Category Archives: Home

Homeful Again

So I sold my forever home and bought a camper. ‘Grey Nomad,’ I thought. Well, I soon found out: A Nomad I Ain’t. Also not grey. It’s gone white. Here’s what’s wrong with being a nomad: Weekends, long weekends and school holidays. Suddenly rocking up without a booking is frowned upon.

So the three years on the road turned out to be around twenty months travelling and the rest comfortably holed up at a special low-low beer-money rental in Broose’s 4-bedroom 3-bathroom beach cottage in the metropolis of Mtwalume, KZN South Coast. The only hard part about loafing on the Souf Cose was that niggling feeling that I really should be looking for a place, a home.

So, in stits and farts, I did. Nottingham Road. Fort Nottingham, Mtwalume, Shelley Beach, Hibberdene, Pennington, I looked; One place in Scottburgh was under R900k for absolutely everything I needed, two bedrooms, big deck, fully furnished, all appliances, aircon, two huge TVs, the works. Owner desperate to join his daughter in England. Pennington got a second and third look – lovely village – but the commitmentphobia held up. After much dodging, I did look at Howick, the Southern Hemisphere’s largest above-ground cemetery. I would definitely not have, but Tabbo made me promise I would, and then he died, meaning I really had to. So I went.

AmberNow, AmberThen, AmberGris 1 through 7, AmberNyet, AmberNever, Eagle something, St Johns the baptist, etc. No. Just NO. Then the town, where a number of grey-haired biddies thought, At Last a Buyer! as I praised their lovely homes and what was great about them. All true, but that did not mean I was about to reduce my savings by two to three million. Sorry. Then I had a clever procrastinating thought: Kick for touch! I asked to rent a place so I could see if I could live in Howick. No problem, I was introduced to a new tannie. She had plenty of places to rent, but ‘the daughter may be a problem,’ she said – Jess was with me by now. Thanks Tannie, You made it easier. Bye, Howick.

On to Mtunzini. Now I got serious. This is a lovely plekkie. Near all the Zolooland reserves, the forests, the coastal resorts. Great birding. Like Pennington, off the main road, so quieter. Better run than the South Coast towns, so this looked right. So I looked at homes. A lot of homes – R2.4m to R3.6m. Oh boy. Well, I’d rent out part of the property to help with an income, right? What am I thinking? Me, the world’s worst landlord.

What I should have done is go back to my checklist: 1. Spend less than the R1.99m I got for my Westville home – a target long abandoned cos of arched eyebrows as estate agents showed me better places in better locations; 2. Be as much off-the-grid as possible; 3. Have good comms – cellphone or fibre; 4. NOT behind a gate of any sort; None of the expensive homes ticked all four.

I’ve an idea Jess! Let’s procrastinate; kick for touch! So we rented a lovely 4-bedroom 3-bathroom wooden cottage at the edge of town bordering the forest for five months. All the while lovely kind Dee, KZN’s most patient estate agent stuck by me, patting me on the head and saying moenie worry nie.

In the end I did what I always do: Ignore the checklist and go cheap, eventually buying a lovely small pozzie on leased land for R1m and I’ll show you the pros and I’ll ignore the cons. It was cheap; It has great solar power – one 6KVA and one 3KVA; It has two water tanks; it’s fully furnished, all appliances, lots of toys; it was cheap; a small garden rigged for automatic micro-irrigation twice a day. All I have to do is rip out the azaleas, columbines, daffodils, daisies and other weeds and plant the right stuff; Also get rid of a mess of flower pots, hanging and earthbound, many garden gnomes and two concrete table and bench sets out of four. And as I mentioned, not expensive.

It is lock-up-and-go. OK, it’s behind a gate in a caravan park, true. I can’t have it all, but I can have savings in my pocket! Two out of four’s not bad. And I don’t have to shop for anything! I hate shopping, and there’s more than enough stuff here for a lifetime. Goodness Ntuli and Strongman have stayed on working one day a week each and have taken a bunch of excess stuff home with them. Willie from Sondela Second hand Stuff Store brought a trailer and carted away two fridges, a deep freeze, a tumble dryer, a bed/couch, sundry other stuff and gave me some cash.

