Way back in around 1962 Donald Coleman and I walked home from school. The Harrismith Kleinspan School.
It was about a mile and we set off around 1pm. When we got home we got the “Where have you been!?” treatment. Apparently it was 5pm already and getting dark and cold. Well, we wouldn’t have known and anyway, we’d had a lot to talk about and Donald had a box of matches, so we had stopped and made a little fire of plane tree leaves in the sandstone gutters of Stuart Street. These gutters used to channel water from Platberg to town according to Blanche Hawkins, local historian.
Fast forward to 2014 and 12yr old TomTom asked me if he could walk home from school today. It’s about 4km and school ends at 2pm. When I got home at 5pm he had just got in and Cecelia and Carla had been worried: “Where had he BEEN?!”
I knew where he’d been. His journey was double mine and he’d taken one less hour. Why, he’d almost hurried home! And no matches, so how could I complain? You have fun, my boy? I asked. He’d stopped en route to buy a pie, a packet of jelly tots and an energade drink.
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Feature pic: Me, Anne, Donald & Sheila in Platberg’s shadow
Aitch had lots of stuff. She had two huge clear glass vases containing coffee beans and golden spirally sticks with bronze woven balls stuck into them, sticking up about a metre tall in all. I dunno. It’s a mystery. Inferior decorating, I guess.
I hadn’t looked at them for ages, and when I saw Tom up a ladder in the study I vaguely thought ‘what the . . ‘ but I knew I’d find out sooner or later.
Sooner. He had the beans between two layers of the tablecloth and was hammering them with a silver ladle, a wooden rolling pin and a cast-iron pot.
Rather crude? I questioned him.
Jamie Oliver does it like this, Dad. Watch, it’ll be the best coffee you’ve ever had!
I’m looking forward to tasting it, fella (grabbing the camera to record another instalment of living with a short chef).
Postscript: Dad, it’s not so good, he says a few days later. The beans are stale.
True, fella, they’ve been out in the open air for about five years, and you really need fresh beans, sealed airtight. We’ll get some and you can do your Jamie thing with them, OK?
There’s a message on my phone this (April Fool) morning. Its the old man to wish me happy birthday.
He doesn’t leave a message, but before he switches off I hear him bellowing to the old lady: “He was in a hell of a hurry! Just said ‘Leave A Message’ and then he had to go. We’ll have to phone him later.”
In 2008 we took ourselves up to Mabibi. Lovely snorkelling spot on the Zululand coast. Aitch had just finished her chemo and this is what she chose as her “what would you like to do now?” With best friends Jon & Dizzi.
We luxuriated in the lodge and went for a daily snorkel in the reef at the point nearby. Lolling around the shallow reef checking out flocks of fish of all shapes n sizes one day, Aitch suddenly rose up and leapt about shrieking something about a sore earlobe. Luckily the water was only thigh deep so she could wade shorewards shouting ouch! and eina!
Six year-old TomTom had seen the fish, got out and rushed off to fetch his tackle. Getting back he had cast in where he’d seen the pansizers, and caught his Ma!!
Aitch never held my culinary skills in high regard. Her favourite meal to mock was my chicken-onion-n-potato-in-a-pot special which she described as pale and tasteless. It wasn’t. It just looked bland. With a touch of salt and black pepper and enough red wine taken internally it was fine. Admittedly, I hadn’t yet discovered stock cubes.
She was right about my braaiing skills, though. Luckily Tom’s genes skipped back about seven generations to when burning dead animals on a naked flame was considered an advance in civilisation, not like I believe it to be: a pointless exercise now that Eskom has been invented. So he is now my braaiing stunt double.
To show that I’m an early adopter and no Luddite, I’ll have everyone know that when Aitch met me back in ’85 there was already an AEG microwave ensconced in my bachelor flat, faithfully re-heating coffee, poaching eggs and heating up the half hamburgers I would find on my chest after a good night out.
Which
same microwave gave up the ghost this week. That’s correct. My AEG
microwave, bought on 26 March 1984 fizzled on me on the 26th of March
2014. How’s that for hi-fidelity?
And just to show I really will avoid playing the primitive pyromaniac if I can help it, here’s a picture of me pulling my shirt to hide that same microwave behind me at Kosi Bay, Zululand ca 2002. I snuck it into the kombi knowing their campsites had Eskom power and knowing that heating up Tommy’s bottles was a fiddle without it. So I took gas and I took firewood and I took Lion matches, but I used AEG electric microwave technology powered-by-Eskom’s coal burning to feed TomTom.
