On Sunday, July 14, 2013, pete wrote: Trish’s dear old Dad Neil shuffled off quietly yesterday. As always no fuss. Made sure the family knew “No funeral, no memorial service, no nothing,” before he went.
Broke his hip two weeks ago and although he got wonderful treatment at the Prince Mshiyeni state hospital and the pinning of the bone went well, with no infection and no pain, he was just shy of his 88th birthday and only managed to sit up twice, with much help from daughter Janet and the physio. He never got back onto his feet.
He was a wonderful fella, always helpful, obliging and useful. Whenever I was lax on the home-improvement front (um, that would be ‘always’) Aitch would very pointedly, with an evil grin say “MY Daddy would have fixed that LONG ago;” or if I said “That’s varktap, irreparable,” she’d retort “Don’t worry, I’ll take it to my Dad – HE’ll fix it. He can fix ANYTHING!” Teased the hell out of me, that woman.
And Neil accepted our kids unconditionally. Simply flung open his arms and got on with the job of being ‘Gompa Neil’ to Jess and Tommy. His usual fine, unfussed, can-do approach to life.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Irrepressible sense of humour, when someone was “gaan’ing aan” too much Neil would show ironic “sympathy” by playing a mournful air violin! He always looked on the bright side, but was running out of joy the last two years, what with being completely blind, missing his one daughter and his other daughter being far away.
He would say to me “I really MISS Trishy so much!” Twin daughter Janet has been a star to him these last two years – and the last two weeks even more so. She’ll sure miss the hell out of him now, as will her Mom Iona, who Neil doted on, cooked for, looked after, pandered to.
His wish for no fuss, no ceremony, no funeral was honoured by his little remaining family, Janet, me, Jess, Tom.
I received an sms this morning. I’m working a Sunday, the first in ten years! My locum is “having a small procedure done.”
Park at the bottom today; Don’t park at the top, there’ll be no-one there; Park near Nandos.
It’s from Bridget McGregor, my personal seventy-some year-old car guard; Feisty, never been married. “What?! I’ve got no time for men! Like them as friends, but I’m not taking any of their nonsense!” Actually, she didn’t really sms me herself – she got someone else to. Tommy would say “She’s got no technologe.” Hey, but she USED technology – and that helped me!
She let slip the first hint the other day that she might like girls, but has probably never acted on the impulse, being very ‘traditionally-minded;’ I lent her a bird book as she was going on a trip to Kruger Park in a mini-bus for a week on a Pensioners Casino Special; When I gave her the book she said with a grin that she would be “Keeping an eye out more for the two-legged kind,” (forgetting that both birds and chicks have two legs. She meant non-feathered of course). I just said “Aha! Me too!”
She took over from my previous personal car guard fellow-ex-Harrismithian Jan Kleynhans. Grog is Jan’s downfall; makes him wobble quite badly every now and then. He took over from French-speaking Abdul Karim from the Congo. Abdul is still around, he’s now Bridget’s supervisor, but Jan has emigrated. He has left the half-house he was inhabiting with his vrou and moved to the Southern Cape to be with his daughter.
Why am I writing this again? Oh, it’s very quiet on a Sunday morning in a mall that is more building site than shopping experience.
edit: Not too long after this, Jan was back. Uitgeskop by his daughter, he chuckled, ‘heeltemal my skuld.’ Has a mischievous grin n chuckle does my fellow Harrismithian.
~~oo0oo~~
vrou – wife
Uitgeskop – hoofed out; most likely drunk disorderly
There I stood, ladder under one arm, hammer in the other hand, in a suburban street with the cops looking at me very skeptically and saying “Ja, sure, sure! Just get in the back of this van and tell your story to the magistrate . . .”
——-ooo000ooo——-
On 2013/05/23 (which was later), Crispin Hemson wrote:
By mistake I sent out an old message that told everyone to help with labeling trees today.
This is not true. It is a false message designed to trick you into appearing at Pigeon Valley. Do not go!
My old mate Bob Ilsley the Vagabond Pilot – or Vagabob – has flown his last. His undercarriage buckled, he ran out of runway.
