Woke up hot and grumpy this morning after a horrible nightmare. Took the dogs off for a leafy walk and bumped into my tenant Wagner coming back from his walk with the lovely (and currently much desired) Jaffa, who is being kept under temporary house arrest except for short walks. She was on a leash. Ragnar perked up at once. He went from a loping, laid-back Ridgeback to prancing Lipizzaner in the flash of a whisker.

He and Jaffa had disappeared under suspicious circumstances at his dinnertime two days ago. Neither dog responded to frantic calls, which upset Wagner because he is a professional guard dog trainer, and Jaffa is normally highly obedient. While I am less sensitive to my calls being ignored, Ragnar missing at dinner time was a first. He hasn’t missed dinner in ten years. I had only relaxed when I realised that Jaffa was also missing – even more uncharacteristic! She likes popping in to see if my dogs (picky eaters) have left anything.

As a highly trained Alsatian Guard Dog, she is relentless, and will charge a man firing a gun. So Wagner was not impressed by what he regarded as gross dereliction of duty on her part. Ragnar had returned wagging his tail and grinning sheepishly, and she had been kept under lock and key since.

Normally, Ragnar the Regal Ridgeback is a gentle giant. But one trip down the Primrose Path had converted him instantly into Attila the Hun, and now the air was crackling with testosterone as he started growling at poor Sniper (another contender for the affections of the fair Jaffa), while at the same time trying to present a winning profile to his lady-love. The transformation is amazing.

Wagner calmed them down and joined me – keeping a sharp eye on all would-be suitors. And being a tracker, those eyes miss nothing. This is important, because Ragnar and Sniper are not the only contenders. The most ambitious one is Scooby, the miniature Dachshund, who clearly is a member of the “size-does-not-matter” school of thought. Love is in the air, and he is reaching for the stars.. literally. Because from where he stands, the stars are only marginally higher than the alluring wave of Jaffa’s elegant tail.

Unsurprisingly, we got to talking about dogs and we found ourselves at my house consulting an enormous tome he lent me, called “The Complete Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Dogs & Puppies (over a 1000 illustrations – features ALL breeds)” which keeps me fascinated for hours.

Having Wagner around is teaching me how little I actually know about dogs. We are having a lively debate over whether Jasmine is in fact a Siberian wolf-dog or a Malamute.

“Look at those furry hind-feathers”, he says.

I look. Trotting ahead of us, her hind-feathers are so furry it looks as if she is wearing inflated beige jodhpurs. The creamy flag of her furry tail and her hindfeathers seem almost like a separate dog, they are so different to the rest of her.

“The Husky does not have feathers like that. Malamutes have them because they sleep out in the rain and icy sleet in Alaska, not Siberia. That is why their paws are so tufted and furry – to prevent frostbite”

I’m just going by what I googled and what her last owner told me. Wagner is, of course, right.

Paging through the book, I am crooning over dogs that look like my beloved hound, Montmorency. He has been gone for some years now, but is as alive to me in heart and spirit as ever. He was nearly eighteen when he died of Cancer, and losing him was a terrible blow to us all. The trouble with mongrels is that they are one of a kind. Of course, all dogs are individuals, but with purebred dogs you at least have a sporting chance at replicating them.

“Look at this beauty” I exclaim, pointing to the Francais Blanc et Noir . “If it had a bit more tan, it would be Monty – although the ears are longer”.

Wagner is unimpressed.

“The longer the ears, the bigger the thief”, he says.

“It says here that it is a sociable and pack-orientated hound with strong scent abilities”

“That means it doesn’t really bond to a particular person. It will hang around sleeping in front of the fire as long as you feed it, and if it catches an interesting scent, it will be gone for three days”

I laughed. It sounded a bit like my ex-husband. Clearly I am as bad at choosing the ideal dog as I was at choosing men.

“So what about the Basset Bleu de Gascogne?” I ask, hopefully.

“Short, French, with a nothing-can-stop-me attitude like Napoleon.”

