Mint juleps, high heels and the Kentucky Derby
The Kentucky Derby (pronounced “Darby”) arrived in Harare! We raided my daughter’s dressing up box for hats for everyone, and the kids managed to keep them on for most of the day! I had a huge purple striped hippy hat, which kept flopping into my face at the front, forcing me to peer at people out the side, with one eye. The only thing stopping the crowds of single men (already an exaggeration) must’ve been my progeny, clamouring for “uppy”, imprinting my legs and dress with sticky fingers and offering half mouthfuls from the buffet. I get to finish off everything tasted but not enjoyed, with a dash of slobber, sometimes a generous sprinkling of grass where it has been dropped and hastily recovered – if you’re not paying attention, you don’t even have time to clean these bits off as it gets shoved into your mouth mid-conversation. I blame it on the kids, but, well, it could’ve been the hat. And I’m not entirely sure there were many singles there – I was focused on my hat (naturally, being foremost in my vision) and the horses, and keeping the kids out of the flowerbed. But only when you are at a diplomat’s house! Did I mention the time they took wax crayons to a newly painted house? Austrian diplomats. Graham spent much of lunch that day with a scrubber and Handy Andy discreetly purloined from the staff in the kitchen while I distracted everyone with tales of poisonous spiders and prolific snakes – the dangers of living in the “bush”.
After several mint juleps (a Southern cocktail with spearmint, bourbon, sugar and water), I removed my high heels, flinging all decorum to the wind, or the flowerbed if we’re going to be accurate. The heels had bothered me much of the afternoon, sinking into the luscious lawn several times, culminating with me almost smacking myself in the face with my knee. My daughter wore them thereafter, although I still say the exchange was hardly fair – I couldn’t get my big toe into her sandals!
Anyway I left, far too late and many multiple juleps later, clutching my winnings, forgetting my hat on the table and my red high heels jutting out of the flowerbed (where my son had been using them in construction), but very jolly after an afternoon in the sun, at the races, pampered by Southern hospitality.