Breakfast

Yesterday I had one of those moments when I was suddenly back somewhere long ago, in this case in the house we had in Cliff Avenue for the last three years of my parents' time in Mombasa. I am sitting in the dining room. It's on the ground floor at left in this picture, its two windows on this side mostly obscured by a bush. In the memory flash I am sitting in my usual place at the table, which is with my back to these windows, with my mother on my right, my father opposite me, and Richard on my left. The dining table is dark wood, large, with a small glass bowl in the middle in which floats a single, delicate frangipani flower. One of the servants, probably the head 'boy' Saidi, dressed in a white khanzu - like a long, white night-shirt - red cummerbund and a red fez hat, is coming into the room through the door which leads to the kitchen, to my right front.

The wooden louvres of the window shutters are open so a cool early morning breeze fills the room but, even so, I can smell the coffee which is in my cup. It's good, Kenya coffee, served by my mother from a very elegant silver coffee pot.

When I sat down to breakfast a large slice of pawpaw was on the plate in front of me. Crunchy brown sugar had already been sprinkled on it, and there's more in a silver sugar bowl, but the first thing I do is to squeeze a quarter slice of lemon, picked from the tree in our garden, onto it.

My father has already finished his meal and will be off to work in a few minutes. He's already taken a short but brisk walk, which he does every morning between morning tea on the top veranda and breakfast. My mother is pouring herself more coffee.  And Saidi has Richard's main course, which he serves from a large tray: bacon, fried egg, fried bread, fried tomatoes and a sausage. No-one speaks, we're concentrating on our food, but I expect my mother to ask us what we're doing today, the answer to which is that we're meeting our friends and, perhaps, going for a bicycle ride - but we don't really know, we'll just allow the wind to blow us where it wills.

It's before seven but it's already warming up outside. It's going to be a beautiful day, and I can't wait to start on it - because I know that the number of days like this which are left to me is running down. They're precious.

I am back there for a moment, then the memory is gone.