Drakensberg, South Coast, Cape Town, Hermanus, an air show, ice skating, flipping pancakes, Cape Vidal
2005 Album
Author Archives: bewilderbeast
It's about life, marriage, friends, raising kids, paddling rivers, travel in Africa . . . thoughts written over decades - at random, I'm afraid. NOTE: NO PERMISSION TO SCRAPE MY CONTENT FOR LLM OR AI, you bastards! Dincha mothers teach you not to steal!?
Comores 1989 Photo Album
Reed-Swanepoel Criminology
On 2013/06/19, steve reed wrote:
Just had a criminal come into the practice and scoop up six Oakley sunglasses and run for it. Dropped one on the way out. Seventy year old Genevieve let him have her shrillest STOP THIEF! and did a ten metre dash after him. Yours truly emerged from the testing room and did . . NOTHING. Well, maybe I did a half-hearted five metres in the general direction well after the incident, but hadn’t a clue what to do.
A lady out in the car park did though. She saw him hot footing and took his number plate when he drove off. At least someone was ‘speronsible’ as Zunckel would put it. Problem is, the cops have got their hands quite full out that way, what with a couple of shootings, murders etc.
What IS this place coming to?
pete swanepoel wrote: Hey! Some action. Jolly good! (Another Pat Bean-ism).
I think what you did was EXACTLY the right thing. Delay, go slow, emerge cautiously, look concerned, ask after the staff’s well-being, call the security ous.
What!? Physically apprehend the culprit!? Not a bliksem. You think he sterilises his knife? Uh uh.
Standing instructions to my people: You hand over EVERYTHING. You let them have the lot. Everything. Don’t look them in the face. Tell the insurance.
~~oo0oo~~
Steve again: Agree the thinking thing to do is let the poor old shoplifters take the stuff. What are you actually going to DO wif dem if you do perform a perfectly executed ankle tap in the shopping centre or car park? Lie on top of em?
BUT Genevieve! The Slovenian! She is different! She would have gone after him! We have good laughs however. She is teaching me about Slovenian cooking. In a previous life she was a commercial caterer. Brings me dubious bits of food to try and I have introduced her to Mrs Balls chutney with which she is most impressed.
~~oo0oo~~
‘Speronsible’ reminds me of Zunckel on the crossbar of my bicycle on the way to the golf club (while the school wished he was playing tennis and me rugby), singing “Let the spidnight m-ecial , line a hell of a lot of shite on me”
~~oo0oo~~
1987 Photo Album
(I have captured the thick old album here and elsewhere, and discarded the paper version in my big cleanout as I prepare to leave home).
We joined Max and Paula Posniak at Giant’s Castle in the Drakensberg; Aitch joined the Porters on Barry’s Dad Harold Porter’s old farm, which he bequeathed to the nation.
We got engaged. I’d forgotten what a thing it was? I threw out tons of cards Aitch had put in this album. I kept these copies of the people pics here. Steve and Wendy Reed hosted a lekker party at their lovely home in Sterling Crescent in Durban North, kind (and brave) people.
We went to visit Aitch’s folks in Bloubergstrand.
October 1987 – Natal got hit by huge floods. Here’s the Umgeni at Blue Lagoon: Island gone! Lyn wrote to us while they were cut off by the floods at Hella Hella.
Sheila joined us on a mountain biking camping trip to Cobham.
Canoe polo was great fun for a while. A highlight was when the mighty Natal C team beat the fancied-themselves Natal A team! Yay!!
We visited a Zululand bush camp affiliated to Mala Mala – Malachite Camp, they called it. Unfortunately it didn’t last long. We enjoyed some fun frogging there!
Another of our many trips to Zululand reserves:
Fun slalom weekends, this one on the Umzimkulu river.
I was paddling less races, but still doing trips:
The 1987 Umko Marathon got me a job pulling human flotsam and fibreglass jetsam out below No.1 rapid as rescue boat for my club KCC. We stayed on at the farm after the field had departed downstream.
Bernie and I took some novice paddlers to the Umgeni (NB: Some Umko pics mixed up in here)
Frogging and frog atlassing was a fun interest – still is.
