Finally heaving the fat ass of my Congolese squatter out onto the pavement of once-toney Musgrave road and throwing his double bed after him so it landed on his bald head* led me to reflect on the 29-odd years I have been privileged to own this lovely flat I bought from my now-Kiwi partner Pete.
*The truth about my only bad apple tenant is that he skived his own shady self off by disappearing quietly in the dead of night one step ahead of the sheriff, having squatted unwanted for about eighteen months – the last eight months unpaid. His long and tedious occupation of my lovely maybe-one-day home is OVER! He’s history, so let’s look back on happier memories.
All my tenants loved the flat and paid their rent. A few asked to buy it; a few phoned to say they were sad they had to leave, but life had taken them elsewhere.
One year was memorable: One year when a tenant left I took my flat off the market for a while and spruced it up. We sanded and gleamed the wooden floors, re-did the kitchen cupboards, fitted a new shower and painted the place. It looked great. The couple who renovated it for me brought in their nineteen year-old daughter to help clean at the end. She worked like a trojan and she loved the space and begged to rent it with a fellow student friend. Sure, I said, and no regrets. They were lovely. Her name was Sierra and she and her flatmate paid on time every month. Oh yes, and they drove the oldies in the building crazy with their parties!
When the moans hit a crescendo I went and spoke to the old-gentlemen-only gang on the body corporate. Moan Moan. Your tenants are loud. They have friends staying overnight. They squeal their car tyres on the road outside at midnight. Moan. Moan.
I asked, ‘What are their names?’ What? ‘What are their names?’ I repeated. No idea. ‘Oh, Did you meet and greet them when they first arrived? Did you welcome them and explain you’re mostly rather old and would like some quiet after 9pm?’ Um no, well that’s not our job! ‘Ah. How many of you have said ‘The youth of today have no manners?’ I asked, prodding hard. Then I let them out of their deserved misery. ‘Relax, they’re leaving at the end of this month.’
So now, years later, we’re renovating again. I’m hoping to get those beautiful old Oregon Pine floors (the old guy who’s gonna fix them says, ‘They’re Douglas Fir, actually’) smooth and gleaming again. Fingers crossed.
It was a sad fact. The Umgeni was going to be dammed. Again. The fourth big dam on its course from the Dargle to the sea. Many people love dams. I hate them. They ruin the valleys and change nature for ever. Dams wipe out species – many before we even discover them; they flood huge areas of wetlands, riverine forest and grasslands; they displace people and affect everything living downstream. Large dams hold back not just water, but silt and nutrients that replenish farmlands and build protective wetlands and beaches. If you love rivers, dams are the enemy – the disease that kills. Dams don’t just change the river valleys in our waterways, they obliterate them. Yet people love them.
So the Umgeni was going to be dammed and damned; and I wanted a last paddle on that part of the river which was destined to be for ever gone.
So I rounded up some boats and some non-paddling friends in August 1988. Come and paddle a part of the famous Duzi Canoe Marathon course, I said. And the suckers fell for it! Geoff Kay, Mike and Yvonne Lello, Pete Stoute, sister Sheila; and wife Trish joined me in the valley. Some brought some kids, and some valley kids joined us.
We launched the boats with fanfare, breaking a bottle of champagne on each one’s hull (OK, not really) – AND:
They didn’t float! The river was so shallow they hit the bottom, even thought their draft was like two inches!
– oops! –
Oh well, it turned out to be not a paddle but a trudge. And – literally – a drag. But fun nonetheless!
I stared at the banks and the valley walls as I trudged. Soon yahoos would be racing outboard motors here. Soon this life and interesting variety all around us would be drowned forever.
A large flock of Kiwis flew in to Durban recently. Of course kiwis can’t actually fly so they came by plane.
MurrayMo, Alex and Maxine
I met them at the Lellos. I thought it was going to just be Fiona and Pete but pleasant surprise! Alex, MurrayMo and Maxine were all there – about 10m of Stoutes in all, if you laid them end-to-end.
Yvonne presented a delicious meal – chicken and rice, but there was a better way to describe it. Sauteed Vietnamese jungle fowl? – and we reminisced about the olden daze. Mike religiously kept my glass full of good wine the whole night and I tried my best to drain it but it just kept getting topped up. Luckily I live just upstream along the Palmiet River from their place and if I closed my one eye, no diplopia.
——-ooo000ooo——-
waiting for pics, so used an ancient one taken n Rio de Janeiro to hold the place
I don’t do DIY. I was going to say except for our wedding, but on reflection, I also did that the way I do everything: Stand back and watch as others do it all, encouraging and applauding while trying to save money.
So Andre Hawarden did the invites:
What I did do was buy the booze and fill Mike Lello’s Isuzu Trooper and trailer with it and drive it out to Barry and Lyn’s farm Game Valley Estates at the foot of the well-known Hella Hella kop on the Friday. Lots of rain, muddy roads, the four wheel drive was needed. It had been a wet summer following the huge September 1987 flood.
