Sweet sweat

We were talking about autumn (fall) which, in the tropics, coincides with Spring in the rest of the country. It occurs over a two day period here, the leaves all fall off the trees and two days later they are freshly dressed in tender green shoots - it's amazing. Anyway, now we are in the build-up, the time of sudden gusty electrical storms after days of oppressive, wet heat, and there's a thickening carpet of fallen leaves on the ground.

We talked about 'leaf blowers' - those terribly noisy inventions that simply move the leaves from one place to another, to be blown right back again in the next storm (I can't see the point of them), and of other ways of disposing of unwanted leaves; of friends who were obsessed with clearing every leaf from their gardens... and I was reminded of times when my sons were small and we used to rake up leaves into piles and have lots of little smouldering, eucalyptus-scented bonfires. They all loved setting fires. Nothing dangerous, but a pile of leaves or a deserted spot on the sand could always be improved by building a pyre and setting it alight.

Which brought my friend, via the comment that all boys love fires, to tell me about her little brother who had to be watched closely lest he set an inappropriate fire. "He was cured of it, I think," she said, "the day he set fire to our little sister. She was wearing a pair of fairy wings made out of panty-hose stretched over a wire frame. She must have got too close when he was lighting matches because next thing we knew her wings went up with a great whoomp of air, she was screaming and flames were shooting out of her back, mum was tearing the wings off her and throwing them at the garbage bin which also caught fire. It was pretty spectacular. She wasn't at all hurt luckily, but I think it gave Davo a terribile scare and he stopped playing with matches after that."

I was pretty impressed with the fiery wings story but she topped that with the next anecdote. "The worst thing he ever did - did I tell you about the ducks?" she asked. "Well he killed the drake, beat it to death with a stick because 'he was hurting the mummy ducks!' "

Ah, you can't beat good lunchtime conversation on a broiling hot day when the air conditioning has been broken down all morning and your linen work dress is all soggy and stuck to the creases - I reckon, next duck I see............