My cellphone bill ran at R1075 a month. Of course I do have a few hangers-on and their need for data rivals a hummingbird’s need for nectar, but I did keep thinking, Must Ask Karen at Cellucity for a Breakdown of my Bill. And I did. Eventually. After 24 months.
Turns out I have two numbers I have never used that I am faithfully paying for airtime who knows why. Cancel them please, I say. Oh she can’t. What!? Nope, she can SELL me numbers, but she can’t CANCEL numbers. To CANCEL you have to phone 0821958 all by yourself, hold on and press buttons. Yay!
Cebisile is very pleasant, very helpful, very informative – and fiercely resistant to actually cancelling any numbers! ‘NO! Rather do this and that and you’ll still have everything but only be paying R880 a month.’ Long explanation of what a good deal this is and how important ‘her pensioners’ are to her. But I never use the numbers or the airtime. ‘Yes, but NO! Rather keep everything AND get a new tablet and phone, which we’ll courier straight to you, AND I’ll reduce your bill to R640 a month.’ Long explanation of what a good deal this is and how important ‘her pensioners’ are to her.
At this point of a lo-ong call I give in. Here’s what I want to know, I say: I’m paying how much at the moment? R1075. And I will be paying how much from now on? R640. OK, Cebisile, go ahead and do it please. Shit and Bust.
~~oo0oo~~
footnote: The ‘free’ phone and tablet did arrive by courier.
Driving back from Kruger Park we were listening to Jessie’s music. She plays a mixed bag including some sixties n seventies favourites of mine. She also plays some Country & Western which is not my best, but Beer Never Broke My Heart is a hoot and always gives us a laugh. Long Leg, High School, Beer Never Broke My Heart I would belt out until I learned it was actually Long neck, ice cold beer never broke my heart!
Then she played a new one and my ears pricked up at the first line:
Six beers, five guys - (A Long Way - by Luke Combs)
Hey Jess, I said, That Reminds Me Of My (slightly misspent) Youth!
Pssst, I don’t really think our youth was misspent. Stephen Fry nails it when he says, Education is the sum of what students teach each other between lectures and seminars. Certainly I got my best education in high school outside the classroom from Steph, Pierre, Larry, Tuffy, Fluffy, Lloyd, Gabba and others; and often after the sun had gone down.
~~oo0oo~~
Jess took the feature pic of the sunset in front of my nose as we drove south through the vrystaat. Visible is the duct tape holding up the window, necessary as the windy-windy mechanism had gone phut. Took a long while, but I eventually found a replacement window mechanism – not easy when its a seventeen yr-old model. Seems they don’t keep all car parts for that long, I dunno why.
After two years and nine months of sad stoeplessness, order has at last been restored. I have a stoep, a LaZboy, my coffee and my binoculars in place again as they should be.
Aaah
~~oo0oo~~
stoep – porch, patio, deck, veranda
And: My coffee got an upgrade – and a Narina Trogon is hooting as I sip n scribble.
And now a Bronze Caco is going creep and a Bush Squeaker is going sweep. Paradise.
And now even guest beds! OK, now it’s getting a bit worrying ..
Nearly three weeks on my stoep and here’s the birdlist:
Mtunzini, Zululand, KZN North Coast. A new chapter begins after eighteen months in the metropolis of Mtwalume, KZN South Coast.
We’ve had a very friendly welcome, a common refrain being, ‘Watch, Now You’re Here You’ll Never Leave.’
Also my landlord must have spoken to Brooose, my previous landlord. He said, Now that I’ve met you I’ll send a gardener once a week to mow the lawn, as I can see it’s not your thing. How else could he have worked that secret out?
Jess was surprised that unfurnished meant zero furniture, but I said, ‘We Have Plenty Jess’ and unpacked our fine aluminium folding camping table, two comfortable camping chairs and the mattress from the camper. Manie took a good look at that and offered to return the furniture he’d just schlepped off to store in his garden cottage after his last tenant left. Another bonus! These are kind people.
Meantime Willie had almost beaten us back home to deliver the fridge and microwave from his second-hand store.
In Feb I spotted at last what I’d been hearing regularly from my stoep – A Yellow-streaked Greenbul, coastal forest special.
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.
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.
