Winter in Zimbabwe and Ingrams Camphor Cream

I do still miss, terribly, a place in time that was my Zimbabwe.

I had a flash memory the other day of cold winter mornings.

Walking to school with knitted gloves catching on (what we called) whitlow’s on my fingers.

Of winter dry cracked legs burning with the first slaps of  oh so cold Ingram’s camphor cream.  I can smell the camphor. How I loathed that stuff when I was a child. I wanted to smell like talc not insect spray.

Walking to school in winter. Nose dripping with cold. The only good bit was big breaths out into the cold, steaming  up the air. How cool was that!

I missed it all: the sting, the cold, the goosebumps, the smell.