June 28

It is a usual quietly comatose Sunday in Bulawayo.  One of those days when you can hear every leaf drop from the trees, every rustle in the bushes and every creak of the roof.

As usual, however, Sunday nights seem to bring out the kind of people who enjoy racing up and down the Burnside road.  All we can hear, besides our neighbours' dog who never stops barking, is the sound of wheels spinning and fast cars.

At times like these, I am so happy to be 45. I am so glad that I have gone past the age where I might think that driving, or being a passenger in, a fast car is fun, daring or exciting.  Although I have not ever been one to enjoy that sort of thing, there are other equivalents in life and I am glad they are behind me.

When I was much younger I used to subject myself to going to night clubs and parties and I just wasn't the sort of person who enjoyed them.  I was always a great romantic and I would have dreams of meeting some poet in a coffee shop or perhaps he would be the leader of some great revolutionary artistic movement, or on the run from the government and we would have to meet in the dead of night and exchange coded messages.

The problem, of course, is that these people are hard to come by and difficult to meet even, I imagine, if you are a insurrectionist yourself and mix in anarchist circles.  So it is that I would inevitably end up at some party, the music so loud I could not hear myself speak, surrounded by people who weren't really interested in what I had to say anyway, and find myself longing to go home as soon as I had arrived.

At some point, thank goodness, I decided that this was not for me.  However, even as I have got older, I have always found certain social events quite difficult.  As I am quite a shy person, I often struggle to speak to people and can often be misinterpreted as stand offish or snobbish.  One thing John told me once before we went out to a party and I said I never know what to say to half the people at these things, is always ask people about themselves because then you'll never run out of conversation.  It is a piece of advice that has been quite useful as most people do enjoy talking about themselves, but often that is also quite a strain. Conversation is a two way thing.

Nowadays the only difference between a week night and a weekend night is that we watch a dvd on a Saturday and during the week, I am usually in bed by 9 o'clock.  If we are invited somewhere or have invited people round, it usually completely throws me out.  I struggle to stay awake past 10 o'clock and my idea of living on the edge is having Milo before I go to bed.

However, am I happy?  Yes.  Most definitely.  When I hear what I imagine are BMWs with shiny hubcaps, tinted windows and blue lights revving their engines and doing wheel spins, I'm quite glad that I have decided what I want and don't want from life.