Like most bachelors when they do fall, I headed off cheerfully to meet my fate, all my own advice forgotten, marching singing to the gallows!
I always sing ‘The robots change when I go thru, the clouds dissolve and the skies turn blue, and EVERYBODY loves me baby – – – what’s the matter with you!?‘
And the clouds did dissolve . . It got Sunny. Then Hot. Then Scorching, Humid and Sultry. It felt like all the rain of the big flood was trying to get back up into the clouds as steam.
And when I say ‘BUSH’ – Lyn and Barry’s beautiful game farm Game Valley Estates is truly in the bush that they have preserved, but their home has all the amenities one needs and they laid on even more for the occasion. So don’t think we roughed it; we had everything we needed as, with Aitch, they arranged everything – flowers, cake, tent, table n chairs, accommodation, food, spitbraai, animals to braai – the works!
Barry’s big old 4X4 Ford F150 gave people a tug up slippery Hella Hella Pass so they could get to their lodgings at the nearby Qunu Falls Lodge. The Brauers, the du Plessis, the Reeds, the Schoemans, the Stoutes, the Stewarts. The Hills live nearby. Family stayed in the concrete A-frame lodge on the farm.
The sauna was pitched on the lawn under the Hella Hella mountain.
The Porters were linked up to ESKOM but just because ESKOM has arrived does not mean that when you throw a switch with a flourish that anything will happen. And so it was on our wedding day that ESKOM wasfeeling a bit off that day and we were without krag, power, lights and fridges.
Enter David Hurle Hill !! He roared off to his farm Melrose a hundred km away in his bakkie and fetched a huge diesel generator on a trailer. David is a Drrrillerr and will drill you a borehole. In fact his company motto is ‘On The Hole Our Work Is Boring.’ He linked up and threw a switch with a flourish. And nothing happened.
She was not wekking, as David Hurle Hill would say.
Enter Enea Spaggiari !! All the way from Italy via Kenya and Petit outside Benoni. He climbed up onto and over and under the trailer and fiddled with wires and threw a switch with a flourish and Let There Be Light! Music! and Cold Beers! That’s Italian vernuf for ya! Or competenza, as they would say.
Iona coaches her daughter: Make all the big decisions, but make him think he made them . . . Aitch: Ha Ha I already do that . . .
– plotting –
Then the usual stuff, the ominous music from Jaws: Tun Tun Ta Da!;Tun Tun Ta Da! What? Oh, the wedding march. The father of the bride looks like he’s having having second thoughts; Guys are thinking hm hm hm who’d a thunk this day would arrive?; Ladies are smiling – they seem to enjoy weddings; Aitch saying – ‘Honour? OK; – Obey? Are you mad!?’ and so on. The usual kak.
Then the cake, made by Lyn’s talented friend with two beautiful frogs – probly a strongylopus and an arthtroleptis. In the heat they keeled over. We should have got a pic, but something like this, just green frogs in white dress and black tuxedo – and not from alcohol – from heat fatigue:
– frog cake –
Then The Lies! You just can’t trust some people. Ten years prior to this I had done a very good job being his best man and if he had paid attention he’d have learned something. Like, to stick to the flattering truth and not tell scurrilous alternative truths that nobody wants to hear. At least nobody called the object of your attentions wants to hear them . . .
That speech was followed by The Truth!plain and unvarnished. By me:
At last, we could change into shorts and relax and party. Some in the background (We saw you Jeff!) had cleverly not changed out of their shorts throughout.
Later came The Getaway:
Which took a while, handicapped as we were. We wore getaway kit appropriate for our intrepid honeymoon. We were headed for Deepest Darkest America.
~~~oo0oo~~~
On the Monday friend Allie Peter flew over Hella Hella in a helicopter and took pics of Rapid No.5&6 looking downstream and then back upstream:
– pinnacle rock is hiding –
~~~oo0oo~~~
Twenty Five Years Later – 28 Feb 2013 – I wrote to friends:
Crazy, innit! 25yrs ago today Aitch and I got hitched down in the Hella Hella valley in a fun DIY game farm wedding. She made it to 23yrs of married bliss (OK, she might have had something to say at this point . . ) and one month short of 26yrs together. We celebrated that 25yrs-together milestone in August 2010.
Thinking of all you good peeps that made our wedding so memorable – that’s the bachelor days before, the day itself, and the 25yrs since!
Cheers!
Lotsa love – Pete – and now Jessica & Tommy!
BTW, Lyn and Barry Porter of Hella Hella also died in 2011: Lyn in January – also breast cancer; Barry in April – hospital infection; And then Aitch in July.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Dave Hill: I remember it well – I ‘nipped’ home to fetch my generator when the power went off.
Pete Stoute:Remember the week-end like yesterday! Struggling up the other side of Hella Hella to the Qunu Falls hotel in the mud and rain – Dave Hill saving the day with a BIG generator.Will have an extra glass of vino this evening – great mates and good times.
