I was camping in Berg n Dal camp in the SE of the park around 8th Feb 2023. It rained quite hard in the night. My AHA camper stayed warm n dry, passing the test, so I was pleased about that!
Steady rain continued while I packed up, aiming north and west for a lon-anticipated visit to a new place.
East at first towards the main N-S road in the park, then North, Headed for Skukuza. On the easterly leg, three sopping wet little lion cubs emerged from the wet grass and crossed the tar road all alone. Hopefully their mother/s were nearby.
Seventeen kilometres South of Skukuza I tried an alternative route a dirt road. The sign said Skukuza 19km, so slightly longer, but the dirst roads always seem more enticing. A few k’s on, a stream crossed the road about 40m wide, shallow except for a section on the far side where the main current ran and I had no way of determining the depth in that 10m strip. I stared a while but then turned back. Discretion. It was still raining steadily.
North of Skukuza toward Tshokwane, all side roads had signs up Road Closed, or branches blocking them off.
The next day 9th Feb, I got to Kai and Mandy’s lodge in Jejane, on land bordering Kruger Park – and open to the park, fences down – on the east side. What a beautiful place, that I had heard of years and was visiting for the first time.
We heard the next morning that Tshokwane got 340mm in 10hrs the next day! Whoa! That’s buckets!
More and more roads were closed, then camps were closed . .
Then the whole KNP closed – A rare occasion!
Within a day or two they started re-opening section by section, bridge by bridge and camp by camp.. .. I enjoyed a great stay at Jejane, leaving on the morning of the 13th.
When Aitch and I were dating I got invited to a farewell party in Westville. Mike Coppinger and Jumbo Williams were leaving for Zambia to hop onto the Zambezi and kayak their way to the Indian Ocean and they needed a bunch of fellow kayakers to drink them on their way.
We met there after work and it was a festive opskop with a lot of hooligans in a well-stocked pub. After a few pints I took control of the situation and demonstrated who was in charge by casually suggesting to Aitch that we leave my car there and she drive me home at the end of this excellent jol as I could see it was going to be a big one. Then she could give me a lift back to my car in the morning.
Well . .
She looked me dead in the eye and ordered two beers. Proceeded to say Me Too whenever I had another, something she really was not actually equipped to do. Soon she was rather wobbly and as I had also had a few, we decided to call a taxi and leave both cars behind.
Gave me a hard time that one for the full twenty six years I knew her.
Mom says sadly that she was reading Rex Harrison’s biography when her maculae gave in. So she never got to finish it.
She laughs about his song in My Fair Lady, Never Let a Woman in Your Life – ‘AND,’ she says, ‘He was married four times!’ I can tell you didn’t finish that book, Mom. I looked up his Wikipedia entry. It was actually SIX times.
…
Me the Driver – Mom tells of a time I got behind the wheel of Marie Bain’s car and my big mate and younger sidekick – Marie’s grandson or grandnephew – Gareth Taylor, sitting in the back, leapt into the front seat crying, I Don’t Wanna Die! Mom and Sylvia had a good laugh at his dramatics and sense of humour. I was too young to drive then but was always mad keen; I’d sit for hours in all our various cars – Annie’s beige 1949 Chevy Fleetline, our beige Morris Isis and light blue VW Beetle, our faded dark blue kombis, Annie’s green and white Opel Rekord – going thru the gears operating the clutch and gearshift. I can almost ‘see’ Marie’s car but can’t quite remember what it was. I imagine this probably happened outside Herano Hof in Stuart Street, where Smollie and Marie lived then.
Smollie walked with a stoop and had stiff legs. I remember him getting into the passenger seat was quite a performance. The seat had to be well back so he could swing his straight legs in.
…
First Piano – an Otto Bach? – Mom bought her first piano from Marie for 100 pounds. Paid for it from the money Annie paid her to do the Caltex garage books. Central Service Station in Warden Street. Corner of Southey Street. Opposite Barclays Bank, Freddies Grocers and the Town Hall. Diagonally opposite the Deborah Retief Gardens – the village square. Next door to the VC Cafe in Southey St, next door to the Portuguese Grocers in Warden Street. Annie’s complex consisted of her Caltex filling station, the Flamingo Cafe, the Platberg Bottle Store and the workshop behind her office off the forecourt. In years gone by it was known as Caskie’s Corner – her mom-in-law, Granny Bland was a Caskie.