Ancient O of Maritz Borough was smuggling red wine in his checked bag in the hold of one of those aircraft that doesn’t have propellors, and flies high enough so the pressure drops, making the pressure inside the corked wine bottle way higher than the rarefied air outside. This means the cork ejaculates and your underpants in that same suitcase get dyed a dramatic color that makes it look like . . well, nevermind.
He was trying to save on his dollar spend on his imbibing habit, and that frugal trick came back to bite him where the underpants stained.
Compounding his distress, his binoculars were ruined. They should have been round his neck, but they were also in the hold packed securely next to his voluminous white Y-front underpants and the multiple bottles of smuggled red wine that I’ve just ratted on him about.
So on the bus ride to the old Vic Falls hotel he announced mournfully to the delight and mirth of his good and unsympathetic friends that while his binocs had been clear before, they now had lost their clarity and this made the view through them look a bit “Clarety.”
Rather good for a fella from Sleepy Hollow, what?!
– Vic Falls as seen thru those binocs –
Full disclosure: He said nothing about his underpants, I invented that part of the story, but it must have been true, hey?
Tommy had a lovely fun collection of model trains. Mom Aitch and I started the trend, then his rolling stock fleet was given a boost when Val & Pete Excell brought him a Thomas the Tank Engine from England.
Trains were a thing. He went on a few train rides, one for his fourth birthday party:
Then all of a sudden he was grown and the trains gathered dust. He agreed it would be best if other children could play with them, so off they went:
Look for a slight decline in the EFF’s results in the polls.
Driving south on the N2 a coupla days ago, I had a red bakkie right on my tail. Its nostrils were probly touching my exhaust pipe. Soon as I could, I moved over and it roared past, big hurry. It was an EFF election bakkie, only two weeks left, lots to do.
– like this – saw this one on election day –
A couple of k’s later, hundreds of posters lined the roadside. About a mile of red n yellow EFF election posters won’t be adorning poles on the KZN South Coast this week. They’re Scatterlings of Africa.
– oops –
I think youthful exuberance got the best of the two young guys in the bakkie. Let’s See How Fast This Thing Can Go! Move Over You Old Goat! WHEEE!!
I’m imagining them getting to Izingolweni and the main Mama of the EFF branch yelling, ‘Wadda you mean you don’t know where our posters are!?’
Met old school chum Fluff in Bloemfontein for coffee. We were in pre-school together at Kathy Putterill’s home, went on to the local sandstone Kleinspan school, then the local sandstone Volkskool down the road, all the way to matric up in the yucky modern brick high school on the hill below Platberg. Meantime also Sunday School in the old local sandstone Methylated Spirits church. Also quite often sport on Saturdays – rugby, tennis and cricket for him to shine and me to get ducks for balance – and jolling weekends and after hours, so me n Fluffy shared much of our childhood.
Great chat over coffee, gentleman Fluffy very kind and considerate towards my Jessie; followed by an ussie taken by Fluff (see above) – he remembers to actually take pictures. I too often remember afterwards!
Driving south-west out of Bloem towards the Groot Gariep river, there’s a beep on my phone and there was the image, sent by Fluffy.
I showed it to Jess and asked, “Can you believe we’re the same age?”
NO WAY Dad! says my darling daughter, wide-eyed.
So how much younger do you think he is than me, Jess?
“Dad, I thought he was like, in his early fifties.”
No supper for you tonight! I laughed.
Pointedly explained to her that he is actually 68 and 13 days, whereas I am a mere 67. He is actually a full year older than me for six weeks every year, Jess!
Bloody hell, me shoulders! All of a sudden, really painful shoulders lying in bed one night a month ago (written June 2021). Not an ache – actual pain. I couldn’t roll over, I couldn’t get up without flopping like a jellyfish. I was amazed, then I thought, Aha! I Know What Did It. Two days prior I had done a lot of tree branch trimming high overhead.
Using a pruning saw on the end of my aluminium swimming pool net pole, I was sawing off branches that obscured my gates. I’d been meaning to trim for a while as the jungle took over but . . procrastination. Then I got cameras on my gates so I can see who is there and now I had to actually do it.
So, I thought, I’ll be stiff for a day and all will be well. But it was pain, not stiffness, so I hoped: Maybe I’ve pulled a muscle! Luckily the Bennett brothers weren’t here this time to chorus in rude unison: ‘Ha Ha! Swanie, you couldn’t have pulled a muscle. You must have pulled a fat!’
