Monkeys

I remember childhood family visits to the zoo either in Edinburgh (where my aunt, uncle and cousin lived) or at Calderpark Zoo which was about ten minutes from where we stayed in Bothwell. Memories of these visits are mixed. I associate them with ice cream, lollipops and picnics under sunny skies (in Scotland?).  I loved the penguins and the chimpanzees. The incongruity of them being in Scotland was lost on a child’s mind. I hated the cages. As I got older I began to feel very uncomfortable visiting the rather sad looking animals in these places. And I have never much enjoyed invading animals’ space in the wild. To my shame I’ve been on safaris, mostly in Sri Lanka (the result – terrified, as the ‘World War 2’ Land Rover we were in did not look like it would last another minute and certainly would not have offered any protection from the leopard which I spotted before the guide or the too numerous elephants who surrounded us at one point), and Africa (the result – uncomfortable, as the fancy jeeps just seemed to encroach too much on the animals who I felt just wanted to be left alone to get on with their lives and could do without strangers in their noisy vehicles chasing them all over the place).  I prefer to respect animals’ privacy and leave them alone really. However I don’t mind them invading my space from time to time. 

My house down south is surrounded by a variety of wildlife. At any one time we can have squirrels, monkeys, snakes, monitor lizards, scorpions, parrots, sea eagles, bats, doves, kingfishers and paradise flycatchers. All sorts. Some are beautiful, some are scary, some are funny. Monkeys though – nightmare or amusement or a bit of both? The house is surrounded by trees which are the playground of a troop of monkeys. Of course the house and garden also become their playground from time to time, although with three dogs they are reluctant to actually come down to the lawn, unless there is a juicy piece of papaya lying on the ground. They love the jambu, mango and papaya trees. For my mum they provide hours of amusement and are a rare source of anticipated pleasure.

At breakfast, monkeys are a talking point. Are they in the trees in front? Have they been heard but not seen? Is there fruit out on the bird table for them? Will they be around later? The state of the blue water lily or “Nil Mahanel” in the pond is the other common breakfast topic. Is it open? Will it open today? Is there one just below the surface? But the monkeys provide much more amusement than the flower. They are often to be seen on the tall palm trees while we are having breakfast. Then when there is fruit out, you will see them swinging across the trees till they are perched in the jambu tree from which hangs the bird table. A quick tug of the wire holding the table and either a monkey will appear and climb down till it can reach the table and grab the fruit, or it will pull the table up to it so it can take the fruit.

When there are young ones around they can cause havoc racing along the wall of the garden and jumping over each other then clattering over my roof and my neighbour’s roof. They can swing so much from the trees and bushes that the branches break. My mum can be sitting on the porch quietly and I am in the study doing some work, when all of a sudden their presence is announced with loud deep throaty calls. They leap between the two jambu trees in search of other fruit trees. I am still trying to catch on photo one in flight between these two trees. By the time you click the camera they have reached the other tree. They clatter over the tiled roofs making such a racket you would think that there were millions of them. They are another thing that my mum counts. She will tell me how many have been on the wall recently, how many are up the palm tree, how many were swinging between the jambu trees, how many climbed down the wire, how many went over the neighbour’s roof, how many climbed along the telephone wire.

They are a menace though. Tiles fall off the roof, are broken, move so they are balanced precariously at the edge of the roof. Branches break, fruit is stolen. I came out one day to find one menacing monkey up a papaya tree with a whole papaya in its hand looking as if it was about to drop it on Crazy, my alsation/beach dog mix,  who was directly underneath and barking up at it.  We all try different ways of getting rid of them. Clapping hands, hitting trees with various objects, making loud monkey like noises, are all tried and tested local methods with varying degrees of success.  I tried the water hose at Xmas. At first it was effective then they seemed to decide that actually a shower was quite refreshing. And I couldn’t get the hose to stay on the tap so that just ended up as a rather frustrating experience all round. I came down one weekend to find Molly, my Emirati desert dog (no idea what she thought monkeys were – don’t get them in the desert!) who used to bark at the monkeys, going into trembling fits every time they appeared. I thought she had been attacked by a monkey. It turned out that our next door neighbor had gotten so annoyed with the monkeys that he had started shooting very loud fireworks at them every time they appeared. The noise freaked the dogs out. He did it so often that every time the monkeys appeared (regardless of whether or not he fired things at them) Molly would tremble with fear. Now she’s completely deaf so it doesn’t bother her.

