7th April 2008 : Scorpion Loaf
Monday, April 7, 2008 at 10:13AM Apologies first of all for having been absent so much of late...with a huge workload on my plate at the moment, I have not had the time (nor the energy at the end of each day) to dedicate to my diary...but within the next week or so, I will be posting a very long entry, updating you on everything that's been happening in the past couple of weeks - so watch this space...
In haste though, I just had to show you this and tell you a very quick story:
I got up early in the morning the other day, to bake some bread before starting work. I measured out the flour, salt, yeast etc, and was about to start mixing it all together by hand when something in the flour caught my eye...and lucky I saw it too, for it was a tiny little scorpion! Where it had come from, I don't know, but it was possibly hiding on the underneath of my flour container, and had fallen into the bowl when I was measuring out the flour. I'm just glad it happened to fall on top of the flour, as opposed to being buried under it, otherwise I would have been given a very nasty wake-up call in the form of a very unfriendly sting. Scorpions of all sizes give a painful sting, but the smaller they are, the more potent the sting, and the more sharp the pain. A close escape, I'd say...
I suppose, when you consider how many years I have lived in the bush, I have got away quite lightly (touch wood!), and have only once been stung by a scorpion - that was on my backside, about ten or fifteen years ago, when a few friends and I were lying back on some giant flat rocks at dusk, watching the stars appear one by one in the night sky...It was my own fault really, as I should have known better than to tempt fate (and scorpions) like that. It took about 12-18 hours for the pain to subside. No sleep for me that night! You know how some pain comes in waves - not so with a scorpion sting - the pain is consistent and burning for hours....but at least you know you just have to wait it out and you're going to be OK - an African scorpion sting is not dangerous, as such...so it's a matter of gritting your teeth and bearing it.