Wedding coming up in 1988. We had a small guest list, so we had a ‘pre-nuptial party’ at Kingfisher CC’s lovely clubhouse where we got dronk with chairman Allister Gordon-Peter’s permission. That’s him on the chair shouting ORDER! ORDER!!
~~~oo0oo~~~
Sold!
I just sold my longest-lived-in home. We’ve been here sixteen years. After being given a long fixit list I decided bugger the schlep, I’ll sell it voetstoots – as is. It sold on the day it hit the market – for a song, if you ask me.
Here’s my sequence:
First home Whittington Court. I forget how long, but bought as a bachelor, then Trish moved in ca.1986. When we moved out in 1989, sister Sheila lived in it for about two years. It was a lovely old one-bedroom flat; big rooms, high ceilings.
1989 we bought our first suburban home at the bottom end of the cul de sac River Drive in Westville. A magic place right on the banks of the Mkombaan river. Mike and Yvonne Lello had lived in it fifteen years and when Mike said he’s selling, I said then I’m buying. We stayed there fifteen years.
Then we rented Ian Whitton’s lovely home in Windsor Avenue Westville for about two years.
In 2005 we bought here, a magic home in a cul de sac above the Palmiet river – ‘to be near the schools.’ Now, there’s a story for ya!
This pic is the house as we bought it. We spent way too much on it as I planned to live there forevah!
~~oo0oo~~
Madagascar 2008
(the album has been discarded, here are all the pages for posterity):
~~~oo0oo~~~
The Art of the Game Drive
I gave a talk in the Kruger Park once called The Art of the Game Drive. It was magnificent, complete with exciting sightings and livestreaming. Pity was, I had an unappreciative audience. Well, they were from behind the boerewors curtain, so . . you know how they are.
It almost sounded like they had a pet monkey with them, as they kept muttering Ari Aap as I drove them serenely in quiet splendour and exquisite comfort in my VW Kombi 2,1 in subtle camouflage blue and white. But you won’t believe this, when I stopped to examine old poo there was audible sighing. Philistines. The talks are still wildly popular, but I notice none of that particular batch were ever repeat guests. And I mainly have repeat guests. *
*Like Jessie. She has been a repeat guest dozens – scores – of times. She can appreciate the Art of the Game Drive. ‘Specially if she has her phone, her music and noise-cancelling earphones with her.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Xudum in Okavango
(A re-post with added pictures, as I throw out paper photo albums after copying and uploading. Major un-cluttering happening as I prepare my home for the past sixteen years for sale. Next chapter about to begin!)
Another trip to the Delta!
Aitch and I flew from Maun to Xudum in August 2001 when Janet & Duncan were helping Landela Safaris run their show. We landed on the nearby bush strip. We had been before, in January 2000. This post has pictures from both trips.
After a few days in camp they had business in Maun and we accompanied them on the drive out of the Delta to Maun in the Land Cruiser. Rickety bridges, deep water crossings with water washing over the bonnet onto the windscreen.
On the drive back to camp after the day in the big smoke of the metropolis of Maun we entered a Tamboti grove and saw two leopard cubs in the road. They split and ran off to left and right, then ran alongside of us on either side for a minute calling to each other before we moved off and let them be.
We enjoyed mekoro trips, game drives & walks and afternoon boat trips stretching into evenings watching the sunset from the boat while fishing for silver catfish or silvertooth barbel – I forget what they called them. Later, wading in thigh-deep water sorting out the pumps, earning my keep as a guest of the lodge managers. Only afterwards did I think hmm, crocs.
Visited Rann’s camp for lunch where Keith and Angie Rowles were our hosts. That’s where we first heard the now-common salute before starting a meal: “Born Up a Tree.”
Janet moved us from camp to camp as guests arrive, filling in where there were gaps in other camps. We transferred by boat, mekoro or 4X4 vehicle. One night we stayed in a tree house in Little Xudum camp.
Lazy days in camp drinking G&T’s
Here’s Trish’s paper album – photographed and discarded:
~~~oo0oo~~~
Later Xudum was taken over by super-luxury company ‘&Beyond.’ OTT luxury, and R15 000 per person per night! Very different to the lovely rustic – but still luxurious – tented camp it was when we were there. Should ‘conservationists’ really be using miles of glass and wooden decking and flooring in the bush!? Methinks rich spoilt children are doing the designing for Daddy’s company and perspective has flown out the canvas-zip window and crashed into the plate glass floor-length picture window.
