25th June 2012
It has been a scrappy week at Boggy Pond….
The American writer and broadcaster, Garrison Keillor, began every short story he ever wrote (as far as I know) with the phrase: “Well, it’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota…..” Quite often this would be followed by a deadpan account of some social calamity in his fictional town in the middle of the Norwegian Lutheran / German Catholic belt of America.
I’ve always liked the idea, and sometimes been tempted to paraphrase it… but that would make me a “second-hander”, and we have enough of that in South Africa…
This week though, I’m allowed to, because, as I was saying…
It has been a scrappy week at Boggy Pond….
The weather has been “variable”, shall we say. Perfectly normal for this time of year in the Western Cape mountains, but it does take some adjusting to when it changes by the hour. I also had other distractions – “the Crew” who took part in the Cape Mountain Bike Epic called at the cabin to have some CDs copied. Since I haven’t installed all my usual software on the new machine I wrestled with Windows 7 for a while before giving up and firing up my old laptop. While the CDs burned, we discussed a few ideas for a fund-raising show the boys want to put on for the village pre-School.
I’m also drawing up plans for the existing house on Steve’s other property, since he’s about to take on that whole can of worms. Since I wanted some tongue & groove pine for shelving, Steve accompanied me to town in my pickup on Wednesday. He had bought some old barn doors at an auction and they would be an illegal load on his smaller bakkie. In the way of small towns, the Auctioneer also runs a small engineering works, so I made an enquiry about a protective bar behind the cab on which to rest long loads. While saying that it was difficult to quote a “ball-park” figure, the Engineer suddenly had an inspiration… he had two such cab-protectors lying in the Auction yard! They’d been there for years and were just cluttering up the place, so if I would take them both out of his yard, I was welcome to them! As it happened, one is almost a “bolt-on” for my pickup and the smaller bar probably requires very little modification to fit Steve’s. I haven’t installed mine yet, but fortunately – in view of my fate later in the week – I managed to use some of the wood to install a shelf for my radio right next to the bed, so that I can get to it without getting out of bed…
Between all of this I was surfing the web looking at property in the Stellenbosch / Paarl area and in Cape Town, while trying to find accommodation in Cape Town over the week end. I eventually gave up on web-booking services because they simply send an email to the guest house. It takes hours sometimes to get a response – all of which were “No Room”. I was wondering if there was a big conference in Cape Town, until Christa pointed out that school holidays had just started. Eventually I phoned the Koornhoop Guest House in Observatory, within walking distance of the studio I would be using on Friday. Vic, the talkative English proprietor remembered me from at least two years ago. Two nights booked in about thirty seconds, no deposit required.
On the way in on Thursday I turned off the N2 past the Cape Town Film Studios to investigate a property for sale in an “Eco Village” barely 7 Km from the studios. The village is part of / a partnership with “The Sustainability Institute” which is based on the site. The owner of the house on the market was abroad and the agent had not been able to get the number to open the gate, but I was lucky enough to bump into a young fellow who worked there as I stood waiting at the electric gate. He showed me around a very mixed setup – mixed in many ways. Three or four large, narrow, double-storied houses owned by Academics cheek by jowl with low-cost experimental housing rented out or sold to “people of lower economic position” – whatever that means. The house we had been interested in was one of three sharing a biogas digester for cooking fuel. There was also what seemed to be an original labourer’s house for sale. A bit like Boggy mansion, but even smaller. Much cheaper, very cute, very small – wedged in between and towered over by two modern “eco buildings” barely three metres away on either side. Somebody at the “Sustainability Institute” is not thinking…
No, not a renovate Boggy Mansion! Koornhop Guest House in Observatory, cape Town
I booked into Koornhoop and went off to “an early supper” with Jo, Vi, and Damon. Damon and Joe are rehearsing a play Damon has written for the Grahamstown festival. The problem is they were also about to take part in a short film over the weekend, and had a wrdrobe call in Joe’s flat. That rather messed up young Emily’s bedie-bye schedule, so Vi had her hands full. I fried the fish while Damon made the chips and we eventually ate more or less in shifts as Emily allowed Vi a few minutes of peace.