– see the electric light burning by day to prove Eskom was a 24hr service back then –
Update: Now I’m pissed off it packed up after only 30 years:
NEWS STORY: 93-yr-old woman is pissed off her oven packed up after only 53 years!
In 1963 John F Kennedy was president of the US, the Beatles had released their first album, and Winifred Hughes of Crewe, then a mere 39yrs old, paid £79 for an ultra-modern Belling Classic electric oven. It turned out to be an amazing bargain. Winifred, now 92, has used it almost every day since, and she says, “it never let me down”. Sadly, just last week, the thermostat finally gave up, and Winifred says she is “heartbroken” her beloved Belling is no more.
~~oo0oo~~
Peter
Brauer wrote:
“…which she described as pale and tasteless. It wasn’t. It just looked bland. With enough red wine taken internally it was fine.”
Wasn’t she talking about you??
~~oo0oo~~
Terry Brauer wrote:
You truly are the nuttiest oke I know. For a greenie this is like true confessions. Nuking your food. Go Tommy! You inherited your mother’s skills . .
Off we go to St Lucia estuary for a camping long weekend. Let’s take the minimum guys, we can buy food locally. Just clear out the fridge and bread bin and let’s go. We’ll buy charcoal and meat and etc from the local Spar. I won’t even take any wine! Rather we hit the road now, shop later.
Let’s take a tent for the three teenage girls, and the twelve year-old fella and I will sleep in the back of the pickup. The simple life.
Except I realise at the first tollgate that I have left my wallet in Westville. Complication. To turn back or not. In my rucksack I find Tom’s saving card, daily withdrawal limit R300. I had just changed his password, as we had not used the account for ages, so we were good to go. We just gotta be frugal, kids, we got R300 kuphela.
And that’s where they blew me away. All four of them said “Dad, we’ve got money! You can have our money, Dad”. They each had R200 pocket money for the weekend and offered it freely! What stars.
Thanks guys, I may need that, but I have enough to fill up with diesel and we’ll just go easy and discuss it before we spend anything, OK?
The next morning I managed to activate my eWallet and cellphone banking at an internet cafe so could now draw R1500 a day! Problem solved! I gave them each R100 to thank them for their generous offers. Their eyes looked like chocolates and ice creams!
Off we went to the game reserve (entrance fee R245) and to the water park (R120 for the four of them). We wuz rich! The girls bought swimming shorts with their own money.
St Lucia camping 2
The next day that amount I could draw had ‘kindly’ been reduced to R200 (“for my safety” – Thanks FNB!), so I had to make the speech again, and again they rallied around with their offer of chipping in, but with Tom’s R300 and my R200 we were fine. We ate boerie rolls both nights – cheap!
– St Lucia camping –
Here’s an isimangaliso* pan with buffalo, waterbuck and zebra (click on the pic). The Indian Ocean is just behind that high forested dune:
Tom got on with fishing . .
. . while the teenage girls did what teenage girls do . .
– Jess took a lovely picture of some grass – with a kudu as a backdrop –
~~oo0oo~~
*isimangaliso means ‘miracle, wonder, surprise’ in isiZulu
My garden is a wonderful tangle of KwaZulu indigenous growth gone wild. Interfered with only by my best man Tobias Gumede’s earnestly-felt desire to do something besides pulling weeds! He’s a GARDENER, so why does he get told: Do Nothing!?
Recently he trimmed the undergrowth near the birdbath and the spot where beautiful turquoise Araneus apricus spins her web each night and takes it down every morning.
I had to sit him down and remind him:
Tobias, my good man, remember when we listened to the yellow-bellied greenbul’s complaints (nickname Belly-aching Bulbul) and you told me how it was saying “Don’t shoot the birds, it’s Spring and they’re nesting?” And how you would teach the kids in Jozini not to shoot birds in that season – and how they did anyway!?
Yep, he remembers.
Well, its Summer, and remember: We don’t trim or cut anything till the season fades and we’re sure no birds or other creatures are nesting. And even then we do it with great circumspection? Lots of ‘easy-does-it’?
Oh Yes, He Does Remember and Sorry, He Forgot.
But he forgot again and as I was leaving he asked, Can You Buy Me A Rake? Um, what for, Tobias? Oh, Yes, He Forgot, We Don’t Rake. Right.
