“Every man hath two birthdays, the date of his actual birth and the first day of each new year. No one regards the First of January with indifference. It is that from which all date their time, and count upon what is left.”
English writer Charles Lamb in 1823
So regular birthdays tell us how far we’ve come. Just a historical fact, a number. January 1st 'birth days' remind us to check where we have been and how much further we need to go. They're a wake-up call!
Here’s to a good 2026. Hey, we can hope . .
~~oo0oo~~
Our happy sound in the background for new year here in Mtunzini is the seldom-seen Southern Banded Snake Eagle. Ignore the dove going woo woo woo, the eagle is in the background going kak, kakakaa
~~oo0oo~~
(thanks for Charles Lamb quote, drmardygrothe.substack.com
This time we must remember to take photos, Dad! Especially one of us in a recognisable place – a nice backdrop. Right, Jess.
Lots of eles, including one herd heading north in a long straggling line through the bush, crossing in front of us twice, thanks to a dogleg in the road. I counted fifty, but Jess, who hadn’t counted, said, No Dad, there were about fifteen! So I said OK there were forty. Luckily I took a video of one of the batches moving past – added below.
We give eles lots of room, as Jess is very cautious of them. Even at a good hundred metres a few of the young males gave us the Hey! Watch Yourself! ear shake.
Lots and LOTS of warthogs, all happily covered in mud. One sounder had longer crests/manes than usual – and light, like blonde – looked like Rod Stewart as a quintuplet. Seven square-lipped rhino; One mama with a small calf crossed right in front of us – no photo!
Surprisingly, a number of birds considering the stiff breeze that blew all day. We considered taking lunch in the car, but Sontuli picnic site is sheltered, so we used the last available table. Good to see a number of people having lunch there, parking an assortment of very capable and well-modified 4X4 vehicles with raised suspension and knobbly tyres next to the Fiat Unos that keep them humble.
Another photo missed by staring-in-awesome-wonder was a gathering of vultures on a wide sandy beach on a bend in the Black Mfolosi River, sunning and sand-bathing. Joined by Woolly-necked Storks, Pied Crows, Blacksmith Lapwing and Yellow-billed Kites.
– same stretch of river, different visit –
Also saw buffalo, wildebeest, zebra, giraffe banging heads, baboon, impala, nyala and kudu (only one); Went on a detour in search of cheetah, sent by an excited lady on her own in a bakkie who said we couldn’t miss them. The spot she thought the group of four cats would obligingly wait for us was about twenty minutes away. But Jess wanted to go so of course we did. The friendly lady hadn’t nailed them down so they’d felt free to wander off. Still, nice drive on a road we don’t usually use as it’s an entrance route from the western Gengeni gate which we have only exited twice to explore the interesting Ulundi to Melmoth road.
When Aitch and I were dating I got invited to a farewell party in Westville. Mike Coppinger and Jumbo Williams were leaving for Zambia to hop onto the Zambezi and kayak their way to the Indian Ocean and they needed a bunch of fellow kayakers to drink them on their way.
We met there after work and it was a festive opskop with a lot of hooligans in a well-stocked pub. After a few pints I took control of the situation and demonstrated who was in charge by casually suggesting to Aitch that we leave my car there and she drive me home at the end of this excellent jol as I could see it was going to be a big one. Then she could give me a lift back to my car in the morning.
Well . .
She looked me dead in the eye and ordered two beers. Proceeded to say Me Too whenever I had another, something she really was not actually equipped to do. Soon she was rather wobbly and as I had also had a few, we decided to call a taxi and leave both cars behind.
Gave me a hard time that one for the full twenty six years I knew her.
Winter 2010 – The Soccer World Cup frenzy was in full swing and I was pleased we were getting away from it all, off to the the relative tranquility of Afriski resort, high in the Lesotho mountains. The kids LOVED their winter skiing holidays!