“..and the Basset Artesiene Normand..?”

“Napoleon crossed with Hitler.”

So that is what “strong scenting instinct can be a source of distraction during training and play” means. I was starting to understand the jargon. Like “house with character” to the house-hunter means “interesting but falling down”.

“This one says ‘would make a good pet under the right circumstances’..?”

“Needs a three metre electric fence, locks on your cupboards, and a stun gun. You’ve seen Sniper..” (he’d recently pinched a packet of Beenos out of the very top shelf of the passage cupboard) “.. and he’s a German Gun dog. The Germans bred a dog that was at least trainable. The French didn’t. Those French dogs operate on pure instinct”

I sigh and close the book. But at least I have cheered up.

A Day of Dogs

Woke up hot and grumpy this morning after a horrible nightmare. Took the dogs off for a leafy walk and bumped into my tenant Wagner coming back from his walk with the lovely (and currently much desired) Jaffa, who is being kept under temporary house arrest except for short walks. She was on a leash. Ragnar perked up at once. He went from a loping, laid-back Ridgeback to prancing Lipizzaner in the flash of a whisker.

He and Jaffa had disappeared under suspicious circumstances at his dinnertime two days ago. Neither dog responded to frantic calls, which upset Wagner because he is a professional guard dog trainer, and Jaffa is normally highly obedient. While I am less sensitive to my calls being ignored, Ragnar missing at dinner time was a first. He hasn’t missed dinner in ten years. I had only relaxed when I realised that Jaffa was also missing – even more uncharacteristic! She likes popping in to see if my dogs (picky eaters) have left anything.

As a highly trained Alsatian Guard Dog, she is relentless, and will charge a man firing a gun. So Wagner was not impressed by what he regarded as gross dereliction of duty on her part. Ragnar had returned wagging his tail and grinning sheepishly, and she had been kept under lock and key since.

Normally, Ragnar the Regal Ridgeback is a gentle giant. But one trip down the Primrose Path had converted him instantly into Attila the Hun, and now the air was crackling with testosterone as he started growling at poor Sniper (another contender for the affections of the fair Jaffa), while at the same time trying to present a winning profile to his lady-love. The transformation is amazing.

Wagner

Wagner calmed them down and joined me – keeping a sharp eye on all would-be suitors. And being a tracker, those eyes miss nothing. This is important, because Ragnar and Sniper are not the only contenders. The most ambitious one is Scooby, the miniature Dachshund, who clearly is a member of the “size-does-not-matter” school of thought. Love is in the air, and he is reaching for the stars.. literally. Because from where he stands, the stars are only marginally higher than the alluring wave of Jaffa’s elegant tail.

Unsurprisingly, we got to talking about dogs and we found ourselves at my house consulting an enormous tome he lent me, called “The Complete Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Dogs & Puppies (over a 1000 illustrations – features ALL breeds)” which keeps me fascinated for hours.

Having Wagner around is teaching me how little I actually know about dogs. We are having a lively debate over whether Jasmine is in fact a Siberian wolf-dog or a Malamute.

“Look at those furry hind-feathers”, he says.

I look. Trotting ahead of us, her hind-feathers are so furry it looks as if she is wearing inflated beige jodhpurs. The creamy flag of her furry tail and her hindfeathers seem almost like a separate dog, they are so different to the rest of her.

“The Husky does not have feathers like that. Malamutes have them because they sleep out in the snow in Alaska. That is why their paws are so tufted
and furry – to prevent frostbite”

I’m just going by what I googled and what her last owner told me. Wagner is, of course, right.

Paging through the book, I am crooning over dogs that look like my beloved hound, Montmorency. He has been gone for some years now, but is as alive to me in heart and spirit as ever. He was nearly eighteen when he died of Cancer, and losing him was a terrible blow to us all. The trouble with mongrels is that they are one of a kind. Of course, all dogs are individuals, but with purebred dogs you at least have a sporting chance at replicating them.