Well, I mention this because I have recently found out that unbeknown to me, I garden according to the ancient principle of wu wei. I mean, I always suspected my method was brilliant, but wu wei! That is brill. Its the Zen (or Tao? – or something . . ) art of “masterful inactivity.”
I love it: “The Art Of Masterful Inactivity”! Wu wei! I can do this!
I’m reading a book by Esther Woolfson who lives in Aberdeen in Scotland, called Field Notes from a Hidden City. The review of her book made me want to write about all the wonderful hidden creatures in my garden and generally in Westville, so I bought it with the express intention of plagiarising it. I’ve got to the part where she writes about wu wei and I’m right behind her.
“Less is more.” German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe popularized this slogan among designers around the world in the 1950’s. And the wisdom of this aphorism goes way, way back to the time of the great Lao Tzu, ‘venerable master.’ The concept of Wu Wei became mainstream in China, where great leaders came to see the power of “non-doing.”
I read a lot about books and then occasionally I buy one and actually read the whole thing. Often the book review is better than the book. I bought Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck by Eric G Wilson. Well, it was a very good review.
Back to plagiarism: I will write to Esther and tell her what I’m doing if I get the book done. My wu wei credentials are not confined to gardening, however, so she may be safe.
Here’s the manicured bit for soccer, rugby and biking, with refuges for creatures in front and behind. When the kids stop swimming the pool will be made more frog-friendly. Made? Well, ‘Allowed To Go’ frog-friendly . . . .
– that chlorine-poisoned water needs to go greener –
So how did I know the beautiful little turquoise orb spider I found in my garden was Araneus apricus? I went to my saucers. This one is seldom in her cups, ‘cept when she’s making beautiful ceramic ones: My favourite entomologist and arachnologist Tanza said:
Hi Pete – I think she is Araneus apricus, a little orb spider. Most are nocturnal, spinning their webs in the early evening and then removing them in the morning. Maybe she got out of bed late . . . ; It is probably a “she” as the males are often (but not always) smaller.- Tanz
I first met Tanza when she was working with social spiders on the Hella Hella bridge over the Umkomaas river. Hundreds of them obligingly spun webs between the aluminium railings, allowing Tanza to mark and measure at leisure. Usually they’d be in tangled bushes!
They’re fascinating. For one thing, like me they can balloon off and fly away!
~~oo0oo~~
TanzaCrouch’s 9 research works with 278 citations and 2,858 reads, including: The influence of group size on dispersal in the social spider Stegodyphus mimosarum (Araneae, Eresidae) – researchgate.net
Tom delivers a hot-off-the-grill rare steak, a breadroll and a lovely green salad with blue cheese dressing to me at my desk.
Plonking it in front of me he announces decisively: The kids have booked the lounge for tonight, Dad.
Have they paid a deposit? I ask.
Here it is, he says, planting a fond kiss on my cheek.
I’ll accept that in full payment, I say.
I was going to watch the Sharks’ game, but I’ll happily miss it.
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The pic is a different day, same year. His mate is Francois. Both of their Dads are named Peter Swanepoel.
Just in the last couple weeks Jessie has had three trips to the dentist, a flap of loose skin in her cheek, (I have to peer inside and tut-tut) –
. . slammed her finger in a drawer, needed lower back massaging and stubbed her toe. Badly.
She’s loving it.
Demands lots of attention from Dad and announces she cannot possibly go to school. “I’m in the wars, Dad”.
I agree. Take three weeks off and lie in bed, Jess, we’ll bring you your meals.
At which she sighs and demands “WHY NOT!?” as she knows that means fugeddaboudit.
But secretly she’s so chuffed at the impressive bandaging I did of her toe (binding it to the one next door) that she can’t wait to get to school to milk maximum sympathy, one school shoe, one pink slop.
TomTom got a big fright as the injection approached. The dentist and her assistant had tried to sneak it towards him from behind, but he’s not polite like Jess. He swivelled his head right round and spotted it and let out a subdued shriek “What’s that thing?”
They started mumbling something, but I said “A big injection Tom, be brave now. No wimping.” So he took it like a man, gripping my hand tightly.
On the way home he’s playing with his rubbery lip, noting, “It’s dead on the left, Dad but I can still feel on the right. And I can’t say “effs” Dad, listen FF- uck FF-uck Fuck. Oh, I can actually.”
