A wheelie case full of avocados

I can't pass a small brown avocado without remembering the vervet monkeys on Risenga's hillside in Venda, a place filled with birds, a place Giya's just come back from, reminding me of the heat, the wildness of the north and its lure, and how I understand her decision to stay in Venda rather than try and navigate Johannesburg again. It was on her 18th birthday trip in 2012 that I last bought a large net bag of small brown avocados - 20 of them for less than £1 - and so, in the Open Market today, with Maude, I experienced one of those slippages of time and place, passing a crate on sale for £5.

I think I said to Maude that the monkeys loved them. But not here, where there's snow on the ground and the water in the birdbath's freezing over as quickly as I smash the ice and refill it. We were off to pay homage to Maplins and offer our condolences, both of us fans of the place. So I thought I'd get the avocados on the way back home.

Luckily we also passed a wheelie suitcase in Chestnut House charity shop and I've been looking for one cheap after doing my shoulder in going to Leeds in January. I'm feeling flush today, having had some work and it was good to splash out on a suitcase and to think of all those avocados for a fiver. We did the pilgrimage to Maplins and on the way back passed a Greek cafe with delicious looking pastries in the window. Maude asks if we should have a coffee and we're in like a shot, asking for the menu.

We unpeel our layers, order snacks and sit catching up. Outside the snow starts again and we make our way back to the market. The avocados fit perfectly, some of the squishy but there must be 30 of them at least. I wonder what I'll do with so many. I thought I'd halve them with Maude but she can't carry them.

And lugging them back up the hill, unpacking them, along with very ripe Brie, I realise that if I feel homesick for a place I barely know, for those little monkeys watching from the trees, for the quartz stones in the ground and trees that seem older than memory, how pleased I am that Risenga has, at least, a date in his mind for when he's going back.