So we’re settling in to our new log cabin and loving it. Jess is thrilled, which helps a lot; the small place has four aircons and nine mounted fans – a clue to what summer will be like in Zululand! Three TVs and a jacuzzi which delighted Jess. One drawback she really didn’t like was the poor comms. FINALLY! she said in desperate relief, when we got fibre. It took ALMOST THREE WEEKS, Dad! We’ve elected not to hook up the satellite dish – it can sommer sit there as a status symbol.

Oh, and Jess got a lovely, relaxed, unfazed welcome.

~~oo0oo~~

Obliging Bird

Forty years ago on my River Drive stoep in Westville, a Narina Trogon landed on just the right branch on the tree straight in front of me.

Same thing again this morning in Mtunzini.

Lovely.

~~oo0oo~~

Today I was happy to spot a Lesser Honeyguide and a Golden-tailed Woodpecker in that tree. And again. And again.

Then I realised it was a mother and daughter!  The Woodpecker was feeding the Honeyguide.

Roberts says the Scaly-throated usually parasitises the Golden-tailed Woodpecker, so that’s probably what it was: A juvenile Scaly-throated. I’ve been hearing both Honeyguides, but more of the Scaly-throated.

~~oo0oo~~

Latest is a pair of Grey Waxbills. Hoping to see their nuptial dance!

– I just got a peek of her scarlet bloomers –

A couple weeks later I got a few blurry shots of a Trogon pair against the harsh light. My lovely little compact zoom Canon sx740hs is not good at focusing where I want it to. My photography got one admiring comment from an envious deskundige, who chirped, “Looks like one of my favorite branches that. I like the way it keeps the bird modest and doesn’t allow full frontal exposure.”

When the male did pose full-frontal, my modest lil Canon decided to focus on a tree trunk, left-edge!

~~oo0oo~~

deskundige – ex-spurt

Good Fencing with Good Neighbours

It’s the annual Westville fair and the Chinese crafts are on full display. Tom has wheedled some extra pocket money and has made a fine investment: A BB Gun. Plastic pellets. ‘But a much better one than the last one Dad, this one’s metal.’ The plastic gun had lasted one day.

Right TomTom, you know that a gun is ONLY for shooting at a target, right?
‘Yes, Dad.‘
You set up a target, put your eye protection goggles on and make sure no-one’s in harm’s way, right?
‘Yes, Dad.‘

Pring pring.
This is your neighbour the lawyer speaking. Do you know YOUR SON is shooting at MY DOGS?

Well no, actually, I didn’t know that. I’ll be right over.

The boys are nowhere in sight so I call them – Tom and a neighbour friend – and present them to the neighbours: the lawyer, the businesswoman wife and the adult son. I get an immediate confession and an apology from the boys, and they repeat their apology directly to the man. So I dismiss them. Off you go now.

Is that the end of it? No. Bitch Kvetch, Blah Blah, Blah bloody blah . .
Well, I say with a smile, Boys will be Boys.
Well, I never did anything like that, he says.
Well, I certainly did, I say, and with all due respect your dogs DO bark incessantly and are extremely annoying, and the little plastic pellets didn’t actually hit them. Never mind the fact that there are a few too many of them. Still smiling. Three dogs maximum allowed in Westville and the lawyer has seven!

Well, says the vrou: THESE KIDS play outside the gates and  the blacks walk past and make the dogs bark.

Mistake.

