Recording and reminiscing; with occasional bokdrols of wisdom, one hopes.
Random, un-chronological events and memories after meeting Trish, marriage, children and sundry other catastrophes.
NO PERMISSION GIVEN to Artificial ‘Intelligence’ wannabes or LLMs to steal content. Don’t steal other people’s stuff, didn’t your mother teach you that!?Shame on you!
bokdrols – like pearls, but more organic. Handle with care
~~oo0oo~~
Note: I go back to my posts to add / amend as I remember things and as people mention things, so the posts evolve. I know (and respect) that some bloggers don’t change once they’ve posted, or add a clear note when they do. That’s good, but as this is a personal blog with the aim of one day editing them all into a hazy memoir, this way works for me.
Aitch! There’s a border post in Qwa Qwa, past the capital, Phuthaditjhaba, I want to try it. ‘OK’, says Aitch, always up for adventure.
I have a double motive: Try new routes, and old friend Steph is building a mall in the capital and we can say Hi on the way. Also, small border posts are usually less drama than the big busy ones.
(This memory jog is from an email I just found that I wrote back in 2007)
In Phuthaditjhaba we park outside a building site and in a cloud of dust a monster Ford F250 draws up alongside, towering high over the kombi. A bushy moustache with a wide grin under it peers down at me out of the wrong window of the truck. Left Hand Drive. My swashbuckling friend Steph the Builder.
When he hears my plan Steph tells me in no uncertain terms, ‘You can’t go that way, Koos! The road is just too bad, I built that road to the border and it’s perfect, but past that it’s impassable!’
But we go. We get to the new Monantsa Pass border control on an excellent road where the lone South African official stamps us out of SA in a jiffy, easy and friendly. Good decision, I’m thinking. We drive into Lesotho and turns out it’s even easier than I imagined. We just keep driving. There’s no Lesotho border control. Nothing. Just beautiful countryside. And the road is only challenging in parts. But also so picturesque with many river crossings where you drive through over the pebbles, getting the kombi’s tyres wet, no bridges.
Between Phutaditjaba and Lesotho (via Monomotsa’a Pass)
In the back of my mind I’m thinking getting out of Lesotho will be easy if we come back this way and just check back into SA. Of course, we won’t. It’s just too long and too slow. I put it out of my mind – We’ll double-cross that bridge when we come to it, as a well-known politician once said.
Bronwen coaches JessTom loves it!
So now we’re at the Caledonspoort border post after a great week of skiing, snowboarding and eating. Madam, I am not a brigand! There wasn’t a borderpost there! I explain, but the Lesotho border post lady is unimpressed, unamused and rude. Well, I’m not touching your passport, you can just go, she says. I go.
The next year we want to go back – the kids are raring to go. This is now their Winter Thing! I think I’d better sort this out before I rock up at a border post.
Can’t help: “This is a tough one. Rather you phone Pretoria – The High Commissioner!” 012-460 7648 – Try Mrs Kumi
So I try: 1:18pm Tuesday – no reply; 2:24pm – engaged (5X) 3:50pm – Mrs Kumi is on leave. Probly went home to Lesotho through the Caledonspoort border post, I think to myself.
“Nabuka” will call me back. Left my work number with her.
Surprise! She phoned back! “No, rather phone Immigration. They will fine you per day that you overstayed” Oh, Great! They say I am more than a year overdue! “OOOOH!!” (loud shout/giggle on the phone!)
More advice: “Just go to the border post and ask them.” Right! And then drive back to Durban if refused? And the lady I dealt with at the border was a real pig. If anyone’s like that, NO CHANCE they’ll assist. She took great pleasure in basically telling me to get lost.
“Oh. OK. Phone them then.” 002662 232 3771 Who do I ask for? “No just explain yourself to switchboard.”
SO: I’ve done full circle back to where they did NOT want to help! Oh, well, I’ll try tomorrow. It’ll be too cold there at 4:29pm for any kindness.
