Monday 13th May 2013
I arrived here on Thursday 9th May with a car-load of surplus “stuff” from our back porch in Muizenberg. Although I’d wrapped it in the plastic removals bags, rain has managed to get into it and is not doing any good at all. I also need to clear the porch so that I can get started on making the deck and screen which will house the laundry. The other reason is that the view of a pile of plastic-wrapped “stuff” through the kitchen window drives Christa crazy whenever she is “at home”!
We had a very enjoyable few days showing Christa’s brother Paul and his wife Wendy “Alternative Muizenberg”, as they put it! We also took them further afield though – a trip to Kirstenbosch botanical Gardens and the amazing “Butterfly World” at Klapmuts, near Stellenbosch. A thousand square meters of tropical forest under shade-netting enables one to get very close to thousands of exotic – largely South American – butterflies. The place also provides a home for abandoned or confiscated illegally imported pets of various kinds – snakes, monkeys, tortoises and exotic parrots. One of the parrots was extremely pushy, hopping onto one’s shoulder as you passed by!
Some free dental work for Christa from a very cheeky parrot!
Don’t you dare!
Although the huge American miniseries has been extended by two weeks, our work on it is done, so I am once again “unemployed”. Christa has crises looming on several productions in Johannesburg, so the plan to drive up has been abandoned. I loaded up the car, dropped Christa at the airport for the umpteenth time, and headed straight out here to do what I can to prepare for the winter rainy season.
I arrived to signs of great “busy-ness”. Local council trucks charging up and down my West Road, other council workers paving the footpath from the school, yet more preparing to cast concrete culverts under my approach road to handle the heavy winter rains coming off the mountain after last year’s fire.
After just “chilling” on Friday, I continued the clean-up operation on the Top Dam. By working with levers and rollers, a bit like an Egyptian Pyramid builder, I was able to remove three large tree-trunks from the dam. A fourth will just have to stay in place for now, as a perch for Hadedahs or any other birds which may visit the pond when it is full. I cleared some of the mix of leaves, twigs and sand, but while working in the dam I realised that there is a lot more to do. The wall will need to be properly shaped and the spillways are far too narrow and close to the wall. That kind of work will have to wait – for several reasons: Time – I don’t have much left on this trip, and the more important chore is to protect the road from the worst of the impending winter flood. Ideally, I would need to hire local labour after winter to get the job done efficiently. The other reason is that since water has been declared a National Strategic Resource, there is an astonishing amount of regulation to navigate, even for an existing piddly little Pond like this. I need to investigate where the boundary between “Maintenance” and “Improvement” lies, for fear of being exiled to Robben Island or something. My idea of re-starting vegetable farming in the village appears to be receding behind a wall of red tape, complicated by inter Departmental politics that have bunged up the system for several years. Just another example of well-intentioned, blind legislation actually hampering initiative.
A quick trip to Muizenberg and back to bring more “stuff” to store here for the winter, then I have to fly North, to catch up on the other half of my life. It will be just short of a year since I was last in Johannesburg, and the first time that I don’t really have a “home” there, other than Christa’s “bed-sit” at the studio – but at least she’ll be there! Yay!
A little tidier, but a long way to go!