– life – bokdrols of wisdom –
Camping at Mabibi in Zululand with the kombi – and Taylor with his puny little JEEP.
On the way I pretended (!) to get stuck to give the JEEP owner an ego boost:
. . which reminded me of Ursula in Dr. No . . Me and Ursula were like twins, ‘cept I wore less clothing and had something useful in my hand . .
Ursula Andress did it in 1962 in Dr. No; Halle Berry paid homage in 2002 in Die Another Day; and I trumped them both in 2003 in Lake Sibaya.
~~oo0oo~~
One wall in the new kitchen in River Drive ca.1999 had to be cobalt blue. I dunno why; mine is not to reason why. Aitch said it must be cobalt blue and so of course it was. Some of the other colours she and Nanich painted the house were also to dye for. See below. Lucky I’m a mild-mannered diplomat.
So when the post-Aitch renovations happened ca.2012 in Elston Place, there had to be some blue. I made the scullery and laundry doors blue. I looked for cobalt blue, but this was the closest I found.
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Already Tom’s memories are mainly The Legend of Mom, more than real memories. Jess remembers far more. So Tom had lots to say today about Mom. Jess was mainly quiet. As most years, Dizzi and Jon came round to clink a glass in your memory. Jess set a lovely formal table with flowers from the garden – and even a table cloth! I only remembered to take a pic after it was all over.
We had a medicinal G&T as we had all just been to sort-of malaria areas – me n Jess to Hluhluwe, Dizzi n Jon to St Lucia.
We salute you; We remember you; We often talk about you.
What do you do? I ask the old soldier sitting in my chair. He’s come to me for an eye test. I’m a musician in the army band, he says. Aha! Cool! What do you play? asks I.
The Saxophone, he says. The best of all the instruments! I flatter. How long have you been a soldier? Not long, he says, I joined a couple years ago and I’m just about to retire on a small army pension. What did you do before?
I was saxophonist in big bands. I toured the world. Mario Montereggi’s Big Band? I ask. Yes, indeed, I played with Mario.
And then he drops the big one:
I was with the African Jazz Pioneers for years. Wow! African Jazz Royalty in my chair!!
He might even have played with Mario at my fiftieth, where Aitch surprised me by getting Mario’s small ensemble to blow me away:
Is this him entertaining the kids, maybe?
~~oo0oo~~
Tom! You’re wearing Mom’s jersey of my Oklahoman home town! I exclaimed.
True, said my man and posed for pictures.
Aitch had visited my second hometown with great apprehension, then ended up falling in love with the place and the people!
Stefanus wrote about a new thing. I paraphrased his rant:
What a bloody stupid idea. The ‘Key Fob’ or ‘Keyless Start’ or ‘Keyless Go’ or ‘Proximity Key’. I have always thought it was a stupid idea but I wasn’t sure why. Tonight I found out why.
Our friend John gets home with his wife after several stops, including our place for a while. Cannot find his ‘fob’; realises the car might have started because his wife had the other fob in her handbag. Panics.
After much driving around and searching in various places, including our place, it ‘turns up’ under his drivers seat where he insists he had searched several times. But ‘it had gone into a crevice.’
Steve expostulates: It’s a lousy idea! You could leave your key fob behind and drive 300 km without knowing you don’t have it, because the car opens and starts with the proximity of the duplicate ‘fob’ in your wife’s handbag. Frikkin stupid, really. Although in hindsight he could have narrowed the search by checking to see if the car would start without his wife’s keys being nearby . . .
Once again showing that technology just does what it’s programmed to do, while yoomins! They’re variable.
~~oo0oo~~
I wrote:
Aha! A technophobe!
I’m going to ask them to implant mine in a crevice so I can never lose it.
And I won’t let them fob me off.
~~~~~ooo000ooo~~~~~
Steve:
Technophobe – yes. Ask my older brother.
Ja, but how will you avoid forgetting the rest of your keys – the ones that are attached to the – er – transponder? Having your own practice I am pretty sure you have a bunch of keys like a prison guard anyway.