On Wednesday I try 002662 232 3771 again First lady: Ooh, I can’t help you. Second lady: Why didn’t you stamp out!? This is a hard one. Better I’ll ask my boss, Mrs Jonathan. Mrs Jonathan is out, phone again after, say, 1 hour. Ask for ext 280
Try again. Get put thru to ext 280 who laugh at me for wanting a Mrs Jonathan when there’s no Mrs Jonathan there. How stupid can you be? I apologise and ask if she can put me back to switchboard. *click* Turns out she can’t. (Maybe the “Mrs Jonathan” was a joke/prank on me? Leabua Jonathan was a past prime minister years ago)?
Switchboard again. 280 is busy. Shall I wait, or must I phone again. Pardon!? I’ll phone again.
At last! The real, live Mrs Jonathan! I tell her my story: I didn’t stamp IN cos there was no border post there; I didn’t stamp OUT cos the lady refused – told me over her dead body; Mrs Jonathan is most sympathetic and helpful. Just before I leave for Lesotho, I must phone her colleague Mrs Molifi, the immigration manager at Buthe Bothe on 630 55525 She’ll sort me out.
YAY! Fingers crossed.
~o0o~
I did. She did. We went back. See, it was a good idea to take the road less travelled…
~o0o~
Golden Gate – SA – Lesotho – orange arrow the border post
I’ve been staring balefully at these palm trees for a year, wishing them gone. Finally, I told my Friday gardener Strongman Khumbulani, and he said he could bring them down, no problem.
I chose the four smallest ones and hatched a plan with rope and ladder with me pulling and Strongman attacking their knees with his panga. Down they came, with only one threatening neighbour Richard’s roof, and one swinging round on the end of the rope threatening to impale my chest. A nimble hop and I was safe but I decided for the two bigger ones I’d call in the cavalry. Cos maybe someone under seventy wouldn’t have called the hop nimble.
Headman Mandla and his sidekick bearded Eric sussed out the two big ones and said they could fell them with one hand tied behind their back, they have felled bigger before, these are but puppies, they’d be back when they knock off at five.
– four down, these two bigger ones to go –
Mandla decided where he wanted each tree to fall, pushed them in that direction using a long metal ladder as Eric chopped where directed. And down they came. Chop-chop.
Next will you do those two? I asked, pointing towards the neighbouring building.
– next –
We knock off at twelve on Saturday, we’ll be here.
On Saturday I got home from town to the sound of panga chopping.
But I could see the trees! What were they chopping? The MUCH bigger palm I’d been too scared to even contemplate! As I got there it thudded down, swaying but still vertical. They gently pushed it towards the boundary fence and I knew it was going to gather memorandum* and crash down on the fibre cable. That would make me famous and unpopular – so notorious – in the whole park! Timber! fell the long, heavy palm and its stump kicked up off the ground. As it did so, Mandla and Eric turned round, shouldered it while the top was still descending, and walked the bottom half away in the opposite direction to which they’d been pushing it. So it fell short of the cable, just as they’d planned! Jeeesh!
– Take that! The 2nd biggest palm is down –
Then they chopped the other two and they were gone by 12.30, having removed the debris and swept the yard. Also chop-chop. I looked up “experts” on isiZulu.net and showed them: incwepheshi. They looked at the options and said they preferred ungoti, which they indicated has more of a gangster feel of ‘sharp’ about it.
Nine down, one palm tree still standing, but its a monster. They both decided ahlulekile – it’s beyond us.
~o0o~
The resident meerkat watched the felling thinking, O Gonna! (Afrikaans), but she’ll be alright. She doesn’t need all the shade of a coastal forest anyway.
~o0o~
*a Stan Mosleyism from the sixties. His downhill putt on the Harrismith golf course gathered memorandum as it rolled past the cup
Suddenly the frogs are making their presence known. The Guttural Toads’ guttural snoring and Bush Squeakers’ wheepee-wheep have been joined by Bronze Cacos’ metallic scrape n click, and Painted Reed Frogs’ whipp-whipp sharp whistles. This morning a Red Toad added a sonorous bass whoob. More to follow as the days warm up.
They’ve joined the nagapies and the good-lord deliver us nightjars to make me enjoy my night-time stoepsitting on this coastal forest edge as much as my morning coffee listening to the dawn chorus.
