Map of Monday

Jill Wylie, Javelin the Doberman, Berry the duiker (ca. 1970)

 Black.  Toning to paler black around windows.  Time to get up.  Five minutes more, please! (Procrastination, sign of true artist.)  Please!  OK, then.  One!  Two!  Tension mounts.  Three!  Four!  How many cats on the bed, for heaven’s sake?  Five!  Five minutes up.  Five cats up.

Darkness streaming in through kitchen window, relieved by dull red glow indicating cooker left on all night.  Fantastic.

Sudden light.  (Electricity working, dating period as contemporary, not prehistoric as first suspected.)

Grope through cobweb pre-dawn down hill under skyless trees, followed by puppy.  Roots on path brace for impact of falling person.

Unlock hen house.  Up, girls, and do your stuff like your old man says.  Treat injured hen.

Grey light edged with sepia.  Fantastic.

Little duiker emerges from forest, demands bottle.  Big duiker emerges from forest to steal chicken grain.  Big duiker chases little duiker.  Puppy defends little duiker, chases big duiker.  Three cats, one kitten, chase puppy.

Naartjie dawn opening to flamingo feather clouds on blue sky-lake.  Fantastic.  Monday, lovely Monday.  Monday for work.  New week, new resolve.  Today everything will get done – beds, floors, windows, laundry, mending, gardening, writing, fixing, try fixing again, Any Other Business, everything.

Waking somango monkeys pillow-fight in tree-beds, tossing leaves like feathers.  Robin sings ‘Wildwoods, Wildwoods, Wildwoods!’ with wild joy of just-discovered familiar place.

Return to house via fish-pond.  Fish lie sleeping like slivers of orange rind in dark marmalade.

Dawn-filled eyes reluctant to face kitchen light.  Right hand pours tea, sets table.  Left hand feeds cats, fixes formula for little duiker.

Upstairs with tea to waken husband and youngster, followed by five cats and puppy.  Downstairs, followed by six cats and puppy.

Feed little duiker.  Fix breakfast and lunch boxes while puppy goes browsing with little duiker.  Big duiker poses like David Shepherd painting.

Sun yawns and stretches, touches farm house far down in valley – laying on of hands: arise my child.  Mountain in foreground still in deep shadow, shades of dark greens.  Fantastic.

Walk dogs, followed by four cats and little duiker.  Sun stares with one eye through keyhole in forest.

Stop to greet mamma hen.  Slip cold hand under mamma hen among tiny toes of new chicks.  Shuffling feathers and thighs welcome hand to a world of wondrous warmth and softness.  Chicks kept in orbit by gentle gravitational pull of heartbeat.  Primitive click language gives advice and reassurance.

Sun braves the day, slices through dark between trees, gold by green by black by gold.  Massed choir of birds perform magnificent rendering of Daylight Sonata and Symphony in the Sun.  Popular group, “The Toppies”, slip in commercials for Sweet, Sweet, Sweet Potatoes and Baby Food, Oh, Baby Food!

Feed fish.  Marmalade turned to champagne, orange-rind to red-gold veil dancers rising to kiss fingertips and sip champagne fortified with vitamins and aquaflakes.

Detour up mountainside, along game path, back by stream to show little duiker where breakfast grows.

Sun dawdles in forest, leaning against trees, watching birds go by.  Fantastic.

Cease dawn-dreaming.  To Work.  Groom dogs and cats.  Feed and exercise tortoise.  Load washing machine.  Start garden sprinkler.  Wash clothes.  Wash dishes.  Rinse clothes.  Rinse dishes.  Wet path leads from kitchen to laundry, size six slip-slops followed by puppy.  Supervise labour.  Answer phone.  Make beds.

Cat slips between sheets.  Kitten hides in pillowcase.  Tuck them in.  Move to second bed.  Cat dives under blanket, followed by puppy.  Tie them up tightly in bed-spread.  Tip-toe to third bed, followed by cat and puppy tied up in bed-spread.  Turn mattress onto them to hold them down.  Rush back to first bed.  Kitten sleeping among pillows, haven’t heart to disturb.  Abandon bed-making.

Sweep floors.  Cats arrange themselves before broom to be swept, too.  Broom becomes besom for witches’ riding.  Abandon floor-sweeping.

Brush sitting-room carpet.

Gulp tea.  Move sprinkler.  Puppy disappears up mountain, returns with little duiker to see sitting-room.

Brush sitting-room carpet.

Sun gets started on hard day’s baking, golden cookies on grass trays, garnished with flowers.  Woodpecker types love letter with one finger.

Feed hens who missed out because of duikers.  Move sprinkler.  Supervise labour.  Answer phone.  Try to think.

Half past eleven.  Already!  Pitch out animals, make beds, sweep floors, dust, answer phone, stack dishes, move sprinkler, pitch out rubbish, where did the morning go?