~~~~~ooo000ooo~~~~~
Me:
Me? Keys? Nope.
I am lucky enough to have an “Open Sesame” lifestyle. The practice is always open when I get there at a leisurely hour, and my home is always open. Overrun with bloody kids who all know the 1299# that opens the gate from outside. Me and security are strangers.
Thank goodness for Raksha and the keys at work and Cecelia and the no keys at home.
Sadly, I do have to carry the one single key for the 2007 Ford 4X2 3litre diesel double cab bakkie. White. I lost the canopy key so now it doesn’t lock. Help yourself to my toolbox back there. At times I do spend some time looking for the damn thing on the odd occasions when I put it in a clever place instead of the usual on the kitchen counter. For some reason my Ford key says ‘Mazda.’
~~~~~ooo000ooo~~~~~
Steve:
I should have realised I was speaking to the wrong person. We tend to lock stuff by and large. Someone came and had an overnight scratch around Wendy’s unlocked car a while ago. Front door gets locked at night or if we are not around. We regularly get wide-eyed warnings from the neighbours about dodgy people seen snooping around the street.
Office keys: I am the first to arrive by a half an hour (OCD) so key needed.
~~~~~ooo000ooo~~~~~
Me:
I am weird that way. Partly slackness, partly – slackness. Been very lucky and fully aware that could change.
1984 – Marriott road flat – nothing. No incidents.
1989 – 7 River Drive Westville – pre-kids. Zanele said she saw an umfaan in our room and she said ‘Hey! Wenzani?’ and he scuttled off through the burglar bars, which were big enough for him to get through.
Years later Aitch found her Zeiss binocs were missing. ‘Stolen!’ she announced. I thought no, ‘Misplaced.’ She thought ‘Poephol, stolen!’ Two years later we found them in the socks drawer.
Then post-kids I got hijacked and taken off in a friend’s car. That wasn’t good.
2003 – 10 Windsor Avenue Westville – Break and enter while we were out and Aitch’s binocs WERE taken. Also her wedding ring. She replaced only the binocs with a shiny newer model – insurance. I still have the new ones.
2005 – 10 Elston Place Westville – nothing.
The reason I have a keypad at the gate where friends just enter the last four digits of their cell number and Open Sesame is I hate closed gates. I once – ca1982 – waited on the pavement in Argyle road outside the palatial home of one of Barks’ friends, ringing the doorbell in vain. Party inside, so they couldn’t hear. Pre-cellphone days. Eventually went home and resolved never to live in a fuckin prison. Still don’t.
Weird? OK.
Confession: I do insist the kids practice common sense security and keep doors locked if they’re alone at home and when they leave the home unattended!
~~~~~ooo000ooo~~~~~
umfaan – youngster
Hey! Wenzani? – Oy! Whatchadoin’?
Poephol – husband
~~~~~ooo000ooo~~~~~
Talking of phobias, isn’t this a lovely one?
The Fear Of Giants: fee-fi-phobia
‘Please call the police; my friends are fighting and I’m very worried.’
The sound of a young woman’s voice early Saturday morning, still pitch dark, on my gate intercom. Luckily the intercom was in one of its working phases. They’d had a party, she said. Funny, I hadn’t heard anything. Sometimes the parties are really loud. I dialed 10111, explained, gave my name and address and the man said ‘I’ll send the police there,’ which I found re-assuring. He said ‘I’ll send them,’ not ‘I’ll tell them.’
Later the same lovely voice very politely checking, ‘Did you phone the police? I’m so worried!’ I asked Are You Safe? Do you want to come in? To be behind the gate? ‘No, I think I’m safe,’ she replied, which I didn’t find overly re-assuring.
A short while later the gate again, ‘Thank you so much, they’re here,’ followed by three more Thank You So Much-es.
As far as I can recall, that’s the first time I have ever called the cops!
~~oo0oo~~
But I spose we must have called them back ca.2004 when we had our only robbery – in 10 Windsor Avenue while we were out. Aitch’s Zeiss 8X32 binoculars and her wedding and engagement rings were gone. Typical Aitch, she replaced the binocs only.
