18th December 2010
Damon, Alice and Wendy make do with some rustic furniture
I had Visitors yesterday! Real visitors, from out of town, not somebody needing something or checking up on arrangements for the Festival. Damon Berry, his wife Wendy New and little Alice popped in on their way from Cape Town to Knysna. The visit was very brief, since their departure had been delayed by a visit to the Doctor for little Alice, who was poorly and not feeling her usual bouncy self.
Damon and Alice with a certain old scruff!
After a quick walk to the derelict Boggy Hovel and the bone-dry Boggy Pond, we sat outside my hut on improvised garden furniture and had tea and fruit juice at my Eskom cable-drum table. After I traded Alice some bananas and plums in return for some unwanted choc-chip cookies, we unloaded some shade cloth, my short-wave radio, and a bag of goodies Christa had sent down with them from Johannesburg. After a few more minutes of chat, they were on their way to Swellendam for the night, before heading for Knysna to spend Christmas with Granny and Grandpa.
Yesterday was also my wedding anniversary – the first that Christa and I have spent apart since 1994. I miss her every day, particularly at sundown, when we usually try to find a few minutes for a cup of tea together after a hectic day in the studio. Yesterday I had to make do with a tumbler of red wine at sunset, sitting on the log in the clearing in front of the cabin where Christa sat when she visited me for my 60th birthday in September.
The tree that Christa bought - so I could get the house.
Christa always complains thet I don’t include enough pictures of trees and flowers, so here’s a picture of the tree she bought so I could get the farm!
Here’s hoping that 2011 brings in enough money to start making the house liveable. (I’ve met a couple who live nearby who’ve been the whole nine-yards of bureaucracy to get planning permission to use traditional building methods.)
I managed to do some work on the Biogas digester, at last, but that will have to be the subject of a later post. I first have to work out how to add new sections to this WordPress gizmo.
Till then…