Older sister Barbara has just (2025) renovated a wooden cupboard which was Annie’s mechanic At Truscott’s tool cupboard for Volkswagen tools only! It was painted Caltex green (as were many things around us – even the horse trough).
…
Scotty her English teacher – Miss Helen Scott – recommended they read Absolom! Absolom! by Wm Faulkner “so of course we didn’t,” she says ruefully. Rebel Mary.
Then a few years later, she found another Faulkner book, The Sound and the Fury, in the library at the Boksburg & Benoni hospital, and on night duty she and her nurse took turns reading it to each other.
…
Firecrackers – I asked if she’d heard fireworks last night – New Year’s Eve. Yes, even she couldn’t sleep! That reminded her: In Harrismith as schoolgirls ca.1945, Mom and Sylvia bought sparklers and wheels. She thinks for New Year or Guy Fawkes. They put them in a shoebox. They were planning to set them off at Granny Bland’s back gate. There were a few visitors who gathered there.
Suddenly they all went off at once – the whole box! Sepp de Beer had decided to light the lot!
…
A Concert for the Troops! – At their grandad’s Royal Hotel, Mom and Sylvia decided to give a concert to ‘raise money for the troops.’ They charged a penny each to watch. Mom played the piano, Sylvia danced and they both sang. She thinks they raised enough money to maybe get some troops as far as Kenya. ‘Maybe a shilling’!
I said, That may have made the difference to win the war. That cracked her up.
…
The English Visitor – A regular annual guest at the Hotel was a Mr Lewis from England. He came for two months every year to escape the harsh English winter. His room was upstairs looking towards the railway station. While he was there, all kids were banned from going up the beautiful wooden staircase. And – There was to be be dead silence from 2 to 4pm every afternoon! Mr Lewis was having his nap! One day he stormed out onto the pavement in his pyjamas and berated a local lady who had been talking to her friend across the road at Kathy Bain Reynolds’ garage! How dare she converse in seSotho while he was out from England!
The Garage across from the Royal – which can be seen in the photos of Oupa Bain’s funeral procession was owned by Jack Reynolds, a handsome man, say Mom. He was married to Kathy Bain, and when he died early – after having bad lung problems and going blind – Kathy took over the running of the garage, just as Annie had when Frank died. So two intrepid Bain ladies ran garages in Harrismith.
…
Dances in the Harrismith Town Hall – There was no alcohol you know. People would go across the gardens to the Central Hotel for a drink. Oh, I asked, Would they carry their drinks back across the gardens to the dance?
No, they’d bring them in their stomachs.
The dentist’s (Dr __) mechanic and his wife were wonderful dancers. But after a few trips they – Would dance even better? I suggested, dancing being one of the reasons I drink.
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!
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:
It’s true I sometimes ‘forget’ to buy poisons, but this time Mrs Mpisane made me assure her I’d have ‘Domestos’ and ‘Handy Andy’ for her final big clean, as we leave the cottage tomorrow, heading north to Darkest Zoolooland.
And I forgot.
Pretty Mpisane had cleaned the cottage for us once before and when I confessed I hadn’t bought the Domestos and Handy Andy she’d cheerfully said, ‘Don’t Wurrie I’ll use sunlight liquid.’ I couldn’t mea culpa again, so this morning I hared off the 12km to Hibberdene Spar, got there at 7.01am, and was about their 4029th eager customer. Something about Pension Payout Day. I grabbed the two things I needed and stood in line with dozens of ancient, shuffling, walking stick-wielding elderly people, all about my age. OK, many younger.
The fifty-ish guy in front of me had a basket. Later a gogo with a trolley joined, but this guy Fifty in front of me made her move back a metre behind so as to keep the lane clear. I gave him an impressed nod, like ‘You’re doing the right thing, brother.’ He explained queueing protocol at length to me and the gogo and all who would listen, and had us all smiling and laughing as he gesticulated and waxed lyrical.
