Tag Archives: louis lodder

Clothing the Homeless

A big black ‘garbage’ bag on my driveway. That’s strange, methought. I opened it up. Very nice clothes. Not new, but very good condition. Khaki safari shorts, Jeep branded shorts, lekker shirts, great T-shirts. Hmm.

Maybe they were taken off a clothesline and then, if the taker was feeling guilty and someone was approaching, he threw them over my gate so as to be empty-handed? I conjectured.
I was on whatasap back then so I broadcast to the neighbourhood group – Found some clothes. Anyone lost any clothes lately? No reply. I asked again. One guy asked, What kind of clothes? I gave a neutral ‘male adult shorts n shirts’ answer. I wasn’t going to say Perfect safari shorts! Great T-shirts! Nah! Anyway, they weren’t his. Hmm.

I told my friends of the mystery. Oh we forgot to tell you! Those are for you. You need to wear some different, and better clothes for a change. So Louis Galop gooi’d those over your gate when he was out on a run, galop’ing in the ‘hood, as he does.

Mystery solved. I was now a well-dressed soon-to-be-homeless gentleman. Really lekker clothes, my new favourites!

Turns out their preacherman from America thought the 2021 insurrection and looting was a good reason to return home, maybe a sign from on high, and had left in a hurry. In God We Trust, but hey, discretion . .

My good Samaritan friends tidied up for him, and I benefited from that strategic retreat! I got, like, a makeover.
Two years later, they’re still my best clothes.

~~oo0oo~~

I do miss my old fashionably ripped shorts, must say. I think they’da been worth a lot now. I know I pay extra for pre-ripped jeans for the kids.

Galop – gallop; jog; run

In the Winterskloof

What a place!

Southern Double-collared Sunbird, and we think the butterfly may be a Tintinkie Blue.

A ticking in the birdbath led to Louis finding this fella – we think a Kloof frog from his ticking call. (Petrea/Louis, do you still have a recording?).

Here’s the birdlist: (coming soon)

Also: The Winterskloof is a very hospitable place; and good prices. I get a warm meal, a second helping, much grog and a crackling fire in the kaggel, followed by a comfy bed for the very attractive price of four-call Ront.

As a bonus you can lie in bed in the wee hours listening to the rare sound of a small mammal having what sounds like wild sex and a huge orgasm up a tree.

~~oo0oo~~

Farewell Again

Hard work saying goodbye. I had to sweep the stoep again. Petrea and Louis had the small matter of bringing their Weber braai (my two non-Weber braais have gone off to Tom and Jess – I am braailess before I’m homeless), lots of steak, freshly home-made sourdough bread, peri-peri chicken liver in a large cast-iron pot, crockery and cutlery, bread board and knife, steak board and knife, ice, a large beaker of lime unt soda with fresh mint leaves from their garden and deck chairs; And Louis brought his hat; Jules brought delicious snacks; Sheila brought six bottles of white and three of champagne; Charles and Barbara brought beer and snacks and their delightful selves;

I had to do the rest.

Jolly good fun. Perhaps ‘the Master’ in ‘Maritzburg’ will let us have another of these gatherings. After all, it has only been 120 days, waiting for ‘the paperwork’ since I sold my home.

~~oo0oo~~

Project Management

So the garage door was falling to pieces. Made of strips of aluminium riveted to a frame the rivets had mostly popped and it was flapping in any breezes that wafted.

Something had to be done.

So I waited a few months. And a few storms, for enhanced flapping.

Then I bleated to a project manager who sprang into action, roared off to a hardware store, bought some self-tapping screws and gave them to me along with his automatic, hydromatic, self-propelling, variable speed, battery-operated 14.4Volt hand-held Bosch Power Drill. With star bit for screwing screws with star heads.

He obviously hadn’t understood what I wanted.

So I waited.

Then I told Ziggy, ‘When you’re finished tidying the garage let me know. I need to repair the broken door.’ And sowaar, my patience was rewarded: ‘Why don’t you let Mbono do that? He’s very handy with man things,’ she said.

Now usually I would stop my daughters in their tracks with my standard, ‘Hey! Anything a man can do a woman can do too,’ but I listened and I shurrup. ‘OK’ I said and gave him the screws and a Spanish screwdriver (Manuel).

Mbono fixed the door in no time. Like greased lightning, it was hydromatic, automatic. I was going to post before and after pics here – too late.

So to end this lecture on project management: For suitable tasks all you need is to find one tame project manager and one tame matriculant from Northwood Boys. Then expertly source – or delegate the sourcing of – a bit of equipment and it’s actually quite easy.

~~oo0oo~~

sowaar – true’s Bob

Spring Sprung

Spring birding has been great. Some poor but fun pics of what’s been buzzing about.

