My Four (plus 2) Dusis

(In the official Duzi records I’m down as having done seven Duzis, I don’t know why. I suspect I entered seven, but I know I have only done four. Plus two other interesting ones that I was ‘involved with!’)

1972:
I was obsessed with the Dusi Canoe Marathon and had been training for it. A lonely pursuit when you’re in the Free State and there’s no canoe club and few have even heard of such malligheid. Planning was more advanced that I’d remembered. here are my notes on things to do – written on about 30 November 1971! I even knew I must phone Ernie Pearce and ask ‘How does a Vrystater enter your race?’ This info would have been given to me by my Dusi mentor Charlie Ryder.

Then my boat got stolen in December, so come January I hitch-hiked to PMB with schoolmate Jean Roux to watch the start. We then bummed a ride with some paddler’s second, sleeping in the open on the riverbank at Dusi Bridge and Dip Tank.

I had been following the van Riet brothers’ winning streak closely, but that year a fella named Graeme Pope-Ellis teamed up with Eric Clarke to win his first Dusi on a full river.

222 paddlers each paid R3,60 to enter the race.

In Durban we walked from the Blue Lagoon finish to South Beach, where we spent the night on the sand. The next night the cops kicked us off the beach and we spent a night on the red polish stoep of the Point Road police station. Noisy! Rough!

Blue Lagoon at last! Louis van Reenen finishes a swollen Dusi in his Hai!
– luxury camping at Blue Lagoon – Louis’ VW – my pup tent –

1976:
Louis van Reenen up in Joburg asked me ‘What’s that?’ when I had my Limfy in JHB. He said ‘I wanna do that!’ and bought a boat from Neville Truran in Kensington. He later drove down from JHB with his red Hai on his blue VW’s roofrack. We tossed a coin, he won, I left my white Limfy in Harrismith, and I drove his car in the mud, while he paddled his brand-new red Hai closed-cockpit white water boat, and often swam next to it! First time he’d ever been on a river and the Dusi welcomed him at its highest level ever for a race! Emmerentia Dam had been his only training ground. He swam miles and drank gallons of the river in the flood-level Dusi and Umgeni! But he was one tough character and he finished! Graeme Pope-Ellis and Peter Peacock won – their second win as a team, Pope’s fifth, equaling Gordie Rowe and Harry Fisher’s five wins..

1983:

I finally get into a new Limfy and do the race. I’m one of 1020 paddlers – the first time that the entry had broken through the 1000 barrier. I’m in a black Kingfisher Canoe Club T-shirt paddling a red and white Limfy from Gordie Rowe and Rick Whitton. Gordie made my boat “light but strong” – in-joke! On the water at the start I spot Louis – he’s back for more! His second Dusi, my first. A very low river. Louis swam his first; he was about to run his second. Sister Sheila and the ole man took me to the start.

— Mainstay cane spirits took over as the title sponsor. Pope-Ellis and Cornish beat the Biggs brothers to give “The Pope” his tenth win – — Is the Pope a Canoeist?!

– my rapid skills on display –

1984:

This time Greg Bennett’s brother Roland seconds us and we live in the lap of luxury the first night: Cold beer and hot food at Dusi Bridge. Then he loses focus. Then we look after ourselves.

For the first time paddlers were allowed to go home to their Mommies overnight. We thought that was a terrible development, so tried to drink for those who weren’t there. Apparently a new rule made paddling round Burma Road compulsory that year. A low river.

1985:

– Dusi start 1985 –

Sheila seconds me. In theory. I’m in a white Sabre, which reminds me how Arthur ‘Toekoe’ Egerton called his Sabre ‘Excalibur’ – “King Arthur,” see?

I pitch the tent after finding Sheila in the beer tent, I cook the food and I pack the car! If she was ‘seconding’ me, I spose I was ‘firsting’ her? As always with Sheila though, she made it lots of fun and I met more people than I would have!

Pope-Ellis was beaten by John Edmonds on a low river. Women were allowed to race in K1’s for the first time – as long as they were accompanied by a male paddler! Marlene Boshoff was the first woman to finish the race in a single, accompanied by Martin Lowenstein, beating her twin sister Jenny Bentel.

1987:

Hansa sponsored 1987, bringing bigger media exposure and the entry numbers picked up again. Pope-Ellis broke the K1 record by beating John Edmonds to claim his 13th title. In a monstrous injustice and swindle we are not met by bikini-clad Hansa girls as we finish – that perk only came later! I paddled a white Sella.

1987 January Koos doing Duzi.jpg
Dusi badges (small)

A thought: All four my Dusis were booze-sponsored! *hic*

The official records show me having completed seven Dusis but I have only done four, and nogschlepped on two. The three phantom ones I probably paid and entered, meaning to do them, but life got in the way. Probably 1986, 1988 (getting married probably interfered!), and 1989.

In my mind I imagine the NCC / Dusi heavies asking, ‘Did we lose Swanie under a rock?’ ‘Nah, he probably finished. Mark him down as finished, then we don’t have to go looking for him.’

~~oo0oo~~

Five Forests

NB – Very important update 2025 – before visiting any of these areas, check about the safety of the area and the availability of amenities beforehand.

Just back from a Five Days, Five Forests birding trip to Zululand: Nkandla, Entumeni, Dlinza and Ngoye Forests. These are mistbelt or scarp or afromontane forests; and the fifth forest was St Lucia coastal forest. (2013)

My highlight was Ngoye, about which I’ve heard so much over the years. Especially after Aitch went without me: “Have you been to Ngoye Koos? Oh, no, I remember, you haven’t. So you haven’t seen the Woodwards Barbet then? I HAVE!” Only about a hundred times, she rubbed it in!

I hadn’t planned anything, but once we had walked in Nkandla, I said to my famous Zululand birding guide Sakhamuzi Mhlongo, “Forget the coast and the vleis and farms – we’re sticking to forests,” and so the Five Forests © ™ idea came about. I think it’s a winner! Rather than drive to the forest in the morning, you stay in the forests so dawn finds you right there with nowhere to drive.

COMFORT
This trip was just me and a great guide. Sakhamuzi was lovely quiet company. Nights at the B&Bs and the Birders’ Cottage we cooked up a red meat storm, washed it all down with frosties and early to bed. On walks I took my binocs, telescope, rucksack and we each carried a deckchair. Mostly we simply found great spots like forest edges or a good tree and parked. Sakhamuzi said (well, he would, wouldn’t he?) that he enjoyed sitting still. He said mostly birders want to rush from one spot to the next, talking all the time! I said he should get deckchairs and specialise in khehlas and gogos. ‘Charge a premium, carry a hebcooler and you’ll make your fortune, young man,’ was my advice to him! Find a fruiting tree, and let the birds flutter to your doddery customers.