A young oke in a light blue denim top joined right against me, squeezing up so as to keep the passage clear, but to no avail. Fifty the Queue Cop was onto him like a flash. How dare he push in front of Trolley Gogo! Young Denim put up some laughing resistance but gave in and gave way, and was banished. More people joined in the aisle behind Trolley Gogo. A holdup at the till meant no movement, but I was fifth in line, on the near side of that aisle, and happy to wait.
Then a Spar manager came up and said, ‘Please sir, Move to the back of the queue.’ I laughed, No ma’am I’ve been here all along, before that lady with the trolley, I didn’t push in.
She looked at Fifty, who looked away. When did he join? asked Spar Lady. I know nothing, I saw nothing, says Fifty! Bastid! Ask the lady, I suggested. She knew nothing. I said, But I was here when you arrived and this gentleman made you move back to there! You remember! She knew nothing.
Move to the back please sir.
I picked up the Domestos and Handy Andy at my feet – which please note I didn’t even want to buy actually – and did the long walk of shame down the aisle next to the now even longer queue. Halfway there was Young Denim. ‘Ha, you tried to crook,’ he laughed. I didn’t and you know it, I laughed back at him. And you know that, I said in isiZulu. He just grinned even more.
..
Life is cruel. Did I mention that I didn’t even want to buy this shit actually? And here’s me breathing the air of 4029 people and reflecting on what it’s like to be the underdog for once and how some are subjected to this kind of thing daily.
Suddenly I remembered the small Pick n Pay across the little alley. The one we choose not to frequent. Dumping my goods, I did the short walk of relief and peered in there. Only three people and a long row of Domestos and Handy Andy bottles taped together in a promotional pack!
I Picked I Paid I Fled. I was out in two minutes flat. HellaBladdyLooya!
Mrs. Mpisane said a matter of fact Thanks and got to work. I was disappointed a bigger song and dance wasn’t made of my heroic effort.
Down on the South Coast the trains no longer run. Transnet Spoorweg and Railways Pty Very Limited managed to neglect the tracks, bridges and overhead cables to the point where they got varktap beyond all repair – fully FUBAR. This put a million trucks on the highways and started wrecking the roads and bridges nicely. One pleasant little side-effect if you live near the tracks is peace n quiet.
Rail Track overgrownRoad Bridge varktap
Now up here on the North Coast there are also a million trucks on the road but the railroad track that runs – close by but unseen – in the forest in front of our wooden cottage on stilts does still run about twice a day.
And I’m no trainspotter*, but it is my uninformed opinion that neglect of the track and the rolling stock is happening right in front of our ears. Cos the trains make an almighty racket going past. Like Rolling Thunder! And it’s not the diesel locomotives making the din. It’s metallic Track n Truck noise IMO. Like Naas’ Truck n Trailer. You have to listen carefully to even hear that there’s a diesel belching smoke to provide the locomotion. The locomotion. C’mon baby, DO the locomotion with me.
So I’m just giving advance warning that before long there may be peace and quiet here too.
~~oo0oo~~
Top pic taken from our deck shows the track about 50m straight ahead. Somewhere there.
Locomotives like this one pass by invisibly:
~~oo0oo~~
* ain’t no doubt about that. Seven weeks later the trains seem much quieter and less cacophonous, less metal banging. Can it be they’ve done something? Over xmas/new year!? More likely I was just not used to having rolling stock thunder past so closeby.
the line passes our cottage about on that horizon
varktap – colourful way of saying ‘damaged;’ or, ‘not in a good way;’ see FUBAR
Everyone has blarry thoughts on food. I don’t. But of course writing this means I do.
So: My thoughts on food:
Don’t tell others what to eat or what not to eat. If you must talk food, just tell them what you enjoy. Unless you’ve done genuine research and your results have been tested by other scientists, just tell us your favourite enjoyable food. No lessons given or implied. Amen.
So I like the two Anthonys:
Anthony Bourdain: Your body is not a temple! It’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride! “I travel around the world, eat a lot of shit, and basically do whatever the fuck I want.”
