Jessie’s gala day looms. “I’m NOT swimming!” I said, That’s OK, love. Lend me your cozzie and Mom’s wig and I’ll swim in your place. No-one will know. HORROR! “NO DAD! I’ll swim!
. . is not so bad.
Tom just had a mate stay over who has a Four Parent Household. Well, two households.
There’s Mom and her boyfriend and Dad and his girlfriend. They alternate weekends.
Mom’s in hospital ‘getting better because she has stress and then she’s very hard on me’.
This morning Mom’s boyfriend arrives to fetch him. Little oke, doesn’t look a day over 19, sports a huge tattoo on his one arm and neck, driving an old Uno.
Tom said as they left ‘He looks very young, hey Dad? In his early twenties, hey?’ Always has an opinion my Tom.
Walking back to the house he hugs me and says ‘MY Daddy’. Little rat.
Lots to be grateful about!!
Except later I give him his medicine. As he swallows it he grabs his throat, looks at me with wide eyes and says dramatically: “I’m having a seizure!”
Little shit.
Tom says Why are your arms so hairy, Dad? looking at them in wonder and at his hairless arms.
It’s because when I was young we had to fight off lions and wrestle them to the ground and shoo them away so we could eat their impala. And if they bit us, the hair would give us some protection.
As I’m talking he starts an Ooh, I’m SO impressed expression, widening his eyes and nodding.
Then he hugs me, pats me on the back patronisingly and says: No wonder Mom fell for you, Dad.
“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, determined not to be merely a carnivorous caveman like some Petes we know )…
… 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.