En route we made our customary brunch stop in the village of Clarens and of course I had to inform our traveling companions, Andrew and Tracey Ogilvie, joining us for their twin girls’ first skiing holiday, that I had known the mayor of Clarens in the olden days. Actually, his son, the FSOC. America has POTUS and FLOTUS, so we can have Hizzoner, The First Son Of Clarens, right?
As I told my stories yet again poor Aitch just had to listen and try not to roll her eyes too hard – (btw, heard a good one: ‘rolled my eyes so hard I almost fell over backwards’).
Hilarious stories like: The TV repeater aerial and car battery on top of Mt Horeb andthe walkie-talkie conversations twixt town and top that ensued;The Clarens telephone sentrale saying “34? No, Stevie’s not there, he’s at the Goldblatts, I’ll put you through;” Hilarious, right?
Oh well, Andrew seemed to enjoy them. He’s polite that way.
We were there just before the Soccer World Cup opening ceremony and the first game (Bafana the host nation vs Mexico). The Clarens central grassy square was crowded – a million kids dressed in Bafana yellow, blowing their zulufelas, I mean vuvuzelas and marching around aimlessly in neat lines. We blew out of there and mercifully, the radio reception soon got too poor to listen in.
If it wasn’t for bladdy satellites we would have been totally isolated up on the high mountains, too. So we had to watch some of the games in the pub. Civilisation is overrated.
~~oo0oo~~
telephone sentrale – the telephone exchange, in those days a real live human being who knew what was going on in town and dorp
dorp – village
vuvuzela – instrument of one-note aural torture; probly modeled on the instruments that toppled Jericho
parked here for safekeeping – hard copies have been discarded. And there were lots of hard copies! Here are some of Aitch’s photo albums. All are gone now.
1986 diary:
1992 diary:
1989 – My first bond:
Jess & Tom – Dance & Portraits
2021 – house-emptying pics. Plus storage, furniture selling, etc.
So Jimmy Buffet died yesterday. This reminded me that I met Aitch in 1985.
Being polite and needing to make small talk I suppose I did tell her about the time we rented a Lincoln Continental in Atlanta. I’m sure I only told her once, or anyway less than a dozen times, but you know how she was. I also told her once that I was not fond of country music, having had my fill in the year I spent in Oklahoma.
So of course, the next trip we go on to a game reserve in Zululand, she’s playing this song full blast on the stereo in my white 1981 Ford Cortina 2.0GL sedan:
Just cos the oke drives a Lincoln Continental!
She played it so often and so loud we both learnt the words and the choon and would belt it out on many a road trip.
he's a cheeseburger eatin', abandoned Sunday meetin' Brand new country star He rides around in a Lincoln Continental No steer horns on his car
I also introduced her to my Mom’s cousin Dapper Dudley Bain who would unfailingly tell you he was born in Harrismith (ca. 1923 I guess) and the sound of turtle doves reminded him of his youth in his Scottish oupa Stewart Bain’s Royal Hotel. He had a pencil-thin moustache, so Aitch would also play:
I better not let Jess see this. She did some line dancing in her day and is prone to playing loud country music on the stereo in my white 2007 Ford Ranger 3l turbodiesel 2WD bakkie on our road trips. Her mother’s genes, I spose. The suffering continues.
So we did *sometimes* go where the signs *sometimes* said Notice: Maybe You Shouldn’t.
We were rescued by friendly Damara ous in the Namib desert, by feisty ous in tight khaki shorts on Mocambican beaches, and by faithful Bahá’ís at their picnic on the Báb’s birthday on a Malawian beach. Bless em all.
You just gotta have faith ye shall be rescued.