My kind of chef
…
Anthony Warner, The Angry Chef (paraphrased): It’s food. Eat it. Just not too much; Also, eat less sugar now; eat less meat whenever you can. He’s very interested in what food really does for us in real life (proper research) and gets irritated by influencers’ fad diets and insta-solutions.
Also my kind of chef
~~oo0oo~~
I like Chef Anthony B even more on grog:
Here a quote from the legendary chef Anthony Bourdain seems appropriate: “I would say that the angriest critiques I get from people about shows are when I’m drinking whatever convenient cold beer is available in a particular place, and not drinking the best beer out there. You know, I haven’t made the effort to walk down the street 10 blocks to the microbrewery where they’re making some fucking Mumford and Sons IPA. People get all bent about it. But look, I like cold beer. And I like to have a good time. I don’t like to talk about beer, honestly. I don’t like to talk about wine. I like to drink beer. If you bring me a really good one, a good craft beer, I will enjoy it, and say so. But I’m not gonna analyse it.”
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.
So a chain of 600 pubs went bankrupt and I know why. If you’re selling beer and you call yourself Thank God its Friday, that will resonate with thirsty tired working people, and you’re going to be popular. If you change your name to Thank Goodness its Friday you’re starting to wimp, and that’s not a good sign. If you then wimp it down to TGI Friday’s (what!!?) you’ve lost the plot IMO. Beer sales will steadily decline over a period of about 58 years and there’ll be financial trouble.
So TGI Friday’s went bust cos they were no longer Thank God its Friday. That, and probably also that apostrophe.
Back in 1973 they very much were Thank God its Friday, and we patronised them because that sounded like a great name. It was a special night for me cos I had been drinking beer illegally for a long time and TONIGHT I was about to have my first legal beer, thus wiping clean all past transgressions like good Catholics do. Or like bad Catholics do? I’d be getting Absolution, anyway.
In the ole Vrystaat where very little is actually vry the legal age to have a pint was 18 and I was 17 when I left for America after a few years of practicing drinking beer under sustained peer pressure. That’s my story anyway. I landed up in Oklahoma where I turned 18, but that didn’t help much. The beer was Coors light, only 3.2%, but the legal drinking age was 21. That summer Katie and family took me to Louisiana which was also 21. I had to (or should have) continue to drink feeling guilty.
Larry then drove down from upstate New York and fetched me from Shreveport in his light grey VW Beetle and we drove north through Arkansas, where we might have enjoyed a beer, but the legal age was still 21, so sadly (right! actually merrily) I was also breaking the law then.
But Missouri! Now Missouri was an 18 state and in Springfield MO we needed a beer after a long day’s drive and so we repaired to Thank God its Friday. I had my passport in my pocket, looking forward to proving I was ‘of age,’ but as always the bouncer just waved me through. I’ve never been skatted younger than I am.
So there I had a pint or two with Larry who had poured beers down my throat (me protesting) when I was an innocent fourteen year old lad back in 1969 when he was sent from wicked New York to corrupt the innocent ous in Harrismith, Vrystaat.
After that they stopped calling it Thank God its Friday and soon after – in 2024 – they went belly-up.
Cause and effect, see?
~~oo0oo~~
Damn, now Hooters has gone bust! The world sure is changing when even showing cleavage to old okes can’t sell beer!
In this case I may carry a bit of guilt. Never did go to Hooters. Felt to me like exploitation. Also, there wasn’t one nearby.
vry – free, mahala
mahala – free
skatted – estimated; collective noun: A bout of estimations (thanks Terry)
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.
I crossed the Wallace Line. Many other species and even genera couldn’t hack it for millenia, but this Homo sapiens swanepoeli did it – there and back in a day. A short hop from Bali to Lombok then on to Gili Air using either a Lion Air or Batik Air jetplane, I forget which one.
During ice ageglacial advances, when ocean levels were up to 120 metres lower, both Asia and Australia were united with what are now islands on their respective continental shelves – the Sunda Shelf linked Borneo, Bali, Java, and Sumatra to the mainland of southeastern Asia; and the Sahul Shelf linked Australia to New Guinea. But the deep water between those two large continental shelf areas was, for over 50 million years, a barrier that kept the flora and fauna of Australia separated from those of Asia.
