A new generation 2

What I meant when I spoke last week about a retreat into privacy was settling into a self-contained world which is full of interest. The human element in this world is limited, which is why I stressed animals in the original title of the series. But of course that title was also inspired by a book about another self-contained world which I reread last year, having relished it half a century earlier when I was still at school.

This was My Family and other Animals by Gerald Durrell, a memoir of five years he spent with his family in Corfu in the thirties. The book intersperses accounts of his pursuit of animals, and in particular of insects and other smaller creatures whom he studies avidly, with hilarious stories of his family. But though that will be my model, as the transposition in my title indicates, there is a vital difference. My principal identification is with the house in which I live, Lakmahal, which has been on centre stage in many posts in the last few years. Though Durrell did create a sense of place about the three different houses the family occupied in Corfu, there were three and there was no passion for any of them, such as he evinced for his collections, including of humans.

But I have no family with me at Lakmahal such as Gerald Durrell had in Corfu, though I do have family here in the wider sense, Janaki who has also featured in many posts, for she lives here as do her son and her brother. And even more importantly Kithsiri, though he has his own house next to mine at Palankadewatte, also stays here often, not just for transport but also for much, much more than the Spiro of the Durrells.

But in my bedroom night after night there had only been Toby, and that is why the animals feature first in this series, rather than the rest of my immensely satisfying household.

It was because he was not in my room on the night of June 5^th, and nor was I, that there was a burglary at LakmahaI. I have no doubt those who were responsible saw him go with me that day, and thought there would be no one in the house. But fortunately for me Janaki and her son have slept inside since the workmen stayed over when work began on the new building there, and perhaps when her alarm went off at 4 am they panicked. Though they had broken open several cupboards, very little of value was taken. Indeed there is generally nothing of value, for as the police told me such thieves are interested in jewellery, of which I have none, and in cash, of which I never have large amounts.

I had left Toby at the cottage and gone on to Wellawaya, since I was supposed to be at Kumana the next morning. But when Janaki called up before dawn to tell me what had happened, I had of course to head back home. I called the police at once, and they had gone there immediately, but I had to wait awhile for Ajitha Madanayake to collect from me the supplies I had loaded at his house the previous morning.

The pictures are of Toby on his two seats, up in the balcony and down in the garden.