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We, (with this I refer to my
brothers and sisters),
grew up in a time
when there still was space
for man an animal.
At our home the animals wandered free across the yard
and
we used to play and
romp around
cheerfully as children.
My mother used to say: “there’s not one swine roaming around here,
but eight.
Often I heard my mother say that she had piglets for children
and a boar of a guy.
I can remember the word pig being used daily at our home.
When we made too much mess, we had to clean the pigsty.
When we stayed in bed too long, us lazy pigs had to get up.
When we were mucky from playing games, we were dirty pigs.
Lovingly our mother would scrub her piglets and put them to bed.
As a child you did not understand these expressions
and you never stopped to think.
At an advanced age, when I had children of my own (two daughters),
I suddenly understood the expressions of my mother,
because I had two piglets
of my own.
Our children got a pile of white sand to play with, what do you
think......
they had to start digging in the dirt beneath my plants.
When they had to go inside they would squeeze
and fight their way through the door.
The door
opening was never wide enough.
And they sure knew how to
make a mess.
Yeah, sometimes it looked like a pigsty.
When I
realised we had two piglets of our own, I said to my husband:
“Jan, my mother was right, now I understand what she meant by swines,
lazy pigs, dirty pigs etc., etc., etc.
Subsequently on my next birthday my husband gave me a wooden,
hand
carved pig. He made it himself.
He added:
“now you don’t have two pigs but three”.
And soon many, many more followed.
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