Dad can we go to movies at the PuhVILLION? ask Jess n Tom. PleezPleezPleezPleez
Definitely not. We went to a shopping centre yesterday, no way I’m inflicting that on myself two days in a row.
Aaaaw!
Next minute they’ve run to the shops by their own selves, bought jelly tots and flavoured water with their own money, made a big bucket of real, home-popped popcorn, and they’re settled in on the couch on a rainy Sunday watching “UP” on DVD.
Two showers for three people, so I decided instead of the kids having theirs and me mine, we’d change to 16yr old Jessie having her own bathroom all to herself and me & Tom sharing mine.
Well, mini-management ignored that ruling so we have Jess usually using my shower and Tom showering when whipped.
Which arrangement caused my drainage to block. Ha! Jess and her long hair blocking my shower, I thought, cleaning the hair off the grate. I mean, she’s a likely culprit:
I moved Tom from his vainglorious paediatrician to his helluva-decent-chap GP yesterday for oversight of his daily mutis.
Being a very thorough specialist GP, Dr Lawrence went through all the pros & cons, side-effects etc, plus we had a long chat about ADD, what it is and how one should handle these special cases. Shouting doesn’t help, don’t beat your head against the same wall over & over, sometimes its worth just putting their socks on for them in the morning so it gets done quickly, give them a quiet place to work, give them routine, make sure they eat breakfast, etc.
A proper consultation as it should be done. Hats off, and a breath of fresh air.
So this morning we had a good laugh as I tickled his feet while dutifully putting on his way-too-big hand-me-downs from friend James after he’d come up to me half-dressed and said: Dad, Doctor said you have to put my socks on.
We hit the road at 7:10am this morning on the school run and Jan Hofmeyr was gridlocked. I turned down Salisbury and saw that was worse. Traffic came to a halt. Leaning out the window I had a few chats to fellow-detainees:
Seems it was a cycle race which had closed the M13 in both directions. A cycle race! On a FRIDAY!? And for roadies nogal, those humourless lycra-clad anal-obsessive cross-dressers!? Shee-yit!
Eventually I opted out and parked. The kids walked the two blocks home and I tried out the new coffee bar at the top of our road: Joomas. They said they’re the busiest they’ve ever been and they’re three hands short: Caught in this traffic snarl-up.
7:30
8:00
9:00 Still gridlock. Amazing. The kids walked back and we decided to move at 9:10 and joined the lane inching west.
Dropped the kids off at 9:55am! School is about 4km from home.
‘Mazing. Never seen the likes.
Walking single-file to supper in Thembe Elephant Park camp one early evening with Jess bringing up the rear.
“Dad there’s a snake!” she said, and pointed out this vine snake at about her eye level two foot off the path. We had all walked past it.
Beautiful. Aitch took the pic.
She’s a great spotter, our Jess. While Tom waxes lyrical all the time, she’ll say “What’s that?” and we’ll see some new creature.
So I’m teaching TomTom to make sealed exits from his new Fluid kayak playboat in our pool. As a prelude to learning to eskimo roll. He was a bit nervous when upside-down in his lessons, so I want him to wear a diving mask and relax as he looks around and orients himself.
Long chats about how cold the water is and much procrastination, but we finally have the shortie wetsuit and the splashcover on and he steps into the boat.
Step into the middle and sit right down, boetie, I instruct him, get your centre of gravity low as soon as possible.
So he stands more erect. You look like you’re about to make a speech, I say.
“I would like all to know that if I die I want my will given to my Dad,“ he pronounces solemnly, standing even more upright in the boat. “And also to my big sister Jess; And I also want people to know I didn’t want to die.“
Sit down, you goat! You’re such a drama queen.
He sits, hosing himself, and it’s a few minutes before we both stop laughing and can get to the next stage.
SO: I’ll flip you now; Sit tight, brace yourself in the boat; Look at me underwater; Give a thumbs up; Look at the water surface; Only THEN pull the splashy release handle, put your knees together and slowly emerge from the boat. Slide, don’t kick. Then swim to the top; OK? “Dad, you’ve got man-boobs!” he says, triggering another round of helpless laughter as we proceed nowhere fast . . .
But he did it. Three times. Whattastar.
Afterwards, we showered under the hot outdoor shower, so it’s no longer a complete white elephant and goes to prove I was right: You NEED a hot outdoor shower. 