“Look at this beauty” I exclaim, pointing to the Francais Blanc et Noir . “If it had a bit more tan, it would be Monty – although the ears are longer”.

Wagner is unimpressed.

“The longer the ears, the bigger the thief”, he says.

“It says here that it is a sociable and pack-orientated hound with strong scent abilities”

“That means it doesn’t really bond to a particular person. It will hang around sleeping in front of the fire as long as you feed it, and if it catches an interesting scent, it will be gone for three days”

I laughed. It sounded a bit like my ex-husband. Clearly I am as bad at choosing the ideal dog as I was at choosing men.

“So what about the Basset Bleu de Gascogne?” I ask, hopefully.

“Short, French, with a nothing-can-stop-me attitude like Napoleon.”

“..and the Basset Artesiene Normand..?”

“Napoleon crossed with Hitler.”

So that is what “strong scenting instinct can be a source of distraction during training and play” means. I was starting to understand the jargon. Like “house with character” to the house-hunter means “interesting but falling down”.

“This one says ‘would make a good pet under the right circumstances’..?”

“Needs a three metre electric fence, locks on your cupboards, and a stun gun. You’ve seen Sniper..” (he’d recently pinched a packet of Beenos out of the very top shelf of the passage cupboard) “.. and he’s a German Gun dog. The Germans bred a dog that was at least trainable. The French didn’t. Those French dogs operate on pure instinct”

I sigh and close the book. But at least I have cheered up.

Just Another Friday Night in South Africa

On Friday evening, I’d just got in from taking my neighbour shopping at Jasmyn at Hartbeespoort Dam when I had a surprise call from an Facebook friend, Charmaine, wondering why I’ve been so scarce on Fb.

The fact is that my Vodacom connection to the Internet is so bad, that trying to connect is a mission. It takes forever to connect, and then the connection lasts only a minute or two. Posts have to be written first and then copied and pasted FAST before that tenuous connection is lost. It is absolutely maddening.

Complaining about the service gets me nowhere at all – I’ve been doing so for over a year – although it has never been this bad before. Don’t get me wrong: they have a host of charming people ready to listen to your complaint. Someone actually even gets back to you! But nothing ever improves. They just keep smiling, taking your money, and you keep paying for a service you aren’t able to use…

ADSL is unavailable here in the Bundu, alas – even though the aforesaid Bundu is only 27km from Pretoria, the administrative capital of South Africa. Even worse is that prepaid airtime (at a monstrous R319 for 1,5 gigs or  R369 for 2 gigs) runs out after 30 days, whether you’ve actually been able to use it or not! And if you don’t buy in bulk it works out at about a rand per megabyte. I think they should change their name to VODA-CON, the non-service provider. But I digress.

Charmaine breeds Yorkies and has two charming Bostons called Maggie and Parker, and a tea-cup Yorkie who nearly didn’t make it, and whose name escapes me. Her Fb posts are always full of interesting stories about them, and the challenges of helping with her Grandson’s homework.  We had a long chat catching up on doggie anecdotes (everyone who knows me knows I’m quite silly about dogs) and so we went on for over an hour. When my neighbour phoned on my other phone, I cut our chat short, because I always worry about her lack of security, so close to the road without even a fence worthy of the name, and no gate at all.

So I took her call and was relieved to hear that that the only problem was that she thought she might have forgotten her two new DVD’s in my car.

I offered to go out and check for her. The car was parked just on the other side of the pond, I hadn’t locked it up (there is a sheep in my garage just now, refugee from a wild dog attack) so it was no effort. I knew she’d be anxious to watch them. No, no, she said, she could wait until Saturday: better not to go outside.

Not having any security, and not being able to walk very far (or fast) due to undiagnosed childhood Polio, she feels differently about going out at night than I do. I have seven dogs and an electric fence, and my house is invisible form the road in a home-made forest. In fact, when it rains heavily, it is inaccessible to anything bar a hovercraft.

