A country wedding. sniff.

I had a farm in Africa.

Very briefly. And it was really more like I went to a wedding in Africa and stayed at someone else’s farm. Ahhhhhh country life. Green sprawling pools of grassy swaying things that I suspect were corn but I couldn’t be quite sure because they weren’t wrapped in plastic. Hundreds of geese of the un-canned variety. Country roses the size of poodles. Croaking frogs, birds of a feather, cows so symmetrically designed they’re obviously being groomed for Herme’s bags. My husband pointed out majestic Blue Cranes lining our pathway as we drove the long and very less traveled dirt road to the venue. I would have taken a tourist shot but was holding onto my boobs for dear life, at my age I can’t take any gravity chances.

It was beautiful, romantic, captivating, awe-inspiring and breathtaking. The hosts were ridiculously gracious, the food droolingly sublime. But, as it turns out, I’m allergic to nature. All those geese roaming free? There are 3000 of them. Not there to add postcard value, but to provide soft, feathery cuddliness for a duvet. One of my worst allergies*. All around me tiny little pollen trespassers started setting up home in my nasal passages, and why not, they had the world’s most comfortable duvets. I was sneezing, sniffing, snorting, my nose had become the Mississippi, my eyes Rosemary’s Baby’s, my head was pounding like Ozzie before the senility. Those were not flowers I dropped down the aisle but crunched up bits of tissue, a Hansel and Gretel trail of Kleenex. None of it made for a very attractive bridesmaid.

Fortunately the Bride’s mom had some meds that saved me from projectile-snotting all over the priest, so crisis averted. And the moment I got back to New York I stuck my head behind the nearest taxi and inhaled. Allergies gone. My lungs acclimatized. Thank God for pollution.

What about the bride you all shout? Because really, no one cares about a snotty, sniffy, neurotic, Woody Allen-with-girly-parts, bridesmaid. Wait. Patience my readers. That blog is next.

www.kraal.biz

* A list of my allergies: nuts, sunflower seeds, strawberries, cats, dogs, hamsters, hairy pets, pine nuts, grass, feathers, dust mites, mould, intolerance and stupidity.