In May 2019 it burnt down. Had it been rustic there’d have been less pollution from the fire and the rebuild, methinks.
~~oo0oo~~
Carnivore
Tom cooked the meat on an open fire. I roasted the veges. Leave me to do the braai, he said.
I was a bit surprised at the quantity, but hey, it’ll last a few meals.
When he cooks when he’s hungry . .
Vandalism!
First I un-jungled.
Then I de-trailered.
‘Tis vandalism is what it is!
2021 and we all ‘know’ you have to manicure a garden cos ‘people won’t buy a wild garden!’ Fuck me, the world is fucked.
My shame is I went along with it when I know I should not have. And we – mankind – have known since the 6th century BCE that we should not ruin our environment. But still we do.
Yeah, selling my home of the last sixteen years.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Everlastings
This got me thinking about everlasting life. ‘This’ being wonderful posts on fungi (and algae) over at Tony Edger’s blog Fossils and other Living Things.
‘Everlasting life’ people come in various flavours. The main lot say you have to die with the right mindset, accepting Allah (Mohammed born 570) or Joseph Smith jr (born 1805) or Jesus (born 0) or Ron L Hubbard (born 1911) or some such ‘saviour.’ Another group of ‘live forevers’ are the ‘you are what you eat – keep-you-goings,’ who believe nutrition science will find a way to keep us alive forever sooner or later. Somehow, magically, the weird stuff you are told to eat saves you, surviving your stomach acid. Then the cryo ‘freeze-you-now-revive-you-laters,’ let you do what you like, some clever people – yet to be born – will fix you later. Keeping you cold is expensive, so some of them just freeze your head!
So the one says Think Right and you’ll live forever (or else you’ll burn forever!); the other says Eat Right and you’ll live for ever (with a milder threat of ‘or else you won’t’). The cryos seem to let you do what you want.
Blah Blah
Live
Enjoy
Die
The End
~~~oo0oo~~~
Mary Poppins
‘They gave us supper early. We were saying, Soon They’ll Feed Us At Three.’ I said, In this cold weather if it was me I’d say to you all at lunch: Eat Up! Your Supper’s Ready! so I could get home early. She had a good laugh at that.
‘I played the piano at supper.’ Oh, good. What did you play? ‘The piano’ she says mischievously and laughs. The she sings, ‘Lady of Spain I adore you – right from the night I first saw you … ‘
‘We would dance to this in the Masonic Hall. Folk dancing. Also to When Irish Eyes Are Smiling. And a Welsh dance and a Scottish reel.’
‘For Girl Guides I had to play a March for my piano badge. Mrs Steytler said I was playing too fast, the girls marching couldn’t keep up. Then I had to play God Save The King, we were still under the monarchy then, in the Commonwealth. And Elizabeth has gone to hospital for the first time.’
Well, she’s 93, I said, same age as you. ‘Oh, I thought she was Pat’s age, older than me, and Margaret was my age.’ I think she’s 1928, same as you, I said. While we were talking I checked. True’s Bob, Mary was right, Mrs Queen is two and half years older than her. Pat’s age. I was foolish to contradict her. What do I know about poms?
‘I saw her in Boksburg, you know. She was keen to get back home to the only boyfriend she ever had. Philip.’
~~~oo0oo~~~
Presence of Mind
Good photographers have presence of mind. I’d like more of that stuff.
Last night I leaned back in my office chair – director’s or boss’ chair deluxe, high-back, padded armrests – luxuriously and started to put my feet up on my imbuia wood desk. The smooth motion didn’t stop there, I kept going backwards, the high-back cushioned my head as I crashed, the wheels of the chair caught under the desk, sending a full glass of red wine and a plate of fine cordon curried mutton pie and tomato sauce crashing to the tiled floor, along with the PC monitor and my drone remote control.
Fokop. Chair horizontal, desk at 45 degrees, dramatic grape blood and tomato blood on the floor, legs in the air, same air blue with profanity.
A photographer would have taken a great picture, especially as the ‘blood’ oozed towards my collection of eleven Okavango Delta books I’d gathered together as I’m getting rid of my library.
