The swallow babies grew fast, and within a couple of weeks they started to loose their creature from another planet look, that is, if you managed to see them for their always open mouths that were just about as big as their bodies. Hendrix loved to sit watching them, and if he also had intentions of making a meal of the babies, he never showed it, just looked at them with his honey brown eyes full of love.
One morning Irma could be heard for miles around, shouting abuse at all bird eating creatures, as through the night, one of the babies had disappeared, and this time Tembi was exonerated, as the box was put high up on a cupboard for the night. The culprit could only have been Nina's cat, as he was found sleeping contentedly in the sun, licking his lips unconciously, and that was proof to Irma that he had stolen the swallow from the box.
From then on the birds were put in a bigger box, Irma having stalked up to the small shop to get one, and after she had made some holes in it, the swallows were deposited inside, and the lid properly secured. But soon they were getting feathered, and started to move around, so Irma locked the lip licking Tembi out, and gave the birds a chance to walk around a bit, and it was so cute when the started excercising their wings, flapping vigorously, and in the process falling over, then struggling to get up, looking all ruffled up.
I was busy working in my front garden one morning, watching the small honeybirds sucking out the nectar from the flowers, and the bees buzzing around collecting nectar, when there was a commotion at the house up one street, on the corner opposite me. I was quite startled when I heard a lot of different voices yelling, and a car revving fit to take off into the sky, so I hurried to the fence to see what it was all about! An old cream coloured Mercedes was coming down the road at breakneck speed, and I sommer knew that the driver would not be able to get around the corner, so I hastened to get away from the fence in case the car bursted through, then stood wide eyed as it came to a standstill against a telephone pole, where it stood spitting out huge gulps of steam.
Behind the wheel sat the wife of the mechanic from whose house the car took off, and she was shaking like a jelly, her eyes like saucers! The mechanic, a small, elderly man who was so bent that his nose almost touched his knees, and his backside pinched and pushed forward so much that he looked to be doing a wee all the time, came limping down the road, cigarette dangling from his fingers, and hair resembling a hedgehog!
Apparantly she had just to sit in the car and let out the clutch while he pushed to get it started, then stopped, but she got nervous and couldn't find the brakes. Poor man, I think it cost him a lot to fix that car, that had not a lot wrong with it in the first place!