I woke up on Friday morning to a slightly scratchy throat, and a very full schedule. Cape Town actors tend to pitch up for their auditions, which means there is no “slack” to catch up on auditions if one over-runs. I hate rushing an actor who has clearly taken the trouble to prepare thoroughly for an audition – as all but the few members of the “Old Guard” had. I became progressively more miserably and flu-infested as the day wore on, working through lunch to catch up a little.
Luckily the rain had stopped when I set out to walk back to the guest house, lugging two laptops and my camera. I was in no mood to brave the cold, dark streets of “Obz” to find food I couldn’t taste, so I contented myself with some “padkos” I’d brought and shivered into bed with a hot-water bottle.
My meeting with a Producer was not going to happen on Saturday morning – she said she was facing a year of six- or seven-day weeks, so was being strict with herself about week-ends until then. I completely understand that.
After breakfast I checked out, packed the car, and left it in the yard while I set out to walk the length of Lower Main Road, Observatory, looking for a commercial property that we thought offered possibilities as both a Studio and a home. As walked further down Lower Main I had a strange sensation of Deja Vu… During the seventies I had a meeting with a start-up independent film company based in Bethnal Green in the East End of London. London in the Seventies was grotty beyond belief anyway after years of Labour Governments. The East End was several notches behind that. About as grotty as Lower Main Road, Observatory.
As a curious aside: When I met the Director of their latest short film he was living in a cardboard-clad wire cage partition in a derelict building that served as their studio, store, editing facility and often home to at least two of the members of the co-op. I’ve seen their credit occasionally years ago, but wondered if they were still in business, so I’ve just Googled the name. I found a picture of the industrial door I remember stepping through at 113 Roman Road. With an Arts Council Grant Four Corners moved to better premises virtually next door – they’re still going, and have transformed the company into an educational trust. (See http://www.fourcornersfilm.co.uk/home )
My conclusion was that if it was still the seventies and I was still in my twenties and I had time to wait for the rewards, an audition studio and home among the many artists’ studios on Lower Main Road might be an adventure. In today’s world, on the wrong side of sixty, with not quite enough money to buy the building, let alone rehabilitate it – it’s a no-go…
At the “nice end” of Lower main, I bumped into a talented Actor, Singer, and Dancer I have worked with often over the past forty years. He is seventy years old, and after a lifetime in this business, he’s living in one rented room. That is a scary lesson for today’s soapie stars.
After buying a Homoeopathic flu remedy recommended by Christa, which not even the Pharmacy Assistant could pronounce, I headed home. The journey is a blur, although I do remember the uplifting sight of rolling green fields as I approached Caledon. I staggered into SPAR to buy a whole bag of oranges and a loaf of bread, I think. I was just compos mentis enough to remember that I had my camera in the car, so I took these pictures of changes to the politically inspired names of two nearby buildings.
Of course I crashed into bed immediately after checking my video material, stopping just long enough to make a mug of Cocoa fortified with a generous shot of Hankey Bannister!
I had to be up reasonably early on Sunday to process and upload two-and-a-half hours of material. Mercifully Steve & sandy made me a pot of chicken and vegetable soup, which sustained me through the day. They’ve both had flu recently, so the visit was very brief – I think if I hadn’t opened the door, they would have felt safer if they could have just left the pot on the doorstep! I understand perfectly – I wouldn’t want this flu twice in one season!
Fate had one more dirty trick to play on me… When I was finishing up the upload, I started pre-warming my bed with two hot-water bottles. One of them is the new Chinese one…. As I pulled back the covers, I was greeted by an enormous soggy patch. In my weak state I clearly had not been brutal enough with the badly made stopper. Luckily my sleeping bag didn’t get wet at all, so after stripping the bed and flipping the sodden mattress end-over-end, I felt justified in having a double helping of Hankey Bannister in my bedtime cocoa!
Until my lurgy passes, I guess it is going to be another scrappy week at Boggy Pond..