Sunday 5th September 2010
A childhood memory…
Sunday in Hermanus was a treat – because of several hours in the company of an old friend, rather than anything the resort has to offer. What I’ve seen of it doesn’t excite me – a sort of Clarens by Die See with overtones of Walvis Bay disguised as Sandton. I made several trips to the region during the Seventies to film interviews with artists and writers – among them Uys Krige – either there or in the nearby village of Onrust or Onrus as it is now called. It has changed drastically since then, but as late as the early Nineties I sat on a bench looking out at the wild sea, suddenly remembering a vivid memory from my childhood:
I had already “decided”, at the mature age of about seven and a half, to become a writer, so it was thrilling to have one of the great Afrikaner authors of the day as a near-neighbour in Bloemfontein. D.F. Malherbe was in fact the next-door neighbour and friend of my Uncle Evelyn. My aunt Rieks nursed both “DF” and his wife on their deathbeds. A few times when we popped around the corner to visit the family, “DF” would be there too. I sat on the floor at the other end of the lounge, entranced by the man’s rich, warm tones as he spoke what I can only describe as a “Vol-mond Afrikaans.” At this distance of time I couldn’t – sadly – remember a single sentence, but I remember the feeling of it, being in the presence of a famous writer and letting his words wash over me until my eyes became heavy and I turned turtle onto the floor, fast asleep. Especially just after he’d returned from a sojourn in Onrus, “DF” even looked like a famous writer – flowing mane of white hair matched by the curling white smoke from his elegantly curved briar pipe.
Sitting on that bench, I dreamed a little more of being a writer and living in a place like that, understanding why “DF” and others chose to go there in those days. I stood up to return to Cape Town, airports and reality when I spotted a short stone pillar bearing a plaque… I had been sitting on the bench where “DF” used to take a breather, across the road from the simple wood and iron house in which he lived while writing. Weird! I’ve looked for the bench and the house since, but have found neither.
Ah well, perhaps there’s still time to find them – and to become a writer of more than just television scripts…
A visit to Penny
It was refreshing to spend several hours with Penny, who has the “in” to the best of Hermanus, which has been the holiday and retirement spot of choice for Afrikaner writers and academics for decades. They’re still to be found there, alongside Captains of Industry these days, so there’s no shortage of intellect. Penny is very active both as a student and as one of the organisers of the “U3A” or University of the Third Age. Some of the lectures are open to the public, so perhaps I can look forward to some broadening of the mind as I spend more time at Boggy Pond.
We left Penny’s front door open so that her dog had somewhere cool to snooze and went off to have the pork roast special at a nearby restaurant – and a whole bottle of wine. One does what one can to support local agriculture of course…
Conversation during lunch was that wonderful melange of non sequiturs, malapropisms and zany quips which makes Penny’s company so enjoyable. We were both nattering away when we left to extract Penny’s car from the jam of four others outside. There was an acre of space ahead of us, so I assumed she was going to take an easy turn through the empty car park, rather than back out into the traffic – if there happened to be any. Penny was in mid-story as she drove forwards, when the stylish little bikini-bum Renault leaped into the air then settled heavily onto it’s French cami-knicker-elastic suspension (or whatever it has).
“Hmmm, bit of a bump…” we muttered in unison as she turned the car toward the exit.
I turned around to have a look.
“Penny! You’ve just yumped your little car over extensions to the Hermanus sewer system…”
“Oh really?” she replied. “ I didn’t notice, it’s either the wine or I was concentrating on the sparkling conversation.”
“Hmmm. .. Definitely the conversation” in unison again.
We picked up the dog for a snuffling, darting amble along the coastal path. (The dog, not us.) Sea air is good for a young Ridgeback, and it also clears the side effects of sparkling conversation…
Back at Kidbrooke we walked across to pop in on Penny’s friend Marge, whom I first met years ago in Johannesburg. On the way I spot a man in his nineties kitting up in helmet and gloves.
“Gosh, Penn, I didn’t realise you have Hells Angels here,” as he trundles away on a little grey scooter.
“Oh yes, quite a few,” Penny replies nonchalantly, “there’s a chap down that way who has a red scooter…”
Love you Penny!
The yellow Daisies have now followed the white, mainly in the lower field
Lost a bit of agricultural time on Monday to do remote-control admin for the Studio. Normally I do that over the week-end, but some companies are very tardy about supplying their address and registration details, which of course delays the Invoicing process. I did manage to complete the finicky process of waterproofing the shower though. The paint has a fungicide in it, so a week later the cabin still smells as though somebody has sloshed Dettol around the school sick-bay.