Allow tea and bread-and-butter for one while writing another half paragraph of article in typewriter, three more lines of letter to Mum, address and Dear Sir of draft letter to Ministry of Infernal Affairs, glance at yesterday’s headlines, remember to listen to radio at news time, forget what it said.

Dreamily, wood-dove drips drowsy drops of sound into dazzling day.  Move sprinkler.  Sunbirds dash and shiver through spray, bright as water-drops on flower-petals.  Fantastic.

Shupa-vise labour.  Thread needle.  Start ironing.  Abandon ironing.  Remove sprinkler.  Set hose to cascade over rocks into fish-pond.  Fish dash and shiver through bubbles like poinsettia petals in the wind.  Exercise dogs/ hunt snares/ track game/ inspect boundaries, game paths and water places.

Sun has finished baking, swings through forest, slides down rocks, nibbles leaves.  Natal robin practices songs by toppie, shrike, crowned eagle and neighbour’s builder, accompanied by woodwind instruments.  Somango monkeys hold meeting to decide where to hold meeting to decide where to sleep tonight.

Cats arrange significant escort from forest edge of kitchen.  Feed dogs and cats, set food out for genet.  Think about supper.  Put off thinking about supper.

Husband and youngster return.  Hold breath while motor pollution drifts down to neighbour’s house.  Sun strolls through orchard on way to bed, trails fingers in water furrow, followed by monkeys.

Little duiker emerges from forest to be fed.  Put hens to bed before genet emerges from forest to be fed. Treat injured hen.  Tell tortoise time to turn in.  Wish fishes sweet sleep.

Sun has forgotten something, reaches back with long, honeyed fingers jewelled with evening-wear gold and ruby rings and emerald bracelets.  Fantastic.

Bushbuck doe emerges from forest to see about roses, followed by fawn, graciously accepts golden garland bestowed by sun.

Sun pillows head on breast of hill, slips sleepily off edge of day, leaving copper-shaded night-light on for half an hour.

Daylife meets nightlife, trysting under cover of dusk.  Much rustling of love notes, secret whisperings, occasional hoots of merriment.

Moon matrons down long ward of valley unafraid, kisses Monday goodnight, toys with trinkets offered by travelling stream, presses silver coins into palms of begging leaves.

Gingerbush spins lilac-cream candy floss.  Crickets wind watches.  Boy nightjar telephones girl nightjar, party line.

In jasmine garden, resting between Monday and Tuesday, moon models perfect fawn in rosewood and mother-of-pearl.

Fantastic.

Introducing Jill Wylie, animal lover

Jill Wylie – my mother – is a self-educated naturalist.  Raised in Kenya, she settled in the Eastern Highlands of the then Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.  For forty years or more she looked after a patch of mountain and forest in the Bvumba range, rescuing and rehabilitating and protecting wildlife.  She wrote incessantly – letters, magazine articles, diaries, SPCA reports, poems, snatches of memoir, stories for children, advice for animal owners....  Three books have seen the light of day and are available: Call: Life with a Basenji; and two parallel sequels, Search (about Javelin, Call the Basenji’s  Doberman successor as search dog; available direct from me); and Wildwoods: The making of a wildlife sanctuary.

Jill and banded mongoose

In this blog, I’ll be airing some of the astonishing volume of published and unpublished pieces that Jill Wylie produced over a long and adventurous life: dog rescues, human rescues, animal rehabilitations, philosophical musings, lyrical impressions – pieces full of gentle humour, unpretentious poetry, sadness of loss and triumph of a life saved.  Above all, an indomitable love of the natural world and its inhabitants of every ilk.

The first piece, then, is short, light and characteristically delicate – written maybe thirty-five years ago, but an appropriately exuberant introduction to the new year. 

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NEW YEAR’S DAWNING

The part of my brain that watches the time for me seems unable to accept the idea that a day begins in the middle of the night before.  Day is light and night is dark and no amount of complicated clockwork can alter the sensible simplicity of it.

            So the midnight celebrations of the New Year mean nothing to me.  While everyone else is singing Auld Lang Syne and congratulating each other on surviving this long, I am left out with the stars, or more likely asleep in bed.

            But when the dawn comes, then is the hour.  That first little bird yawns and clears his throat, and this is one morning I don’t mind hearing him.

            Suddenly he comes fully awake and sings out, “Wake up!  Wake up!   It’s here!  It’s here!” with such glad surprise you’d think he’s never seen dew before.

            The other birds tumble out of bed and begin shouting out their New Year resolutions at the top of their voices.  I usually keep mine secret but they never do.  They all talk at once and none listen so I suppose the effect is the same.

            This dawn is not like any other.  No dawn ever is.  Yesterday was last year.  Last night belonged to yesterday.  This is a brand new day, the very first of the very first month.  And here comes the New Year shouting up over the hill, flinging its rays, like arms, wide across the sky, to the world, to every living thing that cares.

            I would like to start the year like that – unscarred by yesterday, undaunted by tomorrow, fresh and keen as morning.

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