Many of his stories which I have heard since 1979, came out at his memorial service, and it was lovely listening to people who knew and loved Bob as I did. I met him at Addington hospital when the army sent me to Out Patients Dept ‘B’ (called ‘Oh Pee Dee Bee’ by all). He was there to fix legs and I was there to fix eyes. “You get them to see where they’re going, and I’ll get them to walk straight there,” he’d say. As luck would have it, years later in 2000, I bought a practice in Montclair that’s just two blocks from his home, and we could renew our OPDB friendship.
He built his own Piper Vagabond in his garage (hence his email moniker vagabob – and wife Barbara’s vagabarb), and he was repairing it there ‘with rag and tube’ when I first saw it after their only prang. (see here).
He inspected home-built planes for the Experimental Aircraft Association for years. Up to February this year. If you built a plane on your porch you couldn’t fly it till Bob said so. He would punch holes in the fabric and break the ribs, saying to the distraught owner-builder, “You can thank me. Rather now than in the air”.
On their first flight with Bob next to or behind them they’d quite often have something go wrong in the air, only to find it was him pulling a cable or stopping it from moving, or turning off the fuel (he knew where everything was!). “Just testing,” he’d say with his “innocent look,” as they tried to calm their hearts down from going boom-biddy-boom at 800 beats per minute in the shade. That ‘innocent look’ of his was a killer! How often I saw him say something outrageous to people with that innocent look!
He flew all over. KZN and the wild coast he’d talk about most often to me, landing on remote strips. Some of those I remember are Port St Johns, Creighton, Scottburgh and Ixopo.
He only took to plummeting once, when the Vagabond gave up while taking off from Maritzburg’s Oribi airfield. His wife Barbara came out of it with her arm in a sling and all bruised. Bob untouched. How’d you do that? he was asked. “Hard right rudder” he said. “I thought it would be softer to land on top of Barbara.”
Often wore T-shirts that made Barbara walk a good few paces behind him: (“If its got tits or wheels it’ll give you shit”; “Please ask your boobs to stop staring at my eyes”; “Recycled Teenager”). A very quiet guy, he would stare intensely with twinkling eyes at people to see their reaction, seldom smiling until they did. If it was cold he would wear frayed old jerseys (and by the sounds of it at the service, maybe the same one always). Still short pants, though.
Every flight physical he would come to me for his eyes, muttering “They’ve referred me for my heart again. Every time the same thing.” He had a little heart anomaly that showed up on the ECG that always raised a query but always got passed in the end. I don’t think modern medicine could cope with his big, generous, genuine, honest heart. His Private Pilot’s Licence was valid for 60 years!
Bob had very little time for religion and, of course, had a pithy saying about it: “They’re all just travel agents trying to sell you a ticket to the same place”, he’d say, cheerfully deadpan. The American dominee at his funeral used Bob’s quote to do a little pitch for how his church is different! Bob would have loved disputing that.
I made his glasses for about 32 years and the Rx stayed exactly the same: About -3,50 cyls in PGX glass executive bifocals, the worst lens in creation. In a thick old square plastic Safilo frame with monster flex hinges, the worst frame in creation. With his own home repair with acetone to build up the bridge. Three times I changed him: Once the Rx and twice the lenses, a multifocal once and a flattop once. All three times he came back and stated with his earnest and innocent face on: “Good try, but I think we’ll go back to what works, OK?” In the end I just tricked him, making up a lovely new lightweight plastic frame with thin flattop Transitions lenses for free “as a spare” while I “fixed” his ancient ones. The “fixing” took so long and he got so many compliments with the better-looking frame from all his many girlfriends on his jaunts around town that his vanity (“vain!? me, never!” – but notice he removed his specs for the pic above next to his Vag, stealthily hiding them behind his voluminous khaki shorts!) made him quietly continue wearing them.