I very boringly tidied the broken glass and ceramic, mopped the red wine, re-assembled the scattered shrapnel and then thought: Damn! A picture would have been good.
I sort of re-staged it this morning to show how the chair’s wheeled legs tipped up the old desk on the right.
Sell
Another chapter begins. I’ll be leaving the home I’ve lived in the longest in my life – sixteen years. The kids were eight and four when we moved in.
How hard can it be, right? You sell, bank the cash and drive off into the sunset. So I called Aitch’s friend and colleague in her four-year stint as an estate agent, Pam.
Pam, You Know What You’re Doing, You Come And Do This.
So you know what she does? She gives me a list as long as your arm! You do this, then you do this, then . . she’s as bad as Aitch was!
So she tells me: Sell your furniture; sell your books; sell the many wall hangings which haven’t hung on a wall for ten years since Aitch went; Fix the cracks, the windows, the doors, the ceilings; Paint – a lot; Rip up those carpets; New light bulbs;
Yes, Pam.
Mow the lawn – WHAT!? Now you’ve gone too far!
Hell, if I didn’t do all those things for us, why should I do them for strangers? Cos you want to sell the house, Pete.
Oh
Sold!
I decided I’ll never get this done, so we put the house on the market “as is” – its called voetstoots in South Africa. And on that very day we got two offers for the full asking price. A week later their finance was approved and so I asked ‘Must I Leave Now?’ No, they said, it takes about three months before you’ll have your money! Damn!
Now it is very real and I sat Jess and Tom down and broke the news. They picked what they wanted from the house, a truckload went off to Tom’s rented rooms:
Jess wants less, but the other fridge and microwave will go to her.
(later: Have now gone to her).
~~oo0oo~~
Aitch Art
I have spoken about Aitch being an art connoisseur before, here and here. I have also referred to the possibility that I might have philistinian tendencies; or plebeian judgement.
Some months after she died in July 2011 I found a parcel very well wrapped up and secure; cardboard, brown paper, parcel tape and well bubble-wrapped inside.
Inside were two beautifully framed botanical prints by an artist I had never heard of – Ha! of course I hadn’t. But Aitch had! . . and an invoice.
I gasped: HOW MUCH?!!
Just two and a half months before she died she was still investing in things she considered were beautiful; and would go far and grow. Given time.
Bless her.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Trying to sell them not so easy. So far I’ve had an offer of R1000; no reply from the gallery she bought them at; another art gallery said “try an auction house.” I’m gonna keep them for when I get a new place one day. Then I’ll hang them up and ignore them again.
More on Sibonelo Chiliza here and here and here and pictures of a few of his works here.
Watch the Trailer
It’s educational. It contains important fiscal lessons and warnings.
A while ago I decided to sell my offroad trailer. It cost me R27 500 but it is a 1975 model so I advertised it for just R10 000. A guy from gumtree offered me R4000 and I told him, ‘Sack! What you thinking!’
Years later its still parked on the lawn and so when a guy said ‘Hey! What’s that trailer, wanna sell it?’ I said maybe. I’m thinking: It has such character, I’m picturing it on the beach in Mocambique, and it has a fitted stove and a fitted water tank with tap and a grocery cupboard and all crockery and a tent and a ground sheet and . . I’m thinking:
Why was he leaning in and examining it so closely? Was he checking for rust?
‘I can give you R700,’ he said. ‘See, it weighs 640kg and the scrap dealers only give us R2 a kilogram.‘ He’d checked the tare plates with the info on it.
I told him, ‘Sack! What you thinking?’
~~oo0oo~~
sack – short for foosack, English for voertsek, Afrikaans for fuck off!
I mean . . did he even factor in the value of that gorgeous brass tap?
~~oo0oo~~
update: SOLD!! to the gentleman shouting ‘Old Scrap! Old Scrap!’ for the princely sum of R600 – and that after I’d filled it up with plenty of other stuff I needed to get rid of.
So the Salesman of the Year Award goes to . . anyone but me.
~~oo0oo~~
sadder update: I finally got it off my name (‘scrapped’ – they call it, de-registered) for a mere three times the cost I sold it for!