It’s the ONLY bit of beach in the whole of KZN with a reef catching the breakers and leaving a protected beach for beginners to learn to swim, to paddle, to love the waves.
The only walk-in reef in urban Durban where snorkellers can cut their teeth in clear protected waters (and divers can do their first dive without driving miles to Sordwana or Umkomaas, and then taking a boat out);
And besides, it’s the beach where I taught a Scottish medical student to paddleski back in 1980 and her bikini top came off without her noticing it and I continued the lessons with a topless chick for the only time in my life. It’s worth preserving this beach, I’d say!
We have been unable to contact you since your vehicle enquiry from CMH Land Rover Silver Lakes. Please contact Org R on 012 8_9 5__0 from CMH Land Rover Silver Lakes to discuss your vehicle enquiry. Feel free to contact our support centre by email carshop@cmh.co.za or call us on 0861 carshop should you experience any difficulties.
Sincerely,
~~oo0oo~~
Hi there
I’m sorry! Thomas is 11yrs old and was on a “wishing” spree without my knowledge! Please cancel this request. Thanks a lot Pete
~~oo0oo~~
Hi Pete,
Thank you for your response, I’ll cancel your – or shall I say Thomas’s – request with the dealer.
Glad the boy has good taste in cars.
Keep well.
Kind Regards
Vicki Carshop Team Leader ————————–
From: Pete Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 2:15 PM To: carshop Subject: Re: We have not been able to reach you
~~~oo0oo~~~
Brauer: Fully understandable. Having been forgotten to be picked up at school so often by his dad he deserves his own wheels and shouldn’t be embarrassed in front of his peers by arriving in a skadonk;
Reed: Would Evoque some ire no doubt! Hope it was the Diesel Turbo 6 speed manual. (Probably the automatic, though, so he could drive it).
Stoute: Where’s their sense of humour? Didn’t even offer him a test drive!
We got a new kettle. The fancy black round Russell & Hobbs started leaking and that irritated me as it was only a year (or three? four?) old and I thought stuffit, so I dug the camping kettle out of the ammo box in the garage and we became Team Liquigas.
So I got to know the smell of red hot aluminium and that wasn’t good, so I used a pot and got to know the smell of really hot plastic handles and sometimes we’d only get tea after two boiling-dry’s and by the third boiling the kitchen smelt funny. And sometimes we rescued it but there was only enough water for half a cup, not three cups.
So I caved in within two months and bought another kettle that uses Eishkom electricity and switches off automatically because we are MAA in our house – Multiple Attraction Abundant – or VWE – Various Wonders Enriched.
So Devan and Lungelo are staying over for the night. Devan was just visiting, but when his young blonde divorced Mom came to fetch him the trio convinced her it would be SO UNFAIR if he couldn’t also spend the night.
Him being rather pale he was noticeably pink as they’d been in the pool all day. Oops. Suntan lotion. Right. Tom & Lungelo not so much. Once Devan’s Ma had left I lined them up and issued each wif a stone – about plum-size.
What now, Dad?
“City slicker wimps need to learn a few basic skills” I drone while I line them up in front of an upended big black dustbin with a white HTH bucket on top. At a distance of four metres they all missed the target by about five metres.
“Seewaddimean?” says Dad. “Take turns and don’t stop till you’ve each hit the bucket five times.”
They loved it. They reckon they’re ready to hunt big game now.
.
As his classmates were here I called him Thomas, like they do.
‘Dad’ he says, ‘I’m Tommy’.
Suits me.
=======ooo000ooo=======
The pic is Tommy, Lungelo and another pale mate Ryan. Another day, another place, but same year!
Got back from the Brauers’ palatial new home in the ritzy suburb of Gramadoelas in Tshwane – that ancient seat of my forebears the Tshwanepoels (we have landclaim rights there) – landed at Kinshasa Airport and set off to my car. OK, bakkie. It’s waiting for me in 1A in the parking garage proper. (King Shaka airport, really). Usually I park under shade cloth, but I thought what the hell, I was a bit late so I took a shorter route; the undercover is closer to the boarding gates.
Okaaay, I’m sure it’s here. I’ll check again.
Up and down all the rows, including the ones I knew I wasn’t in. Nothing. Try level 0, one down (even though I KNOW I was in 1A, I memorised it and said to myself “Remember 1A: You can’t get better than that: 1st class and an ‘A’ result”). Nope. Try level 2, one up. Nope.