– stuck in the Namib –– whenever I got stuck Aitch was out with the camera like a shot! – Zavora Bay, Mocambique –
Mopani camp was full. How about Letaba? I asked. Sorry, its also full. Sometimes getting into the Kruger National Park can be challenging. Let’s look outside the Park, Jessie; say within an hour of this Phalaborwa gate. Aha! She found Tingala Lodge on booking.com within our budget – set at R900 for the both of us sharing. And what a happy diversion it turned out to be. About 15km north of the Phalaborwa gate into Kruger Park, Tingala Lodge is terrific.
While we chilled on the big patio overlooking a waterhole, a lady arrived in a double-cab bakkie and I noticed a couple of cases of Painted Wolf wine being carried into her room. When she joined us on the patio where I was nursing a G&T, I said, ‘Lovely Wine, that Painted Wolf. My sister sells it in Durban.’
Oh, she said, Your sister must be Sheila!It’s my wine. My husband is the winemaker. I’m visiting lodges promoting it, asking them to include it on their wine lists. All sales help with Wild Dog conservation. I’ve just stayed at Lion Sands.
‘Yep, Sheila’s my sister. I love the labels,’ I said, ‘Who does your artwork?’
Originally, an artist who worked on a game lodge in Botswana.
‘Which lodge?’
Lloyds Camp on the Savute channel.
‘I knew an artist at Lloyds Camp,’ I said, ‘Jenny Song, she was there when we visited way back when.’
It was Jenny! She did our original artwork.
‘What a lovely person, we got on so well with her. My wife Trish bought something she painted. We had such a special time there,’ I said. ‘When we flew in from the Delta, back in the day, we were picked up at the landing strip by Emma, a young pink-cheeked Pom who said she was the chef, and she was on guest-fetching duty that day. She loaded us into the open Landrover and drove us right up an elephant’s bum at the waterhole on the way to camp. When we got to camp Emma had prepared a delicious lunch for us overlooking the camp waterhole in the channel, and we ate and drank ice-cold beers looking down on eles heads as they drank freshly-pumped water.’
I’m that Emma! said this Emma! I worked with Lionel and Jenny Song in Lloyds Camp in 1993. I loved driving new arrivals to Pump Pan to watch the eles.
In 2022 we had bumped into Emma the pink-cheeked Pom from our 1993 trip to Lloyds Camp! You sadly just have to behave wherever you go – someone, somewhere will know you – even 29 years later!
I carried on reminiscing about our time in Savute: ‘Our fellow guests were cabin crew from SouthWest Airlines in Texas, the world’s biggest airline at the time. We had to chase lions because of them and Lionel.’
That would be Doug and Linda, said Emma, and you won’t believe it, I was in contact with Linda just yesterday. We have kept in touch ever since! She’ll be amazed when I tell her who I met today.
I’ve since read Lloyd Wilmot’s book and he mentions Doug and Linda.
~~oo0oo~~
The next day we were due at Mopani Camp in Kruger, so we only stayed one night at Tingala Lodge. I’d love to go back. The birding was terrific, and on the way out we saw an African civet in broad daylight.
~~oo0oo~~
Birds at Tingala Lodge
Dark chanting goshawk - Brubru - Pearl-spotted owlet
Some pictures and a slightly embarrassing confession at the end.
At Marakele, there was no room in the inn. For camping. But they did have a safari tent free. I was forced into Luxury! In Tlope tented camp. A big tent on a raised wooden deck, en-suite bathroom, overlooking the water, mountains as a backdrop. Sometimes you just gotta grin n bear things. Flycatchers – Tit ( fantailed), Pallid Green Woodhoopoe Brown-crowned Tchagra Chats – Buffstreak, Mocking, Familiar, Sickle-wing; Buntings – Cape bunting, Golden-breasted, Lark-like;
– beautiful drive right to the top of the Waterberg –
Slight Blush Called For?
I wrote I’d never heard of Marakele National Park! Then I read my own 2003 blog post: ‘Spent three nights in the Marakele National Park while we waited for our binoculars to be courier’d to Thabazimbi . . ‘
I remembered then a lovely pic we had taken of Jess (5) and Tom (20 months) taking themselves to the ablution block.