Once though, he came in wearing his old ones and in front of everyone in the practice he moaned loudly that “These new glasses are TERRIBLE; My old ones are MUCH better!” to the consternation of my ladies who made the mistake of trying to tell him he was wearing the old ones. Constant comic theatre with Bob. Then they’d make us tea and we would retire to look at the internet or his pictures of his travels. These were pop-in visits, which sometimes caused havoc with practice manager Raksha’s scheduling. For his actual appointments she would book a double appointment just before lunchtime.
Bob left Zim when his first wife split, bringing his four sons to Durbs in about 1973. He met Barbara in about 1976, I think. She had four daughters! They raised them well. Many grandkids followed and to the daughters’ and daughters-in-laws’ horror (and the kids’ delight) he called them by number in the order they arrived. “Number Ten skyped us last night” he’d tell me. “Number Four has finished school.”
Loved hiking and hiked many of the famous trails: The Otter, the Whale trail in de Hoop Nature Reserve, the Fish river canyon in Namibia, the Fanie something trail in Mpumalanga, and more. Always with a full backpack. It’d be him at seventy to eighty and some thirty to fifty year olds. “We had to wait for the old people to catch up,” he’d tell me without a trace of a smile as he showed me his pics. He’d usually have at least one tale of a prank he’d play on someone, too – usually the prettiest or spunkiest young lady present! Fell in love often, did our Bob. Barbara would just watch and marvel.
Loved mangling Afrikaans with his ZimBARBwe and Durbs background, so if there was an “Africana” there he’d have a field day. Especially with ladies.
His favourite holidays were road trips, camping in his Opel station wagon, using the back as a double bed.
Three times he went to the big Experimental Aircraft airshow in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, camping out on the airfield and revelling in the aircraft, spacecraft and especially the simulators where he could test his skill. He flew the Wright brothers craft simulator, and could only keep it aloft for a few seconds, so went straight to the back of the queue again and the second time flew it for longer than they had! Determined bugger, our Bob.
After Oshkosh he would appear in the practice doorway and say nothing. Raksha would just say Uh, Oh! and put the kettle on for coffee and postpone a few appointments. She knew he’d brought a memory stick and we’d spend an hour in the back de-briefing Oshkosh.
Greg phones: Hey, my son Steve is down from doing research near Kruger Park, can you test his eyes? No prob.
We test, I order specs. Steve is leaving tomorrow early, so I arrange to fetch the specs at the lab and connect with Greg that evening.
I leave work early.
Holy shit! My battery is flat. Flatter than flat. Left the lights on. My big china carguard Dronk Jan Kleynhans from Harrismith “didn’t notice they were on”. He looks after a grand total of about six cars on the roof of our centre, and sits right behind mine. Was snoring his fukken head off I spose!
I check with the BP garage attached to the shopping centre: Can’t help. I check with Battery Centre: Can’t help. I phone the AA. Coming.
I phone the lab: I’ll be late. “No problem, my uncle goes to the funeral parlour downstairs and sits there till 7pm“. Maybe drinking blue top till he feels he can face the wife? “I’ll leave them with him”.
The guardian angel from AA arrives – Automobile Association, altho’ I could have used the other one too. He needs two batteries to kickstart the diesel, then “Hey, you test eyes? I got troublems with my bifocal, no good can you help?“
Get to the lab, but don’t want to switch off, and even I can’t leave the key in the ignition with the engine running while I go in. Not that I wouldn’t, but I feel that would be just TOO embarrassing to explain if the bakkie got whipped. YOU DID WHAT? WHERE? UMHLATUZANA? YOU DOOS!
While I juggle nearer to the funeral parlour door, an ou shuffles up “Buy some DVD’s very good DVD’s. They play, I won’ sell you DVD’s that don’ play, I won’ lie to you“. No thanks. “Hey Larney I’m telling you they good DVD’s! Check: New movies Bollywood this Bollywood that, even white ous movie, one I got“.
No I don’t want, really. He drops the sales pitch and asks “Who you looking for larney?” Terence’s uncle in the funeral parlour. “I know that hou, I’ll go and tell him” Hey thanks.
Comes back with a package with Pete Swanepoel written on it. Thanks a ton. I’m off.
I phone Greg: He says, Come to Mo’s Noodles, I’ll buy you supper. Great idea. I arrange Cecelia to look after the brats.
Halfway thru supper I realise I have forgotten the whole reason for the meeting: Left the specs at home in my briefcase out of which I had grabbed my wallet! FUCK! Turns out it’s no problem, Steve is no longer leaving early, he’s leaving after lunch. Fine.
Next morning I check the specs. A woman’s plastic frame with +2,00’s. Steve’s is a men’s metal frame with +0,75’s. Thank goodness I had forgotten them and didn’t haul them out in the restaurant!
Steve’s were now at work, having taken the usual delivery instead of this flurried, nonsensical ‘special delivery’.
I fetch them and FINALLY deliver them to Greg before lunchtime.
Yussis! WHAT a fokkop. Almost military in its fokkopedness.
The little-known 2013 Elston Place Olympic Games was a thing. Games I. Not XVI or XXII. No, I.
Tom earned 2 golds (run & soccer ball); Lungelo earned 2 golds (swim & cycle) ; One event was drawn (stone throw); Therefore they ended up Equal Olympic Champs!
– the offical Olympic Timekeeper’s station – with those stones visible –
The Games started officially with four Olympians; then one competitor DNF and one withdrew to go home for lunch.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Stone throwing was interesting. I found ten smooth, small-egg-sized stones in Aitch’s stuff. She had lots and lots of all sizes. I upended an outside black bin and placed an empty 10kg HTH bucket on it, also upended. I placed this target about 8m from a walkway so there’d be no encroaching – there was a clear place to stand. I then gooi’d five stones at the HTH bucket and hit it five times. I did grow up in Herriesmif and gooi’ing fings wif a stone was a fing, I’ll admit.
Tom stepped up; Five throws, five misses. Some by a puzzling large margin. Lungelo sniggered, stepped up: Five throws five misses. Some quite literally by about 4m at 8m distance! I had to give frowing fings wif a stone lessons before they started hitting the bucket occasionally! Bloody mis-spent youth they had, it would appear!
These two are so cool we had icicles on the rafters
and homework was done
~~~oo0oo~~~
Terry Brauer wrote Feb 2013: This so reminds me of Pinaster Street Olympics, FA cup finals – cricket, soccer, tennis, ad nauseum – Ryan and Deon!!
Just returned from a gathering in Harrismith where my sole function was to bring the average age of the attendants down to a respectable level.
Pierre duP, Jill Venning and Mark Raz Russel threw a joint 60th celebration in Harrismith. Pierrebuilds, Jill farms, Mark runs Finlay’s general trading store – and the golf club – in Harrismith. At their age, a “joint” gathering also describes one of the main topics of discussion among the creaking decrepit.
Swinging 60’s themed, most of the inmates came predictably dressed as hippies. I went as a hippie who admired Elvis’ dress style post-cheeseburgers. I was Sure to Wear some Flowers in my Wig, as a favourite song sang. Some wore safari suits with a comb in vey sock. One worean old English-type boys school uniform: blazer, cap, short pants and polished shoes. Most wore wigs – and many needed them. Oh, and John Venning very predictably – but a lot later than usual – got round to dropping his trousers.
Fine mates from way back!! Posing with young Tuffy Joe Joubert and old Pierre duP du Plessis. Wemight not fit together on the back seat of a Saab, nor in the rear compartment of a Beetle anymore.
The evening was saved visually and average age-wise by a flock of the birthday gang’s kids and their friends. They’re now adults, of course, so we could relax and act second-childhood. There were two of Pierre’s blondes there, Michele & Natasha, Mark’s son & daughter and Jill’s two as well, Kirsty was one. They were also dressed as hippies, and they were looking like how we all imagined we were looking. Luckily, there were no mirrors at the venue. Some aesthetically-delightful sixties-style minis and boots on show.
An excellent one-man band played all the right stuff, so it was a good thing it was loud or it would have been ruined by everyone singing along. Myself I would have had half-hour gaps with no music so we could hear each others’ lies, but no, when the band-man was resting, someone cranked on some good ole vinyl LP or other. Probably the bloody youngsters (we must start practicing to grumble).