Well, it’s a month later and I have really painful shoulders at night. Daytime they’re fine, nights are torture.
Bloody hell.
~~oo0oo~~
A few months later: It’s gone, fank ve pope.
Confession: The only thing I changed was prompted by a clickbait ad which I did NOT click on. It shouted: “Here’s what not to eat if you have arthritis! CLICK HERE!” with a pic of a panful of tasty-looking fried eggs.
I thought, I have eaten two fried eggs every single day of lockdown. I have breakfast down pat. I fry two eggs, make two slices of toast and scarf it down, salt and black pepper, washed down with sugarless black coffee, breakfast done.
So I stopped. The pain disappeared. Please note this anecdotal evidence is not research. The pain may have disappeared if I’d twirled around three times and farted facing north that day. But I’m too scared to chance it, it was seriously a kak spell, so it’s no more gardening for a long while now. Can’t take chances. Maybe less eggs too.
M.agical A.vian and H.ysterical E.xpedition to M.emel – 2.0
I decided to look for elusive gentlemen farmers Des and Ian by launching a stealth visit to the Memel district, choosing the Memel hotel as my base. This magic old hotel is not just IN the main road, its ON the main road. If you stretch your foot out while drinking a beer on the stoep it could get driven over by the big knobbly tyre of a farmer’s bakkie. Why’s the bakkie nearly on the hotel stoep and does his wife know he’s there? Well, ons sal sien.
I settled on that stoep with a cold beer and asked if anyone knew Des Glutz? Well, they all did and they all had lots to tell me. Just wait right there, said Rudi the friendly hotelier, He’s sure to pop in, it’s Friday.
Various bakkies arrived and men in khaki wearing boots or velskoens trooped into the bar. Most wore langbroeks in khaki. Then a Nissan bakkie parked right in front of me and under the chassis a pair of bony feet in blue slip-slops appeared, followed by a pair of bony legs in faded navy blue rugby shorts with plenty of ballroom. His face and neck were covered by a scraggly beard but two eyes peeped through and I could see this was my man. He’s kinda unmistakable with his half-closed eyelids. Also, khaki shirt with a notebook and pen for the amnesia.
– my view of that Nissan –
I accosted him from my prime spot on the stoep: ‘Excuse me, what you think you doing? You can’t come in here dressed like that!’ Well, then he knew I was from far, cos he most certainly can and does go into the Memel pub dressed like that. He stopped in his tracks and stared at me with his chin tilted up and his eyes half closed, you know how Des does that. Then he kicked for touch: Wait, I’m just going to tell these fuckin old fossils I’ll be late. He ‘stuck his head in the door and cussed his three slightly older drinking pals, telling them they were fuckin old fossils and he’d be outside, they must behave themselves; then he came back to stare at me. Took a while to see through my new beard, then he said Coppers!? Is that you? He called me Coppers after a Clifton primary schoolmate oke called Copchinsky. He also called policemen copchinskys.
As people arrived everyone greeted Oom Des and he had a cussing and a vloekwoord for each of them. Except the ladies. Hello my sweetheart, I still love you but I’m worried about your heart, he says to one, Come here and let me listen to your heartbeat. She leans over him and he nestles his ear in her boobs and rubs back and forth going Mmmmmm. Haai! Oom Des! she says and rubs his head affectionately. Incorrigible. He has not changed, never mind improved. Not at all, I’m afraid. We had a wonderful evening nodding at each others lies. Every time I told him I don’t normally drink but I’d make an exception tonight cos he was there, he’d order another quart of beer each. He left for home, very late, with the re-heated and re-heated pizza Mercia had ordered as a peace offering.
I discovered a few things that Memel evening: One was that the mense of Memel love the oke.
The next day I drove around the well-known Seekoeivlei nature reserve; Des was off to pretend to buy bulls at a vendusie with one of the fuckin old fossils. I saw them on the road but Des had his head in his notebook for amnesia and the fuckin old fossil doesn’t know me.