Wait! Once when we were young . .
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A time before, at River Drive, Aitch’s binocs ‘were stolen’ – she just knew it. We found them over a year later at the back of our socks drawer.
. . raised a whole lot of money for Udobo School. Udobo is a pre-school in Montclair for the special kids of Montclair. Udobo – the name is isiZulu for fishhook – needs to raise funds to keep going and Aitch’s unused ceramics helped. Anne Snyders of Udobo set her kids to painting them, varnished them, and then auctioned them off to those wonderful suckers called parents, who each bid way more than the intrinsic worth cos THEIR kids painted it! Everybody wins!
In the Southlands Sun: UDOBO Pre-Primary School hosts an art exhibition and auction at the major hall of the Montclair Methodist Church on Saturday, 24 November from 11am to noon.
They sold tickets for R50 which included a meal and light entertainment. The children’s artwork was on sale, and the pottery pieces plus tablecloths decorated by the children were auctioned.
Hey! and they gave me a free plate, painted by Eli! Look how cheerful a kid can make a plain white plate!
Recently I took another load of Aitch stuff – books, picture frames n stuff, which occasioned this letter above. Hopefully they can put it to work for them too.
Udobo’s main source of funds is from Action Udobo in the UK. Their website has pics from Udobo just down the road from me in Montclair.
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I think my favourite Aitch Art piece hanging on our walls was the Pear Tree ceramic. I broke it.
Oh well, we’re going to buy . .
One box of wine
Two packs of beer
Three sticks of glue
Seven . . . . dancing . . . . girls
and hold a –
Party-y in a Pear Tree
And we’ll fix it – yep. Louis is going to be the GluMeister, I’ll keep it lubricated, and Petrea will bring a semblance of order.
~~oo0oo~~
Update: A preliminary Cocktails and Curry evening has been held in which a Mak Martini was drank; also a cream vodka with mint sprig; and a medicinal flu jab consisting of one part gin one part vodka one part vermouth and freshly squoze lemon and orange, garnished with a slice of lemon and topped up with Little Miss Muffet’s whey orange juice from Tropika. Oh yes, and some practice glueing was done by the Glumeister.
Who also made the curry, fresh from New Delhi, the gurugram district. It was delicious, spicy, tasty, filling, warming on a chilly evening. Jess supplied dessert: Baked cheesecake, dark chocolate, double-thick cream; All washed down with strong filter coffee in zebra hide cups.
Update: Eventually I took it to the HIllcrest mushroom farm where a kind lady put humpty together again and charged me way too little for her time.
Just in case anyone was thinking Aitch only had Mom’s Day, I gotta tell ya – not at all!
She had her birthday 6 January; She had her second birthday 6 July “‘cos it’s unfair my birthday is so close to Christmas, everyone used to give me one present, and my day was lost in the Xmas/New Year hype”. Right.
Then she was really big on the kids’ joint birthday 11 December, making that a big day, plus the two separate parties she would organise for them, there being a four-year age gap. I tried to combine it after she was gone – whatta disaster!
Then she always remembered the day we met, 27 August, I think. We would celebrate that. Also wedding anniversary 27 February. Celebrate.
Then CHRISTMAS!! An Aitch Day if ever there was one! She was BIG on Christmas. Much planning, buying and the whole house had to be changed: Xmas decorations – putting up the tree was an event! – Xmas crockery, Xmas coffee mugs, Xmas lights, Xmas pictures on the walls, all other paintings had to come down. Mantelpieces would be festooned.
Then she had Mothers’ Day when the kids made a big fuss – she’d see to it. And last but definitely not least there was All Fools Day, April Fools Day – my birthday. You won’t believe how she went to town. She’d get a Big Brass Band to play!
I’m not joking:
Jess picked the flowers, Tom did the braai. We had chops, ribs and wors with garlic bread, plus some fried beans and mushrooms. I had beer and vino. We raised a glass to Mom!
When Bella died we buried her in the garden under the copse of trees over the birdbath. Then Aitch died and we – well, “we”, read about that! – buried her ashes there too. Then Blackie the gundwane (gerbil) and Cheeky the other gundwane (hamster) followed.