Firstly, I say with a much broader smile creasing my dial, chest out and going red in the face, These actually aren’t “the blacks.” They’re my son and OUR NEIGHBOURS, and they’re walking HOME. They live here;
Secondly, these kids have every right to play in the street and on the pavements. I’m still grinning, trying to keep it light. You need your neighbours, if possible.

fencing neighbours

Ooh, he says, We’re not racist, when I go to the townships the dogs there bark at me cos I’m white. Kak cover-up, but nice to see you batting for the old bat. She herself makes no attempt to explain her “the blacks.” She’s the tough one here.

I repeat, Let’s just understand very clearly that these kids have every right to play RIGHT in front of your gates. Up to one millimetre from your gate. And YOUR responsibility is to keep your dogs in your yard and not let them run out and menace the kids. One of the girls is absolutely terrified of dogs. And her Dad happens to be a Metro cop and I will join forces with him in seeing to it that you are held responsible if your dogs do ANYTHING to my kids or the neighbourhood kids when out of your yard! . . smiles sweetly . .

Bloody hell!
Well, according to the law I have the right . . .
I am not a lawyer but I’ll tell you right now your dogs should not be out of your yard. Period. I get the kids off the streets as often as I can, they play at our place most days, so let’s just work together, okay?
And anyway, nice weather if it doesn’t rain, and thanks very much for calling me and I apologise again for the plastic pinging of your puppies and let’s be adult about all this as we’re stuck with each other as neighbours. Kay?

Big smile hopefully covers up my eff you thoughts and we withdraw.

We still wave at each other. Him. She doesn’t.

~~oo0oo~~

Later: I was telling friend Stephen in Aussie about the seven barking dogs on my one side and the two barking dogs on my other side: White alsatians bought by non-dog people cos ONCE an intruder jumped over their low fence.

He said: As you probably know, one thing about not living in SA is that mysteriously the dogs do not bark. Except our neighbour’s when there are tradies (workmen) around. But he can only keep it up for about one and a half minutes. A very old labrador. Our other neighbour gets irritated on the rare occasion that the dog barks. So he sits out on the deck and shouts “shuddup.”  Then the dog barks more.

Then she thinks it’s me shouting. And when I try to have a chat to her about this, she disappears. I will have to collar her sometime. Or as they say here, “bail her up.”

~~oo0oo~~

This evening I had curry and an ice cold beer on my new stoep with my children, checking out the birds; especially the black flycatchers with their two fledglings; the parents all black, the babies black with lotsa russet scallops and streaks – their gapes still yellowish.
Then a kingfisher with a cricket in his beak, followed a big praying mantis – lots of protein.
Complete peaceful silence. Not a sound. No shouting, no barking.

Hey! No barking! The dogs are actually quiet for a change.

Hopefully they all fuckin died.

~~oo0oo~~

Tom’s New Room

Years ago, we discussed a revamp for TomTom’s bedroom. Life happened, it didn’t happen. His and Jessie’s bedrooms are just as when we bought sixteen years ago. And now the house is sold.

I came across his hand-written wishlist while clearing up.

Tom's new room
Bigger
New desk
New cupboard
Three walls tiled snow white
One wall covered in cool graffitti
Floor tiled
Blinds, not curtains
Aircon
New lights
New plugs
Code system (for access)

Oh well, TomTom. One day . .

~~oo0oo~~

Croak, Creak, Whip-Whip, Sweep

Four frog calls last night – the Guttural Toad’s kraak, the River Frog’s creak, the Reed Frog’s whip-whip, and the Bush Squeaker’s sweep.

– a Reed frog Hyperolius marmoratus calling –
https://videopress.com/v/IlzSwVvw?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true
– a differently patterned H. marmoratus nearby –

Earlier, a dragonfly had patrolled the skies above the green waters . .