Update: Jess spotted a Painted Reed Frog hopping across the road on her walk and called me. Tiny – about the size of your pinky finger’s littlest joint.
There are also ‘frog calls’ high overhead in the early evenings here in my forest fringe! They’re made by Knob-billed Ducks flying to their roost.
~o0o~
.. and yesterday the rattle and creaky croak of a River Frog.
She was carrying a big soapy bowl of dishes she’d just washed and the big heart-shaped wooden cutting board slid off the top and shattered on the tiles.
– the giraffes are bemused –
We shouldn’t investigate, as we may find the root cause of the mishap to be a slack home handyman. Had he replaced the mixer in the scullery sink, Jess may not have being schlepping dishes around in the first place. Moving on…
~o0o~
As with most things in this overstocked cottage, never fear: there are two more wooden cutting boards. One even has a heart-shaped hole cut into it.
I thought ya, ya, sure, that’s true. And dismissed the thought.
Tonight I was parked right outside the entrance to the Playhouse theatre in downtown Durban, opposite the City Hall, waiting to fetch Jess and Fatima after the show Shall We Dance? when out of the corner of my eye I saw cars taking big evasive action.
A bakkie zoomed from the far-side lane at breakneck speed right across four lanes towards my side of the road and smashed into the little silver car parked right in front of me. BANG! People standing under the No Stopping sign scattered, leaping every-which-way.
Silence. Then much Hey! Hey! and running. I couldn’t see, too many people, but ‘my’ carguard told me the driver had made a run for it and citizens had chased after him. I though Uh Oh! and phoned 10111. Listen, you’d better send your people here pronto. I’m afraid the citizens may rough up the perpetrator, I said to the operator. I’ll send the police there right away, she said.
To their credit, the Playhouse security people stepped in and took the perp, who my informant confidently assured me was inebriated, marched him back to his car and put him back in the drivers seat to safely await the cops.
Two tow trucks arrived. An ambulance arrived and took the driver into their vehicle to check him over. Hopefully check his breath. Now the cops arrived and took over. The middle-aged couple who were sitting in the little silver car when it was hit – and like me had been waiting to fetch concert-goers after the show – were amazingly calm. They took photos and told their story, filled in forms, no panic, even though their car was badly damaged.
In the whole pantomime there were only two poephols – the drunk driver and a prick in a Merc SUV who drove up and hooted for the ambulance, the tow trucks and the crashed cars to magically get out of his way, he was important. A family member (I assume – probably a son) of the ‘victim’ couple who had arrived to assist them went up to the jerk, gave him a withering look and waved him around the scene.
When the dust had settled I finally thought of taking a picture. Then the girls arrived at last and hopped in, unaware of the drama. They’d been waiting to have their pics taken with stars from the show.
As I was leaving, my man, my guard, my informant came and spoke to me firmly: Mkhulu, my parking fee is R20; I looked after you well and I have to feed my family. I agreed with him, borrowed R20 from Fatima and paid him! He was chuffed and stopped traffic in the main street – old Smith Street – to let me out!
We’re talking ca.1940, girls hockey in Harrismith. English teacher ‘Scottie’ – Miss Helen Scott, formally – was the coach. Mother Mary says Phyllis Arbuckle’s Mom used to charge up and down the sideline shouting, “Shoot! Shoot!”
Later Mrs Coetzee became the English teacher. Afrikaans-speaking Mrs Coetzee, talking about the lady who discovered radium, would correct their pronunciation: “Madahm Curié” she’d insist. She wanted to correct our pronunciation, Ma exclaims, slightly miffed.
She had a very handsome husband, fellow teacher DJ Coetzee. We called them ‘Mrs DJ’ and ‘Mr DJ’ as there were ‘lots of Coetzees.’ Indignantly, Mom says some forward girls would make excuses to peer at him thru his classroom window, or enter to ask him some inane question. Just to get near him!
~o0o~
The feature pic is also school hockey, but about 25yrs later. Still, the mountain would have looked the same…
Mom tells me sister Barbara is taking piano lessons again, some sixty years after her lessons with Miss Underwood ended.
And off she went! Memories… If only I had continued my piano lessons, sigh! Younger sister Sheila may have followed, muses Mom. As it was, she refused to go, as I had refused to return after one lesson.