– Cardinal Woodpecker – only one, but I inserted him three more times using FastStone –
– three birds in one shot! – top Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird, Spectacled Weaver and female Black Cuckooshrike bottom – I added in a clearer pic of the cuckooshrike –
– Yellow-bellied Greenbul – left one is same bird added in (a bit small!) – insert was nearby – there were three of them –

Above: Cape White-eye and African Firefinch – Spectacled Weaver – Olive Thrush

– the Lodders came to visit and Louis casually shot a Grey Waxbill while we were talking – see in the inset how she flashed her scarlet rump lingerie at Louis –

Below: A Pegesimallus robber fly; The tail hanging down from the branch? A vervet monkey; Temnora marginata (a sphinx moth); Ceryx fulvescens (yellow sleeved maiden moth); and – the white moth possibly a citrus looper? Thanks, iNaturalist.org for help with identification.

– birdbath GIFs of a Streaky-headed Seedeater and a Thick-billed Weaver – told you poor pics –

The female Black Cuckooshrike returned and I got a better view. Pics are poor as I took them through my dirty window rather than open up and spook her. One bird, I compiled this montage with FastStone again.

~~~oo0oo~~~

TIMBER!! and a Funeral Pyre

For fifteen years I’ve been warning those Aussies that their time will come.

Well, it came. Don’s Tree Felling moved in (onto my neighbour’s property, conveniently for me) and did away with six big Bauhinia trees, the Australian camelfoot – Bauhinia variegata, I think. Don had dropped the biggest, oldest, leaning-est one a few years before, when the neighbours then, Suboohi and Nasim Choudhry had said Whoa! This thing is threatening us! Or our Mercedes anyway.

My new neighbour Phindi was a star – she allowed Don’s team in and let them get on with the job. I had prepped her a month ago that I wanted to drop all the trees that were looming threateningly over her driveway and a corner of her house, and she was all for it.

Down came the trees to a cacophony of sound. For some reason I hadn’t thought they’d be using chainsaws! HATE chainsaws, so maybe its good I didn’t think of that. Aaargh! How can I complain about noise if I’m making it!? Oh, well, one day only and after this its back to me and my manual bowsaw.

They carted off the flotsam and jetsam, all gathered on Phindi’s driveway, poisoned the stumps, left some trunks as hidey holes for snakes, mongooses and lizards, and peace returned; Followed by a bit of genteel sawing and puffing by yours truly, as I cut down a few left-overs, plus a bougainvillea and a bottlebrush with me bowsaw. Once, a tree gave way suddenly while I was a-pulling and I landed on my back staring at the sky.

– looking up – looking down –

~~~oo0oo~~~

Then the celebration! A double celebration: My first house guests – OK, garden guests – since lockdown; and the birth of a new grassland. ‘Cos that’s what’s going to take the place of that corner of jungle.

To make it special I invited hooligans. I had thought we’d have a wee bonfire, which I prepared, full of the late Brazilian bouganvillea; a modest requiem after the banishment of some Aussies and the rebirth of natural grassland. But Louis bon Phyre had a different level of celebration in mind. And so he got close to the pagan roots of many a Western tradition:

– me –
– Louis Bon Phyre –

Before they arrived I reminded them that I take our current virus very seriously and insist on proper masks. The bottlebrush was allowed a last little requiem moment in one of Aitch’s many vases. This one by potter A Kirk.