We’ve had various dramas with the monkeys too. The most recent was during the two week visit of my brother and family. They rented the house next door (Hibiscus Cottage and on Trip Advisor just in case anyone is interested in a rental). This particular troop of monkeys that is around these days has one rogue monkey. He took to preening himself using their windows to view his reflection. Then he came half in the window which has bars. I said confidently to my brother and family, “Don’t worry, he can’t possibly get completely in.” Wrong! My brother’s wife was cooking quietly in the kitchen when she felt the palms of hands on her rear end. Turning, expecting to see my brother, she came face to face with this monkey.  We were all sitting on my porch next door when we heard the rather strangled cry for help. We rushed over to find the monkey sitting on one of the lamp shades in the house looking at us. Chaminda to the rescue! With the help of a large broom, he eventually managed to get it out by providing an escape route by opening all the windows and doors.

Nightmare or amusement?  I’m quite happy to have them around and much prefer having them invade my space periodically (as long as they don’t get too close!) than the other way round.

Food is a challenge these days. Both for my oldest dog and for my mum.  My mum has a healthy appetite but she will turn her nose up at certain things. She will also completely forget about food. It is not high up on her list of priorities. When I announce, “dinner!” she will invariably look surprised at such an idea and either tell me she has already had it or that it can’t possibly be that time of day. Just prior to her going into hospital the last time, she had lost tons of weight. She was forgetting to eat. The kids had tried to remedy that by having pre cooked meals delivered which she just had to put into the microwave. But of course it was all very well having food in the freezer; she had to remember to put it into the microwave which she invariably didn’t.  Molly, my oldest dog, has another problem. She does not have an appetite at all usually; she is underweight and has got kidney problems. So it is important she eats. She is the best fed in the house. She gets a cooked breakfast of chicken, rice and an egg every morning and I stand over her while she eats, closely watched by the other two dogs who are on diets and only get one meal a day. The fact that both of them have their meals provided for them at regular intervals keeps their weight up. It also makes me more aware of food.

I am a vegetarian; my mum isn’t. Therefore cooking in my household consists very often of making two different meals.  I’ve experimented a little with food for my mum. Recently though I’ve come to the conclusion that if you follow a few simple rules then usually this works:-

• Rule one: make meals that she recognizes - things that she would have had in Scotland, for example, mince and tatties, fish and chips, tuna mayonnaise and corn, sausage beans and chips, that kind of thing. These are the safe foods.
• Rule two: make meals that are easy to eat. Having broken one arm which has never really mended properly and done something to the other, she has issues cutting things up. She doesn’t do knives. She can just about manage a fork. Meals have to be something that you cut up for her and don’t make her chase it round the plate.
• Rule three: if you find something different that she likes, stick to it -  the margarita pizza at the Fortress has worked a treat for many a lunch. Does for me too.
• Rule four: don’t get worried if she has the same things every week. I used to try and vary her diet too much which neither of us appreciated for different reasons. She didn’t know what was on her plate half the time and therefore wasn’t keen on eating it; I was running out of ideas for menus and spending too much time dreaming new things up. As long as she gets plenty of fruit and veg, protein and carbs which she does then I reckon that’s ok.

Going out to eat is a challenge as well. Especially here in Sri Lanka. The menus are not the same as in Scotland and even when you think you are playing safe by ordering something that has the same name as something in Scotland, it can easily backfire. For example ‘fish and chips’ on the menu in Unawatuna beach restaurants is not Scottish ‘fish and chips’. The fish is not in a batter, it is not cod or haddock, it is not bone free, and the chips are not big chunky chips covered in tomato and/or brown sauce, vinegar and salt. She can’t stand the thin chips you get here. So selecting from a menu is tricky. A club sandwich is your best bet if it is on the menu. In fact even ordering a drink can be a challenge. I now order tea – though I wouldn’t everywhere. Tea in Sri Lanka typically comes with milk and sugar. It’s not a Scottish cup of tea.  A pot of tea can work as long as the milk and sugar is separate. She doesn’t do water or really any of the fizzy drinks. Milkshakes can work – she has a particularly refreshing ‘banana cooldown’ at the Fortress.