Des and Mercia have a lovely spacious home in town and Oom Des decreed that a braai would be held there. Unfortunately I hopped into his bakkie to go there, mid-conversation, so I had no beers, no car. Soon after, another apparition arrived with a snow-white beard. The Bothas Pass hermit had emerged from his cave, bearing enough beers for an army, plus a bottle of brandewyn. Ian Stervis Steele, who I had not seen for many decades. What a night. About ten people, about a hundred beers and a gallon of brandewyn; lots of mutton chops, pork ribs and boerewors, a huge pot of pap and a very lekker sous. Very good oldtime music and Des at the head of the table till WAY late. Generous hospitality and much laughter.
Stervis, myself and a local couple stayed the night with Des and Mercia and their four dogs, the most notable one being a pekingese / sausage dog cross. Pitch black and chubby, about ankle-high, with that Pekingese-style smashed flat beak. Name: RAMBO. If you weren’t careful it would lick you. I got the comfy couch in the lounge.
The next day I was off-peak and had a snooze back at the hotel and booked another night. In the afternoon I drove out to Normandien and Mullers passes and then visited Des. For tea this time. Then back to the hotel where Rudi cooked me a huge T-bone and I had one glass of red and an early night, dank die hemel, Memel.
I saw stonechats, mountain wheatears and amur falcons; and the beautiful Klipspruit valley.
Before I left on this drive I called in at the butcher for some fatty biltong. The owner enquired what I was doing in town and I said I had been sent on a special mission to find and fix a man called Des Glutz. He and two customers in the shop roared with laughter and told me in no uncertain terms that there was no way I could ever live long enough to achieve that.
~~oo0oo~~
mahem – the sound this bird makes
mahem – grey crowned crane that shouts ‘MaHem!’
bakkie – pickup; ute; status symbol
slip-slops – Glutz fashion footwear
fuckin old fossils – people slightly older than Des
vloekwoord – swearword; expletive; term of endearment
brandewyn – sacramental drink served as part of the braai ritual in tall glasses; distilled from grapes or peaches, they say. Stervis brought a bottle along which he’d found at a helluva good price, he said.
dank die hemel – Memel ‘sanks heavens’ ritual chant
~~oo0oo~~
Memel is maybe named after a Memel in East Prussia where they fought a battle in 1257, even before Des was born. The name means silence, but that has been broken since Des moved to town, and since Memel joined with Zamani to become Memel-Zamani.
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.
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!
She was so so special. Cheeky, irreverent, bright as a button, she’d done her bachelor degree in psychology and had just heard she’d passed her honours. Next year she was going to do her Masters, on her way to becoming the clinical psychologist she would have been so good at. Many people would have benefited from consulting with this special lady. She could tease me like few others, and she was wonderful with my kids when they helped out in the practice.
Yandiswa worked for us whenever she could between her studies and raising her little three year old daughter Thia. Whattapleasure to have known her. She was a huge asset to the practice and to us all personally. Astute as well as irreverent she would grin, cock her head to one side and say something that put her finger exactly on what was bothering you, distracting you or amusing you.
And now she’s gone, just twenty five years old. We met her lovely parents for the fist time and could share some of our sorrow and our admiration for their daughter with them. We miss her keenly, as do they. We still haven’t come to grips with her loss.
~~oo0oo~~
In the picture, Yandiswa is in a beautiful traditional Xhosa outfit, daughter Jessica is in red and I’m in my element – at Raksha’s wedding. Prenisha took the photo. Happier days
Or I thought I was. Packed the hebcooler, the book box, the camera bag – now huge with two tripods and a new spotting scope (the main toy to be tested out at Mkhuze’s hides!). Food. Ice bricks from the freezer, the lot. Having been a critic when Jess forgot things, I went through my mental checklist. Nah, I’m sure I have it all.
Oh, clothes and toiletries. OK. Coffee. Right. Charcoal. First aid kit.
Loaded the whole lot in the car then remembered I had undertaken to get my will signed, witnessed and courier’d today. Did that, then had to arrange a locum optometrist to work for us – quick! before he changes his mind! Did that, then remembered I’d arranged to meet the lady who sold all my furniture for final payment. Did that. Then Gugu texted me: Can the girls come for a swim this afternoon in my newly cleaned sparkling blue pool? That did it.
I unpacked, back in the deep freeze and fridge. I’ll leave tomorrow. Early start. The three young ‘uns had a noisy, fun swim, chips and red cooldrink. And I had a perfect, productive day ending in Joy to the World.
