Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Shoo, fly


I had been wanting a fly net forever, despite being married to a man who is able to catch flies with his bare hands and relocate them. But neither of us likes flies buzzing around our meals.

So one day in July, waiting in the rain at the traffic lights to turn into Constantia Village, our local shopping mecca in Cape Town, I was delighted to see the fly net lady standing on the traffic island, selling her wares to passing cars. (You need nerves of steel to drive in South Africa. Everyone comes to the traffic lights. The lame, the halt, the blind, the ancient, the children, the hopeless and helpless, the heartbreaking, the chancers and the syndicates, the vendors, the entrepreneurs, and the occasional, genuine craftsperson. If you followed your heart you'd be bankrupt within a few days. So you put your heart in a cage and drop ice in all around it and wrap it in plastic sheeting to prevent drips. But sometimes it still sees out.)

I digress.

I pulled into the parking lot across the way and went over to see her things, and I bought three, each for R80, or about $8. They are three feet long by two feet wide, with pretty beading all along the edges to weigh the net down.  I think they are beautiful.

And now our cheese is safe in Harlem.

4 comments:

  1. How lovely that is and so practical. I inherited one of those from my mother. It is a small one, round and just big enough to fit over a cream pitcher. Great for keeping gnats out of a wine bottle, too. It is embroidered around the edge with tiny shells dangling every half inch to weigh it down. The bigger one sounds even more useful.

    Nancy Mc

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  2. Lovely! I've never seen one before. I wish knew where to buy them...so practical and so much easier to store then the dome things.

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  3. How pretty. I too have a smaller round one passed on from my Mum, being intricate, fine crochet instead of net. So useful over a jug of Pimm's on summer evenings :)

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  4. My granny used to make them.And every time flies spy us having tiffin on the deck...I say "I must make some fly nets." I really must...

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