Call it Gugile Ancient Avian Gadabouts (GAGA) © ™

I took plenty snacks and drinks in my rucksack, so the waiting was comfy, luxurious and munchy. Next time I’ll take some poncho or dark sheet to break the human outline – see if that fools the voëls.

We stayed two nights in the Birders Cottage in Ngoye. Perfect for getting up before five every morning and getting straight into the forest at first light. Saw and heard lots of birds which I’d seen before but had written BVD next to them (“better view desired”) and one great lifer. Yes, Aitch-In-The-Clouds, I did the see the barbet, so I laid that bogey-bird to rest!

Barbet green
– thanks ebird.org –

The Green Barbet Stactolaema olivacea used to be called Woodward’s Barbet – our sub-species is Stactolaema olivacea woodwardi. This beautiful 1897 illustration of a pair of Woodward’s barbets, by J.G. Keulemans

Also a special in the forest is the oNgoye red squirrel, Paraxerus palliatus ornatus and I can’t remember if we saw him! I’ll have to go back! Illustration by Joseph Wolf, Zoological Society of London 1864.

WHEELS
Craig Naude’s magic silver and blue Mitsubishi Colt 4X4 V6 3000 was superb. That’s it above left in the grasslands above the forest – one of the few pictures I took! I needed first gear low ratio in places in the forest where the rutted tracks changed to slippery clay, and steep drops into stream beds meant equally steep climbs out of them, starting at snail’s pace. Boy heaven.

COASTAL FOREST
At St Lucia we also got into the forest at dawn, then walked on to the mouth of the estuary by 6.30am at low tide. Waders and terns remain confusing to me, and the sooty tern Sakhamuzi hoped to spot had trekked back to Mozambique. Pity, as it’s one of the easier ones to ID. Oh, well, as the baby tern said to the mother tern: Can I have a baby brother? Certainly, said the mother tern: ‘One good tern deserves another.’

Five Forests Heron
– St Lucia estuary with a grey heron in the surf – my poor pic! –

On the way back we spotted a dwarf chameleon, which I now know was probably the endangered Setaro’s Dwarf Chameleon. No picture! Then we sat in the forest in comfort again and a Green Malkoha (old green coucal) obligingly flew into a tree and leisurely displayed his banana beak in full sunlight. No picture! I’d seen one in Malawi  this was a first for Southern Africa.

Green Malkoha
– thanks Johann vd Berg on stellenboschbirds.org – beaut pic!! –

Driving back to the B&B a Lemon Dove (old cinnamon dove) sat on a track at the side of the road for so long we eventually drove off! First time I’ve ever done that. Usually you just glimpse them flying off at speed. Another early night after red meat and beer was enjoyed.

What a great break – the first real birding since before Aitch and I became child-infested. I’d forgotten what early mornings without scarecrows was like! We spent 32 days on our trip up to Malawi when the kids were 5 and 1 and only saw one bird, and that was a Zambian nkuku whose cousin was deliciously on our plates at a shisanyama at the roadside in Livingstone. I exaggerate. Slightly.

~~oo0oo~~

Bruce Soutar wrote: Pete – eye think this is a compliment – from Rooooth Garland: Please tell Piet I LOVE his stories and want to see more . . . He makes me smile, even though he’s a drunkard and no good at flying. Does he have a blogspot I can sign up for? Xx PS: Sakumuzi is a huge Twinstreams fan . . . Lovely man. Ruth Garland – Sydney Australia

Ruth’s Dad was the legendary Ian Garland, whose exploits at Twinstreams in Zululand did heaps to save, propagate and teach about indigenous plants. Ruth’s exploits at Mbona in a low-flying kombi were a different chapter, which also did heaps to save and teach, but not propagate. And she’s the drunkard.

~~oo0oo~~

khehlas and gogos – Old men and Old ladies

gugile – ancient, as in buggered; decrepit; you know; don’t pretend you don’t know

voëls – birds

nkuku – chicken

shisanyama – red meat on red hot coals restaurant; not teetotal joints; licenced to sell alcohol, ‘Which’ – as famous birder Ian Sinclair said with a grin – ‘I’m licenced to drink’

~~oo0oo~~

My Bird List in Nkandla Forest: Lemon Dove; Dusky Flycatcher; Blue-Mantled Flycatcher; Knysna Turaco; Red-eyed Dove; Redbilled Wood-Hoopoe; Greater Double-collared Sunbird; Grey Cuckoo Shrike; Rameron Pigeon; Black-headed Oriole; Cape Batis; Black Saw-wing; HEARD: Dark-backed Weaver; Emerald Cuckoo; Chinspot Batis;

My Bird List in Entumeni Forest: Narina Trogon; Cape Batis; Olive Sunbird; Terrestrial Brownbul

My Bird list in Dlinza Forest: Woolly-necked Stork; Grey Cuckoo Shrike; Spotted Ground Thrush; Eastern Bronze-naped Pigeon (peach view calling in full sunlight on dead tree) – Delegorgue’s; Puffback Shrike; Cape White-eye; Green-backed Camaroptera; Sombre Greenbul; White-eared Barbet; Paradise Flycatcher; Olive Woodpecker; Black-bellied Starling; Black&White Mannikin; Collared Sunbird; Lesser-striped Swallow; Trumpeter Hornbill; Red-fronted Tinker; Yellow-rumped Tinker; Crowned Eagle juv; Yellow-bellied Greenbul; Redcapped Robin-chat; Scaly-throated Honeyguide; Purple-crested Turaco; Square-tailed Drongo; Terrestrial Brownbul; HEARD: Yellow-breasted Apalis; GT Woodpecker; Olive Bush Shrike; Southern Boubou; Black-headed Oriole;

My Bird list St Lucia and in St Lucia coastal forest: Woodwards Batis; Rudd’s Apalis; Yellow-bellied Greenbul; Green Malkoha – LIFER in South Africa for me – full sunlight saturation view; Grey Sunbird; Livingstone’s Turaco; Burchell’s Coucal; Whimbrel; Osprey; Grey Heron; Fish Eagle; Spoonbill; Yellow Weaver; Green Pigeon; Speckled Mousebird; Swift Tern; Black-winged Stilt; Avocet; YB Stork; Pink-backed Pelican; Little Tern; Three-banded Plover; Blue-cheeked Bee-eater; Lemon Dove – saturation close-up; Crested Guineafowl; Pied Wagtail; Cape Wagtail; Goliath Heron; Great White Egret; Little Egret; Thickbilled Weaver; White-breasted Cormorant; Palm Swift; Brown-throated Martin; Black or Common Swift; Chorister Robin-chat; Crowned Hornbill;