When my brother was here recently he reminded me of the days when her three kids were teenagers and we all came home for long holidays from our various universities or colleges. Those days our house was the base camp for all sorts of friends. It wasn’t a big house but there were lots of mattresses that could be pulled out whenever extra people came to stay. And there was always tons of food for all. How she did this on her primary teacher’s salary is a mystery. At any one time there could be an extra 5 or 6 people to feed, morning, noon and night. We didn’t eat fancy of course. We just ate basic food but there was always enough to go round and pots of this that and the next thing could be added to to go further. There was never a choice of food. Whatever there was, you ate. And she did all the cooking. She had made a point of not teaching me how to cook on the grounds that I was going to get a good job and not have to cook. That was a bit illogical and luckily I did learn to cook on the job so to speak as a student while working in a vegetable factory in Holland where I was ‘the cook’. I used to ask the 20 people I was cooking for every day what they wanted, get their oral recipes, shop and cook, running across to the factory to ask what to do next in the more complicated meals. This was on a 3 ring gas stove so represented a bit of a challenge but it was one of the best jobs I have ever had. Now I can happily cook for 20 but 2 or 4 is rather daunting. And I’m not too keen on ovens.

So in a sense the wheel has come full circle. She used to decide what we ate, shop for it and cook it. Now she would have issues doing any of those things. I now do this which is still a bit of novelty for me since having spent so much time living on my own and answering to no one, I’ve never really had to give the whole areas of shopping and cooking much thought. So although I still succumb to home delivered pizzas more often than I care to mention, I probably eat much healthier now than I have ever done in the past because I’m having to be more aware of the food that goes in front of mum.     

If anyone had told me this time last year that I would be playing regular games of rummy almost every day I would have said they were mad. However here I am. Hardly a day goes by when I do not suggest playing a game of cards to my mum. And not any old game of cards, it has to be rummy. I have tried to change the games occasionally and so have our visitors as it does get a bit monotonous. No other game will do though. If you change the game she will continue to play rummy rules to the new game and get herself confused when you try and tell her it is wrong. So I don’t change the game and I warn visitors not to. It’s not worth it.

I discovered the soothing effect of rummy when I used to visit my mum last year in Udston Hospital which offers long term care for elderly patients. She was sectioned there. During the day I would take her out for walks round Strathclyde Park and in the evening we would play cards. It both gave us something to do and it seemed to calm her down when she was getting in a state about something real or imaginary. Generally it gives her something to focus on I think and it is something she can control. It’s not too difficult especially when there are only two people playing. It focuses on numbers which she can still deal with. It is short. She can still win at it – again especially with only two people playing.

For me it works because you can play anywhere. A pack of cards is easily packed. Most of the time she goes into a card playing mode almost the minute the cards appear. I can also tell from how she plays how both her mood is and how lucid she is. Even if she loses if she has cards that are nearly there, then she is lucid. However if she has a jumbled collection of cards or she is throwing away cards I know she wants then she is having a bad day. She can be playful, putting down six cards and claiming to be out.

I have never known her to refuse a game of cards. “Oh I haven’t played cards in years!” is the usual retort to a suggestion of a game. The fact that she has played almost every day in the last nine months is completely lost on her. All sorts of people have learnt rummy in order to play with her. Shamalee, her Sri Lankan carer while I am at work, is now a dab hand at rummy. I discovered that mum had taught her adaptations of the game which were not quite correct when we actually all three sat down to play. When I come in from work, Shamalee is playing and I can just take over her hand. When my brother and his family came to visit, his children had to learn rummy. I watched and listened to the rather bizarre tableau of my brother sitting in between the two kids teaching them in Dutch to play rummy with my mum. The Dutch did not impact on her at all. She was more pissed off that my brother seemed to win all the time.  

I had wanted to provide here a history of rummy but a quick surf of the net produced no definitive answer as to where rummy came from. Mexico, Spain, America, Japan, China have all been posited as its country of origin.   http://rummy.com/rummyhistory.html  in fact concluded the following: “it can be said that Rummy games have been propelled by their popularity. They have travelled across geographic borders, carrying the games onward in a relay fashion whilst gathering variation on the way. “

This is certainly true of my experience. I learnt rummy as part of a card game playing family. I distinctly remember the card table we had in the house when I was growing up. It was a trolley which opened up to reveal a green felt covered table with space underneath for keeping all sorts. No idea what happened to that trolley. The amount of card and board games we played when we were growing up was quite something.  Cards then also came into their own when I began travelling. Small enough to squeeze into any rucksack and providing hours of fun anywhere, at any time, with anyone.  Killing time waiting on buses, planes, trains. Chilling out on beaches. Getting to know new people.  Learning new games in different countries with different people. It also travels well for my mum – cards come with us on any journeys – we never leave home without them.

