We had an exuberance of baboons in the neighbourhood today. This is the only word that correctly describes them! It's been such a long time since they've been around that we were almost caught unawares and had to dash around closing doors, windows, locking sliding doors (they lift them out), getting the dogs inside...
The little ones are much in evidence and quite a few large females, but the huge males we were used to seeing over the years have disappeared. They used to be the ones who were in the kitchen before you knew it, peeling bananas one-handed and scratching through the fridge at the same time.
Now the youngsters dangled from drainpipes, rollicked on the rooftops and shrieked in the shrubbery. It was like a bunch of kids let loose at summer camp. A fight broke out over a mielie and one was making off with a jar of pickles.
They leaped with joyful abandon from roof to roof, stripping the neighbour's apple tree bare on the way, and cocking a snook at those silly humans trying to wet them with hosepipes; as if they cared - some even stopped off in the fish pond to cool off.
After demolishing the bird feeder for a handful of seeds and eating all the berries off the Indian Hawthorn, crushing some clivias on the way, they departed as silently as they had arrived to seek a new playground further down the road.
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