Well, twenty nine anyway. Me n Aitch would have been married 29yrs today! A toast and good memories! We were together 26yrs, married 23, and I got 34yrs of kids value out of it (19 plus 15)! Add all that together = 100yrs. Its just maths.
I had a hard time, as she would gallivant with handsome young bucks on Harley Davidsons when I wasn’t looking:
Aitch was a secret biker chick in her day. She went to the Buffalo Rally:
and she was into convertibles, Cadillacs in America, Audis and Landies in SA:
Jess and I took Trish’s old Cape Town friend Val Excell and her brother Paul Gaillard to Mfolosi for a night. We finally got to stay in Mpila camp. We’ve been wanting to stay at Mpila as it is better situated for the drives in the southwest of the park along the Black Mfolosi river, but it has always been booked up for weekends. This was Thursday night, so easy to book at short notice.
Val is losing her short-term memory so is battling a bit with day-to-day stuff but her lovely sense of humour is intact and anyway our memories with her go back years and she remembers that stuff well. Her brother Paul Gaillard was involved in the establishment of safari companies like Afro Ventures (which had taken me on my first trip to Botswana in 1985) so we had lots to talk about.
Bloody fireworks!! I had Jessie the daughter and Sambucca the black labrador in my room.
Tom was part of the problem, firing off some of his own at a mate’s house in Umlazi. He’d gone to visit them knowing there’d be more ACTION than at home.
I fetched him about 11am New Year‘s day. “Ha! Dad! he says “You think white people can drink!?” he says. “You aint seen NUTHING! “
Says there was lots of staggering and shouting. They were hauled in to sleep around midnight, waited till Ma Sukude was asleep then snuck out thru the window and joined the festivities till the wee hours.
Can’t think WHERE he gets it from . . .
He was fine, just very sunburnt – tyre-rubber black neck and heat rash from the two days he was there – they spent their time outdoors, not like here where he’s a caveman.
Look up and spot the satellites above you. How far are they? Well, if you could lift up the front of your car until it was standing on its exhaust pipe and then drive straight upwards, the nearest ones are only one hour’s drive away, assuming your car can go 160km/h. I’m sure mine could achieve that – on the way back.
Virgin Galactic is taking deposits (now) to fly you not quite so high (one day) for R2,5m.
Here are some distances to various satellites (that’s the International Space Station in the top pic, the one we drove to in an hour or two).
Altitude
Satellite Types
160-480km
shuttles, space stations, spysats, navsats, hamsats
Those that stay in one position relative to earth (the ‘geo-stationary’ ones) are a bit further and it would take you about two weeks of non-stop driving to get to the DSTV satellite. If you get there, please switch off all those “reality” shows. So better pack some sarmies and a flask of coffee. And take blankets.
Two geo-stationary satellites.
On this scale the space shuttle and spysats are flat against the earth – you couldn’t see any space between them and earth they’re so close.
So: Ready to take a R2 500 000 ‘space’ flip, even though you won’t actually be going into space?
The furthest ‘satellite’ you wouldn’t be able to drive to, though. It is now 20 640 000 000km away. Voyager 1 was launched in 1977. It’s more a ‘space probe’ and it’s flying away from us at about 17km per second. Voyager 1 is the first and only man-made object to have explored Uranus and Neptune, and to have left our solar system. A radio message from Voyager 1 now takes over 19hrs to reach us.
Update: Now Voyager 2 has also left our solar system. In December 2018 NASA announced the satellite, the only spacecraft to have visited all four gas giant planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune — had joined its predecessor Voyager 1 beyond the bounds of our sun’s influence How’s that!? Travel at 17km per second for just 41 years and Zap! you’re out of our solar system! Just another 81 000 years and you’ll reach our nearest star, Alpha Centauri. Of course, you’d still be in the Milky Way, our own galaxy. Intergalactic travel? Now that’s another ballgame!
David Swanepoel was a wonderful lepidopterist back in the 1920’s to the ’60’s. He discovered many butterflies and some were named swanepoeli after him.