It’s the Unawatuna Festival this week. How do I know this? Well, I can hear the monks chanting from wherever I am in the house. How does it impact on mum? From 8.30 in the morning to late in the evening, the monks at the temple on the beach chant. This is transmitted via loud-speakers from the far end of the beach, it reverberates in the hollow that is the beach and reaches us at the top of the hill quite distinctly. “Those men are at it again,” mum comments. And indeed they are. The festival lasts a week so I have another two days to go. For some reason it always sneaks up on me. Although I know it happens once a year in August and starts on the same day every year, it always surprises me. It started last Wednesday 2^nd August on Nikini Poya (full moon day) and marks the start of “Vas”, the Buddhist monks rainy retreats. It’s made me ponder festivals.

If asked, I would have replied that as a family we never really did festivals.  However like a lot of things, on reflection, life paints a different story.  I was born on Lanimer Day in Lanark and nearly got called Brenda as a result because she was the Lanimer Queen that year and visited me in the hospital. Or to be more precise she came to visit the William Smellie Memorial Hospital in Lanark, which was where my mum gave birth.   Lanimer Day, held on the Thursday between the 6th and 12 June, (in my case the 12^th) is a big local festival. The Lanimer Procession is made up of schoolchildren and others parading through the town in costume accompanying decorated floats and marching brass and pipe bands.  The roots of Lanimer Day lie (I recently discovered in Wikipedia) in the checking of the March stones which were the boundaries of the Royal Burgh. Beginning in 1140, it started as a day’s celebration but by the late 19^th early 20^th century the events had extended into a week.  So I was born into a week-long festival.

Halloween also holds a lot of memories. Getting dressed up as all sorts of things with the help of mother. My mum was a primary teacher and therefore was quite handy at making bizarre things like dalek outfits from cardboard boxes and bat capes from parachute satin (my dad was a navigator in the RAF during the war). One year I was the joker with a bright green jumper which I completely destroyed by drawing large question marks on it with black felt pen. Looked great though! It must have been a safer time then as I don’t remember any parents accompanying us on our tour of the houses for ‘trick or treat’.

Being Scottish we also went in for New Year in a big way. Pre-18 the three kids were all given avocat as a special treat at the bells. We would watch the Reverend I M Jolly on tv. One of my brother’s friends who had dark hair had to be sent out the back door and in the front door to be the lucky first footer of the New Year – Scottish New Year protocol dictated the first person in your house at the start of the New Year had to be dark haired to be lucky. He would carry coal or more likely shortbread out the backdoor and in the front door. Protocol also demanded the first footer to carry something as a present. As the three of us kids got older and moved away from home we were always back at New Year. I have no idea how mum put up with it but Xmas holidays saw our house full of people every night. There was a steady supply of sausage rolls and roasted cheese and branston pickle on toast for whoever was invited down after the pub shut. Looking back it must have cost her a small fortune because I don’t remember us as students ever contributing.

But back to today and the Unawatuna festival.  The village traces its roots to the great epic Ramayana. In the mythological epic so the story goes, Jambavan sent Hanuman, the monkey-warrior to India to bring back four medicinal herbs from the Himalayas to heal Lakshman who had been wounded trying to save Princess Sita from the demon king Ravana. Unable to identify the herbs, he picked the whole mountain up and took it to the battlefield in an attempt to save Lakshman. On route however, a bit of it fell down in present day Unawatuna; "Una-watuna" means "fell down". It changes from a fairly sleepy village in July into a hive of activity in August for that one week of the festival. The festival is usually preceded by a power cut which means they have overloaded the circuit testing the lights which stretch along the road and up the hill to the temple – reminiscent of Blackpool.  My brother, his wife and kids all accompanied Chaminda in the tuk tuk to see the local perehera last Friday. My brother went into knots as he misheard ‘perehera’ (procession) and thought I had said ‘pair of hairies’ (Glaswegian slang for 2 youths with a lot of hair). What was in the procession? Two elephants decked out in their finery, stilt walkers, whip crackers, Kandyan dancers, all sorts of kids doing traditional dances in brightly coloured costumes, all winding their way to the temple at the far end of the beach. The family had a great time.

Bit different from the Lanimer Day Procession; but both trace their roots to stones.