So eventually I had to go to security. To report my car missing, ask where the SAPS was to report the theft, open up a ‘missing car case’ and ask if they had CCTV cameras. Already I was imagining it on a lowbed trailer on its way to – I dunno, Monaco? Paris? where bakkies like mine are highly desired.
‘No’, said the perky 21yr old at the parking office with a smile, ‘You can’t have lost your car, where did you leave it?’ ‘1A’ I said, my spirits lifting as she said it with such absolute certainty! I thought ‘They don’t have cars stolen here. I can see that just by her demeanour!’
‘Try -1A’ she said. “MINUS ONE AY” is how it sounded.
‘There’s a -1A?’ I asked, ‘Yes’ she burbled brightly, ‘Two levels down from 1A’.
. . 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.
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),
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.
Bill lives in one of the council houses at the bottom of our cul de sac. Nice chap. I think he worked for the eThekwini corpse, and I’m guessing that’s how he got to rent here. But I’m guessing.
Nice chap. Worried about people not doing things the way he wants them, and always quick to point out anything wrong.
Comes up to me in the PnP supermarket this weekend and says:
DO I KNOW!? He saw a big mfezi in my garden! AND:
Do I know what an mfezi is?!
Wow! That’s great! A Mocambique spitting cobra, Bill! Where’d you see it? In your garden. Yes, but where? I’d love to see it. That thing can kill you man!
Actually I think what Bill means is “You should cut your grass!” See, I have sections of neatly-mown lawn. But I also have meadow, and a beautiful section of grassland, and it’s visible from the gate.
– lush meadows –
So sadly, no mfezi in my garden, I don’t think.
I haven’t told Bill about the concept of wu wei – “Masterful Inactivity.” Don’t want him to think I’m weird.But you can learn about my secret vice here.
Elston Garden Xmas Day 2018– these guys love my meadows –
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!
I try and teach the kids about waste, litter, environmental awareness, biodiversity, etc. As I start talking they don’t look at me. They look at each other with THAT look, then swivel their eyes on me in unison, put on a polite “Yes, you were saying?” look on their dials, switch off their ears and nod and say “Mmm” “Mmm?” until they see my lips stop moving.
Then they’ll ‘innocently’ ask something deliberately unkosher like “Can we get a cat?” Lil bastids.
I did my five-yearly drivers’ licence renewal. Its a good thing when you think the last time I did it I was an irresponsible 52yr-old. In and out in just under an hour, and all the people pretty pleasant or neutral, so no sweat. The only problem arose when I looked at my form after I’d coughed the R250.
They gave me 6/9 vision (AELOHCT – there, I’m 6/6, dammit), and put a Check-Your-Mate photo of some old bald bastard with jowels and three chins on it! He looks like a bloody FreeState farmer caught in the headlights.
My rates bill for 10 Elston is around R3500 per month. Last month it was much more interesting: R152 000. I paid R3500 and wrote to them. This month it’s R153 000, so I sighed and made an effort.
I paid R3500 again, wrote again – email – and then phoned the number on the bill for “any queries.”
They immediately said “No, you must phone THIS number, not our number”, and gave me a different number and a name. I did not ask “So why the hell is YOUR number on the bill?” I’m polite.
Got hold of a human being (one that didn’t pick up and put down!) named Helen who looked online and said “Do you also own 11 Elston Place?” Nope. “Oh. It seems a Mr Mb___’s account from number 11 has been transferred to yours”.
Aha! For the last year or so Andile and Lovemore have been asking to charge their Mom’s cellphone while they visit. Their surname is Mb___. Their Dad drives a new Mercedes Benz 320GL which occasionally visits our road. Not often. He has split from their Mom and MAYBE the reason their electricity has been cut is because he has stopped paying his rent and his rates?
AND: He used to work for the municipality, so maybe he got a china to solve the problem by shoving his arrears at no. 11 over onto no. 10?
Hopefully I’ll see resolution soon!!
AND: They haven’t asked for cellphone charging lately. Maybe they’ve had electricity again for the last month or so? I hope so for their sake – even tho it will probably be temporary . . .
LATER:
Credit where credit is due. I was credited in full. Helen sorted me out. Hats off to Helen!!
