My daughter read the instructions on a school paper to me without stopping once. Long words also, not just the easy ones. I told her to read it again for her mother and she said Dad, she has already heard. Okay, but I had not! Am very happy with that girl. Sometimes I hear myself talking only about fees and uniforms, as if school is a bill they bring home. This time I wanted to sit there and hear what else she could read, but the young one kept climbing on the chair and demanding his turn with a book upside down. We laughed until their mother came to see what lesson I was teaching. A noisy one, clearly.

For the small hardware shop I keep changing my mind about what stock to buy first. Taps look good on display, a customer sees where the money has gone, but the elbows and washers are what people ask me for when shops are already closed. I could sell twenty small things while one expensive tap sits there gathering dust. Then a man on the verandah says you must show variety or people think you have nothing, which is also true. Have written three different lists on the delivery note in my wallet. The fittings I know. Guessing what people will buy before they have called me with a problem, that is a different job.

The motorbike brings its own refrigerator, no need to buy one. Went out before breakfast and by the time I reached the hardware my fingers were so cold I could not open the zip on the tool bag properly. The rest of me was warm inside the jacket, only hands and toes refusing. I held a cup of tea between both palms while the other fundis discussed a match I had not watched. Took some time before the fingers would bend easily. Then hunger arrived, serious hunger, so I bought two mandazi instead of pretending tea was enough. At the first job I could feel my hands again, and the stomach was no longer making announcements.