Pierre gave a speech! Well, he joined Jill & Raz in a well-rehearsed threesome form of poetry rending in which they painted themselves in a good light and we listened politely.
Sheila rounded up a flock of ancient Methodists for a group shot, so three Swanepoels, three du Plessis, three Woods, and Tuffy Joubert posed for the Methylated Spirits Revival. Lulu tried to join in, but we wouldn’t have it, her being blerrie NG Kerk an’ all. She protested that she had come to guild once, to no avail.
Funniest thing was the youngsters drilling us for tales of yore. We told them tales of what their Moms and Dads got up to when they were their age to gasps of outrage when they thought of how their folks had raised them all strictly and with rules and curfews. I had to tell Lettuce Leaf’s kids the old one about how all the trouble started in the Garden of Eden when Adam said to Eve “Ek het your leaf.”
I went home soon after 2.30am leaving quite a few senior citizens and even more young uns still dancing. A few were slurring so that I couldn’t get what the hell they were saying, but they seemed happy with my nods and smiles and ‘Quite right!’s and ‘Serious?’s. Of course some of those were nearer 70 than 60 which makes the ‘hoesê?’s quite frequent!
We stayed at Heritage House, Pierre & Erika’s beautifully restored old house-next-door which they run as a bed & breakfast, so post-party we gathered in the kitchen till after 3am.
Later we gathered for a big breakfast at the Table of Knowledge in Heike’s restaurant on the slopes of 42-second Hill just below the quarry where Jock Grant would blast his dynamite, rattling the dorp’s windows.
Some of the Harrismith farmers are doing spectacularly well. Lodges in Tuli Block, Lodges near the Olifants river, big herds of disease-free Ramaposas, massive wild free-range earthworm farms, lodges on their farms (see https://www.buffalohillspgr.co.za/ and https://lalanathi.co.za/)
Some are also buying “townhouses” – big old sandstone houses in town which they revamp and extend for staying over if they’re a bit too aled to drive home to their farms! I spose you could call them Safe Houses.
And so some more upstanding citizens became senior citizens!
So here’s an update, you “youngsters”: That whistling noise you hear in your ears is not tinnitis. It’s the sound of the plummeting reaching terminal velocity . . . . .
Jess got home from her last day of school on Thursday with a friend.
To stay the night. Oh. OK.
It’s Saturday and the friend is still here.
Not a word, nor a call, nor an sms from a Mom or a Dad.
Now they want another friend to visit. OK. Get him to ask his Mom or Dad and get them to call me. You know how it works, Jess.
OK.
They mXit him. Then they give me the Mom’s cell number. He says I must call her. Jess, you know the drill: Get him to ask his Mom or Dad and get them to call me – like I said.
Ah, Dad! Yes, my dear. That’s the way it has always been. It hasn’t changed.
Bloody hell. Of course, they haven’t called, so she didn’t come.
I have now sms’d the parents of the girl who is still mysteriously here, asking “When are you fetching her?”
Went to watch a troupe of French “Angels” flying high above the city hall last night. Me and the kids with Cecelia Shozi and her two girls.
We met Bruce & Heather and Vicky there, sitting on the base of a statue.
Cables had been strung from the top of the city hall spire over to other buildings and between various other buildings, criss-crossing the square in front of city hall, where Jannie Smuts and Queen Vic and other umlungus stoically endure the pigeon shit. Some cables went from the top of buildings such as 320 West Street down at about a 70º angle to Aliwal Street.
Pity few of the cables are visible in my pic – I should draw them in!
I was looking forward to the madness!
After a while an old sapurity (Tom’s word) guard came up to me where I was peering up at the cables with Tom on my shoulders and told me there’s gonna be an hour’s delay. We joked about the angels having to preen their wings and I said I was worried one of these angels might come and take me away.
“Oh, no, sir” he says to me “Yours will be black and carry a scythe, and he’ll come from up there” pointing at the blackened top floor of 320 West Street which had recently burnt out. Then it started raining and the wind came up, so I decided there’s no way the angels will fly and off we went home.
Dammit. THE ANGELS DIDN’T FLY!