My Bird list in Ngoye Forest: Green Barbet – LIFER for me (yes, I know, Aitch); Yellow-streaked Greenbul; Tambourine Dove; Delegorgue’s Pigeon; Crowned Hornbill; Olive Woodpecker; GT Woodpecker; Orange-breasted Bush Shrike; Mountain Wagtail; Red-eyed Dove; Hadeda Ibis; Narina Trogon; HEARD: Wood Owl; Diederik Cuckoo;

Other creatures on the trip: Samango monkey; Red Squirrel; Thick-tailed Bushbaby (heard at night); Rainbow Skink; Banded Forester Butterfly;

Seen on the roads and roadside stops: Jackal Buzzard; Pied Crow; White-naped Raven; Red-collared Widow; Fantailed Widow; Stonechat; Barn Swallow; YBK; Dusky Indigobird; Fiscal Shrike; Dark-capped Bulbul; Palm Swift; Long-crested Eagle; Black-headed Heron; Hamerkop; Pintailed Whydah; Black-chested Snake Eagle; Common Quail; Rufous-naped Lark; Croaking Cisticola; Wing-snap Cisticola; Mocking Cliff-chat; White-bellied Sunbird; Amethyst Sunbird; Brown-backed Honeybird; Black-collared Barbet; Black-crowned Tchagra; Neddicky; Yellow-throated Longclaw;

~~oo0oo~~

Find Sakhamuzi here: sakhamuzimhlongo@yahoo.com

bird pics from hbw.com, wikipedia and Johann vd Berg stellenboschbirds.com – thank you

More forests in Zululand by strayalongtheway.com where I got the pics above which have their name on them – Thank you! Go and check out their fascinating site.

We Kayak the Kalahari

As a schoolboy I was keen on kayaking and was tickled by a cartoon depicting a kayak on dry land trailing a dust plume with the caption Kalahari Canoe Club! I kept that on my wall for years. Kayak’ing in the desert was just a joke, right!?

In January 2010 we got to the Kalahari to hear the Nhabe River was flowing strongly into Lake Ngami and Aitch’s twin sis Janet and boyfriend Duncan had organised us kayaks! Hey! Maybe you really could kayak the Kalahari!

Kayak Kalahari Ngami (28 small)

A GPS reconnaissance trip from Maun to the area found us a put-in place. Somewhere before Toteng we turned off on a dirt road, then turned off that into the veld. We got to the riverbank and found where we could launch. No easy task finding it, as this Kalahari “desert” was knee-deep and chest-deep in green grass after the good rains. The magical Green Kalahari!

We returned the next day with four yellow plastic expedition kayaks, hats and lunch. On the way, a bird party was enjoying their lunch early. Breakfast really.

– on the way – bee-eaters, starlings, storks and wahlbergs eagles all after tasty emerging “flying ants” –

Following our tracks in the long grass, we got to the put-in and set off on the beautiful river, flowing nicely between overhanging trees. It was my idea of Paradise! Green green everywhere, with plants, flowers, grasses and birds all putting on a spectacular show.

Kayak Kalahari Ngami (17 small)

Almost everything was green – even the insects.

Kayak Kalahari Ngami (24 small)
Kayak Kalahari Ngami (10 small)

Five Giant Eagle Owls weren’t green. They peered down at us blinking their pink eyelids from one thorn tree – that was a special sighting! Fledged youngsters and parents probably?

Also special was a big green snake, I guessed over 2m long that came towards me on the bank as I drifted towards it. (At this point I skat we should remember that snake sizes never shrink in the telling). I was amazed it kept coming. Usually snakes will depart in haste when spying a human. I was no longer paddling but my momentum was still coasting me towards the bank. Even when my kayak’s prow beached, the snake still kept coming straight towards me up to about a metre away. Then it did a strange thing: it grabbed a small green shrub – just 10cm high – in its mouth and only then did it beat a hasty retreat.

Was it a Kalahari Vegetarian Viper? A Nhabe Spinach Nibbler? I was thinking ‘What On Earth?’ till I heard a loud hiss and saw the big flap-necked chameleon he had caught (together with some leaves) in his mouth. Focused on the slang, I had missed seeing a chameleon in that tiny green shrub! Looking up in my snake book afterwards, I’d guess he was an Angolan Green Snake (harmless, may exceed 1.2m in length, snacks on chameleons – Thanks Johan Marais and ASI).

Another memorable sight was rounding a bend and seeing four cows drinking: One all-black, one all-brown, one all-white and one all-tan. All uniform, none with a splash of a different colour on their coats. They looked so striking against the lush new green backdrop that we remembered the camera too late – we had drifted past in the current and by the time we paddled back against the current three of them had dispersed. Here’s the white one:

Lunchtime we sat in light semi-shade on the bank, using our kayaks as seats. I remember hardboiled eggs and very tasty sarmies, thanks Janet!

Kayak Kalahari Ngami (20 small)

The girls then turned back as the paddling would be much slower against the current while Duncan and I headed on, determined to get into Lake Ngami.

And we did. How spectacular! The trees fell back and the sky opened up and huge reed beds stretched in every direction. Fish eagles cried, ducks scattered before us and herons and cormorants and waders were all over the place. At first we were still in a channel, but after another kilometre or so we could branch into other channels and lagoons out of the main current. We felt like David Livingstone in 1849. Sort of. Just better. Even though we had fewer bearers and porters and guides n so on. And also no camera …

Way too soon we had to turn back to get back upstream to the girls and the vehicles. Big difference paddling against the current.

ngami-cattle-guy_upfold
Guy Upfold got a shot of cattle wading in Lake Ngami as it was filling up after rains.
I use this to show what it looked like when we got out of the river into the lake.
He’s a bird photographer, so he called the shot ‘waders’ – I like that!

This is a trip crying out for a multi-day one-way slo-ow expedition with an overnight on the bank. Seconds – those precious people in any kayaker’s life – could collect you at a take-out point on the lakeshore. To do it though, you have to be free to leave at short notice on those rare occasions when the river is up. Or else you’ll be reviving the old Kalahari Canoe Club – with plumes of dust!

Kayak Kalahari Ngami (54 small)
– aitch NOT on a cellphone – it just looks like that – on the return trip –

Roll on, retirement!