. . and a frog muncher came to see if any of the night-time crooners were careless by day

~~oo0oo~~

Farewell Again

Hard work saying goodbye. I had to sweep the stoep again. Petrea and Louis had the small matter of bringing their Weber braai (my two non-Weber braais have gone off to Tom and Jess – I am braailess before I’m homeless), lots of steak, freshly home-made sourdough bread, peri-peri chicken liver in a large cast-iron pot, crockery and cutlery, bread board and knife, steak board and knife, ice, a large beaker of lime unt soda with fresh mint leaves from their garden and deck chairs; And Louis brought his hat; Jules brought delicious snacks; Sheila brought six bottles of white and three of champagne; Charles and Barbara brought beer and snacks and their delightful selves;

I had to do the rest.

Jolly good fun. Perhaps ‘the Master’ in ‘Maritzburg’ will let us have another of these gatherings. After all, it has only been 120 days, waiting for ‘the paperwork’ since I sold my home.

~~oo0oo~~

Mannikins High on Grass

. . and then low on grass as they sway downwards. Then HIGH again if one flies off a stalk and the stalk sways upward under less weight. I confess I am endlessly fascinated by little seed-eating birds swaying on grass stalks in the morning light, so here are some more Red-backed Mannikins performing for us in my garden:

The Bronze Mannikins followed today, with juveniles; Yellow-fronted Canaries come often; and every now and then I get a Grey Waxbill as a rare treat.

~~oo0oo~~

Meantime, on the surface of my pond, a gruesome scene: skimmers doing what skimmers do: feeding on some poor creature that landed on the surface. My surface-tension hyenas doing their job.

Jessie’s Truckload Leaves

Tom’s truckload was the first to leave.

And there goes Jessie’s today! She and her family are looking forward to the fridge and the microwave.

Now they can feed themselves and I’m free to roam! Our household goods divided fairly for the kids to start their own new lives. Yay! Fingers crossed.

~~oo0oo~~

Life without a fridge – first time since forever – and a microwave should be interesting. First meal: Starter, a packet of peanuts & raisins; Main, a camping sachet of three bean salad, crisps and freshly fried home-made potato chips with salt and braai spice. Washed down with a wee bottle of Vergelegen Reserve Merlot 2015 – a gift from Coo Evans. Yum!

End-Days Elston Place

I forgot to get the camera out – or rather, aim my phone at people – so that’s the setting for my farewell meals without Petrea, Louis, Charles, Barbara, Jules, Gayle, Grant, Ziggy, Tom, Mbono, Geoff, Janet, Heather or Bruce. A people-free zone before they arrived.

And I didn’t suffer all of them at once, are you mad? I only have five chairs left, so that’s my max guest number. And I sub-contracted out all catering – to Petrea, Louis, Ziggy and Checkers.

Some of these soirees were evenings, some were lunches. The evening ones were interrupted by le frogs calling loudly. Guttural Toads loud BRAAAP! and the gentle creak (that’s creak, not croak) of the River Frog – all in my sparkling blue-green pool. Here’s a guttural toad who scored – managed to entice a svelte young lady. The noisy one is the little guy on her back. He’s quiet now cos he doesn’t want any interruptions while theyr’e makin’ whoopee – and making long strings of black fertilised eggs.

We’d have to get up every now and then and shurrup the toads, but you know what its like when you’re horny – they would only shut up for less than a minute. You do know what its like when you’re horny, right? Here’s one of them belting out a number:

Oh, hang on!? Anyway, Fats sounds better.

Here’s the polite lil chap:

Here’s his cousin from Petrea and Louis’ place down the road with a much showier ventral stripe:

One morning I called in expert help to deal with the noisy toads. I don’t know if he manage to relocate any of them. Hope so. He looks like he needs the protein.

I’m told my end-of-days is now only at at the end of February, so more to come.

~~oo0oo~~

Project Management

So the garage door was falling to pieces. Made of strips of aluminium riveted to a frame the rivets had mostly popped and it was flapping in any breezes that wafted.

Something had to be done.

So I waited a few months. And a few storms, for enhanced flapping.

Then I bleated to a project manager who sprang into action, roared off to a hardware store, bought some self-tapping screws and gave them to me along with his automatic, hydromatic, self-propelling, variable speed, battery-operated 14.4Volt hand-held Bosch Power Drill. With star bit for screwing screws with star heads.

