“We’re watching the Comrades Marathon out on the road again tomorrow!” I announce to the gang. My house is infested with five know-it-alls. We’ll get up at about 5.30 and be there by 6. The route is about 600m up the road and we like to watch the ‘up’ run if we’re home.
Aaw, Dad, can’t we watch on TV? It’s much better graphics, says the lazy one.
Here comes the sun . . and the helicopter:
Grumble, grumble! But then the first runners arrived! And now they’re into it: My five cheer every runner.
They loved it. Especially breakfast afterwards. Thanks Dad!
So I’m slaving over the braai fire at Happy Wanderers, juggling the timing of the spuds, meat and veg, (I’m like, doing the Dads can also make balanced meals thing),
when I spot the kids eating bowls of blue bubble gum-flavoured cereal, with milk & sugar.
Hey! Watcha doin’? I’m making supper! I say.
“Dad”, says Jess, “Remember Mom’s magnet on the fridge: “Life is uncertain, eat dessert first“?
Every garden should have a resident gnome. Especially if a friend of yours edited the well-known magazine Garden n Gnome. Or was that Garden n Home, Lesley?
My gnome lives in a ‘hanging’ pot on the cottage wall and yesterday morning having breakfast I glanced up and spotted him. Next to him was a packet. One of those paper sacks fancy shops use to put gifts in. String handles and a tag you can write happy birthday on.
Ah, I thought, Annerien has left us a gift as a thank-you for staying in the cottage.
Inside was a green box with Mr NWH Humphrey on it. And Oakleigh Funeral Home.
I found Neil!
I had lost his ashes, forgetting I had put them in such a clever place where the gnome could look after him.
Luckily Janet had said she’s not up to it yet, when I suggested she gooi his ashes where Bella is buried and where we – well, some of us – OK, me – had put Aitch’s ashes. So I didn’t have to confess at the time that I’d lost Neil. I just mumbled vaguely that I had put him “somewhere, I think in the garage.”
Now he can stay right there in the gnome hanging pot till Janet gets back from Maun. And when she’s ready she can go down the special path Tobias cut to the site where, in the middle of me clearing my throat to say “OK, we’re going to put Mom’s ashes here” the kids stomped their feet, slapped their knees, jumped up & down, shouted ANTS! and ran off, leaving me to bury the box on my own.
~~oo0oo~~
Later: Janet did come back and chose to scatter Neil’s ashes where Aitch’s are. Along with Aitch’s favourite mutt Bella, a hamster and a gerbil. Tobias helped her by cutting open the path and steps down to the site, which disappear every summer in the undergrowth.
~~oo0oo~~
Even later, Trish and Janet’s Mom Iona’s ashes joined the gang under the copse of trees down the bank in our front yard.
Mutiny on the way to Lilani Spa. It’s cold and drizzling, so the back seat of the bakkie thinks cycling has become a seriously kak idea and they’re making it known: I’m NOT riding! We’re NOT going! You can’t force us! It’s too wet! It’s too cold!
‘Snot optional,’ I intone each time. ‘Snot optional’.
This got them giggling and making up their own snot sayings: She SNOT riding. He SNOT riding. We SNOT riding! SNOT funny, Dad! SNOT funny, Pete!
So off they went pedaling in the drizzle, shivering and shouting and giggling. I drove ahead to get out of earshot of the whining. Looking back, here come the four of them . . . What a goon show!
The road to Lilani is 17km of downhill. All long gentle downhill. It’s Lazy Man’s Biking Paradise. From Ahrens to Lilani you don’t have to pedal. You simply place your bum in the saddle and gravity does what it did to Newton’s apple. What’s not to like?
And when you get to the bottom, what do you have to do? Jump into the hot springs mineral waters and soak. If you’re 9 to 15 yrs old of course you’ll take great delight in saying repeatedly, ‘Dad it smells like a fart,’ cos it’s sulphur springs, and it does, but its great.
Downhill biking, warm water, cold beer if you have a driver as I didn’t, and – almost always – solitude. Heaven. If you haven’t been to Lilani Spa, get your ass over there. You can drive right in if you like, and you can stay overnight too.
Here are The Four Mutineers again:
We were in a bakkie this time, not a VW kombi, cos Aitch was gone and the ban on bakkies – ‘the suspension is too hard’ – no longer applied.
Steve Reed in Oz pointed out the symbolism of this pic (taken by Jessie’s friend Minenhle):
She’s sixteen; The jungle gym has been left far behind; The pushbikes have been abandoned; Jess looks ahead to the brave new world of being 16 and really MOBILE!!
I just hope she’s not heading for that garden bench to sit smooching boys!