~~oo0oo~~

Here’s a lovely trip on the Nata river, north and east of where we paddled.

Low Flying in Malawi

We flew in on our first trip to Malawi in 1990. Just me and Aitch. At Lilongwe airport we hired a car from the brochures on the desk, not from the kiosks in the airport. Well, the man on the phone said they didn’t have any presence at the airport to save money, but they were nearby, they’d be there in a jiffy. And they were cheap. I like that.

The airport emptied till it was just us, so we took our bags to the entrance and sat in the shade waiting. There was no-one there but a bored youth sitting in a dark blue Honda with sagging suspension, but we were chilled and the airport garden needed birding. Eventually I went back to the desk to phone the man. He was amazed: “My driver should have been there long ago!”

‘Twas him. ‘Twas our car: The dark blue Honda with sagging suspension. “No, no,” we laughed, “There must be a better car than this!” – thinking of the rough roads we’d be traversing. “Come back to the office and you can choose another car,” said the friendly man. So we did. The office was his house, and we inspected his fleet. Well, bless him, of course it was his best car, he’s good people; so off we headed to Kasungu National Park in a dark blue Honda Civic with Formula 1 ground clearance. We were on safari, and this was our jeep.

In the park we drove with one wheel on the middle bump and one on the left edge of the road. On the open road we drove slowly and avoided anything above deck.

While I was unpacking to occupy our bungalow I froze: a serval! Wonderful! We always love seeing the smaller wildlife. I tried to signal to Aitch as the long-legged cat walked out of the long grass into the clearing. I didn’t want to scare it, so I whistled low and urgent. Aitch came out, and we watched as it came closer and closer.

And closer. And closer till it rubbed itself against my leg! It was the camp pet, it had been raised by the rangers.

We headed further north – to Vwaza Marsh, and then up high to Nyika Plateau, 10 000ft above sea level; then south again to Nkhata Bay, beautiful Lake Malawi and warmer weather. The car went like a dream at twenty km/h and even sometimes at thirty km/h.

– smooth highway! –

South of Nkhata Bay we suddenly came on a stretch of smooth road! I crept the needle up to forty km/h. Then fifty and eventually sixty! Wheee! “Careful, Koos,” admonished my Aitch, clinging white-knuckled to the dashboard (kidding! sort of). Then we came up to the big yellow grader that had smoothed our path. It moved aside and we went past with a wave to the friendly driver. The road condition was now back to interesting, so I slowed down to forty. “Slow down, Koos,” admonished my Aitch. We’d been doing thirty, so this still felt fast to her and I knew she was right, but I had tasted speed . .

WHUMP! We hit a brick and I knew immediately Fuckit Mrs Tuckit that we’d be getting to know this remote stretch of Malawi. I parked on a low level bridge and leaned out to peer under the car: Oil pouring out of the sump. Do you have any soap? I asked Aitch. Here, she said shoving a bottle of liquid soap into my hand. Um, no, a bar of soap. Ever resourceful, she whipped out a fat green stick of Tabard mozzi repellent. Perfect, I said and shoved it in the hole. It went into the sump without touching sides! OK, we were going to be here for a while . .

– uh oh –
– now the Black-winged Red Bishop – Euplectes hordeaceus – thanks wikipedia –

To break the tension I took my binocs and went for a walk and straight away things got better. “Come look!” I called Aitch “A lifer!” A Fire-Crowned Bishop flitted around in the reeds of the stream we were parked above. ‘Um,’ she said, ‘Don’t tell me that’s why you stopped here?’ Grinning, she made us a snack on the bootlid and we waited. Before too long someone came by. On foot. Two schoolboys who said, Not to worry, we know a mechanic in a nearby village. He will fix it. Great! I said, Would you ask him to help us, please? thinking, Actually guys, there’s no sign of a ‘nearby village.’

An hour later, a car zoomed by without stopping. Unusual for Malawi. Another hour later and a Land Rover stopped, the driver got out and shook his head sadly. He couldn’t help us, he said, as he was in a government vehicle. As he drove off we saw his female passenger appearing to give him a thousand words. He stopped and walked back with a 5l oil can in his hand. “I can’t sell you this oil because it’s guvmint oil, but I am going to give you this oil,” he said. Great, we accepted it with alacrity. It was half full. It was a start.

Another hour or so and three figures approached us on foot, one with a greasy green overall and a red metal toolbox on his shoulder. It was our mechanic and our schoolboys. They had come through!

– my mechanic watches as I tap tap – check tool detail on left –

Soon he had the sump cover off and I started tapping the hole closed using a shifty and a spanner. As I tapped I asked if anyone – perchance – had a bar of soap. Nope. No-one. Holding up the cover to the sun I tapped that malleable metal until not even a glint of sun shone through. I had closed the hole. As we started to replace it, I muttered “I’d give twenty kwacha for some soap,” whereupon one of the guys whipped out a sliver of red Lifebuoy soap from his pocket.

– our rescuers –

Boy! Did the others turn on him! “How can you be so unkind to our guests?” was the accusation and they refused to let me pay him more than four kwacha for his soap, despite my assuring them that it was worth twenty to me. As we prepared to depart after pouring in the guvmint oil, we gave them each a cold can from our hebcooler, paid the mechanic his modest dues (he didn’t charge traveling costs) and gave the schoolboys and the mechanic each a cap. I had two spare caps and Aitch had one. A pink one.

1500km later we handed the car back and I told the man at the airport: “Please check the sump. Its leaking oil.” It wasn’t, but I wanted him to check it.

~~oo0oo~~

More pictures of our journey from Aitch’s album:

– road near Rumphi –
– up on Nyika plateau – 8000ft above sea level –
– Nyika Plateau very special rolling grasslands –
– sure, sometimes we did save money – I like that! –
– and sometimes we splashed out –

~~~oo0oo~~~

The whole album, as I have now discarded the hard copy:

~~oo0oo~~

Wafting – High Over Sossusvlei

Namibia Balloon (4)
Whattacar!!

Up in a hot air balloon with Aitch high over Sossusvlei in the Namib desert. Up in the pre-dawn, we go and fetch the sun from where he’s snuggling, reluctant to get out of bed. Beautiful to see a sunrise while the ground below you is still in darkness. Later the sun actually rises for the earthlings below us and the trees start throwing lo-ong shadows. A 10m tree has a 200m shadow on the sand. We rise high, then sink down till we’re zooming at treetop level, then soar up again till the trees are little specks and only a dust trail shows where the ground crew is chasing after us, estimating where we’ll land. The intermittent roar of the gas flame is harsh, making the silence between bursts even more special and serene.

Namibia Balloon (2)

We land and our swashbuckling pirate-pilot smacks the head off a champagne bottle with his sabre. Bubbly and breakfast in the cool early morning standing around a table decked with a pretty tablecloth.

Desert Theatre!