I wanted to find out more about him so went searching the ‘net for him (please don’t ‘google,’ use startpage.com or duckduckgo.com or qwant.com as more internet-friendly ways to search the internet).
Here’s what I got:
Candice Swanepoel as a butterfly!
I then found this:
Mark Williams founded the SA Lepidopterists’ Society in 1983.
As a schoolboy in the mid-1960s Williams, accompanied by two friends, stumbled into a bush camp to find an old Chevy beside a tent and the well-known South African lepidopterist David Swanepoel, who had gorgeous azure butterflies pinned on a board.
Williams managed to annoy the old man, who had been collecting since the early 1900s, and who offered to show the boys where to find the creature. Though tantalized, Williams said he’d find it himself and watched in disgust as his two camping companions trotted after Swanepoel, “like obedient puppies.”
“He called me a hard head and a little bliksem and said I’d never find them. It took me three days. I worked my butt off.
“But I came back and held it up and said, ‘I found it.’ He leaned over conspiratorially and said: ‘Those other two will give up butterflies. But you will do this for the rest of your life.'”
And this:
David Abraham Swanepoel (1912–1990) began collecting in 1925.
His book Butterflies of South Africa—when, where and how they fly. Swanepoel DA (1953) Maskew Miller, Cape Town
There’s a David Swanepoel collection in the Transvaal Museum.
Dira swanepoeli – Swanepoel’s Widow – and Papillio ophidocephalus entabeni, were discovered in 1939 by Mr. D.A Swanepoel, after extensive collecting in the Soutpansberg, near Mountain View Hotel.
The feature pic is Swanepoel’s Brown, Pseudonympha swanepoelii with thanks to Steve Woodhall’s lovely Field Guide to Butterflies of South Africa.
~~oo0oo~~
Sometimes one gets remembered – when your memory is jogged. Friend Steve Reed tells of talk in Clarens, Free State: When we lived in Clarens we had an annual visitation by what must have been the self-same Swanepoel: “Khaki clad solitary figure, fleet-footing round the village with his net like something out of Peter Pan. Regarded by the locals with great interest (and a good level of suspicion ) . . “
Names change. I see some of these names are no more according to Steve Woodhall’s authoritative list. Swanepoel’s Widow gone; braueri gone. Oh well, they were fun while they lasted!
Bella became Aitch’s most beloved dog of all, eclipsing TC the Original and even Matt the Beloved. It was a tall order to take Matt’s place in Aitch’s heart but Bella did it by following her like a shadow, paying attention, winning her obedience classes – and by sheer longevity.
She reached the ripe old age of seventeen years and died just before Aitch. She’s buried at 10 Elston Place; whereas TC, Matt and Bogart are all buried at 7 River Drive.
Here TC is not happy with this newfound nuisance! Not another black puppy that’s going to end up bigger than me! The third one!
– Bella Best-Behaved – and her rosette –
In her final obedience trial at Canine Academy, she and Aitch got into the finals with a friend and her pedigree Alsatian. They were neck and neck until the time they had to do “go away” things (as opposed to “come here” things). Bella went as told; found what she had to; waited there until asked, then brought it to Aitch. Meantime the Alsatian stumbled a bit at that task. In congratulating her, her friend turned to Aitch and said, “If you asked Bella to fly, she would!”
Here’s Aitch with Bella facepaint, and both disguised as fairies, with haloes and wings:
– Bella’s main goal in life was to please this woman – Aitch shoulda stuck out her tongue and they’da been twins! –
My old man has very little interest in his own birthday and has maybe remembered about 10% of my birthdays, and those with the old lady’s prodding. He also has remembered ZERO percent of my kids’ birthdays (they’re both 11 December, he’s 15 December).
So for his latest birthday I was away out of cellphone comms with Jessie at a game reserve. Then I needed to phone Tom and went to where I found signal and did so. I had remembered the old man’s birthday so for the old lady’s sake, I phoned. It was the day after the actual date.
