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I’m in Cape Town, walking down Main Road, Rondebosch. Its 9am. I’m looking for some place to get something to eat and I have a back spasm.

The early morning drive from Hermanus to the airport didn’t really help, and neither did getting stuck in the traffic into the city. I catch a glimpse of some wasted old geezer in a window as I walk. Oh shit, that’s me shuffling along there.

After a while I shuffle into a place that offers a breakfast begel. I get a packet of Panado from the Checkers and settle down uncomfortably. The Panado helps and I continue on my mission, which is to get to the Italian Art Shop. I aim to get some Gum Arabic, for I have embarked on the strange mission of making my own watercolours. Despite that, I buy some marked – down Maimeri watercolours. They’re very good and are no longer being brought in. I also invest in a lovely Rosemary quill brush. Then, full of visions of swashbuckling watercolours issuing forth from the new brush, I head back to Hermanus to see my chiropractor.

That evening, sitting on the beach near the estuary, I give the new brush a bit of a turn. Still in pain and sitting weirdly. the little colour sketch is distinctly un – straight, the whole thing subsiding to the right. Ja nee, skeef back, skeef everything else.

The recent weeks haven’t been exactly prolific. A long niggling flu virus has afflicted our household and badly affected everything. I’m trying to organise and finish work for an end-of-year show. I think I’ve spotted a gap for all these watercolours that I’ve done over the past year or three. They need to be seen, and with a bit of wandering around the back roads of the Overberg, I can put together something meaningful. And these back roads need to be explored. Within a 50 kilometer radius of where we live, there are all sorts of undiscovered gems.

So I get over the back spasm. I get over the niggling flu. I get on the road a bit and do some drawing. Then off to the airport again to fetch Cathy. Turns out she picked something up on the plane. Then I get it too. Another viral malady, all over again, like Groundhog Day or something out of Kafka. We just can’t get going. things are just adamantly SKEEF. There’s not much time left before the end of year crowds invade our town, bringing money to buy art. Am I going to make it or will the viral onslaught prove to be my undoing?

Watch this space….