Ducked off to a game reserve again yesterday. Third time in a month! This time Hluhluwe.
Tom was off ritalin (at his request) and MAN did he talk!! Non-stop for HOURS! I loved it. A running, stream-of-conscious patter of the life and thoughts of TomTom!
A lot of it was about hunting. Dad, I’ve decided to give fishing a rest for a while, I’m going to do hunting.
Mmm? Yes, I need a rifle, can I have an M16? and I’m going to hunt kudu.
Actually, Tom, that’s not how it works, fella. You need a licence to shoot a gun, and you need to pass a course before you can go hunting. When can I start, Dad?
I’ll phone my friend Andre and ask him. He was President of the KZN hunting club at one time. Will he take me tomorrow?
He starts reading my Smithers mammal book. Looks up kudu and starts learning about them. Amazed that I know a lot of the answers to questions he asks me from the book.
I tell him he needs to start with grasses, then shrubs, then trees, then birds. WHY, Dad? Well, hunters need to know what animals eat, and they need to know what birds are doing as they stalk their prey. The Go-Away bird will shout when it sees you and that will alert the buck, and as you walk past the little warblers will go quiet and the buck will look up to see why. Oh. Dad, if I shoot a buck right up its asshole will the bullet come out its mouth?
TOM!! Just kidding Dad, you know I wouldn’t, but I’m jus saying . . . So an anatomy lesson followed about the tortuous route a bullet would have to take to find the mouth if it started at the a-hole.
Dad, is it true you have to eat the liver of the first buck you shoot – raw?
Can I shoot birds with my air rifle?
How do you take the skin off a buck? Do you have to carry the buck home after you’ve shot it?
Dad, what does Nyala taste like? And kudu? And duiker? And wildebeest? Can you eat a warthog? Can you eat lion meat?
ens.
Every now and then: I love you Dad! Arsecreeping, see? Possible translation: You don’t really mean Forget it! about the M16, right?
And Jessie? Quietly listening to her music and looking out. She spotted the lion, the rhino, the lone ele, the eagle, a snake in a tree, etc.
She took that lovely pic of the long-tailed Paradise Whydah. 
My auntie Pat (Mom’s sister) used to pass through Harrismith every year on her way (with husband and 2 daughters) to the Wild Coast. They would call in again on their way back three weeks later and she would be as brown as a ripe old berry. I mean seriously deep berry red-brown deep deep tan. Skin looked like rich dark leather. On her way back to Blyvooruitzicht where she’d make all the other gold mine cherries jealous. Internally tanned too, I guess, from the booze and cigarette smoke. Happy as Larry. Looking forward to next year’s trip already and already sad that she would lose her tan up in BlayFore, as they called their home settlement. She proved she was absolutely right to do so and to ignore all the health police by keeling over dead one year, approaching Harrismith after another glorious holiday at Mazeppa Bay. Heart attack. Nothing to do with tanning.
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On Wednesday, June 12, 2013, pete wrote:
Check Tom’s lips in the pic: Yikes!
Under a previous regime if I’d brought him home looking like that I’d have been in for BIG trouble!!! They’ve had sunblock maybe five times in the last two years!
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On 2013/06/15 10:41 PM, steve wrote:
In the old days you had not had a proper summer holiday if you didn’t have a cold sore to prove it. Now, in Australian cities, it’s punishable by public humiliation.
21 Dec 2014: Dad! The supper last night was the BEST! says my off-ritalin TomTom breathlessly. The Xmas ham was SO good, and the steak was great, and the roast chicken was tasty, Dad!!I had some of everything except salad, he says proudly. My salad-dodger hates it when his appetite is suppressed by the muti. The meal was Michelle & Craig’s slap-up pre-Xmas supper to which we’d been invited.
The next day Tom bought two hams, one roast chicken, bacon and a huge matured rump steak. I made sure only the bacon and steak were raw. Tomorrow is Xmas and we are going to be cavemen! Oh, he also got some Haagen Das ice cream . .
Xmas day:
I picked Tobias’ cabbage and spinach fresh from the garden, boiled it with onions, then drained and added olive oil and simmered and braised with garlic, salt and barbecue spices. Served with big knobs of butter. They gobbled it up after the usual wrinkle-nosed high-pitched HMMMM!? Tom reserves for anything “dodge”. I had to add a green just in case Aitch does peek down from the clouds. Wouldn’t want to get into trouble . . .
~~~oo0oo~~~
Actually, we have one vegetarian meal a week. If I have my way its putu, mfino & speckled beans. Wonderful stuff. The kids love it, but feel obliged to rev me throughout: “WHAT!? No meat!!? Are we too poor, Dad? This is dodge, Dad! Kinda homeless, Dad! etc etc .” Little shits.
