Janet Lindup, a former prima ballerina of Cape Town City Ballet and now a Pilates teacher, had an early visit to her Tokai home from the Easter Bunny.
A very much alive grey rabbit appeared at her gate on Sunday evening March 18. As there was no sign of any anxious owners around, she picked up the bunny and brought it into a large uncarpeted room next to her studio, where her unexpected guest could eat, drink and run around safely without danger of meeting a family cat or dog.
She quickly became aware of two things: her visitor was a family pet, possibly belonging to a child who was distraught at its escape, and she didn’t have a clue what it would need to eat.
Janet sought help from Google, where she She learnt that alfalfa, radish, clover sprouts (as well as those from Brussels) along with carrot tops, asparagus, bell peppers and broccoli “should be considered as part a rabbit’s diet”.
But who, on a Sunday night, has anything other than carrots, probably a bit old and not organic?
So carrots it was until she could shop for the recommended three different vegetables a day but avoiding no-nos like legumes, nuts, seeds, corn-cob treats or yoghurt drops.
Janet has used social media to broadcast her surprise Easter visitor, and I hope that when I next see her, I will hear the rabbit has been reunited with its owners. Alas, a happy ending is not a given with escaped rabbits as they are so elusive on the run and have several enemies, including cars.
We three Chisholm sisters lost, found and lost again so many pet rabbits in our youth that we had a rabbit cemetery in a corner of our Rondebosch garden.
Should any reader still be missing a grey rabbit, please email me to the address below.
AGM enjoyable
I was surprised how much I enjoyed the agm annual general meeting of the Tokai Neighbourhood Crime Watch (TNCW) on Thursday March 22. For starters, it was held in the vast but welcoming interior of the Tokai Community Church, a building I last visited when it housed a plant nursery specialising in bulbs.
The event gave me the opportunity to meet Ian Basset, the hard-working chairman of TNCW, and to hear his plea for more homeowners to become involved in fighting crime and “not to leave it all to the few”.
“In particular, we need more patrollers to help to increase our visibility in fighting crime. This past year, residential burglaries have increased alarmingly by 45%, while attempted burglaries have risen by 67%. We also need volunteers to become zone managers for their area and street co-ordinators for their street. This to initiate enthusiasm for residents to look out and look after those who are close to each other.”
The guest speaker, Ward 71 councillor Penny East, Ward 71 councillor took this idea further in her plea for Tokai residents to reach out in friendship and help to their near neighbours in the less-affluent village of Westlake. It’s an excellent idea but how to bring it about in a meaningful way would possibly require a joint effort to make it work so that it doesn’t appear making it work would possibly require some joint initiative to avoid it looking patronising.
Once fooled twice shy
I feel like an April Fool, and if I fooled you too, it was unintentional. That marvellous scene in the movie Darkest Hour, where King George VI dropped in to see Churchill in the middle of the night to urge him to “talk to the people”, never happened. Nor did Churchill respond by taking a ride on the London underground from St James’s Park to Westminster to chat to commuters.
Those scenes were conceived by director Joe Wright and screenwriter Anthony McCarten to show Churchill in a kinder light. And among the other historical inaccuracies was that Churchill had suggested rousingraisingusing an armada of small boats to rescue the army trapped at Dunkirk. In truth it was the Royal Navy’s idea.
My fault was to be fooled by an article on Google, in which sharp-eyed critics had produced a long list of minor “faults” or anachronisms, in the film. Since writing about them, I have been told about another article on Google which points out the fiction portrayed as fact.
Spectacular cricket
Do you still think five-day cricket is as boring as watching paint dry? Impossible surely after the ball-tampering scandal on Saturday at Newlands seemed to ignite the Proteas on Sunday to wipe out the Aussies. First came their quick and positive batting in the morning followed by an amazing 10-wicket haul in the afternoon.
In the end I felt quite sorry for the visitors.
Few international teams, let alone South Africa, can take the high moral ground on ball tampering. Remember the fuss in November 2016 when our own captain, Faf du Plessis, was found guilty of shining the ball with a mint in his mouth?
Only fools and horses can hope to get away with cheating these days when not only the cameras are everywhere but cellphones as well.
Cricket humour
Looking up examples of some of the most famous examples of “sledgings”, I chose one from a South Africa and one from Australia.
“The only time an Australian ever walks is when his car runs out of petrol” – right-handed batsman Barry Richards in 1980.
“Shane Warne’s idea of a balanced diet is a cheeseburger in each hand” – Ian Healy, wicket keeper and middle-order batsman in 1988.
fionachisholm@iafrica.com