=======ooo000ooo=======
Then Sheila wrote:
Oh no – what a pity you left.
THE ANGELS DID FLY!
I was there and it was utterly enchanting. We came out of the concert (in the city hall) at about 8.30pm and it was drizzling ever so slightly, but even that stopped before the angels started flying. It was pure magic.
The fevvers (as Deon Joubert would have called them, back in Harrismith in the 60s) floating down made it look as though it was snowing, ‘specially in the spotlights.
I couldn’t help thinking that there must be a hellavu lot of kaalgat chickens skoffeling around today – I have never seen so many fevvers – and they were real!
The atmosphere was fantastic – with great shouts going up everything the angels released huge bags of fevvers all over us. I had my binocs and you could see the angels were having huge fun.
=======ooo000ooo=======
FROM A REPORT: Angels paid Durban a visit this week, bringing magical moments of “light, sound and heavenly activity and a sense of cohesion, unity and humanity shared” to quote Bongani Tembe, South Africa’s commissioner general for the French Season in South Africa that opening in June and ended with the angels.
Strange feathered creatures edging along zipwires strung from high above street level outside the city hall. Glittering winged figures. Flying. Gliding playfully above crowds of spectators invited to the free sky spectacle by the heavenly Place des Anges.
At first the feathers fell like thick flakes of snow; then the flurries became almost a blizzard as the area became a mysterious new place.
Magical Moment of Light put Durban on the map alongside Piccadilly Circus and the 2012 Olympics in London, Moscow, Tokyo and Perth to name a few places where Les Studios de Cirque have taken their angels and feathers.
For thirty minutes, the twisting and twirling trapeze artists careened across the sky in graceful flight, slowly performing tricks and turns, before releasing a cascade of feathers from suitcases and umbrellas on the crowds below.
“Taking place in the creative heart of Durban, the show also serves to remind all of the city’s magnificent architectural beauty and artistic value, and to revive a sense of pride during these moments of playfulness.”
While the crowds gathered in the plaza in front of Durban’s city hall waiting for the aerial show, guests and dignitaries inside the city hall — first bored by some overlong speeches (the speakers were apparently given two minutes each — but some took up to twenty!) — were enchanted by the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra and three extraordinary KwaZulu-Natal choirs.
It wasn’t that we were actually, y’know, OLD, but . . . well, we needed a break and a brief flashback to our glory days, when the chicks used to hurl themselves at us. Well, that one. In the harbour, remember?
So we piled into a kombi and headed off to the Wild Coast, looking for That Famous Stuff they sell down there, and hoping to rendezvous with the Swedish Hockey team. OK, the Swedish Old Girls Hockey Team, who were rumoured to be doing pre-season training in Lusikisiki (or, as we called it after crawling out of The Shy Stallion shebeen) Lo-squeaky-squeaky.
As we neared the coast there was a lo-ong downhill ahead of us and I stopped the kombi and got onto Abbers’ mountain bike and whizzed down with glee. As I reached terminal velocity I did think Uh-Oh! as I felt the effects of the Black Label kicking in. At the bottom I coasted to a halt. I don’t do uphills.
It was the Black Label by the quart and sweet wine that did it, I suppose, but when we got to the actual coast where the waves break against the rugged shore, we were looking for some action. We needed a break from all the Sixties music we’d been playing, broken only by one awful interlude when Bruce snuck an Amy Winehouse CD into the player! So we lay down and had a snooze.
But Abbers had brought that borrowed mountain bike, and we no longer wondered why. Seems he wanted to get away from the competition and meet up with a longtime connection he had met when salvaging the good ship BBC China which foundered off Grosvenor back when he was but a boy in his forties. Off he went on his own, heading vaguely south, trapping that fiets stukkend.
– Check carefully: No hockey girls –
When he got back much later there was a distinct whiff of some smoky vegetation about him and the Msikaba mosquitoes avoided him like the plague. We pumped him for information, but all we got was a mumbled “Loose-titty-titty” and the fact that he had not found the now-overdue Swedish Old Girls Hockey Team, but that when we did he dabzed wrestling with the goalie.