I try and teach the kids about waste, litter, environmental awareness, biodiversity, etc. As I start talking they don’t look at me. They look at each other with THAT look, then swivel their eyes on me in unison, put on a polite “Yes, you were saying?” look on their dials, switch off their ears and nod and say “Mmm” “Mmm?” until they see my lips stop moving.
Then they’ll ‘innocently’ ask something deliberately unkosher like “Can we get a cat?” Lil bastids.
Vacuum clean your room, please Jess. 16yr-old Jess. 2014. “OK”
On goes the whine, to be switched off ten seconds later.
Stomp, stomp, a delegation to come and see me: “Dad, I can’t vacuum!”
Why not, Jess? “Cos I can’t hear my music!”
She watches my jaw drop, grins triumphantly and marches back to continue the vacuuming.
Mission accomplished: SERVED my Dad!!
I’ve left the kids alone at home, so when an urgent call comes I take it.
It’s Tom. Dad! We need to get a lamb roast and rosemary and garlic and small-cut vegetables to roast. It’s a slow roast and we don’t have any rice or lamb stock in the pantry!
OK Tom, we’ll do that.
He’s been watching a cooking show on the box.
Janet Humphrey wrote:
I Love it !
Question is – did he do it?
.
Oh, yes. The girls (Jess plus 2 visitors Sat night) had fish n chips take-away and Tom made a lamb shank each for the boys (me and him). Delish. I had the last of mine (and Jon & Dizzi had a piece) last night.
– Please drop me off and don’t get out the car, Dad.
Hugs, fist-bumps, “Love you Dad” all done and said safely BEFORE we get there.
Mouths a silent “Love you” again as he walks off into purgatory.
JessJess
– Please can you come in with me Dad?
Gives me a big hug in her classroom in front of her teacher; gets me to walk her onto the playground where her mates give her a big hello.
Went back to Mfolosi today. Kids were mad keen, especially Jess. Determined to see a lion.
So we did. A lovely big male. I thought that’ll keep her quiet for a while. Only to find out later that dear old silent-one Jess couldn’t see it from back in the canopy where she and her friend Sindi were snugly seated – at their request. But – being Jess – she didn’t say anything at the time!! There was a car blocking her view and she didn’t say a word! Had a quiet drizz in my arms at the picnic spot afterwards! Ai! Die Kinders! (Tom would have raised hell if HE couldn’t see it). I’m amazed Sindi didn’t say something. She’s not usually shy.
To my embarrassment I notice I took 44 pics – and not one of the kids.
Steve wrote: Haai. Next trip make sure Jess is in the front seat and has charge of the binoculars!
Me: My Jessie had choice of seat, being the oldest, and has her own binoculars. All she needed to do was squawk and we could have edged forward by a metre or so but she froze. As she does. The good thing is now we’ll have to go back!
It gets hot but nothing Sahara. I don’t use aircon in the bush. We drove north in October, which the Zims call suicide month, without once switching the aircon on. All windows down is all. When it gets too stinking hot wet towels work amazingly well.
My godson Gary Hill worked as a ranger at Mala Mala for a couple years. Also had a ball, took lots of pics and ran their blog. Loved it, but has moved on. They pay shit and prospects are few, so after a while its comes time to move on.
Find his swansong here:
Brauer wrote: Lyin’ and dandelion??
Surely they don’t qualify as communities. (The kids had said ‘Dad! Don’t stop here!’ I asked why not. ‘Too many “communities” Dad!’ What?! Look at the “communities,” Dad!’ they said, pointing at the local people. I shook my head and asked them when they last looked in a mirror!! Pests).
“WE sang rap”?? Must have been THEY and then the old toppie serenading them with a bit of Mama Mia accompanied by eyerolling.
Me:Hey, WE sing:
I woke up in a noo Bughatti
I woke up in a noo Bughatti
I woke up in a noo Bughatti
I woke up in a noo Bughatti
I woke up in a noo Bughatti
I woke up in a noo Bughatti
and
My nigger, bad nigger , my nig nig nigger
My nigger, bad nigger , my nig nig nigger
My nigger, bad nigger , my nig nig nigger
My nigger, bad nigger , my nig nig nigger
My nigger, bad nigger , my nig nig nigger
and I gonna PICK the world up and gonna drop it on yo fuckin head
What? You don’t know the classics?
~~~oo0oo~~~
PS: Later Jess told me she HAD seen the lion but just not as well as she’d have liked to!
PPS: My favourite sighting was the meadows full of flowers. They were amazing!
– Mfolosi Meadow – the grass was teeming with flowers! –
~~~oo0oo~~~
Pics of my self-styled “NOT communities” on other trips:
