harmattan

I am an E. Yorks lad, 63 years, 6ft tall, glasses and a paunch. I have been many things, seen many things and done many things. Recently widowed, I live in The Gambia, West Africa, with a stinking albino dog, two belligerent cats and an international restaurant which thrives because of the dedication of a group of committed and loyal staff without whom it would all probably collapse.
Had a massive stroke five years ago. Walk, talk, drive and work but not so steady on my feet and my memory lets me down. So from time to time I forget courtesies and protocols, which can be real fun at this age. August ’09 informed that cancer is trying to kill me. Fat chance! No retreat. No surrender!
Trying to cobble together a book entitled “Harmattan; Wit and Witless!” mostly stuff previously published in African newspapers and magazines, a journal of memoirs hopefully to make people smile, and occasionally cogitate.

WORDS TO LIVE BY…
Let me live out my years in heat of blood
Let me die drunk with the dreamer’s wine
Let me not see this soul-house built of mud
Go toppling to the dust a vacant shrine
Let me go quickly like a candlelight
Snuffed out just at the hey-day of its glow
Give me high noon...... then let it be night
Thus I would go
And grant me, when I face the grisly thing
One haughty cry to pierce the grey perhaps
Oh let me be a tune-swept fiddle string
That feels the master melody.....
And snaps