17 August 2012 – Athletics day at school and Cecelia sends an sms:
Sir will plz tell tomy i wish good lyk to him.and i love him .
Category Archives: Family & Kids
Hijack Anniversary
15 August 2012 – sms from Belinda:
Hey Pete! I stand to be corrected, but it was 10 or 11 years ago tonight we met some uninvited visitors at your house after a St Lizzie’s parents meeting! Just a thought I had.
(I was taken off from our home by five armed guys in Belinda’s VW Polo that night, and dropped off on the M19 onramp onto the N2 South. A truck driver stopped and took me to a garage. Cops then fetched me and took me home. Her car was recovered the next day. Belinda and the Griffiths had come for coffee after a pre-school parents gathering. I was carrying little Em to Belinda’s car when I was jumped).
Pearls Before Swine
On Friday, August 3, 2012, Pete wrote: You can’t understand teenagers. Whenever I offer to sing to Jess and her friends to save her the cost of tickets to hear Justin Bieber or whoever, she says “OmiGawd, Dad, NO!”
When she’s in the car with friends and I offer to sing instead of listening to their CD’s, iPods, Blackberrys, bluetooth to my speakers, or whatever, I get a loud chorus of “No Thanks Pete!!” and whispered giggles to Jess about her weird Dad.
But she has a soft heart. Yesterday she came to me and said “Dad maybe old people would want to listen to you sing.”
~~oo0oo~~
Steve Reed wrote: Want to listen to you sing? Only old people who are drunk and who are also wanting to sing. I suspect this type of forced exposure to our dubious talents (though with only the best of intentions) would have been responsible for a substantial degree of traumatic stress to our own kid . . . Character building though.
Anyhow, good to see the SAfricans doing well in the Olympic medals.
Aussies have brought a bunch of retired sportsmen out to have a go. The pre – Sydney games sports development initiative is now a thing of the past.
Go the ZA’s! . . and good on the Kiwis.
I wrote: Ah, austerity over posterity? The calvinist ideal. Usually used to deny poor people their fair share; but in this particular case I agree with it, I’m afraid. ‘Specially here, where much money is spent looking for medals (and my favourite: building plush, empty, white-elephant stadiums) while people have no jobs, houses or electricity. Even the lotto’ charity’ gives money to ruddy sports clubs rather than genuine charities. Bums me.
~~oo0oo~~
Back to singing: Fine tradition, drunk warbling.
Steve: One of Australia’s best has yet again done his country ‘proud’ . .
Australian Olympic rower will offer his apologies to the shop owners whose windows he damaged. Booth will also pay more than $2000 to the owners in a bid to avoid criminal charges. The 21-year-old Melbourne University student was intoxicated during the incident as the team was out celebrating.
The men’s eight rowing team qualified 6th just hours before the incident. The Australian Olympic Committee have little doubt of Booth’s involvement and say he is responsible for all reparations. Many believe the incident has caused embarrassment for the Australian Olympic team. (Me: Drunkenness has cause Aussie embarrassment? C’mon! Get real).
Booth fainted and hit his head at the police station after being arrested. He was then taken to hospital as a precaution. OK, now that’s embarrassing for Aussie.
And no, they take NO Drugs. This liquid has long been declassified as a drug by the anti-drug, pro-booze industry . .
I wrote: Having once (long ago) experimented with this very same liquid drug, I spose I should keep quiet at times like this . .
Steve: Still doing controlled experiments myself. Let’s call it research.
I wrote: Yep – C2H5OH taken internally . . ongoing experimentation. Cos there’s still so much to learn . .
~~~oo0oo~~~
Tom’s Next Car
On the way to school this morning he gave me a lecture on the need for us to get a BMW.
I said “Ain’t gonna happen” so he tried for an Audi.
I said “Our kombi is our holiday-on-wheels”. He said it’s like being dropped off in a taxi.
What he really wants is a Jaguar or a Ferrari. Maybe like this one? Sold for R54m this week.
“And where would we fit Jess, Tom?” He thought that was a novel idea, worrying about such trivialities when we were talking serious matters.
Anyway, R54m – pshaw!
This one is R299m:
A classic Ferrari first built for Sir Stirling Moss has sold for a world record £22.7-million (R299-million), making it the most expensive car in the world.
The 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO
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Birds in the Snow
Afriski, Lesotho. Winter 2012
My Pasta Chef
Dragging the juicer out of the pantry, TomTom looked at me.
And now?
I want to mix some pasta dough, Dad.
That’s the juicer, boy, here’s the Kenwood chef.