~~~oo0oo~~~

Good Advice in Kenya

Aitch and I went to Mombasa in 1998 and checked in at a hotel on Diani beach. The next day I got a lift into town and walked the crowded streets of Mombasa looking for a cheap hired car. Mombasa is quite a place:

Mombasa downtown

I did my sums. I’m meticulous. Not.

Kenya car hire quotes
– car hire – lots of choice –

While I was on safari hunting hired cars, Aitch chilled on the uncrowded beach and pooldeck, no doubt quaffing ginless gin&tonics. She used to do that, you know! Tonic & bitters. Ginless! I know! You’re right; Search me; Where’s the medicinal value? The personality enhancing factor, PEF? Still, she loved it.

Diani Beach Hotel

After careful stalking, keeping downwind of my prey and pinpoint aiming, my lone hunting expedition was successful; I found a lil Suzuki jeep. Marvelous. I could turn round from the drivers seat and touch the back window! Almost. I knew they were good cos my chairman Allister told me, and he knows things, him being a Suzuki driver himself. Also JonDinDin once drowned his in the Tugela estuary, pulled it out and it still worked. We had wheels!

scan0001

Good Birding Advice: Back at the hotel I went for a walk, leather hat on my head, binoculars round my neck. An old man came cranking along slowly on a bicycle, swung his right leg high up over the saddle and dismounted next to me.

‘Ah!’ he said,‘I can see you are English.’ I didn’t contradict him. ‘You are looking for buds,’ he said, also in a way that made me not argue. ‘There are no buds here,’ he said emphatically. ‘If you want to see buds you must go to the west, to the Impenetrable Forest. There are many buds there.’ After I thanked him for this sage advice he put his left foot on the pedal, gave a push and, swinging his right leg high over the saddle, wobbled off. After a few yards he had a thought, slowed, swung off in the same elaborate dismount and came back to me: ‘But in this hotel over here you can see some peacocks in the garden,’ he informed me re-assuringly.

‘Ah, thank you sir. Thanks very much,’ I said, wishing him well and thinking of Kenya’s 1100 species of birds – eleven percent of the world’s total. The USA has about 900, and the UK about 600. He was a character a bit like this:

Kenya man on bicycle
– by Michael Allard it says – More about him –

Good Traveling Advice: We also got pessimistic advice on the roads. We were on our way to Tsavo National Park the next day and we wanted to avoid the main road to Nairobi. We’d heard it was crowded with trucks and buses and we’d rather avoid that, if at all possible. On our Globetrotter map I found a little road south-west of the main road – an alternative route via Kwale, Kinango and Samburu.

‘No you can’t; No, not at all; There’s no way,’ says everyone. Even the barman! Even after I said, And Have One Yourself! he still said no. ‘The bridge has been washed away by cyclone Demoina,’ they all said. This was a bit weird, as Demoina had been in 1984, fourteen years earlier, and had mostly hit Madagascar, then Mocambique, then KwaZuluNatal, well south of Kenya.

Usually I can eventually find ONE person to say ‘Don’t listen to them, the road is FINE,’ but this time I was stymied. No-one would say ‘Yes!’  nor even ‘Maybe.’

SO: We headed off along the road toward Kwale anyway. ‘Tis easier to seek forgiveness than permission, we thought. Aitch, what a trooper, was right behind me in adventurousness and right beside me in Suzukiness. ‘We’ll see new places,’ was all she said. She knows me.

As we neared Kwale a minibus taxi approaching from the other direction did a strange thing: They actually flagged us down to tell us ‘Stop! You can’t go this way! The bridge is gone, Demoina washed it away!’ We nodded, acted surprised, looked grateful, agreed, and thanked them kindly; then we kept going.

And they were right: The bridge over the river between Kwale and Kinango had indeed washed away. But there were recent tyre tracks down to the river which we followed. Below and just upstream of the iron wreckage of the bridge we stuck the Suzuki in 4X4 and crossed  the low river. Then we stopped for a break, parking our mini-4X4 under a beautiful shady tree on the river bank:

–  –

And we were right: Besides being devoid of traffic, the road surface was mostly good, sometimes great:

But the road was fine after all. In a Suzuki, that is . . .
But the road was fine – in a Suzuki
Friendly Kenyans
In places like a smooth highway - only better
– smooth highway –

Then the honeymoon ended: We ran out of detour and got back onto the main, ‘tarred’ Mombasa-Nairobi road at Samburu: Aargh! It was a tar road in that  every so often a big lonely blob of tar would threaten to cause damage. Huge holes between blobs had the traffic all weaving from side to side, so trucks seem to be coming straight at you, but it’s actually quite safe, despite Aitch occasionally putting her feet up against the windscreen and yelling at me that there was an oncoming truck. Like I couldn’t see it. We were like Richard and Hyacinth from Keeping Up Appearances on the BBC.

Its rather like slow-motion ballet. Most cars and all trucks went slowly, the only vehicles ‘speeding’ – probably up to 60km/h – were big passenger buses with their much better – softer, longer travel – suspension.

Mombasa - Nairobi Highway - THIS is why we sought the Road Less Travelled!

Years later, we find the place where the bridge had washed away on online maps. Here’s the new bridge and new road on the right, with the old road just left of it, and just left of that, the drift we crossed (just left of the yellow arrow) and that beautiful tree in the top picture (red arrow) that we rested under. All the long red mud scar is new road- wasn’t there back then. The old road shows as a thinner, lighter line.

– thanks Tracks4Africa –

Then we got to Tsavo! I’d wanted to visit Tsavo since I was ten years old, and read books by Bernhard Grzimek. Armand Denis and others! Well, here I was, thirty years later! Yavuyavu! Fahari!

~~oo0oo~~

Yavuyavu! Fahari! – Joy, happiness, yes! I’m here!

Michael J Allard, the witty, talented painter of the wonderful old man on his bicycle,  lived in Zim on a farm, and in Ireland. He died in 2021.

– a book of his delightful paintings –

My Life as a Cowboy

We sweated in the dust, mopping our brows with dirty red bandanas. The bull calves didn’t like what we were doing, but we had to do it. We wrestled them to the ground, us wranglers, hog-tying their feet before de-horning them and branding them in a cloud of smoke. Burnt flesh smells filled the air. Then it was out with a sharp, clean knife and off with their nuts, deftly. Yep, we castrated ’em. The royal ‘we’ mind you, they wouldn’t let a rank amateur like me do that. Lastly we injected them, and then we untied ’em.

