looking at me, Which is such a pity.  You see, I have a funny old soft spot for Smarties. You see, when I was growing up in Mauritius in the 1980s, we had Smarties, of course. And they were your standard chocolatey treat. But, when we m...

I'm not a coffee drinker. I can't even stand the smell of it. I'm a tea gal all the way.  It's a multiple-cups-a-day habit. So, while I can pretend to get all virtuous and smug about being a non-coffee person, really, my crippling dependency on tea can pretty much match the coffee addict cup for cup. So you can imagine how I felt on 22 December 2021 - my last day of work in 2021 - when I got to work and realised I only had one tea bag left in my work stash. One tea bag. To last a whole work day. I used the tea bag, enjoyed it, and then rifled all my desk drawers trying to see if I had any other emergency tea supplies. Anything at all. I found 3 Chai teabags and grimaced. I ignored the half-dozen Chamomiles. There was one single Russian Caravan which isn't my cup of tea at all, and I held it in my clenched fist fretfully, doubtfully until...  The angels sang and I saw my lovely, large orange tin. The one I'd taken to and from work a few times while moving house a...

Once upon a time - summer or winter, late lazy sunlight or freezing darkness - this was what used to greet me when I got home from work. I've forgotten that this used to be a daily thing. Score one hundred for those daily blogs or tweets or drawing pad or diary entries which itemise all the little things that would otherwise be lost forever. Because, one day and sooner than you might think, they become precious memories. To my Bodie-Boy, running joyful and free in his blue nebula, and to my Indi-Girl, who would follow me (almost) anywhere, I love you.

As I sit here, winter in the tropics means a warm day without humidity. Leaves sing noisily in a strong breeze. I'm sitting in Dodo-Land - aka Mauritius - after a very long absence of some double-digit years. I'm older, everyone I know is older, and the island has changed much in that time. I want to jot down my initial impressions now, before the memories fade and disjointed sensations of newness fall into a temporary familiar.