And her Mom Annie stopped playing when she stopped singing, after winning a gold medal at the eistedfodd. Such a pity. Annie’s sister carried on however, and Mom would play for her aunt Jessie. She remembers playing with Jessie in Granny Bland’s big dining room with the fireplace, while Brenda Longbottom danced with Jack Shannon in his kilt. He was with the Transvaal Scottish, see. This was second world war time.
What did you play, Ma? She starts singing… Besides the Shalimar…
Wikipedia says the song is from Kashmiri Song. That was based on a poem by Laurence Hope, who was actually Adela Florence Nicolson in the days when women often felt it’d be better to publish under a male pseudonym.
This was the most popular of the Kashmiri songs, and it was ‘widely played in drawing rooms until WW2’
It spoke of lost English love in India and got into something about ‘I’d rather your pale hands were on my throat strangling me than…’ Whoa!
Ma! You were playing that and people were dancing to it?
~o0o~
Pale hands I love beside the Shalimar, Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell? Whom do you lead on Rapture’s roadway, far, Before you agonise them in farewell? Oh, pale dispensers of my Joys and Pains, Holding the doors of Heaven and of Hell, How the hot blood rushed wildly through the veins Beneath your touch, until you waved farewell. Pale hands, pink tipped, like Lotus buds that float On those cool waters where we used to dwell, I would have rather felt you round my throat, Crushing out life, than waving me farewell!
Makes Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love sound mild and peaceful in comparison, no?
For far too long I’ve been saying, OK Tom, we will go fishing. But one thing and another…
But at last we head north. It’s too windy for offshore and I forget you can’t fish in the estuary, its a sanctuary, as it should be. Go with Jeff of Fat Bike Fishing, says Tammy at our lodge.
Best suggestion ever. Even better when I find out we’re motor-assisted! Pedalling can cause perspiration, but with a tiny press of a thumb lever there’s a seat-of-the-pants shove and weg is jy!
– Jeff n Tom –
Seven km north we reach First Rocks in isiMangaliso Park. Jeff and Tom had already bonded as crazy ass fishing focused enthusiasts. Jeff baited up and cast into the reef where he knows the fish lurk.
Next minute, Tom was ON! First cast!
Well, that was it for normal people. The fishermen were busy! I had to move out the way.
Tom caught a cave bass, and then three cat-face rock cod. All beautiful fish. Each was given a huge grin, a wriggling-with-pleasure dance, a photo shoot and then was released to swim again.
On the way fresh leopard spoor on the trail, a number of birds on the vegetated dunes, ghost crabs, rock pools, and the realisation that Jeff is a damn good birder and safari guide too, having ferried trips into Hluhluwe Game Reserve as a previous career.
Anyone looking for an adventure on the Zululand coast – beautiful beaches, glorious solitude, nature, some exercise (or not: when I got tired I eased my thumb down on the magic button!) and even some fishing! look up Jeff here:
When my Mom Annie and my Dad Frank would say they’re going out dancing, I would say “My tummy’s sore!” and be very sick and sorry for myself, trying to get them not to go out!
That’s a ninety year old memory if she was eight at the time…
Do go to Mkhuze Game Reserve in magical Zoolooland. It’s a magic place. Especially if it’s good birding, not boring efficiency, that you’re after. Forget electricity, hot water, lights and that routine old stuff you can get at home. Go’n camp, have fun and see great birds.
So the good stuff is: Mkhuze itself – the sand forest; the waterholes; the kind, friendly people who work there and do their best; Ignore the bad stuff, which is sad neglect by the high-ups. Pretend you’re on a rustic adventure and enjoy!
Note: We camped at Emshopi near the main gate; we didn’t inspect the inner workings of the cottages, bungalows, squaredawels or safari tents at Mantuma, so don’t know if they’re working or not. From the outside they looked the same as a year ago, but hey, maybe “Dream Resorts Hospitality” has given them hot water n other boring stuff, who knows?
Word went out on vulturegrapevine.net: ‘There’s a poor giraffe dying out here and would you like to come over?’ Over fifty group members responded (old Gary Larson joke ‘How Vultures Find Their Prey’). Word was that lions had brought down the giraffe. We didn’t see either.
