I started reading The Flame Trees of Thika last night. I've read it before - at least once - but it's been years. I'm fascinated by settler-types, who move into a place and start a life from scratch.
In the first chapter, a character announces that he is going to move on.
"Henry Oram was the kind of man who never settled down....
'It's getting overcrowded,' he said in a South African voice, flat and strong like himself. 'It's time I moved on.'
'Where to?' Tilly inquired.
'They're opening up new land beyond the Plateau....This place will be a suburb of Nairobi in a few years. There's talk of a railway to Thika....'
'...And now your wife has made a home...'
'With a wagon, a fire, and a pound of coffee any true woman can make a home,' Henry Oram replied. Tilly thought he was pompous, but he may have been pulling her leg."
So here's the question: What do you need to make a home? I fear I need rather more than a wagon and a fire, and I don't drink coffee. I'm thinking about my answer. Anyone else?
1 hour ago
3 comments:
Don't you have greeting cards in Tecwil? Everyone here knows that "love makes a house a home."
Actually it's a question that stumps me. I wonder what my minimal homemaking needs would be in the same way I wonder how I'd measure up as a martyr.
I need - a washing machine and family photos.
The coffee would be helpful too.
Having moved around quite a lot over the years, I think what I need to make a home is my family. I have an awful lot of stuff, but when I try to whittle it down to the bare essentials, I need my wife and kids. Without them, it's not home. With them, it is.
But, of course, coffee never goes amiss.
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