So we were laughing and chatting on the mobile as I did chores in the kitchen when the aforesaid seven dogs started going mad in the lounge and charged out onto the verandah barking their “Intruder!” bark. I wasn’t worried – I figured it was my tenant popping in as he sometimes does in the evenings. I expected to see his dogs run in any minute, heralding his arrival.

But they didn’t.

I went outside to see if Wagner’s lights were on in the cottage. They weren’t.

I interrupted my neighbour in mid-anecdote.

“Do you know, I think I’ve actually had an intruder!” I said to her “I think I’d better get off the phone and put it out on the radio.”

“Yes, I heard the dogs barking.. that might be a good idea. Now don’t forget to watch that DVD I lent you with Meryl Streep. It really is hilarious.. I’ll make that cake for Morgwyn very early tomorrow morning. Will you drop by with the DVD’s to fetch it?”

“Elitia, I really think I should get onto the radio to warn the others”

“OK, then see you tomorrow. Hope everything is OK down there!”

She rang off.

I got onto the radio. Everyone in Sector Four is notoriously absent on a Friday night but not that Friday. Attie was on the ball, and answered at once. I explained the situation.

“Do you need assistance”, he asked.

“No, thanks, Attie – the dogs saw them off. They’re long gone now.. probably still running! I’m just worried about the next people they’re headed for.”

“I’ll get someone to run by your place just in case”

“OK, maybe that’s a good idea. You never know”

I went and hung out the last two sheets on the back verandah. Then Scooby, Wagner’s little Dachshund came running up with his tail wagging and I saw his German Gundog, Sniper, running south along my neighbour-to-the-West’s border. Then I heard Sniper bark.

Had I made all this fuss for nothing? I went out the front of the house to check for the cottage light. It was on. I phoned Wagner. No reply. I was feeling really foolish, and was nearly back at the house, when he loomed out of the dark.

“I sensed an urgency in that missed call..?” he said.

“Hi Wagner! Was that you on my verandah just now?”

“No. I’ve just arrived” he said frowning. “Why?”

I told him.

“You were lucky.” he said. “You saw Sniper running down and then he barked? He only barks at the target. That is his job. That is where your intruders were.”

Wagner is a professional tracker and registered guard dog-trainer.

I was starting to realise how lucky I had been. They hadn’t run away. They had just retreated, waiting.

“Their scout (they always have one) probably saw me coming down the road”

“..and the dogs chased them!” I added.

“Yes. But not far enough.”

“I was really lucky. I nearly went out to check the car for those DVD’s! I’d have run right into them! And if I hadn’t been out this afternoon, the whole house would still have been open!” I had been airing the place for Morgwyn’s visit.

“In fact, there IS still one window open, at the other end of the house” I went to close it. Wagner was right behind me. He is normally very reticent about going into the private end of the house.

“They sometimes come in and hide” he explained. “Then they wait for you..”

I shuddered. I closed that window very firmly and checked the others.

I was feeling a bit shaky, suddenly.

I realised that they had probably been watching me hang out the washing..

Now seemed a good time for a glass of wine. Wagner kept me company – although declined the wine.

“They often come back,” he explained. “I was tracking a bit further up the mountain for some people who had just had an attempted robbery. They were interested in the whole tracking thing, and followed me as I tracked the robbers. They were amazed when, after going up the mountain, the track turned back in a semi-circle, and they found themselves back at their house. The thieves had returned and were just waiting for everyone to go to bed again.”

He was sitting on the arm of an armchair strategically placed to observe all the doors and the passage, rhythmically swinging a stick with a lethal looking sharpened metal prod at the end of it, gazing moodily into the darkness through the open French Doors. He looked as if that stick was a weapon he was very comfortable with, and knew how to use.

 “People don’t realise that the crime is so bad here, that it is as if we are at war. It is a war, this fight against crime. We are fighting for our very lives, and people don’t realise it. They don’t want to see it. The criminals we are fighting are war hardened veterans, many of them, from central Africa. These are not ordinary thieves. They are vicious”

I had another glass of wine.