He obviously hadn’t understood what I wanted.

So I waited.

Then I told Ziggy, ‘When you’re finished tidying the garage let me know. I need to repair the broken door.’ And sowaar, my patience was rewarded: ‘Why don’t you let Mbono do that? He’s very handy with man things,’ she said.

Now usually I would stop my daughters in their tracks with my standard, ‘Hey! Anything a man can do a woman can do too,’ but I listened and I shurrup. ‘OK’ I said and gave him the screws and a Spanish screwdriver (Manuel).

Mbono fixed the door in no time. Like greased lightning, it was hydromatic, automatic. I was going to post before and after pics here – too late.

So to end this lecture on project management: For suitable tasks all you need is to find one tame project manager and one tame matriculant from Northwood Boys. Then expertly source – or delegate the sourcing of – a bit of equipment and it’s actually quite easy.

~~oo0oo~~

sowaar – true’s Bob

1988 Albums

The big old album is hitting the recycling bin. I have recorded all the pictures.

Home after our lo-ong honeymoon and some surprise welcomes:

Also in 1988 we had a big optometry conference in Durban. As part of the hosting committee I produced a daily newsletter. Then I became president of the optometric association at the end of the conference.

Friends at the conference – and an induction (Brauer says they induced me):

I dragged some non-canoeing friends out to the Umgeni Valley. I wanted to see the valley for a last time before Inanda Dam drowned it forever. The river was rather shallow – um, VERY shallow! We dragged for miles!

We visited the folks in Harrismith, clambered the slopes of Platberg and sang around the piano:

Bernie & Karen Garcin got married in Empangeni – George Stainton and I were his best men.

In between all the scurrying we lived in our lovely Whittington Court one-bedroom apartment in Marriott Road, and I think I occasionally did a bit of work. Sheila reminded me that she lived there for two years after we bought our house in Westville.