They didn’t like it. They stood shakily, wondering what the HELL had happened (now, if you tell anyone I wrote about a bull calf’s feelings I’ll deny it. Us cowboys don’t do emotion, but I’m setting it down for the record, see). Earlier that day they had been romping in the pastures without a care in the world, and now WHAM! No horns, no nuts, and pain in three places!

That evening we gathered in the barn out near the Hrbacek’s place (near Boone, I think, west or SW of town) for a mountain oyster fry. Copious amounts of beer washed down the delicious deep-fried and battered ‘oystures’, round, oval and all sizes from marble-sized to about a No. 8 pool ball size. Those last calves had obviously been born early – well before the roundup.

A mountain oysture fry
– another ‘mountain oysture’ fry –

At least we were discreet. In Texas the sign where a church was holding a mountain oyster fry shouted: “COME HAVE A BALL WITH JESUS” !

~~~oo0oo~~~

Another cowboy day out on the range was horseback riding with Jim Patterson and his Dad Buck Patterson. Everybody had to call him Buck, nothing but Buck. A bit like my gran in Harrismith was Annie, nothing else. But I called him Granpa Buck and he allowed me to!

I wrote home that I was kitted out with horse, hat, boots, cattle and dust; we rounded up the cattle, corralled them, separated Jim’s from Buck’s, then the calves from their mamas. They’d been on the wheat fields, so they had the runs and I got cow poo everywhere, even in my hair. Got home half an hour before I had to present a talk. Made it!

~~~oo0oo~~~

Hluhluwe LUXURY Camping!

Its a sudden decision: Let’s go to a game reserve Dad! – that’s Jess on Friday night.
OK! (I’m chuffed!). I’m working tomorrow, so you guys buy food and gather the camping stuff. Be ready when I get home at 2:30pm and we’ll go to Mkhuze. Remember the tent, mattresses, pillows, your swimming cozzies.

Cecelia helps them. Minenhle & Andile join us. As we head north to Zululand I realise we’ll be cutting it fine. The gates close at 7pm and it’s 3:30pm already, so there’s a change of plan: We’ll go to Hluhluwe/Mfolosi instead. Means no camping and no swimming.

At the gate the usual story: A pessimistic Ooh, you haven’t booked? Mpila is full. The bushcamps are full.

Keep trying, I say cheerfully. Oh! OK, I’ll try Hilltop camp. Just then the kids walk into the office and he gets interested in me and the kids, asking all sorts of adoption questions and Where’s my wife? and Is she a Zulu lady? and so tries harder when there’s no reply on the radio. Will you phone them on your cellphone? he asks me. Sure. We get thru, there’s a chalet available, we book and head off on what turns into a free night drive!

Tom spots an elephant running towards the road ahead of us, ears flapping. I slow down and it turns onto the tar road and walks determinedly towards us, causing great panic on the back seat. We reverse and wait, reverse and wait, giving him plenty of space, till he eventually finds a mud wallow, drinks and heads off into the bush, allowing us to proceed. It’s dark now and later on two more eles loiter on the road and we just wait patiently, watching them in our headlights. All the kids have watched the videos of the elephant flipping the car, so they’re nervous and don’t want to go anywhere near eles. A look at the video will show how many warnings the people in the car ignored.

– stupid human video –

At Hilltop they’re waiting for us, they give us our key and bring us an extra set of bedding and towels for the fifth body. Bleeding luxury for us were-going-to-be campers.

Hlu Feb'14 (52)
– girls in their element – NOT camping –

AND the big breakfast buffet in the restaurant is included.

The dawn chorus the next morning was fantastic. In that magic spell between pre-dawn and the screaming banshees waking up I made a cup of coffee and sat out on the deck listening in the half light. As the kids started waking two trumpeter hornbills landed in full view and the kids got a good look at them through my telescope. I issued a decree banning all post-5000BCE music and they just nodded, acquiescent (!). So birdsong was it.

Hluhluwe Feb '14

Meals? All I had to do was eat.

~~oo0oo~~

For You Guys When I’m Not Around

For You Guys When I’m Not Around

Like, if I was on an island in the Okavango Delta sipping champagne out of cellphone reach and you can’t ask me for advice or money?* Then read this . . .
Love – I love you guys more than you’ll ever know. And I’m very very proud of you and so very very pleased I am lucky enough to have you as my children.
Kind – Be kind. Especially to the poor, meek and timid.
Help – Where you can. Help yourself, be kind to yourself (and hard on yourself as far as getting things done) but also help others wherever you can. It feels good, and it’s rewarding.
Do it for you – When you help people, don’t expect a reward; When you greet people, don’t expect a reply; Do it for you.
Work – When you’re at work, work. Work honestly and deliver. If you’re unhappy, don’t leave. Plan first. When you have your alternative ready, leave on your own terms, without rancour. If no alternative pans out, and where you are is really bad, then leave anyway, and work honestly and deliver on the next job. When you’re unemployed, you still have a job: Finding your next job. Work hard at finding it: Plan, prepare, talk to people, work at it.
Religion – Look into all religions. Understand their origins and the holes they were meant to fill. Know that we know far more now than they did then (even as recently as the 1950’s when L Ron Hubbard started his religion (called Scientology – hidden behind the recruiting front called Dianetics); Hell, we even know more now than in 2005 when Bobby Henderson started one of the kinder, more rational religions, The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Learn about how many Gods there are (hundreds) and what each one of their followers believe. Take the time to really understand religion. And when you have carefully worked out why people dismiss all gods other than their own, you will start to see how ALL gods have actually been created by humans. In their own likeness. To fill a need.
If learning about the world and how it works doesn’t satisfy your need for “why are we here”, and you feel you need to be a something, then become a Humanist. Read here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism – and when you have time to read slowly and read over & over, read here: http://infidels.org/library/modern/fred_edwords/humanism.html – its just 8 pages, well worth reading and re-reading.
Even better, DO something: Become a scout leader, a coach or a dance teacher.
Teach – Be a teacher. Even if you don’t become a teacher, still be a teacher in your life. Right near you there are children who need guidance and support and fun. If you have a car and they don’t, just take them to the beach once a month. Or take them fishing with you. Teach them how to attach a hook and cast. Teach them how to use a computer. Or to play a game. COMMIT to once a month.
Laugh – Laugh lots. Laugh with people, not at people.
Be scientific – Require evidence. When someone asks you to trust them, ask them to do you the courtesy of giving you proof, evidence, a link – or at least their statement in writing, signed by them (a lot of strong adamant statements evaporate – or at least dilute – when asked for in writing). “Trust me” is used by too many dishonest people to trust it. Look for evidence. And always get a receipt (remember my mantra “slip and change”!?)

