My emotions having come to the conclusion of my 9th book in the Brigandshaw Chronicls.

Back in 2007, I finished writing "The Best of Times", the ninth book in the Brigandshaw chronicles starting with "Echoes from the Past", which takes the Brigandshaw family to the end of the British Empire with Ian Smith's unilateral declaration of Rhodesian independence from Britain in 1965 and the start of the bush war that lead to Robert Mugabe's presidency. The nine books add up to some one and half million words beginning with the first Brigandshaw sailing from England for Rhodesia in 1886.

Feeling deeply sad the ninth book was finished, I re-read #ErnestHemingway's "Old Man and the Sea" and was struck by the similarity in the predicament of Hemingway's old man and the old man in Zimbabwe who is Robert Mugabe. When Hemingway's old man lands the big fish after a terrible battle, it has been gutted by the sharks - it was valueless - all that effort and lifelong ambition come to nothing. Only for a brief moment did he see the gleaming fish in all its glory as it rose out of the water on the end of his line. When the big fish was tied to the side of the boat, too big to bring on board, its great head proudly looking at the old fisherman, the sharks attached tearing the flesh to pieces, the old man watching nothing he could do.

The great fish that once was Rhodesia/Zimbabwe now lies half dead in the bush, the sharks in the last frenzy of destruction, the old man who is Robert Mugabe watching, his prize now a skeleton that will lie in the bush. The African sun bleaching its bones.