Abbers’ head did clear after a few days and he set off fishing so as to be able to answer spouse Les reasonably honestly, give or take; but the fish were having none of it. You could actually see them giving his bait a wide berth and wrinkling up their nostrils.
wikipedia:MV BBC China was a 5,548 GT general cargo vessel. In October 2003 the ship was diverted to Italy while carrying gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment to Libya. In October 2004 it ran aground near Port Grosvenor, where it was declared a total loss and subsequently demolished with explosives. – BY ABBERS! See? This is true.
~~oo0oo~~
trapping that fiets stukkend – pedaling vigorously
~~oo0oo~~
Meanwhile, unbeknown to us . . . a few rivers further north, the Swedish ladies K4 paddling team was training on the Umtamvuna:
This is true. OK, they might not have been there that same weekend but they did go there! And they were Swedish. And gorgeous.
I looked on in amazement as Aitch looked at kids dress-up suits in the market in Hong Kong.
Surely he’s too old for these? I asked, knowledgeably.
She just smiled, and bought the one he would be LEAST likely to wear: A dragon suit with a hood, clawed gloves and a thick stuffed tail with scales running right down the back and long tail. Most uncomfortable if you lay on that thick tail, I thought.
Well, of course he LOVED it. Wore it for years – till it was threadbare! Both in bed as jarmies and out in public.
On a boys getaway weekend to Manteku on the WildCoast my kombi makes it easily down to Drifters’ camp, though I do think Uh! Oh! as we drive down, Might be interesting getting out!
Uh Oh!
Five glorious days later we pack up and head out. But it has rained and the hill is too much for the kombi. What now? We’re the only vehicle in miles and the okes who should push are way too old for the job. They sit in my fine vehicle looking at me, sipping beer and asking, So what are YOU going to do?
Luckily, our Drifters camp manager is helpful. “No problem,” he says, “I’ll get some oxen.”
Oh, the shame! My ‘friends’ roar with laughter and start preparing. To lighten the kombi? To attach the tow rope? To clear big rocks away? No. None of the above. To take pictures!
A ‘helpful’ comrade filled with empathy!– after a false start, where the oxen made a beeline for the river, we’re now aimed right . . uphill –
To this day I am reminded of this by these helpful ‘friends’. If I mention any car trouble they helpfully tell me: “Check for ox shit in the axles.”
At the top, it’s payment time: Thanks for your time, your trained oxen and your skill!
I told the helpful owner, Verily, Thy ox saved My ass.
Did my five-yearly drivers’ licence renewal today. 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.
Only problem is I only 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 some old bald bastard with jowels and three chins’ photo on it! He looks like a bloody FreeState farmer.
Still, I’m not going back. I’ll just keep it.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Jaynee J (that’s her top right in the pic holding the cute dog) replied:
LaRaine (that’s her top left in the pic holding the other dog) took me for mine when I was in JHB recently. We needed to be quick, lots to do. “It won’t be busy” she claimed! Surprise – it wasn’t!
I ignored the ‘senior citizens’ booth and went to the ‘normal’ folk one. Sat down in front of the testing screen and wondered why he was taking so long to activate the test! Nothing! Nada, nix!
Eventually a flashing light got my attention and then the odd ‘E’.
Failed.
I was given a second chance – failed. And given a form to take to ‘my nearest Spec Savers’ – generic term for ‘place you test your eyes.’
I go up to Laraine. “OK”, she says “I told you it would be quick, now let’s just go and pay and that’s sorted!” “But I can’t see Lari!!” I wailed! “What do you mean you can’t see?” – she’s incredulous! “I failed! We have to go and find a Pete!”
Needless to say there wasn’t a Spec Savers in Lari’s mall – so into a Torga I went. I know. It was hard, but time was of the essence.
Breezed up to the counter – still in a hurry. “Hi, I just failed my eye test at the licence place and need one done quickly and, by the way – how’s Torga?”
![20150405_212301[1]](https://i0.wp.com/bewilderbeast.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/20150405_2123011.jpg?ssl=1)