Love again – Love people. Love them. Be gentle with them. Sure they can irritate you and frustrate you, but they’re great, all in all.
Mom – Mom loved you fiercely. She loved you with her whole heart – and was awfully proud of you. Same as me.

Well, we weren't married yet . . . .

.
Oscar Wilde said: Advice is great stuff – in the giving . . . .

*or if I have shuffled on . . .

DamnDamnDamn

Tom’s headmaster committed suicide. At the school. He was found by a caretaker. It has rattled my two profoundly.

Aitch had befriended Eugene when his wife was also suffering from cancer, and then more so when she died, about two years before Aitch died. They were in a home bible study class with the Methodist dominee Ian Howarth.

Tom & Jess both asked me “What would happen if you died, Dad?” and Jess asked me “Dad, would you ever commit suicide?”

Shit! shitshitshit!

I have told them how much I love them and all about what I have arranged for the house and live-in care and so on, and also re-assured them no way I would do myself in. We had some good chats.

What a bliksem. Eugene was a more mature man than many of the teachers at Tom’s school, and a steadying hand. I fear Tom will catch more flak at school for a while.

‘My’ Oklahoman Tornado

In Apache Oklahoma in 1973 I lived with the charismatic funeral home owner, fire chief, ambulance driver, hearse driver and tornado alert man, Robert L Crews III. In the funeral home. While I was there we sounded the siren for tornadoes twice and watched them approach. Once we even went down into the basement as it came so close. But both times it went back up into the clouds – didn’t touch ground. The clouds that day:

ApacheOK73 (7).JPG

In May we heard of the Union City disaster. We drove there to look-see. The image that stuck the most in my mind was the main street with many buildings completely gone. One shop had some shelves still standing – with product on the shelves – but the roof and walls were gone.

I found this recently:
Union City Tornado Makes History
NSSL revisits its past as it celebrates 40 years with NOAA – by Rachel Shortt

Tornado Union City 1973   Tornado Union City 1973 Path 17km path

On May 24, 1973, a tornado rated F4 struck the Union City area and was the first tornado widely documented by science as part of storm chasing field research. NSSL out of Norman, Oklahoma placed numerous storm chasers around it to capture the life cycle on film. As the devastating tornado tore through the small town of Union City, no one knew the tremendous impact it would have on the development of weather radar. Researchers from the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory now look back on that day as a significant event in the history of severe weather research and forecasting.

And I was (sorta) there!

For a human interest story, see the New York Times article written on the 20th anniversary (1993):
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/27/us/tornado-veterans-wait-for-next-one.html

A Day Off (for a married man)

A long Day Off stretched ahead of me. My schedule looked like this:

.

.

.

.

Bliss!

“Oh, I booked you for an assessment at the gym at 6am” says my Aitch.

GYM? My shadow never darkens the door of any gym! She knows that! “Calm down, it’s with Tanya the biokineticist and it’s for Vitality points,” Aitch instructs me patiently. “And I told you about it,” she reminds me.

Hmph! That rattled me. But, Oh well, thank goodness it’s early, the rest of the day will be just me and chilling.

Aitch is taking Tom the younger to school and doing his class reading, so I suggest we meet for breakfast before her chemo, making my second appointment for the day. My day off is filling up.

At the gym Tanya worked my case with pushups and crunchies and other forms of torture – which seem like nothing compared to when she starts measuring me.

“It’s OK, just put 75kg” I said for weight.
“No I must measure” she says, hauling out the scale from under the torture bed. It was unfair, as she didn’t have one of these scales, where you can read your own weight . .

She had one of those where you can’t see them way down under the folds . . so I had to take her word for my weight and her word was “92,8kg” – said ominously. Oh.

“99cm” I say as she approaches me with a tape measure (knowing that over 100 classifies one as obese in this freaky anal gym-world environment.).

“106” she deadpans. I clearly hear the implied “Jy’s obese, ou bees.“

But she’s very sweet in the end, telling me I’m absolutely perfect and supremely healthy if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m fat and unfit. I squeak into the bottomest of the “acceptable” rating. Up from “fair” six months ago (which is the last time I did any bending or pushing). Aitch will get her bonus Vitality points. Phew!
Tanya gives me a list of stuff I must eat (crunchy and fruity) and stuff I must avoid (succulent and tasty).

I get home and Jess the older is waiting to be taken to school.

At breakfast with Aitch at Oscar’s on the Berea, I get prrring prrring (actually I got Reelin’ and Rockin’ as Jessie has changed my ringtone).
“Why aren’t you at the clinic?”
A mad scramble for St Mary’s hospital at Marianhill ensues, gotta stop at home to pull on some long pants – How was I to know? I’m on leave! (OK, if I’d read my sms earlier . . . ). As I shovel a last mouthful of Oscar’s kipper into my beak, Aitch shoves a list into my hand.

So now my day looks like this:

6.00am Torture and Humiliation

7.10am Jess to school

8.00am Breakfast with Aitch

8.30am Eye Clinic volunteer duty
(arrived 9.20am – could get fired – yeah, right!)

1.30pm Fetch Jess from school

2.30pm Fetch Tom from soccer

3.30pm Take Jessie to swimming

4.30pm Fetch Jess from swimming

5.00pm Take Tom to cub scouts

7pm Fetch Tom from cubs

Jessie asked nicely to skip swimming. I said FINE. Tommy immediately said “Great, so I’m skipping cubs.” No way. It was the AGM and all the cubs were in full uniform. My fella had all his kit on and looked really spiff. So much so that his bare feet almost didn’t seem to matter. Except to Akela.

CubScout Wandsbeck (5)
– my man –

Bliksem! Tomorrow I’m going to have a day of rest. By going to work. This ‘Being Like a Mom’ lark is exhausting.

~~oo0oo~~

Bloody Banksters

Five years ago I went to Standard bank and opened savings accounts for the kids. I dropped in a lump sum and forgot about it as (at 7 and 11) they weren’t very interested (Dad was an ATM, after all!). But they knew about it and have been agitating lately for ACCESS, Dad! Let us get our hands on the loot!

OK, I’ll look into it, I say – but I have forgotten the PIN numbers so I stall and procrastinate. Then I got a letter saying now that Jess has turned 16 she is no longer eligible for this “SPECIAL kids savings account” and would I open a new account please.

