Tag Archives: marriott road

Sold!

I just sold my longest-lived-in home. We’ve been here sixteen years. After being given a long fixit list I decided bugger the schlep, I’ll sell it voetstoots – as is. It sold on the day it hit the market – for a song, if you ask me.

Here’s my sequence:

First home Whittington Court. I forget how long, but bought as a bachelor, then Trish moved in ca.1986. When we moved out in 1989, sister Sheila lived in it for about two years. It was a lovely old one-bedroom flat; big rooms, high ceilings.

1989 we bought our first suburban home at the bottom end of the cul de sac River Drive in Westville. A magic place right on the banks of the Mkombaan river. Mike and Yvonne Lello had lived in it fifteen years and when Mike said he’s selling, I said then I’m buying. We stayed there fifteen years.

– 7 River Drive –

Then we rented Ian Whitton’s lovely home in Windsor Avenue Westville for about two years.

– Windsor Avenue –

In 2005 we bought here, a magic home in a cul de sac above the Palmiet river – ‘to be near the schools.’ Now, there’s a story for ya!

– Elston Place – sold! after sixteen years –

This pic is the house as we bought it. We spent way too much on it as I planned to live there forevah!

~~oo0oo~~

Durban Nightlife

Nightjars are fascinating birds.

One night in my first own home, Whittington Court in Marriott Road on Durban’s Berea, I heard a strange sound. It was like a small dog barking, but not quite that and I remembered from all my reading and re-reading of Roberts and Newmans bird books: Nightjar!

Aitch! I shouted, a nightjar! Luckily she knew I was weird so she joined me and we peered out from our first floor window and a nightjar flitted past. I was over the moon with excitement and discovery. A Freckled Nightjar right outside my flat!

Investigation revealed it to be a well-known one, roosting on the roof of the residential hotel nearby. Eden Gardens, now a retirement home. It had been discovered by Philip Clancey, famous birder and splitter and Durban Natural Science Museum ornithologist and author and artist, who lived in the hotel. They usually roost on rocks and the roof was a good substitute. Their camouflage is impressive:

Freckled Nightjar_africanbirdclub
– looking like a stone – africanbirdclub.com

A previous “discovery” of a nightjar also had me hugely excited.

~~~oo0oo~~~

Durban museum ornithologist Philip Clancey took numerous expeditions into Zululand and Mozambique, discovering several new subspecies as well as one new species to science, the Lemon-breasted Canary in 1961. Clancey was a prodigious publisher of papers and books including “Birds of Natal and Zululand”, all lavishly illustrated with his excellent and distinctive bird paintings.

~~~oo0oo~~~

thanks stellenboschbirds.com – Chris Krog for Freckled Nightjar Caprimulgus tristigma pic