“I’m most upset and disappointed with you. You forgot!” he says as she hands him the phone (he’s joking of course).
So I said “Hell, I remembered 93 of them. I thought to hell with the 94th.”
On Saturday, January 18, 2014, I wrote reasonably:
Subject: A PBH solution
for the PHBrauers of the world
I’ve been very worried
about people driving Audis into school walls, but I feel a bit better
now, as a Pretoria Boys High (PBH) boykie has put his mind to a
solution for the big Audi / Brauer problem and here’s what he has
come up with:
Google is not the only company that thinks auto-piloted cars are the future. Tesla has estimated that their time frame for having automated cars on the road is ‘within the next 3 years.’ So Elon Musk says we could be seeing cars running on auto-pilot as soon as 2016.
And none too soon!!
This way we could have inebriation AND safety . . among certain
elderly drivers.
~~oo0oo~~
Steve Reed wrote enquiringly:
Regarding Audis getting
driven into school walls, I need to be updated in this regard.
~~oo0oo~~
Brauer quickly jumped
in and wrote defensively:
Would you like an accurate version or will you settle for Koos’ ‘Clive Nel’-ified version?
~~oo0oo~~
I calmly wrote the
simple truth:
All I’m saying is,
The ingredients were:
– Golf;
– Beer;
– an Audi sedan;
– a school
wall.
The results
were:
– Damage to two of the above (the elderly greying culprit / suspect escaped largely unharmed due to being limp at point of impact).
– Lo-ong boring tales
of walls ambushing unsuspecting cars in the depths of Gramadoelas
suburb in Tswanie at the dead of night; * yawn *
~~oo0oo~~
Culprit / Suspect Brauer wrote:
Total distortion of facts. ‘Twasn’t beer. . . . whiskey, mate.
~~oo0oo~~
I fretted:
That’s a worrying
development. I get worried when people start drinking stuff that
slides down easily and stinks less when belched up. I feel that beer
and red wine allow your companions to know more about your drinking
habits, and give earlier warnings about ‘when’s enough’. Just by
looking at his white flokati rug one night Mike Lello knew a lot
about Milk Stout and the Rainbow Club.
~~oo0oo~~
Interloper Bruce Soutar
now jumps in with his tuppence worth:
At the RAINBOW Jazz Club in the Pinetown taxi rank they serve their beers in ‘quart’ bottles (750ml). One special and memorable night The African Jazz Pioneers were playing, and Swanepoel ordered a Castle. He noticed the guys next door were drinking Black Label and saw theirs was 5,5% alcohol while Castle was only 5%, so he ordered a Black Label next. Then he saw some okes drinking Milk Stout and noticed that was 6% alcohol so he smoothly oozed over to Milk Stout and then stuck with it. All the while the African Jazz Pioneers were playing their seductive swinging special jazz. Many, many milk stouts later we decided to gate crash Mike Lello for a ‘last drink’ on the way home.
They were sitting down
to supper when we staggered in. Pete S was feeling hungry, sat in
Mike’s chair and polished off his supper. Then had an urge to burp? .
. . but did not quite make the toilet bowl. Hence the
flocked–up-carti rug.
~~oo0oo~~
Public Service Notice: This hugely exaggerated story is to be taken with a large pinch of salt. But as interesting aside, you can see what it MIGHT have looked like under a microscope.
~~oo0oo~~
I objected:
TMI !! As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted: Self-driving cars for the elderly – that’s what we need.
I couldn’t believe they wanted R40 000! Forty Thousand! NO WAY!
So I sought advice from someone who really knows cars.
Hi Alan
My VW kombi is a 2005 1,9TDi T5 8-seater – 166 000km.
Repairs needed:
Clutch (R12 800); Brakes (R3 000); Driveshaft (R10 100)
Sliding door not opening; plus 165 000 km service.
I have been quoted R40 537 for the above by Alpine Motors VW.
As a trade-in on a second-hand vehicle (around R250k) they offer me R30 000.