A trip to the airport…
On Tuesday morning I set out for the airport a little earlier than necessary, since I hoped to find the entrance to Somerset Mall and do some hardware shopping. I found my way into the Mall, but couldn’t find Builder’s Warehouse. (Later, I saw it as I left – it’s in another section altogether, and I think you need a passport to go there, the place is so stupidly huge). At the Game store I found a rectangular plastic bowl to use as a kitchen sink, then I wandered around this monument to consumerism thinking “I don’t want to be here. I don’t actually want to be in any place like this – I don’t want anything in it, and in reality I don’t need any of the stuff in here to be happy” Several thousand other people apparently felt they did though, scurrying from label-shop to label-shop.
That said, I did attempt to buy Vegas Studio 10 at Incredible Connection, since my downloaded trial copy has expired and I can no longer view the HD footage from the video camera. Huh? You want useful software? The shop looks like a Hyde Park Centre boutique on steroids and is chock-full of games and basic “How to use your Computer” learning DVDs displayed on wood and chrome racks scattered sparingly around the artistically empty space. In contrast, the Pick ‘n Pay is surprisingly cramped, poorly lit and has a restricted range of goods, but it has 21st century LCD price-labels on the shelves, which are updated either by remote control or by a hand-held device.
Eventually I found my way out of the Mall onto the N2 just as Christa called to say she was on the way to the airport. She beat me to it, particularly since I found parking somewhere on the West Coast, (just South of Langebaan, I think,) and had to walk back to Cape Town through a series of corrugated iron tunnels.
Movie-endings aside, an airport is not the most romantic place to meet your favourite person for a few hours, but it was AMAZING and WONDERFUL to get a few hugs after all this time. We swapped suitcases and stashed my treasure-trove of pots, cutlery and bedding in the car before settling into a Woolies Coffee shop for a snack and lots of catching up chat. Christa told me about a Country Life course on water conservation and biogas taking place in Stellenbosch at the end of the week, so we’re going to try to get me on it. It may be fully booked at this late stage, and I really should be installing my own biogas digester by then, but we’ll see.
Back to Work…
Wednesday was devoted mostly to another coat of Dettol-scented paint in the shower. It is amazingly sticky stuff and takes a long time to apply properly. I used the rest of the day to survey the slopes around the cabin to find the best place to bury the biogas digester and the greywater recovery system, which of course both have to be below the floor level of the cabin.
I used a sneaky combination of a borrowed garden hose filled with water, a plastic funnel and some clear plastic tubing to establish the levels. I discovered that the road in front of the cabin, just 20 meters away, is over 1.62 meters below floor level. Unfortunately the most sensible place for the digester – off to one side – is only 56cm lower, which means Jeffrey has a rather deep hole to dig.
Jeffrey Avontuur, my incredibly hard working labourer
Aah yes… Jeffrey… I first met him when I gave him a lift into Caledon a while ago. He’s a very willing, talkative, 65 years old… and just about stone deaf. He does occasional labouring work for Steve, who seems to look after his interests. On that trip we were waved down by a rather supercilious portly black man standing next to a brand new but dusty Beamer. The car was OK – the portly man and his party were just thoroughly lost. They were looking for “The Dairy Farm” but didn’t know the name. (“Hau! Something Afrikaans…”) I started directing them to the farm where we buy our milk, but apparently Jeffrey knew of another Dairy farm and leaped in to direct them to that one. Since the visitors spoke only English and Jeffrey speaks only Afrikaans, they’re probably still wandering around Port Elizabeth. I might add that black faces are an unusual sight around here….
Jeffrey takes a rare break while digging a hole about 2 metres deep
Jeffrey dug the trench at some speed for a sixty-five year old man, thanks to the sandy soil… but at precisely the point where the pit had to be dug, the ground changed at a depth of about half a metre to Koffieklip, a conglomerate of small stones mixed with dried clay. He was not perturbed – apparently it is quite common to find a layer of that stuff several centimetres thick.
By the time Jeffrey knocked off he was only about ten centimetres into it. Meanwhile, I had cut the right lengths of rather expensive copper pipe to get the water through the walls at various points and assembled the ziggedy-zag combination of copper pipe and even more expensive brass junctions to mix hot and cold water for the shower. On a good day you could Kulula from Joburg to Cape Town for the price of two plain brass taps. Seriously, I mean that literally.
When I dropped him off at the shop, Jeffrey studiously avoided the Bottle Store next door and shuffled his way home, a few houses up the hill, while I went to buy butter….
