Dearest Deborah,

I know you love my stories, especially my African stories which recall our adventures. You would edit them for me. Here is a new one I have written for your birthday Shamwari. A bit of Africa, a bit of England. Enjoy.x

In Zimbabwe, going for a swim is part of every season, part of your daily routine, part of every kid’s daily routine - like riding a bike, chewing Cowboy Bubble Gums, setting stuff on fire with a magnifying glass and collecting fireflies in jam jars. Deborah and I swam our way through our childhood - Old McDonald’s Pool, Mount Pleasant Pool, Les Brown Pool, Auntie Eileen’s Pool, Wendy’s Pool, Uncle Ken’s Pool, Sheona’s Pool, The Waltons’ Pool, the Hewitts’ Pool – we swam at them all.  Life in Zimbabwe was one big pool crawl. Deep pools, shallow pools, pools with slides, pools with diving boards, pools with fountains, pools with bars, we even used the pond Dad built as a pool before he added the goldfish – and then finally… our very own pool. Crawl, breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly, sidestroke, dolphinstroke, forward rolls, backward rolls, handstands, dives – we did them all. Weekdays, weekends, day, night - Deborah and I would swim until our feet and hands would shrivel and wrinkle, swim until our hands had more grip than a gecko, swim until our feet had more tread than a Land Rover heading for Nyanga in rainy season.

When we moved to England, Deborah and I dragged our Zimbabwean lifestyle with us, we clung to our Zimbabwean daily routine as if it were a life buoy – we swapped our Raleigh bikes for second-hand Shoppers, Cowboy Gum for Wrigley’s, fireflies for disco lights and we swapped our very own pool set in rolling lawns, surrounded by Bougainvillea, Hoya, palms and Lantana - for Littlehampton Community Public Indoor Swimming Pool. The sky disappeared, taking our sun and moon with it but we tried to embrace our new indoor water world - and it was almost like swimming in Zimbabwe - If you swam under water, deep underwater - you could block out the sounds, you could block out the crowds, you could block out the smell of chlorine. If you swam below the surface, deep below surface you could pretend the smudge of a spotlight is the Zimbabwean sun or the Zimbabwean moon, way up in a Zimbabwean sky. No longer did we have to check the pool for snakes before we dived in, there was a new threat that lurked in murky waters – verrucas!

Verruca vulgaris we learnt was caused by an infection of human papillomavirus. The good news was we could don on our Zimbabwean flip-flops again when heading for the pool but the bad news was – flip flops wouldn’t deter verrucas, Deborah and I would collect them like stamps, between us over the years we would have a volley of verrucas. Our first defence was muti and we headed for the pharmacy to ‘Bazuka that Verrucca’, we moved on to - a blast of liquid nitrogen at the doctor’s surgery, a blast of Scholl freeze at home, a vinegar foot bath, a plaster of Duck Tape, banana peel taped with a plaster - a true Zimbabwean solves any problem and never gives up. A few years back, I had a particularly troublesome verruca, it was like standing on a needle and I was finding myself reluctant to brake when driving.

‘Aloe Vera,’ suggested Deborah, ‘is the cure,’ as she handed me over the most beautiful specimen of Aloe Vera in a glass pot. ‘The Aloe Vera juices are packed with malic acid which have antiviral, antibacterial and antibiotic properties, they will zap it, man. Apply it every day for 2-3 weeks and your verruca will be history?’ Throughout our lives, Deborah would come up with the ideas, the possible solutions, often creative and I would put them in to play. I happily took the perfect plant, chopped it up and taped it to my foot as she instructed. It was like walking on a needle that was surrounded by shattered glass, the Aloe Vera wasn’t very juicy. I hobbled on for nearly 2 weeks when I noticed the water laying in the bottom of the glass pot of the Aloe Vera – we were over watering it. I told the family to stop watering my plant.

‘It’s plastic,’ said Hollyann. ‘It’s not a real plant. It’s a plastic plant.’ I looked at the Aloe Vera, it did look perfect. Had it grown? Not really. Wasn’t it suspended in a growing medium… or was it clear plastic resin? Was that mould growing at the bottom of the pot? But there were roots – or were they plastic? I ripped off my plaster and examined the chopped Aloe Vera – it was moist. Was that the juices seeping out or… was it sweat? I had been hobbling round with chopped up plastic taped to my foot for two weeks! My lovely sister, Deborah had mistakenly bought me a plastic Aloe Vera, believing it was a real plant. Deborah rolled about laughing when I rang to tell her. We just had to say, ‘Aloe Vera’ and we would roll up. Deborah bought me another Aloe Vera, this time I prodded it, smelt it, touched it and checked she hadn’t bought it from the home section of John Lewis.

My beautiful real Aloe Vera that Deborah gave me, is flowering at the moment for the first time, its flower stands colourful, tall and proud, stretching up towards the sun.

Thank you, Deborah, for caring, for your wonderful approach to life’s problems, for the great memories, and for the laughter - I am still laughing, Shamwari.

Happy, happy birthday my friend.

Love and laughs your No1 best sister Anita. XXXX