~o0o~
neglect by the high-ups – corruption?
squaredawels – rondawels with corners
rondawels – circular huts, nowhere to hide
Postscript: Trying to find out more about Dream Resorts; KZN Journalists: Do an interview please – ask who is in charge and what the Mkhuze deal is; All I can find is marketing, marketing, glossy pictures, ‘book now!’ and what looks like timeshare; Also some promises of “doing things right by the local people;” Nothing about WHO Dream Resorts is – the people in charge. Why are there so many entities involved? Ezemvelo, isiMangaliso and Dream Resorts that I know of. Why? Gonna email Dream Resorts and see if they respond.
Did so 9th August – No response yet (15th September)
Barbs Kirby, special lady, died recently. The news brought some reminiscing, so I went looking in old sent mailboxes…
email to Barbs & Rip Kirby Sent: 22 March 2019 10:18 PM Subject: Chirpy wisdom
I suddenly had a clear moment in my fuzzy brain and thought of two things from way back when. And I thought “I must tell the Chirpies!” So here are the two stories I wrote down, you good people:
Story 1: When we first got infested with children I thought, What the hell are these things? They looked like a lot of fun so I’d play with them. Then for some unknown reason, they’d start crying and it was less fun.
Luckily, the Kirbys were frequent visitors and – with three blonde daughters – they were experienced. They said: “Always try feeding them first. Then see if you need to do anything else.”
Pearl of wisdom! That helped us LOTS!
Story 2: When the lil bastids started jolling I was on my own, no Aitch. So I started laying down the law: What you could do; Where you could go; When you must be home. Harumph!
Of course, they ignored it all, and just when I was about to start fighting with them, I suddenly thought: What do I want most? Their safety? Or to fight with them? And I remembered my jolling and how much fun it was. That’s when I remembered the Kirbys telling me they fetch their girls from clubs downtown or wherever.
“We fetch them from Wherever, at Whatever time – No matter where they go, we will fetch them, even if it’s very late at night,” they told me.
So I started saying “Where are you going please? and what time do you want me to fetch you?” or “Phone me when you’re ready, and I’ll fetch you.”
I fell into the Kirby method, and it has worked like a bomb! They tell me where they’re going. They phone me when they’re ready and I fetch them. And USUALLY not very late – often earlier than I would have expected and certainly earlier than I often got home in my day! Dodgy areas, sure. Same as I used to go to.
Right now, they’re snug in bed after saying, Love You Dad And Sleep Tight and all that shit that I never said to my father! Or him to me…
I love it. Thanks, Kirbys! Cheers, Pete
~~oo0oo~~
The Kirbs replied:
Thanks for the reminders.
Yep the bottom line is Trust. You are a GREAT father. So glad we could give you bits of advice.
First an intermittent sheesh sheesh. Not ominous but not lekker neither. What’s that sheesh sheesh? asked Jess. Searched all under the left front from whence it seemeth to emanate, but nothing. It stopped.
Then later, hours later, the ominous faint clunk under the left front. Feels likes that faint clunk is under me, Daddy, says Jess in the passenger seat. Damn! I haydit, as Friderichs used to say. It stopped.
And started again. It was the propshaft. No, the brakes. No, the wheel bearing.
A second opinion from Mtunzini’s Dennis said it wasn’t the brakes, so we’re starting with both rear wheel bearings.
I refuse to speak at my younger sister Sheila’s 70th opskop. I won’t do it.
I just learned this week from Mother Mary, 97, that she abandoned me to the care of Great Granny Bland just so she could go off and give birth to Sheila!
Rattled, I am. This might explain so much…
~~oo0oo~~
opskop – unruly gathering with lots of grinning and nodding while thinking, ‘What Did She/He Just Say?’ Also, ‘What’s her name again? I should know it!’ – luckily Sheila an Lou n Richard organised big name badges so you could fib indignantly, ‘Of course I remembered you!’
Actually, I did remember everyone, but wouldn’t have got all names on-the-spot without those great-idea name badges.
I wonder… Can we force Old People to wear big number plates fulltime?