After an hour, Wagner departed. He had an early day ahead of him. But it was a long time before I went to sleep! 

It isn't always the Wolf in Sheep's clothing you should be worrying about..

My neighbour Jaap has passed on, bless his soul. He was a kind man and helped me and my daughters on several occasions, fighting fires and changing tyres. I know how to change a tyre, of course I do; but sometimes the nuts were so tight I couldn’t get the things off by myself to even begin! He was also the first one here the night my daughter Caitlin, then only seventeen, and I, were held up by three men with AK47’s. I’ve never been so pleased to see anyone in my life. But that is another story.

Well, he’s gone now, and Leonora has sold their plot. I can’t look at those Lucerne fields to the south and east of my plot without seeing him chugging away on his tractor, a man finally free of his career as a research chemist to pursue his dream of farming.

Now someone new will be living there.

Life goes on, and a new chapter in the history of that piece of land is opening. But I can remember the man who owned that place before Jaap and Leonora, about thirty-five years ago. His name, if I remember correctly, was Frans. He lived in his servant’s quarters and rented out the main house for extra income to boost his disability allowance.

My father met him in the bar of the old Swartspruit Hotel, and brought him home to have dinner with us one evening, and it was the start of many such visits. Frans was in a wheelchair, and his story was a sad one, of human folly and love and betrayal, as all the best stories are. All the protagonists in this tale are dead now, so no harm can come from the telling of it.

He had been an athlete in his youth, and was often out running and training for the next marathon. He had several medals to prove it. He even gave my father one of them from the Comrades I think, as a token of gratitude for his kindness.

He had married his childhood sweetheart, and they had been happily married for some years. Or so he thought.  But his passion for running took him away from home a lot. His young wife grew lonely and took a lover, as young wives will when left unattended for too long. And of course, the inevitable eventually happened – they grew careless and he walked in unexpectedly one night and surprised them in the act.

As it happened, he was the one who was surprised.

Even way back then there was an element of risk in a woman being alone on a plot at night, and he had bought her a handgun, which she kept in her bedside drawer. So on that fateful night, it was right there beside her. While he was still taking in the scene before him, she whipped out her pistol and shot him. The bullet lodged in his spine and in that instant, his life, as he knew it, ended. No more running, no more walking, no more work, and (understandably) no more marriage..

He found himself alone, impoverished and confined forever to the wheelchair that was to become both his friend and his worst enemy. Never having been one for drinking before, he discovered that a few drinks eased not only his physical pain, but also the soul-pain that that night had left him with. To add to his misery, he kept having to go to hospital for further operations. Because he was alone with no one to care for him, he developed terrible bedsores that he wasn’t even aware of until they needed surgery. My father took pity on him, and while he was in hospital, bought him a sheepskin to sit on to help prevent these from developing again. Frans was in hospital nearly the whole of winter, and the sheepskin lay rolled up in the little jammerkamertjie off the main bedroom of our house.

My father visited him regularly in hospital. Frans’ family lived in Jo’burg, and couldn’t come to see him very often. When he was finally released, it was on condition that he stayed with his family so that they could help look after him while he recuperated. So my father put the rolled up sheepskin on the backseat, in case Frans wanted to sit on it, and set off to the hospital to fetch Frans. Frans didn’t need it, so it stayed where it was while the wheelchair and the bit of luggage went into  the capacious boot of the Caprice, and off they went to Jo’burg.

His sister had a flat above Joubert Park, which was still fairly respectable in those days. It was on the third floor – luckily there was a lift. My father duly dropped him off there to a warm welcome from his sister and her husband and some of their neighbours, had a drink or two with them and departed, glowing with a sense of having done his good deed for the day.

Getting Frans settled in, exchanging news, and unpacking, the sister came across my father’s gift of the sheepskin. She was delighted and decided to apply it at once. She and her husband lifted Frans out of his wheelchair and set him in an armchair. Then they picked up the sheepskin and unrolled it, to put it on the seat for him. As they unrolled it, a metre long snake emerged. It had obviously been there for a while, and was understandably irritated at being disturbed. Pandemonium broke out, with everyone screaming and rushing for the door at once, screaming “Slang, slang!!” and forgetting poor old Frans stuck on the sofa, unable to move.