. . so I went looking for that ablution block and found it:
A frog he would a-wooing go, Heigh ho! says Rowley, A frog he would a-wooing go, Whether his mother would let him or no. With a rowley, powley*, gammon, and spinach, Heigh ho! says Anthony Rowley.
Like all good nursery rhymes, they all came to a bloody end. Dead, the lot of them, by the end of the rhyme. And they’re for children, of course, so there’s mention of spinach! See all the words here.
Aitch and I enjoyed some lovely frogging outings in our courting days and pre-children days. Sometimes with Barry & Lyn Porter at their three main ‘patches,’ Hella Hella (Game Valley Estates), inland of Port Shepstone (the litchi farm) and Betty’s Bay (which Barry’s father donated to the nation for a nature reserve), but the two of us ‘frogged’ all over the place, filling in data for the frog atlas by ADU at UCT’s Fitztitute. We had a lot of fun doing that. We felt lucky, we had an early GPS given to me by friend Larry in Ohio.
– me and Barry frogging inland of Port Shepstone on ‘the litchi farm’ –
Top ‘feature’ pic: A red-banded Rubber Frog I caught in me underpants on Malachite Camp – a shortlived venture in Zululand by the Mala Mala crowd. Here’s the frog again, and the tuft he was calling in:
Sonderbroek frogging as sometimes the vlei was quite deep. Whistling catcalls would emanate from the Landrover. That woman!
The big old album is hitting the recycling bin. I have recorded all the pictures.
Home after our lo-ong honeymoon and some surprise welcomes:
Also in 1988 we had a big optometry conference in Durban. As part of the hosting committee I produced a daily newsletter. Then I became president of the optometric association at the end of the conference.
Friends at the conference – and an induction (Brauer says they induced me):
I dragged some non-canoeing friends out to the Umgeni Valley. I wanted to see the valley for a last time before Inanda Dam drowned it forever. The river was rather shallow – um, VERY shallow! We dragged for miles!
We visited the folks in Harrismith, clambered the slopes of Platberg and sang around the piano:
Bernie & Karen Garcin got married in Empangeni – George Stainton and I were his best men.
In between all the scurrying we lived in our lovely Whittington Court one-bedroom apartment in Marriott Road, and I think I occasionally did a bit of work. Sheila reminded me that she lived there for two years after we bought our house in Westville.
Another of our frequest visits to Hella Hella. And a visit to the Hills on Melrose farm, Mid Illovo.
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.
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.
On Mon, Nov 22, 2010, Pete wrote: I felt a snuggle in bed last night. Wasn’t Aitch. Eight year-old TomTom had come through and was spooned tightly against my back.
Later, when I had to roll over he was wide awake. “Dad” he whispers close to my ear, scared he’ll wake his Ma. Mm “I’m hungry. Can I get up and make myself a snack. I’m really hungry.” He’s 24 kg wringing wet, and his muti suppresses his appetite by day, so I say: Mm
I wake again to a feeling that it has been some time. I can hear dishes clanking, so I get up and tiptoe to the kitchen, where the clock shows straight up 4am. Still dark outside, but the kitchen neon is blazing.
Lots of kit has been employed and a good dusting of icing sugar is evident on the chairs and the floor. What? I ask “Dad” he says, “I’m icing Marie biscuits.” Have you eaten? I ask. “Not yet, Dad, but they’re nearly ready.”
“And” he says, “I’ve made my school lunch.”
I didn’t ask.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Steve replied: Doncha just love it. This young man is not only a problem solver but also aware of the necessity for contingency planning. Hope this does not turn into a regular event though. Our Neil [24] occasionally mentions he is “off to get some food” at the end of a phone chat to him down in Welly. I imagine this would mean most likely pizza, burger or when he is at his most domesticated, a ready-roasted chicken with some breadrolls. Like you, I don’t ask.