Sheila Swanepoel:Those pics are great. What a wonderful record of a very special day. I remember the incredible heat and how you, Pierre and Pete sneaked off and changed into shorts straight after the ceremony. And how the phone kept ringing in the middle of the ceremony in the house. Linda was flower girl, Robbie was so proud of his brand new red “tight”
. . and Jeff kept putting off going to change, saying that he was charge of the antelope on the spit – he dithered for so long that there was no time to change and that pleased him no end. Bess & I sneaked down to the pool for a kaalgat swim and found Iona had beaten us to it!
Steve Reed: Will always remember the weekend; a great occasion. I think it was thanks to Mike and Yvonne in the 4×4 that we traveled safely back through the mud to our lodgings. Fond memories – raising a glass tonight to all of you!
I remember Brauer chasing a tight deadline speech writing – wise.
Pete Brauer:Damn. Been holding my breath during this stroll thru memory lane hoping that no-one noticed at the time or that no-one would still remember that poor last-minute effort.
Terry Brauer: Steve nothing has changed! PB has his own website called lastminute.com
Steve Reed:Speech was excellent. Not many can compose a wedding speech while putting on a tie with the other hand. Besides, Swannie probably tasked Brauer with the job as he was getting dressed himself.
Terry Brauer:Yip Brauer remains an orator of note and Swanepoel continues to notify me he is coming to stay usually on the day when he lands in Pretoria – 😀 Those old dogs ain’t gonna learn new tricks but love them both! T
Pete Swanie:I had prepared well in advance.
Brauer procrastinated and ignored my two rules: Keep it short; and NO LIES.
Pete Brauer:If I stuck to the latter rule the first would have fallen into place quite easily.
Tanza Crouch: Thinking of you, Aitch, Tommy and Jessy at this time. My spider days at Hella Hella are very special to me and Aitch, Barry and Lyn were very special people.
~~~oo0oo~~~
The old paper album has been scrapped, but here it is in pixels:
1990 saw the completion of Inanda Dam on the Umgeni River. As always, a dam profoundly changes the river and the valley. Yet another river tamed to serve our insatiable thirst. Drown a valley to water lawns. It also changed the Dusi Canoe Marathon, inundating the Day Two sandbanks and creating a 10km flatwater haul to the new overnight stop at Msinsi Resort.
For old times sake I wanted to go down that section before it got flooded, so I took all my boats and borrowed a few more and invited a few non-paddling friends – my partners and optometry friends – to accompany me. For me a nostalgic trip, for most of them a first look at a section of the Dusi course.
We launched all the craft at a low level bridge and started laughing: They didn’t float, they just plopped onto the sand under a millimetre of water. Talk about LOW water! We dragged the boats the length of the dam-to-be to take out about where Msinsi campsite is now, hardly getting our shoelaces wet. About 6km, Sheila said.
– why the hell did I ever buy that Ford Sierra? – kak car –
For me a lovely walk in the river bed, for them, I suspect, a bit of a pointless mission – and certainly not the ‘paddle’ I had enticed them into! I think they enjoyed it anyway. They did enjoy teasing me! Mike & Yvonne Lello, Pete Stoute, Geoff Kay, sister Sheila. And then some tag-along kids who lived in the valley.
An idea of ‘Before & After’: (better pics needed!)
Dams destroy biodiversity. You lose a lot to waterski.
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!
Aitch doesn’t mess around. Suddenly a big marquee was pitched on the front lawn. What’s that for? I ask. We’re having a party, says me wife. Oh. OK. So tip-toe’ing discreetly past my half century mark is not going to happen?
Nope.
So I help the guys lay down a dance floor; and I carry chairs. And I carry chairs. Do we need so many chairs? I ask. Carry chairs, I’m told.
Then a minibus arrives and musical instruments are carried out – a trombone, a saxophone and a guitar – and one of the guys looks familiar. Big, braces, white hair. Mario!? I say / ask in amazement. Yes, says he in an Italian accent. What are you doing here? I ask, onnosel-y. He just smiles. I spose he’s used to that.
Mario Montereggi! When he’s not marshaling his Big Band, he runs a trio, Music Unlimited, for small events: Him on trombone, a guitarist and a saxophonist.
– Mario Montereggi’s trio –
WOW!! Aitch certainly does NOT mess around!
The theme was Africa, but Brauer thought it was Out of Africa, and of course he took it literally. You know how he is . .
– Aitch put it all together – she was much younger’n me –– the sax player charmed the kids –– especially TomTom –
Instead of a solemn speech full of half a century of carefully censored praise . .
– Terry and Pete exaggerating –
Terry and Pete sang a song full of scurrilous exaggerations – and duped the rest of the mense into singing the chorus! Everyone knows Billy Joel’s Piano Man tune . .
– Brauerr song PFS 50th –
– hoodwinking everyone into singing along! – – lucky to have my folks, 77 and 83 present –
Then Jonathan and Aitch said some words and I had to correct everyone and put them straight.
– after Jon and Aitch spoke I had to leap up to defend my reputation –– good peeps gathered –– PFS 50th –