So today I did that thing I dread and avoid: Went to visit the bloody banksters.

And guess what interest I learn they have earned these last five years and three months? Zero. Fokkol. Nothing. 0%.

“Oh, no, this is a Sum1 account, it doesn’t earn interest” they blithely tell me! I was farking furious. What KIND of ‘kids savings account’ is a zero interest account?!

I have asked for (OK, demanded) FULL INTEREST for the full term. Let’s see where this goes . . .

.

edit: Nowhere. Bloody thieves.

Redfoot, the 1979 Land Rover

Aitch knew an old doctor with a fading practice in PMB who “did up” Land Rovers on the side. That got me thinking . . .

To my amazement my partners Lello, Yoell & Stoute were NOT HUGELY ENTHUSIASTIC as I twisted their arms to go in as equal shareholders! Even when I told them that, besides the good doctor, it had only one previous owner.

But eventually they saw the light and agreed, good partners that they are, and we became the proud consortium owners of a handpainted, 1979, hole-in-the-floor, manual, 4X4, long wheelbase, get-out-and-manually-lock-the-diff, Series III station wagon, 5-door, Land Rover. White. Like whitewash white, which turned out to be appropriate.*

It was fitted with a new-eish Ford Essex V6 three litre engine on new birdshit-welded mountings and painted white with an old brush. The wheel rims were painted red with the same brush, from which its name Redfoot. Did I mention handpainted with an old brush? A matt white, so no glare. You could drive it without sunglasses as long as you weren’t driving east in the morning or west in the arvie.

Well, we ended up putting two more engines into ole Redfoot, and it went up Sani once.

It also went to Ladysmith once on the tar N3 carriageway; Used by Prem as 8-seater passenger transport wagon; Yoell used it once and never again; Soutar used it once or twice and pronounced it ‘very good’ – he owned an even older white Landie; We took the dogs to the beach in it. Some of these people were complainers who insisted on mentioning the big hole in the floor, seeing the road rushing beneath, and the loud roar. Fussy lot. I don’t think Lello and Stoute got any benefit, but they did share in the loss.

Once I grew weary of replacing engines, and worked out my consumption in miles-per-engine, I advertised it for sale and there was a huge and busy and clamorous non-rush. Then friend Andre vd Merwe from PE thought he’d buy it as he knows a bargain when he sees OK, hears about one, but unfortunately he brought his level-headed and intelligent wife Sue along to the test drive. Sue realised something wasn’t all that new Bentley-like – I don’t know HOW – and ordered the man to turn around NOW after only a few km’s and stated in no uncertain terms that he would buy it “Over Her Deceased Corpse!” Unfortunately Andre, not being an automotive engineer, didn’t have all Redfoot’s great advantages and features at the tip of his tongue, so he meekly made like a husband and my celebrations were rudely interrupted when they drove back down my River Drive driveway where I had just gleefully waved them goodbye not half an hour earlier.

Once a Canadian optometrist used Redfoot to get to a clinic where he did a volunteer stint in the Valley of 1000 Hills in KwaZulu Natal. He brought it back smoking. Being Canadian he didn’t really get the ‘stick shift’ thing, nor the ‘clutch’ thing. That was one of the new engines. Louis du Plessis the Kingfisher Canoe Club mechanic said, “He pushed the connecting rod and the big end right through the block.” I nodded gravely as though I knew wherof he spoke.

Spent a total of R25 000 on it in all and sold it for R5 000 hot cash – with relief! To another Sue’s boyfriend – not husband, see? – who was running contraband to lodges in Mocambique from a boat and needed a 4X4 to . . I didn’t ask. He didn’t come back. I didn’t ask.

Not a runaway success story was Redfoot, but I think my partners exaggerate when they say I promised them an ‘investment opportunity’!

~~oo0oo~~

*The whitewash: Turns out the ‘one previous owner’ was the KwaZulu bantustan homeland Police Force!

~~oo0oo~~

Perceptions & Fears? – Knowledge Helps

While we’re packing for a camping trip to Mkhuze the vervet monkeys sneak into the kitchen and grab the fresh peanuts. The peanuts grown by Thulisiwe just north of Jozini on the Makathini Flats, which she then roasts over an open fire and salts herself. Tobias brings us some whenever he goes home.

Tom spots them on the roof, spilling the nuts as they chomp them, the spilt ones rolling down the tiles into the gutter. Hey! he shouts and remonstrates and fulminates! Tom and the monkeys don’t have a good relationship despite all my lectures (um, whaddaya mean because of?).

After a while I tell him, Relax m’boy, its OK for the monkeys to have the nuts. We left them in the open, their job is to glean and gather, so that’s that.
But he doesn’t like it, and he doesn’t like them. I think it’s because he’s a bit scared of them, so I ask him:

TomTom, how big do you think the monkeys are, fella? How much do they weigh?
About 90kg, he guesses.
Guess again. First, how much do you weigh?
45kg
And the monkeys?
15kg?

Guess lower.
5kg?
Try 4kg

Oh.

10 Elston vervet (1)

Over the Edge

I ask Tom not to wee over the edge of the patio, but rather to go into the garden, find a shrub and wee discreetly behind it. More than once I ask him. Yes Dad, he says, shaking off the last drops.
Early one morning as the sun rises I watch the feathered parade in the old dead avocado tree. I’m going to miss that tree when it finally platzes. Already I’ve sawn off the big branch overhanging the driveway as it was full of bracket fungus and ready to dent someone’s car. I have planted a Natal Mahogany underneath to succeed it one day.
The white-eared barbets fluff themselves up in the early rays and two black-collared barbets land and go through a spirited two-puddly (or “Scottburgh”) duet. A group of purple-crested touracos bound across the branches, an olive thrush peeps and lands, as does a female violet-backed starling, a brownhooded kingfisher, a forktailed drongo and a speckled mousebird, all using the tall bare branches as a waypost or a sunning spot.
I’m busting for a leak but I don’t want to miss anything. I don’t want to go inside and I don’t want to disturb the birds by going off the patio, so I discreetly have a leak over the edge of the patio outside Tom’s bedroom window. It’s early. I’m sure he’s still sleeping.
But he spots me and I know I’ve blown my credibility.
I feel I need to explain, so at breakfast I tell him about the wonderful dawn display and not wanting to disturb the birds. He nods.
Not too long after that morning there’s Tom, weeing over the edge of the patio in full view. I bite my tongue. I know what’s coming.
Dad, he says mock-solemnly, I didn’t want to disturb the birds.

20140504_092944 Elston Place Deck Tom