Another of our frequest visits to Hella Hella. And a visit to the Hills on Melrose farm, Mid Illovo.

~~~oo0oo~~~

Sold!

I just sold my longest-lived-in home. We’ve been here sixteen years. After being given a long fixit list I decided bugger the schlep, I’ll sell it voetstoots – as is. It sold on the day it hit the market – for a song, if you ask me.

Here’s my sequence:

First home Whittington Court. I forget how long, but bought as a bachelor, then Trish moved in ca.1986. When we moved out in 1989, sister Sheila lived in it for about two years. It was a lovely old one-bedroom flat; big rooms, high ceilings.

1989 we bought our first suburban home at the bottom end of the cul de sac River Drive in Westville. A magic place right on the banks of the Mkombaan river. Mike and Yvonne Lello had lived in it fifteen years and when Mike said he’s selling, I said then I’m buying. We stayed there fifteen years.

– 7 River Drive –

Then we rented Ian Whitton’s lovely home in Windsor Avenue Westville for about two years.

– Windsor Avenue –

In 2005 we bought here, a magic home in a cul de sac above the Palmiet river – ‘to be near the schools.’ Now, there’s a story for ya!

– Elston Place – sold! after sixteen years –

This pic is the house as we bought it. We spent way too much on it as I planned to live there forevah!

~~oo0oo~~

Presence of Mind

Good photographers have presence of mind. I’d like more of that stuff.

Last night I leaned back in my office chair – director’s or boss’ chair deluxe, high-back, padded armrests – luxuriously and started to put my feet up on my imbuia wood desk. The smooth motion didn’t stop there, I kept going backwards, the high-back cushioned my head as I crashed, the wheels of the chair caught under the desk, sending a full glass of red wine and a plate of fine cordon curried mutton pie and tomato sauce crashing to the tiled floor, along with the PC monitor and my drone remote control.

Fokop. Chair horizontal, desk at 45 degrees, dramatic grape blood and tomato blood on the floor, legs in the air, same air blue with profanity.

A photographer would have taken a great picture, especially as the ‘blood’ oozed towards my collection of eleven Okavango Delta books I’d gathered together as I’m getting rid of my library.

I very boringly tidied the broken glass and ceramic, mopped the red wine, re-assembled the scattered shrapnel and then thought: Damn! A picture would have been good.

I sort of re-staged it this morning to show how the chair’s wheeled legs tipped up the old desk on the right.

Sell

Another chapter begins. I’ll be leaving the home I’ve lived in the longest in my life – sixteen years. The kids were eight and four when we moved in.

How hard can it be, right? You sell, bank the cash and drive off into the sunset. So I called Aitch’s friend and colleague in her four-year stint as an estate agent, Pam.

Pam, You Know What You’re Doing, You Come And Do This.

So you know what she does? She gives me a list as long as your arm! You do this, then you do this, then . . she’s as bad as Aitch was!

So she tells me: Sell your furniture; sell your books; sell the many wall hangings which haven’t hung on a wall for ten years since Aitch went; Fix the cracks, the windows, the doors, the ceilings; Paint – a lot; Rip up those carpets; New light bulbs;

Yes, Pam.

Mow the lawn – WHAT!? Now you’ve gone too far!

Hell, if I didn’t do all those things for us, why should I do them for strangers? Cos you want to sell the house, Pete.

Oh

– bookshelves half empty now –

Sold!

I decided I’ll never get this done, so we put the house on the market “as is” – its called voetstoots in South Africa. And on that very day we got two offers for the full asking price. A week later their finance was approved and so I asked ‘Must I Leave Now?’ No, they said, it takes about three months before you’ll have your money! Damn!

Now it is very real and I sat Jess and Tom down and broke the news. They picked what they wanted from the house, a truckload went off to Tom’s rented rooms:

– Tom’s truckload departs –

Jess wants less, but the other fridge and microwave will go to her.

(later: Have now gone to her).

~~oo0oo~~

Breeding Afoot

Here’s hoping the Black Flycatchers breed on the old stoep again, Last time was in a cycling helmet; before that in the bougainvillea creeper that has been removed. This time a plastic flower pot modified and mounted for the purpose.

They have filled the pot with nesting material and the female is starting to spend more time in it. She’s there in the the top right close-up pic, you can just see her tail.

Here are the nests from years gone by, in the creeper and in the helmet:

Chef TomTom

Clearing out old emails

On Mon, Nov 22, 2010, Pete wrote:
I felt a snuggle in bed last night. Wasn’t Aitch. Eight year-old TomTom had come through and was spooned tightly against my back.

Later, when I had to roll over he was wide awake.
“Dad” he whispers close to my ear, scared he’ll wake his Ma.
Mm
“I’m hungry. Can I get up and make myself a snack. I’m really hungry.”
He’s 24 kg wringing wet, and his muti suppresses his appetite by day, so I say:
Mm

I wake again to a feeling that it has been some time. I can hear dishes clanking, so I get up and tiptoe to the kitchen, where the clock shows straight up 4am. Still dark outside, but the kitchen neon is blazing.

Lots of kit has been employed and a good dusting of icing sugar is evident on the chairs and the floor.
What? I ask
“Dad” he says, “I’m icing Marie biscuits.”
Have you eaten? I ask.
“Not yet, Dad, but they’re nearly ready.”

“And” he says, “I’ve made my school lunch.”

I didn’t ask.

~~~oo0oo~~~

Steve replied: Doncha just love it. This young man is not only a problem solver but also aware of the necessity for contingency planning. Hope this does not turn into a regular event though.
Our Neil [24] occasionally mentions he is “off to get some food” at the end of a phone chat to him down in Welly. I imagine this would mean most likely pizza, burger or when he is at his most domesticated, a ready-roasted chicken with some breadrolls.
Like you, I don’t ask.