I think I’m ready for a double cab bakkie now. Needn’t be 4X4.
Please tell me what you think. Thanks a lot. Cheers. Pete
(this was in 2012)
~~~oo0oo~~~
Hi Pete.
My value for your kombi: R105 000 less 15 for high kms = 90. Less repairs. So worst case scenario on a trade-in = R50 000.
So their R30 000 offer is taking a chance. You don’t need to give it away, these kombis are very sought-after.
If Alpine sells you another they will do the repairs for half that. Tell them to work a deal and you want 70 as-is on another Kombi. If not, rather keep it and fix it yourself as the repairs it needs are all wear and tear being the driveshaft, clutch and brakes – not unusual at this mileage.
My advice:
Fix it. That is the cheaper way round. This is not so expensive in comparison to other cars.
Regards, Alan
~~~oo0oo~~~
So: Did I take his advice and spend R40k to get exactly what I wanted?
No, I spent R140k and got a bakkie. Which I didn’t really want. And which I still have and I still don’t really want.
I’m rich. I have an early Willie Bester, complete with crushed Mainstay Cane spirits bottle top and torn-off piece of an Omo packet, framed in cheap SA pine, painted with pink primer.
Read this from Smithsonian Libraries and weep:
Contemporary African art from the Jean Pigozzi collection / foreword by Mark Gibourne; [day of sale, June 24, 1999]. London: Sotheby’s, 1999. 132pp., 57 lots. illus. (color).
The 1999 Sotheby’s auction of works from the Jean Pigozzi collection was the first major sale of modern African art by a top auction house.
Remarkably, all the works sold. Most fetched more than the estimated prices. Realized prices ranged from £2,000 to £7,000. The top price was a Willie Bester mixed media work going for £10,000 (pre-sale estimate, £4,000-£6,000). Not bad. The sale was billed as a benefit for Unicef and to establish the Jean Pigozzi Prize for Contemporary African Art.
Confession: When Aitch bought it in Kaapstad one early holiday while we were rich and child-free, I raised my eyebrows and thought Hmmm . . .
~~~oo0oo~~~ Sent: Thursday, 17 November 2016 Subject: Willie Bester art
Aitch’s Willie Bester artwork is looking even better – again. One was sold at an auction of David Bowie’s African art collection. Admittedly there’s a “David Bowie factor” which one art dealer reckoned added 50% to the prices.
Willie Bester’s “What Happened in the Western Cape?” fetched R358,000.
~~oo0oo~~
She’d have done this if she was still around, so here goes:
“Remember how you said ‘Are you mad?’ when I bought it in Cape Town, Koos?!”
**mumble** Well, I didn't say 'mad'. I'm sure I said, "Are you sure?" **mumble**
It was January 1993 and Aitch paid R2660 on budget over six months on her credit card. She pinned the slip to the back of the painting. What an investment! Note how they used the old shook-shook credit card machine.
~~oo0oo~~
– Willie Bester –
More about Willie:
Born in Montagu, Western Cape in 1956. He began painting murals as a child, and it was also then that he first developed an interest in recycling industrial and waste materials. As an adult, Bester worked for 15 years as a dental technician’s assistant before rekindling his love for art. His first solo exhibition, held in Cavendish Square in 1982, was mounted without the assistance of a gallerist. Bester went on to study part-time at the Community Art Centre in Cape Town where he was exposed to the idea of art as a political tool.
Following this encounter he had a meteoric rise to fame in the early 1990s, exhibiting at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg before taking part in exhibitions in Dakar, Senegal, and in numerous centres in Europe, including Africa Remix, which was mounted at the Hayward Gallery in London in 2005 before travelling to the Pompidou Centre in Paris and thereafter to Johannesburg.
Bester has received numerous prestigious awards including South Africa’s Order of Ikhamangu (Silver). Most recently, Bester exhibited at the Changchun Sculpture Symposium in China where he was voted the most popular artist and honoured for his innovative use of materials.