OK
Mixes the stuff, whips it up, then kneads it by hand;
Next thing he has a pasta machine clamped to the kitchen table. It has never been used before. Or not that I have seen, anyway! Rolls out the dough, puts it through the machine to cut tagliatelli or penne strips.
I need to dry these out now, Dad, where can I put them?
On the granite, fella, and we’ll cover them with a dry cloth.
All gleaned by his own self from the “Techniques” chapter in one of Aitch’s books “Pasta & Pizza Presto”. He’s going to cook it for lunch after school tomorrow, he informs me. I’ll taste it, fella.
He did, I did, It was delicious!
I Get A Bum Rap
Snoozing on Tommy’s bed tonight he lies down and puts his head on my stomach, disturbing me with the racket coming from his Blackberry.
Dad, listen to this rap: It’s 2 Chainz, he’s cool, huh?
All I can hear is a string of chanted F-words.
Dad, he says, taking a picture of my face from navel-level, You could be a rap star. We could call you 2 Chinz.
Hoses himself. So clever. Little squirt.
=======ooo000ooo=======
Jess also took a pic with her distortifying setting:
Nrgggh!
Sitting with Tom watching Le Mans when he harks back a disgusting snot sniff.
Sis man, I say, digging him in the ribs.
Are you picking on me cos I’m black? he protests.
No, I say, because you’re disgusting.
Us blacks sniff like that, Dad, he says!
———
Jon asked: How do you argue further along this line?
I said: Too busy laffin to say anything. We both hosed ourselves for about ten minutes!
Solemnish Ceremony
I gathered the kids and said “Let’s go and bury Mom’s ashes with Bella. We’ve been meaning to do it for ages, let’s do it now.”
Her ashes had been keeping an eye on us from the mantelpiece. Now it was time for ceremony.
We trooped down under the trees to the spot where Tobias and I had buried Bella and where we had prepared a hole for the little box containing Aitch’s remains.
I gathered my thoughts and cleared my throat and . . .
“ANTS!” the kids shouted, slapping their legs and running away back to the house.
Ah well, I had a little private ceremony, shaking with laughter. Aitch would have enjoyed that (though she’d have had something to say about decorum).
MiniShova Downhill Ride
Early morning start in Hillcrest for the 35km downhill cruise.
Whizzed down the hill again this year, with TomTom keeping up his undertaking not to whinge once. He didn’t.
And he beat his Dad across the line.
Jess got the family gold, though, tiring of the dawdling boys and zooming off in the last few km’s as always.
Sheila dropped us off in Hillcrest again, and we fetched the bakkie at her flat after the “race”. The steepest uphills are those after the finish – from the Moses MaFIFA stadium to her flat – after breakfast!
Lovely day.
My bum is sore, Dad.
Eid and Cutting Remarks
Jessie’s classmate Faatima tells me at great length about Eid and the cutting of the bulls.
She herself will be cutting a goat, however.
For the paw people.
The Hamstring Hop
Absolutely not, I told Aitch. Forget it. I’ll pull a hamstring, I told her. NO WAY.
So I line up for the Dad’s 100m race at Livingstone Primary School. Me and twenty other Dad’s half my age. I’m wearing long pants, long-sleeve shirt and a tie. I’ve removed my leather shoes. Typical delusion of just maybe I can do well at this. After all my time of 11 seconds dead stood for over twenty years and how much can one deteriorate from sixteen to fifty five? Sure, I had probably slowed down a bit, but the question was How Much?
I politely fall back into the second row on the grid to let the pushy okes ahead. There should have been seeding races so I could get pole position AND THEY’RE OFF!
Within five metres I’m four metres behind so I deliver my famous kick and start the dreaded Hamstring Hop. I TOLD her, but did she listen? From the roar of the crowd I hear one distinctive loud peal of laughter rising above all the hundreds of shouting voices.
By the time I finish the three young adonis’ that got gold silver and bronze have already left the podium.
Is Africa for Sissies After All?
I wrote to some of you when I went to the Master of the High Court of KwaZulu Natal to start a frustrating six month process of queuing and waiting to be appointed as executor of Aitch’s estate. I’d been told: Six Months!
The long and the short of that story was I got forgotten outside someone’s door and when the first lady who had helped me saw me (and probably my sad face) she said “Are you still waiting there?” and took me under her wing.
Three hours later I left with the letter of appointment in my hand! Not “We’ll post it”, nor “We’ll phone you” nor “You phone us”. Done and dusted! In my hand!