The woman in the shop has taken a while to be less than cold to me, as a newcomer to these parts, but we’re getting on quite well now. Working all day with a deaf man has side effects though… Viz: I leaned across the counter, put my face right up to hers and bellowed: “HET U BOTTER?” It was only when she staggered backwards into the Chilli Pilchards in Tomato Sauce and the teenagers got gobbled by Pac Man at their ancient game consoles that I realised I needed to come out of “ Jeffrey Mode.” I apologised and explained that I’d been working with Jeffrey, so we had a good laugh about it, even though her butter is actually that horrid margarine stuff mixed with reject milk powder or something…
Friday was a good day for me – I managed to assemble the external plastic piping for the cold water tap and shower supply, using more of the expensive brass couplings. The PollyCop system is supposed to be quick and easy, but the pipe is unfortunately not very consistent in diameter. If it has been rolled up it becomes slightly oval, making the fiddly brass rings even more difficult to get over the pipe without damage.
Anyway, at 13h03 on Friday I turned the water on and announced to Jeffrey “ONS HET WATER, JEFFREY!”
At 13h05, as he admitted later, Jeffrey emitted a sabre-toothed chuckle as “PISHSHSHSHFFISHshshsh!”, the main joint parted, creating a sort of upside down Victoria Falls while the pressure lasted. I learned that “Subtle” is a useless concept when it comes to plumbing fittings, so I gave all the joints another dose of monkey wrench and tried again. Voila! Brutal does it!
Just sending up new parents, Joe & Vi
I’d just switched on the kettle for a celebratory cup of tea – piped, not carried – when Joe’s SMS came through that <Insert Girl Name Here> had just been born and that both Vianne and <Insert Girl Name Here> were fine and bouncy, so it was a double celebration in cha. (Hey guys, I don’t know <Insert Girl Name Here>’s name yet, so I’m just quoting Joe’s text message)
Friday was not a good day for Jeffrey though – the Koffieklip conglomerate persisted. He is a proud old man though, and he refused to give up. By the end of the day he’d only managed to get another half a metre down. Perhaps he’ll reach easier ground on Monday. If not, we may have to rethink, but it would be a shame to waste all his effort and abandon that hole.
On Saturday I went off to the big Co-Op at Stanford, bracing myself to buy a rather large (50mm) valve for the solid waste outlet of the digester system. Soon the proprietors of the Co–Ops will wise up – they’ll have a bin at the entrance and I’ll just empty my wallet into it as I arrive. (Legislation has virtually wrenched them from the hands of the farmers who founded them, so in some cases there are a few Wa-Benzis to support.)
Stanford Agri were having a “Lente Dag Uitverkoping en Kermis”, so I hoped to save a few Rand on the valve. Blow me down, as they don’t say in these parts. The shelf-price of this monster valve was R23.55 before the discount on irrigation fittings, while the little brass PolyCop bends and couplers that one uses by the handful are all at least R19.00 each! I guess the plastic irrigation valve won’t take hard use, but then it will only be operated a few times every season anyway. A brass valve of that size costs in the region of R400. Added a few trays of Pansies and Clorofillium (I think) to the basket and set off into the town to buy some groceries for Sandy before browsing the “Antique Shops”.
In “The New Junk Shop” I found a Sixties ARRI 10K Fresnel lensed light, complete with stand. That sort of light was just going out of fashion when I started in the film business, so it brought back a few memories – of strained back and sweat, mainly! Not likely to be buying it as a decoration for Boggy Mansion though, not at R8,500 – apart from which I’d need two teams of wimpish modern gaffers just to move the thing. For the rest though, Stanford was as unimpressive as it was when Christa and I first saw it. A lot of property on sale suddenly, with nothing under R1.6 million in the estate agent I browsed. Also noticed a lot of working-class English accents on the street and among the business owners…. Hmmm….
Took the long way home, via Caledon. It was partly accidental, since I missed a turning and just decided to press on and explore a bit, and partly necessity, as the one-Shetland town of Stanford doesn’t have an ATM capable of re-charging Air Time, neither bottle store has Sandy’s Multana “soetwyn”, nor does it have Rum & Maple Tobacco.
More canola blossom on the road to Caledon
Called in at Boggy Cabin in case I had to chase the local kids out of my improvised Waterworld, but luckily my plumbing had withstood two days of pressure test and every joint was bone dry. Whew!
Had an early braai with Steve and Sandy before the weekly studio Admin. and bed! They’re both in Cape Town until Wednesday, so I’m on my own until Steve brings back more drums for the digester, which I won’t be able to start assembling anyway, if I get onto the course in Stellenbosch.
Ah well, what was that about Plans?