~~oo0oo~~
Bester’s mixed media works have frequently included passages of painting that have contained strongly naturalistic elements. Continuity is also evident in Bester’s sustained preoccupation with apartheid’s legacy, and the empathy and dignity with which he represents the dispossessed.
Curriculum Vitae
Training – 1986: Community Arts Project, Cape Town.
Exhibitions – 1982–2003: Eleven solo Exhibitions in South Africa.
1988–2001: Five solo exhibitions abroad – Dakar, Senegal; Trento, Rome and Turin, Italy; and Brussels, Belgium. 1989–2004: Participation in approximately thirty group exhibitions in South Africa.
1991–2005: Participation in approximately forty-six international Exhibitions in thirty-five cities and towns in the UK, Italy, The Netherlands, France, Switzerland, USA, Cuba, Germany, Canary Islands, Spain, Austria, Senegal, Brazil, India, Malaysia, and Ireland. This includes several biennales and high profile exhibitions.
Collections
Iziko SA National Gallery, Cape Town; Johannesburg Art Gallery; Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum, Port Elizabeth; Durban Art Gallery; Tatham Art Gallery, Pietermaritzburg; Pretoria Art Museum; University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; University of the Western Cape, Bellville; University of South Africa Art Gallery, Pretoria; Department of National Education, Pretoria; Department of Foreign Affairs, Pretoria; South African Broadcasting Corporation, Cape Town and Johannesburg; Human Sciences Research Council, Cape Town; Contemporary African Art Collection, Paris; Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC.
Awards
1991: Merit Prize, Cape Triennial.
1992: Prix De L’Aigle, 4th Grand Prix International D’Arts Plastiques de la Vlille de Nice, France.
2003: Honorary medal for promotion of Fine Arts: Suid Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns.
2004: Order of the Disa, Members Class, Government of the Republic of South Africa.
When October comes round – again, too soon – and the jacaranda blossoms lie on the road in Elston Place, it reminds me of the 76 things I should have done this last year and that I have on my to-do list.
Trish and Janet’s mom Iona died this week aged 90. Their Dad Neil passed away in 2013 just short of his 88th birthday. Poor Iona was not happy after Neil’s death, having to move into a home, then earlier this year into frail care. She remained feisty, but in pain from a crumbling hip. She missed Neil’s amazing care and she missed Trish and Janet, who was her last remaining comfort, but so far away in Maun.
At the end she suffered strokes within the last few days which hastened the end. Janet got down from Botswana in time to make her last two days more comfortable.
Neither Neil nor Iona wanted any fuss – no funeral, no service, no lies. Daughter Janet instead arranged a little wake – a gathering of good friends where we celebrated them and spoke about and laughed about Trish, Neil and Iona, and drank to family, health, fun, friends, memories and dammitall. I’m so glad she did!
Some months later, Janet and Tobias saw to it that their ashes joined Trish’s (and Bella’s!) in our garden.
So I’m on Noakes’ diet – well, eating plan. OK – Trying to follow his advice, sort of.
Well, actually just trying to cut out sugar. Eating tons more bacon.
So Marc is in our garden cottage while he’s learning to be a chef at the international hotel school up the road. Lovely chap, son of canoeing friend Kelway Tanner, and already hired by Zimbali to cook for them.
When I get home he says –
Here you go – Today was “desserts” and I made this for you.
Sitting minding my own business on the way home and CRASH! Right up the rear. It was a dominee of sorts. Pastor, Preacher, Holy Man, you know the type. One of those churches I am highly critical of. You know PTL – No, not Praise The Lord, Pass The Loot.
I was OK:
Him? Well, bless him:
I dunno. You’d think the Lawd or the guardian angel would install those proximity sensors in dominee’s cars so even if they’re perusing their holy cellphones the car would glide to a safe halt with auto-braking. No?
Anyway, aren’t guardian angels meant to sit on your shoulder? Why didn’t his shout, Whoa!? or better, earlier on, Hey man, put down your phone!?
