Ole man had an avo today. Sheila bought it for him.
When I was little, Ouma used to pick avos for us – much bigger ones than these little ones – and she used to cut them in half, throw away the pip, fill the hollow with sugar and we would eat the whole thing with a spoon.
Avos were free. Everyone had an avo tree. Nowadays they cost a fortune. Robert – his grandson – has just sent his first crop to Europe from his farm in Tanzania. One container load of avos. I think he got R874 000.
And those avos we had were big! Not like these tiny things you get today:
Guess what I did with the avo Sheila bought me today?
Dunno Dad, tell me.
I cut it in half, threw away the pip, filled the hollow with sugar and ate the whole thing with a spoon.
It’s been over ninety years since I last did that!
On the 14th July 1951 the biggest hugest massivest humungousest stroke of luck to befall him in all his life befell Pieter Gerhardus Swanepoel. By far. By a very long long way the biggest.
And he didn’t realise it, still doesn’t.
This morning Mary will wake thinking, I wonder how Pieter is, I hope he’s alright.
Sheila kept a diary in high school. It’s amazing reading such detailed notes of long-forgotten happenings. Last time it was a trip up Mt aux Sources. This time it’s a winter trip to the warm sub-tropical south coast of KwaZuluNatal by a family of Vrystaters.
Pennington, Monday 5 July: – Walked to the beach alone. Stayed for a while. Walked home (± 1 mile – the distance from our beach cottage to the beach). Left for Hibberdene with the whole family. Elsie & Richard Scott were there. Barbara went with them. Went on to Port Shepstone. Went to see Upsie Sorenson, a friend of Dad’s. Walked around a bit in town. Spoke to Lilly du Plessis. Went to Margate. Spoke to Philly and the whole Mikkers family. Swam in the sea with Philly. Went to Port Shepstone to the Sorensons. Chatted to Upsie and his daughter Ingrid. Had tea. Stopped at Park Rynie went to Scottburgh. Bought stuff. Came back to Umdoni Park/Pennington. Went to the café. Went to Uncle Joe Geyser’s sister’s house near our cottage. Met Danie & Pearly (Geyser) du Toit and Pieter Geyser. Went home, had supper with Mom, Dad and Koos. Bathed. Went for a drive. Came back. Barbara & Richard were here. He left. Chatted to Barbara.
Tuesday 6 July: – Had breakfast with the family. Walked to the beach with Mom & Barbara. Swam in the rock pool. Went to the café. Walked to the Caravan Park. Spoke to the Macgregors. Met Glenda & Joan Brand. Went to the beach with them. Spoke to Denise Brand, Glynis and Brian Fisher. Went for a walk alone. Sat on the beach alone. Walked to the café. There were six guys there on three motorbikes. They had met Barbara. They said they are having coffee at our place. They gave me a lift home on the buzz bike. Had lunch with the family. Then the guys, Mike, George, Charles, Terry, Dogs and Kevin arrived. Sat and chatted. Went down to the beach with them. Nine of us on three bikes. I was with Terry & George. Went to the café. They brought us home. Stood and chatted outside. Went to the Happy Wanderers Caravan Park at Kelso with the family. Sat at the boys tent. Had supper in the café. Chatted to them all in the café. Went to Park Rynie with Terry on the buzz bike, Barbara went with Mike. They brought us home. Chatted for a long time. They left. Mike brought Koos back.
Pic of us three taken in Harrismith around about then:
– all looking delighted to pose for the camera –
~~~oo0oo~~~
oops, posted this a bit late, but what’s a couple days after fifty years!?
vrystaters – citizens of the province of song and laughter – the Free State
The ole man has another tale to tell in the dramatic saga that is LIFE when approaching your centenary:
‘I looked down in the shower and my red facecloth was lying there. I thought Who The Heck put it there? Its usually in the bath, not the shower.’
‘Then I looked again and it was bigger than my facecloth and growing in size. It was blood. The shower floor was covered in blood. I immediately knew what it was.’ (He always immediately knows what things are, what caused them, and if you wait half a breath he’ll tell you the cure for it as well).
‘It was my diverticulitis again. You bleed out your bum from little pouches in your colon rupturing. I had an op, you know, years ago, but now it was back.‘
‘I called the office and two ladies came to help. I told them the cause and they lay me down and inspected my exhaust pipe. While the one was gazing intently up there, the other one said Hey, Look! There’s a big cut on his ankle!’
‘Turns out there was a sharp splinter on the corroded part of the shower aluminium door at ankle height and I had cut my ankle without even noticing it.‘
‘They bandaged me up and all’s well. AND as a bonus, I now know my bum’s fine.‘
Poor ladies need a medal, dark glasses and probly therapy.
The Old Goat’s usual crap when he phones: ‘What’s for supper?’ Sweet potato, I say. Blah blah, something about the price, always the price. The price here, the price in America, the price.
Ouma used to bake them in the oven with lotsa sugar and some butter, he recalls. I can remember the taste as if it was yesterday.
Wasn’t yesterday. That was a helluva long time ago.
The old man gave up his workshop in Ivy Road with great regret about a year ago. Now he has finally finished enclosing the front porch of his cottage to use as his new micro-workshop, where he hopes to do a bit of wood-turning, make some clocks and some mosaic pictures.
After a long saga of great criticism about the poor work ethic of Maritzburg builders, largely endured by Sheila who has stuck with him through thick and thin, he finally has what he wanted. When he announced it, Barbara and Sheila swooped in, fetching all the stuff he had stored at his friend Johan’s workshop and moved it into his lounge, forcing his hand. Suddenly he had to stop moaning and get to work.
Mom & Dad in Azalea cottage – that door leads to the new workshop
Slowly, slowly he moved it all into the workshop. This meant he could no longer get in there. So today he tells me he’s going to move half of it back into the lounge while he puts up five shelves, whereupon he’ll move it all back and he will then be able to get into the workshop and start doing his thing. Except he can only do three shelves, the bottom two he’ll have to have done as he can’t bend down to do them. Ons sal sien if he can complete his first project before he turns 99. The race is on.
The feature pic shows the old Montgomery-Ward desktop wood-lathe he wanted to use. He may have bought a better one since then? He spoke about it a lot.
The WARDS Powr-Kraft Model 9WFD Number 2002 Factory 952, made in USA by Montgomery-Ward. Seems ca.1930 – 1940.
‘Don’t come and visit! I’ve got head lice. They’re all over. I’ve told Linda to keep great-granddaughter Katie away! I have used over R1000 worth of muti from Aidan the chemist, I’ve sprayed the carpets and bedroom with Doom, I even sprayed my head with Doom, I know I shouldn’t have, but they’re crawling all over my body.‘
OK. That doesn’t sound right, so I go and visit. No sign of head lice. Have you seen any? ‘Only one, in my bed, but I saw three or four eggs on the lice comb. The louse on my bed was about the size of a grain of rice.’ Hmmm.
I write it down so he can’t mis-hear me or get me wrong: “I don’t think you have head lice. I think you have crawling nerve ends. Peripheral neuropathy.”
I’m wrong, of course. Immediately wrong. This and that.
I spell it out again: “I do not think you have head lice. In fact I KNOW you don’t have head lice. Stop using poisons. Your shingles and nerve endings cause crawling and itching sensations. Basically it’s peripheral neuropathy – nerve damage.” You’re not allowed to say Dis Die Ouderdom, but nevertheless I say, “You don’t have any specific cause, so it’s probably age-related.”
He’s skeptical, but at least when I take him to PicknPay he doesn’t buy any more Doom – which was on his list.
Later I take him the blurb on neuropathy – which is also the most likely cause of his pins and needles fingers and burning feet. It’s a bugger. But it’s not lice.
Nowadays he tells people about peripheral neuropathy.
Dad had me in stiches last week….wasn’t sure if he was joking until the second letter accepting the refusal, and Sheila re-inforced it was a joke…..he formally in writing asked to keep a cow here in the greens as milk is costing him too much each month….
Kind Regards,
Mrs Collett Doncaster
GENERAL MANAGER
Azalea Gardens Body Corporate
~~~oo0oo~~~
I wondered what he was on about just about a week before:
yob yob ting
You know I tried to get Mary to drink milk, but she wouldn’t. We had a cow, we had our own milk, we used to make cream in the separator right there in the pantry on the plot. But no, she wouldn’t drink milk, and isnt it true calcium builds strong bones?
Ah, I see where this is going. Mom broke her hip last year at age 91. Had she only done as he TOLD HER at age 31, no broken bones, QED.
..
I remember the separator. We called it the yob yob ting. As you turned the handle it went yob yob ting and you could time how fast to turn it by getting into a rhythm. Also the butter churn – I seem to remember the propeller-like paddles inside glass. Maybe like this:
The building trade in Maritzburg is the worst I’ve ever dealt with. They’re useless, useless.
Its my xmas phone call from the old goat. He’s been in the old age home retirement village for something under a year now and has finally achieved one of his many goals to change things there, to improve things. Meaning, to do things his way. He has covered in the small veranda that was useless, useless, so he can now use it as a workshop. Or at least he has nearly covered it in. The steel framework for the windows and the door has been installed after much fighting with a guy ‘who Sheila has known for forty years. You’d think he would do my installation right!’ Now he’s fighting with glaziers. The glaziers in Maritzburg are the worst I’ve ever dealt with. They’re useless, useless.
I would do it myself, but I can’t lift my right arm and my ladder has one dodgy leg, like me. My leg is 98yrs old, so it has an excuse. Otherwise I would just do it myself. They say I must use 4mm glass, but I’m going to use 3mm. I’ll save over R500. I should just do it myself.
I’m tired of cooking, eating, cleaning. I enjoyed it for a while, I was like a little girl playing house, but now I’m tired of it. It’s not productive. Cook, eat and clean; I’m not achieving anything.
So now I’ll have to wait till after xmas. I think I’ll phone them on Monday and shit all over them! What do you think?
Me, bellowing down the phone: NO, I DON’T THINK THAT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA. PHONE THEM AND BE NICE AND SAY PLEASE.
Good. I’ll do that then. I’ll phone them and shit all over them.
** sigh ** Makes my eyes glaze over. I’ll get on now with preparing our xmas lunch. His phone call interrupted the proceedings. I’m busy glazing the gammon.
Ole man phones on his new cellphone. FINALLY a cellphone like I always wanted.
As usual, its a one-way call; he can’t hear me, but I can listen.
The phone is perfect. BIG numbers, which display BIG on the screen when pushed AND I can actually hear when I push the button; And get this, the best of all! – it speaks out the number when I push it! It doesn’t just beep, it says SIX when I push the six. Only the four is not working. I told them to take it back to the shop, the four isn’t working.
But they told me they can’t – they bought it online. So the four makes a scratchy sound, I know now that means FOUR.
Then he starts laughing. He says It came with a pamphlet and I saw ‘Italiano’ on it so I turned to the Italian description and I’m still laughing. It said this is a special phone for “ANTICA” – not for “ANZIANI,” for “ANTICA.”
That means it’s a phone not for THE ELDERLY; it’s a phone for THE ANCIENT!
Now I know what I am! laughs the 97yr-old!
– WW2 – where he learnt his Italian –
Gotta go – this call is costing me a fortune. You owe me R33.
We are ten cousins from the four children of Ouma Elizabeth and Oupa Paul Fouche Swanepoel of Pietermaritzburg. Our cousin Liz Grundling-Fortmann in Camperdown passed away in 2018 and a gathering of family and friends took place in Camperdown where Liz lived most of her life, to salute a special lady.
Afterwards, I wrote to cousin Shirley Solomon-Miller in Seattle Washington, USA:
Hi Shirley – Well, Lizzie had an amazing memorial service in Camperdown! I was amazed at the number of people who turned out. There were five cousins – the ‘Uncle Pieter’ Swanies, Barbara Sheila & Koos, and the ‘Aunty Lizzie or Aunty Anne’ Grundlings, Jack and Marlene. The four generations present were beautifully represented by Mary, Barbara Mary, Linda Mary and Mary-Kate.
Lizzie’s son Zane and brother Jack spoke beautifully of her at the service. She sure was loved and admired. Dad said it was the biggest funeral he’d ever been to – and he’s been to a bundle! I arrived just on time and then waited for Sheila, hoping I’d be able to hang back and maybe even stand outside as I have at many a funeral and wedding, but they had kept seats for us! We were ushered to the very front row! Caught out!
After the preacherman had finished Dad (95 then) leaned over and in his loud deaf voice he complained the service had been way too long. I indicated HUSH and he says ‘Can they hear me?’ Yes! I nodded, so he – no handbrake – says ‘Well, the last time he was subjected to such a long sermon was by dominee Ras in Harrismith.’ That was about fifty years back. See, people forget he’s there for the food!
And the Camperdonians laid on a feast – tea and coffee and tons of food – and then they said we must follow them home for a braai!
We all gathered at Auntie Lizzie and Uncle Con’s old home (and Lizzie’s home ever since) and had a lovely gathering and braai and then Sheila followed me and we drove home in the dark on that very busy N3 road to Durban – the road that runs right past Lizzie’s garage and petrol station. When we got home I phoned Sheila to check she was in – she was already in bed!
We agreed on what a really lovely bunch of people Lizzie had around her, her son and daughter, their spouses and kids were all so friendly, hospitable and helpful to all of us, some of whom – like me – they have seen very seldom indeed.
I saw Aunty Lizzie and Uncle Con’s graves and was surprised to find she didn’t have Elizabeth in her name! She was Anna Naomi, and Con’s nickname was Sarge. I did know a lot of people called her Aunty Anne. We only called them Uncle Con and Aunty Lizzie! Sheila says it was something about Dad’s nickname for her – ‘Skinny Lizzie” or something. Surprised me.
Another surprise: Lizzie was affected by emphysema after smoking for years – even when she was sick she ‘cut down to one a day.’ And there was her daughter Lisa smoking! I had to chuckle! Us humans!
Other pics were taken. I’ll send as I get them. I see mine have very few people in them! Just Sheila and Jack on the back stoep. – Lotsa love – cousin Koos
~~~oo0oo~~~
Some time before, Shirley and I had spoken of her Mom, Liz’s aunt, Adriana ‘Janie’ (pr. ‘Yahnee’) Swanepoel-Solomon who died in 1974. Shirley had held a ceremony on the Skagit River up north of Seattle where she lives.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Luckily nine of the cousins had managed to get together not long before – I think in 2014?
~~~oo0oo~~~
Recently it was Liz’s birthday. Cousin Solly in New Zealand reminded us, and Liz’s kids Zane and Lisa and their partners Bridget and John sent a pic of the flowers they had placed at her plaque:
An old post from my pre-marriage blog vrystaatconfessions.com
~~~oo0oo~~~
My first recollections are of life on the plot outside Harrismith, playing with Enoch and Casaia, childhood companions, kids of Lena Mazibuko, who looked after us as Mom and Dad worked in town. I remember Lena as kind and loving – and strict!
The plot was was in the shadow of Platberg, and was called Birdhaven, as Dad kept big aviaries filled with racing pigeons, then later with fancy pigeons.
I was there from when I was carried home from the maternity home to when I was about five years old, when we moved into the bright lights and traffic of the 1955 Harrismith metropolis.
– those pigeon aviaries – and me – Mom Mary must have been feeling the cold –
I remember suddenly “knowing” it was lunchtime and looking up at the dirt road above the farmyard that led to town. Sure enough, right about then a cloud of dust would appear and Mom and Dad would arrive for their lunch – meat and veg – and a siesta, having locked up the Platberg bottle store at 1 o’clock sharp. I could see them coming along the road and then sweeping down the long driveway to park near the rondavel at the back near the kitchen door. They would eat lunch, have a short lie-down and leave in time to re-open at 2 o’clock sharp. I now know the trip was exactly three kilometres door-to-door, thanks to google maps.
Every day I “just knew” they were coming. I wonder if I actually heard their approach and then “knew”? Or was it an inner clock? Here’s an old 8mm movie of the old green and black Ford Prefect on the Birdhaven circular driveway with big sister Barbara waving out the window – four seconds of action:
1. Birdhaven and ruins of our house; 2. Glen Khyber, Dougie Wright, Gould & Ruth Dominy’s place; 3. Jack Levick’s house; 4. The meandering Kak Spruit.
None of those houses on the left were there back then.
Back then the folks would buzz around in Mom’s Ford Prefect or Dad’s beige Morris Isis.
Our nearest neighbour was Jack Levick and he had a pet crow that mimic’d a few words. We had a white Sulphur-crested Cockatoo Jacko that didn’t, and an African Grey parrot Cocky who could mimic a bit more. A tame-ish Spotted Eagle Owl would visit at night. Our next neighbours, nearer to the mountain, were Ruth and Gould Dominy and Ruth’s son Dougie Wright on Glen Khyber. They were about 500m further down the road towards the mountain, across the Kak Spruit over a little bridge. Doug’s cottage was on the left next to the spruit that came down from Khyber Pass and flowed into the bigger spruit; The big house with its sunny glassed-in west-facing stoep was a bit further on the right. Ruth and a flock of small dogs would serve Gould his tea in a teacup the size of a big deep soup bowl.
– me with Jacko the sulphur-crested cockatoo outside the rondawel –
Judas Thabete lived on the property and looked after the garden. I remember him as old, small and bearded. He lived in a hovel of a hut across a donga and a small ploughed field to the west of our house. He had some sort of cart – animal-drawn? self-drawn? Self-drawn, I think.
– Me and Sheila on the front lawn – 1956 –
Other things I remember are driving out and seeing white storks in the dead bluegum trees outside the gate – those and the eagle owl being the first wild birds I ‘spotted’ in my still-now-ongoing birding life; I remember the snake outside the kitchen door;
– Scene of the rinkhals leap – this taken thirty years later, in 1990 –
I don’t remember but have been told, that my mate Donald Coleman, two years older, would walk the kilometre from his home on the edge of town to Birdhaven to visit me. Apparently his Mom Jean would phone my Mom Mary on the party line and ask “Do you have a little person out there?” if she couldn’t find him. He was a discoverer and a wanderer and a thinker, my mate Donald.
– 1990 – Mom & Dad sit on the stoep –– fun on the lawn – and Bruno the Little Switzerland doberman –
Bruno the doberman came from Little Switzerland on Oliviershoek pass down the Drakensberg into Natal. Leo and Heather Hilkovitz owned and ran it – “very well” according to Dad. Leo came into town once with a few pups in the back of his bakkie. Dobermans. Dad said I Want One! and gave him a pocket of potatoes in exchange for our Bruno. He lived to good age and died at 95 Stuart Street after we’d moved to town.
~~~oo0oo~~~
rondawel – pr. ‘ron-dah-vill’; circular building with a conical roof, often thatched;
spruit – stream; kak spruit: shit stream; maybe it was used as a sewer downstream in town in earlier days? Probably
stoep – veranda
donga – dry, eroded watercourse; gulch, arroyo; scene of much play in our youth;
Sheila worked at Fugitives Drift Lodge with David and Nicky Rattray for a while and met many interesting people and characters from all over the world. She should write about the weird folk she met – the judges and military men and colonial types and rich folk and historians and chief constables and all the other titles the Breetish Empire invented.
While there, she organised for the five of us – her old Swanie family from Harrismith – to have a family weekend there with her as our guide. One afternoon she took us out to the Isandlwana battlefield in a Landrover and got lost. Her sense of direction was imperfect, but she was unfazed and soldiered on like a lost Pom fleeing a battlefield. She had the Buffalo River on her left (or was it right?) and was headed in a direction she thought might get us somewhere sometime. Don’t panic.
– start of the fugitives trail at isandlwana –
So we’re bouncing over the veld, Sheila driving the ponderous old Defender, and our 85yr-old ‘ole man’ sitting in the back getting fidgety.
After a while the bouncing got to his ancient bones and he groaned and – forsaking the old stiff upper lip – moaned about the bumpiness – sort of a geriatric ‘Are we there yet?’
Sheila whipped round and said, “Keep quiet and sit still. Don’t make me come back there and sort you out!” then grinned triumphantly and crowed, “I’ve waited fifty years to say that!”
– isandlwana –
~~~oo0oo~~~
– the family at Mangeni Falls – – where Robbie and I did a re-enactment . . – – . . from many years before –
I didn’t take a pic so this one will have to do – taken by Sheila when he was a mere 96. He was very restrained today: he waited a good few minutes before mentioning the H word. Then he relented: ‘When people say Hau! Ninety Seven!? I say, Just three years and I’ll be a hundred,’ he said.
And then he told the tale of the old man at Pick n Pay: He was bragging about how old he was, with his white hair and white beard. How old are you, kehla? I said to him. He puffed his chest out and said dramatically, SEVENTY SEVEN! I said Sit Down Umfaan. I’m NINETY seven. Hau! Hau! Hau! he said, shaking my hand a hundred times.
~~~oo0oo~~~
hau – goodness gracious me; gosh
kehla – old man
umfaan – little boy
hau – swear!? that’s amazing! you don’t look a day over eighty seven
~~~oo0oo~~~
Here’s a more recent pic – in Azalea Gardens Pietermaritzburg, going through Sheila’s old photo albums.
Bewilderbeast Droppings 