Then Janet and Trish’s dear old Dad Neil died and not too long after that – a year or two – their Mum Iona died. Neil’s ashes waited for Iona, and then when she was ready, Janet laid them both to rest in the same spot as well, with good ole Tobias Gumede’s help. He needed to re-cut the path so she could get there, the lovely remembrance spot had become very overgrown!
Lots of laughter and tears. Just like life with them all, come to think of it!
~~oo0oo~~
Since then Sambucca the 12yr-old labrador has been plugged into the Elston Place earth, as has Flaky the 12yr-old American corn snaky! Both buried by TomTom – for a fee! Talk about a garden of remembrance!!
~~oo0oo~~
gundwane – mouse; rat
Bella – dog; Aitch would say ‘doberman-ish; I’d say Canis africana-eish
Aitch – Trish; Mom; dear wife; boss of the household; dog purchaser
Neil & Iona – outlaws; in-laws
Janet – twin sister of Aitch; sister of mine
Sambucca – only dog we ever paid for
Draft post
Paddock Wood in Kent – Hosted by Pete & Val Excell, old Cape Town friends of Aitch’s
Nearby dam or lake – lots of birders! Standing three deep with binocs n scopes. Looking at a Little Ringed Plover, I think. He says, dubiusly.
Road trip in Pete’s station wagon – a Ford, I think – Cortina? Grenada?
Across Dartmoor to Cornwall. Ponies and a shirt walk on the moor.
In Bodmin, we are generously hosted by Den and Mary Bluett, Mel Spaggiari’s folks, on a beautiful small farm. There’s a stream and pond on their property. We see a newt and a hedgehog
And Yay! Another Dipper! After seeing one in America, we see one here! And he’s even more beautiful. He has a nest under a bridge and is feeding chicks.
But no kingfisher – we searched, we heard, but we dipped out!
~~oo0oo~~
Here are the pics from our big old paper album:
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(draft post – needs work!)
Boston, Massachusetts – 13 April
Hingham; stay in a motel $39
Cohasset
Cape Cod
Daniel Webster Inn for supper
Stay in Country Acres Motel $33 in Sandwich
Wellfleet Bay
Orleans – Meadows Motel $35
Then back to Boston; With no time to search in the city, we stayed at the Ramada Inn $89 for the room – So our last night in the USA was our most expensive night in the USA.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Fly Boston / JFK New York / London Heathrow – 18 April 1988
On to the last leg of our honeymoon: England to visit Val & Pete Excell
The sixth week of our honeymoon in 1988 was an eagerly awaited visit to good friend Larry Wingert. He’d been a Rotary exchange student to Harrismith in South Africa back in 1969-1970.
We flew out of Lawton Oklahoma to Dallas/Fort Worth, on to Little Rock, to Cincinatti and on to our destination: Akron, Ohio. Friday 8 April. Larry’s friend Dave “Zee” picked us up at the airport, took us to his condominium and fed us. The first meal of what turned out to be a major good food week! Later, Larry fetched us in his Subaru – our third all-wheel drive vehicle this trip, and this one free! – and took us to his beautiful old home on North Portage Path. At home it was all wine, one woman and song, with Aitch and Larry bashing the piano and asking me to please stop singing.
On our arrival in the States some weeks before, we received a letter saying “Please accept these portraits of old American Presidents and USE this plastic card!” Various denomination dollar bills and a credit card for gas (or petrol)! How’s that for a wedding present!? In Larry We Trusted!
I love the canoeing connection with his home: North Portage Path is an 8000 year old path along which native Americans portaged their canoes from the Cuyahoga river out of lake Erie, across a mere eight miles to the Tuscarawas River from where it flows into the Muskingum river, then into the Ohio and on to the Mississippi. Thus they could paddle from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Of Mexico with only one eight mile portage, something any Dusi paddler would do without a second thought! The amazing thing: You can still paddle from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico today, unbroken except for one short section – and while trudging along that section you could pop in to Larry’s place for tea. Or ‘tea’! America’s waterways are astonishing.