– masks compulsory –

I forgot to make supper, but we all had a lot of wine, especially Petrea.

~~~oo0oo~~~

I’m, um, Normal!

Such a pleasure to meet weirdos who prove I’m normal. Friends Petrea and Louis – speaking of weirdos – cracked me an invite to an early morning visit to Bill Oddie’s house in David Maclean Drive to spot some twinspots. To do some twin spotting.

Actually Roger and Linda Hogg’s home – what a beautiful garden! I didn’t take a picture, damn!

Now, looking at birds is normal, of course, as is drinking good coffee. Here are some of Roger’s bird pics. No, I’ll show you the weird part later. His daughters must die of embarrassment. I now can prove to my kids how normal I am.

– Roger Hogg’s garden bird – normal –

Here’s the part that pleased me:

– Roger – how very English –

Here’s the real Bill Oddie, a crazy Pom. I got to know about him when Aitch bought me his ‘Little Black Bird Book’ cos she agreed with his assessment: ‘Bird-watchers are tense, competitive, selfish, shifty, dishonest, distrusting, boorish, pedantic, unsentimental, arrogant and – above all – envious’.

And here’s an embarrassing discovery: I’ve seen lots of twinspots, but I thought this one in Roger’s garden was a first for Westville. When I went to add them to my life list, I saw that I’d twin-spotted twinspots in my own garden! In 1999 at 7 River Drive!

Petrea’s response was sharp, as always: ‘How wonderful to suffer from Sometimers. Every bird is a lifer! And anyway, ‘normal’ is a setting on a dryer.’

– more Green Twinspots –

~~oo0oo~~

British birding – we should realise how lucky we are!

“Only around 150 people can look through the fence and see the bird at one time, so we have been organising a queue system. People can see the bird for ten minutes, then get to the back of the queue and wait their turn again.”  – Aaah! – to be born English is to have won first prize in the lottery of life – Geoffrey Caruth esq quoting that thief and scoundrel Cecil John Rhodes –

~~oo0oo~~

Just a week later the twinspot occurrence turned into an infestation. The Lellos sent pictures of a female in their garden, a kilometer downstream. So now there are twinspots upstream and downstream from me, and I’m on barren bend!

. . and a Party in a Pear Tree

I think my favourite Aitch Art piece hanging on our walls was the Pear Tree ceramic. I broke it.

Smashed! DAMMIT!!

Oh well, we’re going to buy . .

One box of wine

Two packs of beer

Three sticks of glue

Seven . . . . dancing . . . . girls

and hold a –

Party-y in a Pear Tree

And we’ll fix it – yep. Louis is going to be the GluMeister, I’ll keep it lubricated, and Petrea will bring a semblance of order.

Bits n Pieces

~~oo0oo~~

Update: A preliminary Cocktails and Curry evening has been held in which a Mak Martini was drank; also a cream vodka with mint sprig; and a medicinal flu jab consisting of one part gin one part vodka one part vermouth and freshly squoze lemon and orange, garnished with a slice of lemon and topped up with Little Miss Muffet’s whey orange juice from Tropika. Oh yes, and some practice glueing was done by the Glumeister.

Who also made the curry, fresh from New Delhi, the gurugram district. It was delicious, spicy, tasty, filling, warming on a chilly evening. Jess supplied dessert: Baked cheesecake, dark chocolate, double-thick cream; All washed down with strong filter coffee in zebra hide cups.

Update: Eventually I took it to the HIllcrest mushroom farm where a kind lady put humpty together again and charged me way too little for her time.

I Know

When you’re trying with little success to rid your place of stuff and when the stuff fills a double garage and at least one room, with other rooms a bit crowded, you should not accumulate any more stuff, but I can explain.

There was a damsel in distress. I was on my horse. She asked ‘would you?’ What was a gallant knight errant to say? Or to do? There’s only one thing a knight can do in such circumstances:

– hie kom ek! –
– knight in the background knows this is mistaken logic –

Actually quite chuffed with my ill-gotten gains. Check those armrests as drinks platforms. These are practical, serviceable, lekker chairs. Comfy. Thanks Petrea!

– the plastic furniture can go now . . –

I do suppose Louis knew Petrea was divesting them of assets while he was far away in Gurugram . . .

~~~oo0oo~~~

This acquisition is made worse as just the day before I was rolling my eyes at my Dad (96) who in one breath was stating his absolute determination – ‘this time’ – to get rid of stuff; and in the next breath was mulling over buying two new armchairs for the room he wants to add on to his house ‘for her (that’s Mom Mary) to sit in the sun as the room will have big windows.’

Right. Alone in a three bedroom house with Mom now in a home, he thinks what he needs is an extra room and two new chairs.

~~~oo0oo~~~

knight errant – a medieval knight who traveled around sponging and sometimes doing brave or dodgy things and helping people who were in trouble if they were of his class or ‘above’ – Cambridge, improved

knight – a man given a rank of honour by a British king or queen because of his special achievements, usually for said queen’s benefit. Entitled to be called “Sir / Meneer”

medieval – related to the Middle Ages (the period in European history from about 600 CE to 1500 CE)

special achievements – usually helping said king or queen purloin or keep ill-gotten gains

hie’ kom ek – here I come! Stand back!

~~~~

Footnote: Don’ wurry. When the last days of Elston arrived and when stoot came to shove, Louis whipped in and rescued ‘his’ furniture, including Louw’s huge recliner, and some other stuff besides.

stoot – shove

Jessie’s 21st Party

Low-key at home. Jess did it all herself; drew up lists, hired lights, organised a DJ who brought her own equipment; we bought some stuff; we bought booze. Jess invited a few good friends round, and so did I.

Jess 21st party at home

The oldies came early, we had a slide show on Jess from the early days. I was being a bit Nervous Norman, so thank goodness for hooligan friends. First the Lodders added their usual mayhem. Then star Lydia our Gautengaleng student friend stepped forward, deciding things were a bit quiet for a 21st. She took over the bar, mixing cocktails and getting the kids to pour them down their throats. The party was launched!

The adults disappeared except me in the background. Jess and her gang had a lovely evening with their favourite music and lots of chatting. Later, some boys arrived drunk but peaceful and friendly, and joined in. At eleven a neighbour complained about the music. I told him ‘just relax till midnight.’ – mea culpa, I had forgotten to tell the neighbours about the party! At midnight the DJ’s mom arrived to fetch her, they packed up and peace returned to the Palmiet valley.

~~~oo0oo~~~