The physical aspects and climates of the separated islands are and were very similar, yet species such as leaf monkeys and ponderous-beaked hornbills are found only on the Asian side, while wallabies, spiny anteaters, tree kangaroos and gliding possums are only on the Australian side. So it can be reasonably suspected that an ocean barrier prevented migration across the divide.
Alfred Wallace noticed this back in 1859 and wrote about it in his famous paper sent to Charles Darwin that pushed Darwin into finally pulling finger and publishing his brilliant and famous insights into how evolution happens which he had been dithering over and re-writing for twenty years.
So when we decided to attend a conference in Bali I thought, Aha! Never thought I’d get to do this. Aitch! I announced pompously, We’re going to cross the Wallace Line. OK, she said, as she always did. She didn’t ask ‘What’s the Wallace Line?’ as she knew she would hear it half a dozen times and she didn’t want to hear it seven times. Funny how spouses are much better when they’ve just met you and don’t know you inside out, have you noticed?
So once in Bali, we hopped onto a plane and flew across the deep and 70km wide Lombok Strait to Lombok Island, and then drove to the northwest coast and caught a ferry to a small island called Gili Air. I’m guessing gili means island? – yes: ‘The name ‘Gili Islands’ is redundant as gili simply means “small island” in Sasak.’
On the way there we saw a lot of timber trucks, huge tree trunks being carted off to make furniture. Oyoyoyoy! Someone needs a side table, so tree kangaroos and gliding possums must lose their homes! We won’t stop till the last square metre of our planet is paved, will we?
On Gili Air we lazed on the beach and snorkel’d. A handy current parallel to the reef meant you could just hover as you drifted along the reef. Then walk back along the beach and repeat. Effortless snorkeling in a spectacular ‘overstocked aquarium.’
~~oo0oo~~
I used a pic from Flickr of a jungle fowl found on Lombok. I’d love to see one of these ancestors of the garden ‘hoender.’
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?
Winter 2010 – The Soccer World Cup frenzy was in full swing and I was pleased we were getting away from it all, off to the the relative tranquility of Afriski resort, high in the Lesotho mountains. The kids LOVED their winter skiing holidays!
En route we made our customary brunch stop in the village of Clarens and of course I had to inform our traveling companions, Andrew and Tracey Ogilvie, joining us for their twin girls’ first skiing holiday, that I had known the mayor of Clarens in the olden days. Actually, his son, the FSOC. America has POTUS and FLOTUS, so we can have Hizzoner, The First Son Of Clarens, right?
As I told my stories yet again poor Aitch just had to listen and try not to roll her eyes too hard – (btw, heard a good one: ‘rolled my eyes so hard I almost fell over backwards’).
Hilarious stories like: The TV repeater aerial and car battery on top of Mt Horeb andthe walkie-talkie conversations twixt town and top that ensued;The Clarens telephone sentrale saying “34? No, Stevie’s not there, he’s at the Goldblatts, I’ll put you through;” Hilarious, right?
Oh well, Andrew seemed to enjoy them. He’s polite that way.
We were there just before the Soccer World Cup opening ceremony and the first game (Bafana the host nation vs Mexico). The Clarens central grassy square was crowded – a million kids dressed in Bafana yellow, blowing their zulufelas, I mean vuvuzelas and marching around aimlessly in neat lines. We blew out of there and mercifully, the radio reception soon got too poor to listen in.
If it wasn’t for bladdy satellites we would have been totally isolated up on the high mountains, too. So we had to watch some of the games in the pub. Civilisation is overrated.
~~oo0oo~~
telephone sentrale – the telephone exchange, in those days a real live human being who knew what was going on in town and dorp
dorp – village
vuvuzela – instrument of one-note aural torture; probly modeled on the instruments that toppled Jericho
Dear old Sambucca obligingly died on Aitch’s birthday, making the date easy to remember. 2019, so she was about twelve in the shade. Tom and Lungelo buried her in the garden with much sweating in the heat. Not out of the kindness of their hearts or any soppiness, mind you. They did it for cold hard cash.
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:
