9th August 2010
“Har-de-har-de-har” indeed! A day’s worth of frantic activity crammed into seven. The brusque young man at Wimpie’s omitted to tell me that they had no gypsum board in stock. Of course they were going to wait until they could complete the order before rattling along 18km of dirt road to deliver it, but we played the “Definitely tomorrow” game until Wednesday, interspersed with equally vague responses from “Johan Eskom” about when I might have the means to power a light bulb and kettle.
In casual conversation with Steve on Monday night, I learned that the trees I had cut down were now in danger of becoming home to the wood-borer beetle unless I removed the bark fairly soon. They avoid the bark, but burrow beneath it into the heart-wood – as I’d observed in the exposed roof beams of the derelict Boggy Mansion. Aah well, it would give me something to do on Tuesday to while away the time between empty calls from Wimpie’s…
I used a hammer, gloves and an old screwdriver to de-bark blue gum poles
Blue gum bark is thin right? You see it peeling off the tree in cinnamon-like sheets… Hu-uh! Blue gum bark is in fact about a centimetre thick and quite fibrous, The technique is to hit it with a hammer, then prise it off with a screwdriver and gloved hands. My hefty poles were soon reduced to huge Caucasian-coloured chopsticks…. A bit like me if I were to strip to the waist after wearing a woolly jumper!
“Hmm, as far as I know, the wholesalers only deliver to Caledon on Thursdays – in the afternoon,” mumbled Steve helpfully on Wednesday morning. I took myself off to Hermanus to investigate second-hand shops, and bought a single fold-up chair / bed thingummy for R150. After browsing around “Pennypinchers” and buying some basic groceries at Spar, I headed home again. I quite see why people only go there when they have to – Hermanus is like Pretoria West with Added Water and Extra Traffic, cheek by jowl with “Randpark-Rif by die see.” At least in Caledon they don’t hide their one-horse in a mock Tudor stable.
At 08h04 on Thursday morning Wimpie’s called to say that they had almost finished packing the truck and they would be on their way soon. While I waited for them to arrive at my cabin, Johan Eskom called to say that “Barry” could install the board some time on Friday, but they had not found “casuals” to dig the eighty-meter ditch…. If I wanted power for the week-end I would have to dig the ditch myself, because Barry was on leave the next week. Time to call that other W.A. de Klerk and tempt him to sweat for reward….
The late Dr. Werner Von Braun faced many challenges at NASA – the water trench had taught me that losing his job to Willie de Klerk was not one of them, probably because Willie lacks Von Braun’s Teutonic attention to detail. As long as he starts the ditch where I ask him to and ends where I ask, Willie is satisfied with a job well done, so this time I laid a white nylon cord as a guide…. and re-pegged it every time he took it out to dig past it, just in case either the cord or Willie was blown off-course by the wind, you see.
Meanwhile, I set about installing the battens to support the gypsum board partition for the shower / toilet. I also laid out the sewerage and grey water waste pipes to set the direction of those ditches, which was unwise, because Willie slowed down to make a whole day’s worth of work out of the Eskom ditch..
Friday morning I was out at the cabin early, since it was indeed Friday before a long week-end and I assumed that Barry would want to be done by 12h00. Barry and Michael arrived just after 10h00 in a well kitted out Eskom “half-loaf” faw-bah-faw, a sort of Cinemobile for electricians. Luckily they also had just enough battery power in their drill to get most of the way through the floor planking – and enough cable to have just one metre to spare…. Phew!!
The idea of putting the cable through the floor, rather than running two meters of copper temptation up the outside of the wall was mine. Apparently that kind of thinking puts me in the Genius percentile…. the kind of brain that also works out that since the Eskom ditch is somewhat deeper than the water pipe ditch it crosses, it would be wise to thread the Eskom cable underneath the water pipe before wrestling it through the floor….
The Eskom cable ditch - only 70 metres to go!
From being gruff and uncommunicative, Barry and Michael ended up chattily helping me dig across the hard-packed road, on which Willie had made only a cosmetic “skoffel” across the surface. They unfortunately had barely enough “Danger / Gevaar / Ingozi / Ekom Cables / Kabels!” warning tape to reach the road, so they cut it down the middle and left me with instructions on how to bury it a few centimetres above the cable before they rushed off to their long week end.
Since it was a long week-end, I only had time to bury the cable between the house and the road before going into Town to get bits of plumbing from the Co-Op that Wimpie’s didn’t have.
On Friday night a convoy of four cars arrived at Steve’s place. My God-children Stephen and Nicholas arrived with their girlfriends and a party of friends in tow to spend the week-end. The weather also became extremely variable, so apart from very short ditch-filling sessions on Saturday and Sunday mornings, I spent most of the week-end chatting to the youngsters, all in their early thirties. What an encouraging bunch of young people. The range of interest and ability is amazing. Two of them have also saved the life of at least one person each! The conversation skittered from laser polymer prototyping to Graphic Novels, Mammoths, alternative energy, sociology, history, psychology – and which blue gum tree would be best for a “Swing With a View”. They also love playing Risk, Cluedo, and Paintball.
Now that i have electricity, perhaps I can at least write my next letter while enjoying the view from the cabin at Boggy Pond….
Digby