Larry indulged us lavishly. There was no tea. Only the good stuff. He indulged Aitch’s joy in shopping, especially deli shopping at the best places. And Larry knows his delis!
Followed by a big cook-up at home . .
. . and music with the two of them on the piano, shoving me aside and asking me to please stop singing!
Then he took us to parks and nature resorts for me to indulge in my birding passion. When he wasn’t able to join us, he handed over the keys to his all-wheel-drive Subaru. Above and beyond . . One morning we visited Cuyahoga River State Park quarry area. Our favourite bird in Ohio was probably the Northern Flicker.
Afterwards we went shopping at another rather special deli – its obvious Larry is GOOD at this! For supper he cooked us some great steaks on his portable barbeque outside his kitchen door. We ate like kings. After supper there was music with the two of them on the piano, shoving me aside and asking me to please stop singing!
A visit to Kendall Lake; Later to Cleveland’s Old Arcade Centre and a look at Lake Erie. Supper at a French restaurant on Larry; He had already spoiled us generously, now this.
Suitably fortified, we moved back home to liquers and piano and song! No tea. By this time my good friend and my good wife had formed an excellent working and jolling relationship. They shoved me aside and asked me to please stop singing. To bed at 2am, rising at 5.30am;
~~~oo0oo~~~
The honeymoon album has been recorded here, and the big old paper album tossed out:
Off to Boston 13 April 1988. In consultation with Larry, we decided Cape Cod was next . . .
~~~oo0oo~~~
When Aitch said ‘Come with me to Brasil’ in 1988 I shouted ‘Hell, yes!’ over my shoulder as I rushed off to a bookstore to buy a book on the birds of Brasil.
There wasn’t one. I asked everywhere and searched everywhere, but no luck. Then I asked Hardy Wilson, great birder, who reached up to one of the many shelves in the library in his lovely home in Hollander Crescent and brought down his only copy of Aves Brasileiras and said ‘You can use this.’ I think he said it was the only field guide to Brazilian birds that he knew of and that it was out of print. Something along those lines, anyway. Wow! Are you sure? I asked. ‘Sure. Go. Enjoy.’
In Rio de Janeiro we found another copy – a hardcover. When we got back I offered Hardy his choice of either, in case the old soft cover had sentimental value, but he preferred the new hardcover, so I still have Hardy’s soft cover book Aves Brasileiras. Whatta pleasure!
Using it made us realise how lucky we were in South Africa to have Roberts and Newmans field guides. I thought the book was probably Brasil’s first, but today I found this post by Bob Montgomerie of the American Ornithological Society’s History of Ornithology site. That’s what reminded me of Hardy’s book and his generosity thirty years ago.
Bob Montgomerie: The first work of this genre (“Birds of – name of a country”) to be published was probably Georg Marcgraf’s section on birds, Qui agit de Avibus, in Piso’s Historia Naturalis Brasiliae published in 1648. Several other books about birds were published in the 16th and 17th centuries but this is the only one I could find that was specifically about the birds of a particular country or region, at least as indicated by the title.
Marcgraf’s bird section is a masterpiece that was THE authority on South American birds for the next two centuries. Even the paintings are pretty good given the quality of bird art in books by his contemporaries, and each species gets a separate account. Unfortunately for most scientists today, Marcgraf’s work is in Latin and relatively inaccessible.
Well, Hardy’s book was in Portuguese, and relatively inaccessible to us! But without it we would have been way more lost.
I found a pic of Hardy on the History site with Jane Bedford and a chap dressed funny. Jane has appeared in one of my stories before, in another world, long ago.
R.I.P Hardy !
Hardy Wilson was born in 1939 in England. He died in April 2020 in Aussie.
In South Africa he belonged to – and was very active in – The South African National Society; Round Table; Rotary; The Railway Society of Southern Africa; The S.A. Military History Society; Birding – not sure what he belonged to, but I know he he was involved and he and Astrea enjoyed birding. That’s how I met him.
~~~oo0oo~~~