Yesterday I finally admitted defeat after searching for Jess & Tom’s adoption papers (the ones that say “asof uit u gebore” – ‘as if born of you’) high and low in our upside-down house. I had turned over everything at home, in the garage, at work, at Trish’s Mom’s place, everywhere five times, so I turned with resignation and trepidation to plan B: Apply for replacement forms from the Department of Justice.
I phoned Ms Miya (who I seem to think we dealt with – her name was on a 2004 letter – the only thing I could find) and she said “I’ve moved from that section, but I’ll help you my lovie”!
And she did: She phoned me back in a few hours and said “When can you come and fetch them?”
How’s that!?
I went first thing this morning to the Pinetown children’s court. Walked in at 7.45am and walked out at 7.48am with the forms in my hand!
Whattapleasure.
Very worrying, though. Are we going soft?
Fietsry in the Karkloof
So we enter the 19km event at Karkloof on our pushbikes. Me n Jessie.
Aitch n Tom are going to do the 10km.
We head off and Jess does well, stays on her bike on some gentle uphills, no pushing.
Riding up one hill after 4 or 5 km we hear a whooshing sound, and a wheezing and a loud shoosh and huh and a muttered curse and I realise its not a train or a wind turbine, it’s an oke saying “Spekkies – howzit?”. Young David Hill, peaking this early. He’s let himself go, as they say, since last season when he did Tuli in Botswana and was a shadow of his former self, and is paying the price. Finds his bike has lost all its former zippiness.
We rode together a while, but then gravity took over and off went Hill downhill at an ever-increasing speed on his high-tech multi-shock softail plenty thousand Rand special just when Jess ran out of steam and decided to chill a bit.
Hill’s bike
After another few kays I realised I was probably leading my category and was in for a podium finish and a prize: First SLOBO home (Seriously Lazy Old Bald Optometrists division). Jess was OK on the downhills (if rather cautious) and slow on all uphills – including some sections of “Dad, come back and push my bike for me”. Even so, I thought I had the win in the bag and was rehearsing my acceptance speech when, with much creaking and panting, an OLDER, BALDER optometrist pulled up next to me and called out “Swanepoel!” It was young Graham Lewis, who, although MUCH older than me, was probably competing for my crown! I tried to delay him but he was eager to move on, so – although I could have blown his doors off – I let him go (on his twenty year old, unsprung bottle store delivery fiets, with his knees whizzing past his ears his seat was so low) as I had to wait for Jess. Ah, well, silver medal, I thought.
Lewis’ bike
Meantime, back at the 10km, Aitch was waiting for 24yrs of trouble on six legs – Tom and the Bainbridge twins Peter and Philip. And waiting, and waiting. Hordes of cyclists passed her as she looked back in vain. Fifty, sixty of the slowcoaches they had been ahead of went past. “Have you seen three little boys?” she eventually started asking. Someone had: “I saw three little guys lying down in the grass near the drinks table chatting away” said an observant soul. Back went Aitch to roust them out and get them back on their wheels. “We were talking, Ma” was the explanation.
Just before prize-giving I had a thought and scurried over to have a quiet word with the officials. “First SLOBO home: Swanepoel” came the announcement over the tannoy system, and I stepped onto the podium to receive gold – to tremendous applause. Lewis had been disqualified, and quite rightly so. He’s running the Comrades ultra-marathon again this year, which quite clearly ruled him out on the important “SL” part of the category. Justice had prevailed.
Legal Technicalities
I threaten to beat Tom to within an inch of his scrawny existence, the pest!
So he gets very interested in the finer technical details of the process.
Serious, Dad, an inch? Like, 25mm?
What with, Dad? Would there be blood?
No pinching, Dad, OK?
And isn’t that against the law? You’re not allowed to beat children, isn’t?
Little shit.
Hair Today
Years ago I wrote about my hairdresser then. She had more to do than my hairdresser now.
I went and saw her one day and realised I’d chosen the wrong time. Fergie was getting married to the porky ‘prince’ and all the ladies were glued to the telly, ooh-ing and aah-ing.
Bloody ‘Royal Family’ mania!
I can come back later, I offered.
No, its fine, she fibbed and set to trimming my locks, out of view of the Pomp-ing Ceremony.
Have you seen!? she asked in her pronounced Affies or Dirkie Uys accent.
No, not really interested, said anti-monarchist me.
Ag, Saah-ra looked so beautiful as she stepped out of the cart, she gushed.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Now my CURRENT hairdresser is something else. Saw her yesterday. Much less to do, but hey!
Presses her boobs against me; Stands with her thighs on either side of mine; Pats me tenderly; Fusses over me; Quite a performance. And charges me nothing! FREE haircuts for me.
Course, I’m married to her . . .
~~~oo0oo~~~