From what we heard afterwards, everyone on that floor and the next ran out of the building panic-stricken, and someone called the fire brigade. After all, people in flats in the middle of Jo’burg aren’t really used to having to deal with all the creepy crawlies we plot-people deal with on a daily basis. Living in the city, particularly on the third floor, one has a right to expect to get through life snake-free. As it turned out, to everyone’s relief, the snake was harmless. The firemen removed it, everyone calmed down and for all I know its descendants are still living in Jo’burg Zoo.

My father never tired of telling this story. He and Frans would laugh until they cried. The thing is, my father was terrified of snakes. He never got over the fact that it had been nesting in the room next to him, and that he had held it in his arms, and driven with it all the way to Jo’burg….

The Luck of the Devil

When did it become a crime to be afraid, I wonder..?

All I know is that since I can remember it has never been an option. It simply did not happen in our family. On the Afrikaans side, my father’s side, I have a Great Uncle who ran off to join the fighting against the British when his family was taken to the infamous camps – three of his siblings never made it out of them. He found his father’s Kommando and ran alongside his father’s horse, hanging onto the mane until a horse became available. He was twelve. My great-grandmother had a different sort of courage – the sort that can endure watching three children die of sickness and starvation and still never lose faith in God or in mankind.

My father went to war as a pilot aged seventeen.

On my mother’s side they appear to have been equally fearless, dying in The Great War and in the Zulu Wars, and surviving the “White Man’s Grave” that is Africa, according to Kipling..

So while my family has been known to tolerate many small foibles and indiscretions (particularly on my mother’s side), cowardice was never one of them.

And yet I’m sitting here, heart pounding every time the birds start up, or I hear one of the big palm fronds falling over the pond.

It had to happen eventually. Our small part of the valley is experiencing a crime wave and every house around me has been hit. It was only a question of time…

I woke up all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed yesterday at seven thirty, which is very early for me. The shadowplay of light in the lounge is irresistible between eight and ten, and I hate to miss it. The branches of the big trees over the verandah are all dancing in the August wind, scattering the sunlight into little twinkly bits. It makes my day to see it. It is still too cold to sit outside then, but I love the view from the sofa, snuggled up with my dogs and sipping cocoa and doing my daily morning journal.

I had just got up and was preparing for the daily Odyssey up to the Water-tower to turn the water on (it all runs out during the night), when the dogs all rushed out of the French Doors in my bedroom, barking madly. I peered out and saw a man up in the rose garden near the Tower.

It didn’t worry me particularly – I thought it was my neighbour’s worker. He had promised to come down with his man and have a look at my leaks. I figured he’d come early to look at them before I filled the tank. So I called the dogs in before they scared the poor fellow to death and phoned him.

“Selwyn, is that you crashing around in my undergrowth?”

“No. It isn’t.”

“It isn’t..??”

“Hang on – I’ll be right down”

And he was. By then I was up there looking for tracks. I’m blind as a bat without my lenses – too bad an astigmatism for glasses – so I told myself it might have been a cow, and was looking for hoof-tracks (my neighbour-to-the-west’s cows are always jumping over the electric fence). There weren’t any.

My neighbour fought in the Rhodesian Bush Wars and is a tracker of note. He found the tracks. There had been three of them. He showed me where the first two had come in – where they’d stood and observed the house. A lovely view of my open bedroom door…

He found the path the third one had taken – the one I’d seen. And where the three of them had come together. The dogs had also picked up the scent. I got onto the radio.

“Papa Delta, Papa Delta, come in for Charlie Foxtrot”

“Go ahead Charlie Foxtrot. I receive you”

“Three intruders, nice fresh tracks. Only 15 minutes ago. I saw one. I think it’s a good case for the Sniffer Dog and the Tracker”

“I’ll organise it, Charlie Foxtrot”

“I’m warning you, I’m still in my pajamas”

“Are those sexy pajamas, Charlie Foxtrot?”

“Most definitely not, Papa Delta”

And he did. It took a while though, to organise.

“They’re taking a long time” said Selwyn.

“They’re much quicker at night. Remember, they’re all at work now, so they have farther to come”

Selwyn went home, he had things to do.

I went and washed my face and made coffee in case anyone wanted any, and put on some clothes. My bright pink furry dressing gown made far too good a target. It took a while for the tracker to come.

Papa Delta arrived.

“So would you have been quicker if I’d said the pajamas were sexy?” I enquired.

He laughed.

Wagner arrived with his beautiful Alsation, Jaffa. Introductions all round. The tracker was a fresh-faced young man with eyes shining with a rare pureness of spirit. I liked him and his dog instantly.

I went up to show them where the tracks were, but found that I wasn’t that clear on it (I’d kept back so as not to mess the scene up) and had to run back to the house to phone the long-suffering Selwyn, who arrived two minutes later.

It was fascinating to watch. Selwyn pointed out where they’d come in, reading signs that were plain to the other two men but invisible to me. As soon as Jaffa picked up the scent, she sat down. Then the hunt was on! It was uncanny how accurate Selwyn had been. The track led through the field, past the rose garden, behind the cottage, across another field through blackjacks and shoulder-high grass, to the fence. Wagner pointed out the loose strand, not apparent to the eye. He waggled it, to show us how loose it was compared to the others.

“This is not their first visit”, he said. “They’ve been through here before”

We left the track, went out through the gate, and as soon as Jaffa found the scent again on the other side of the fence, she sat down. And so we went on, Papa Delta pointing out shoeprints that he recognised from a cable-theft at his house. Safety boots and takkies.

“They’re armed, these guys”, he said.

 Selwyn compared his foot with the print. It was massive. So, a big guy…

I’m astonished that I kept up. I was the eldest of our little group by ten years..

Eventually, we called a halt. It was plain where the tracks were headed.. Past the local Shebeen to a new squatter camp housing mainly Zimbabweans. I remembered that I’d left the gate open and my radio and phone and mobile on the verandah, and all the dogs locked inside (for Jaffa)

We retraced our steps. No need to photograph the prints – Papa Delta already had them on record. Pointless calling the police. Nothing had been taken. What could they do, anyway..?

“Not much they can do until these guys do something to you” said Wagner. “But they’ll be back”.

“Probably tonight, or tomorrow. Better be on the lookout for the next few days”

“Ja, they case the joint during the day then come back later when it’s dark”

"Would any of you like some coffee?” I asked. No-one did. Every one of them had a job to get back to.

It was after they’d all gone that it hit me. I had been very, very lucky.I always have been. My Irish Granny called it the luck of the devil. My Afrikaans Ouma called it the hand of God. 

A few minutes later, and I’d have run right into them at the pump house…Unarmed and in my pajamas. I don’t even take my radio or phone with me – after all, it is just a stroll in the garden..! The dogs are almost always with me on the way there. But not always when I return an hour later to switch it off..

And very lucky that my door is always open. Who knows how close to the house they might have got? It could have gotten ugly. Someone was bound to get hurt..

And so here I sit, waiting, the television off, no music.  It is midnight now. Will it be tonight..?

Blue Monday

Yesterday really was a lovely day. So cold and rainy, that even Jet the Australian Shepherd was all cuddly. Of course he grumbled and growled when I scooped him nose-end up to me and cradled him in my arms.. but then he went all floppy and nuzzled into my neck and my day was made.. I buried my nose in his fur and revelled in the glorious herb-scented, mushroomy, dogginess of him.. so soft and fluffy after all my brushing of the day before.. You can get lost in that dog, when he goes all soft like that…I love him to bits!

Especially as he was the only one brave enough to go out into the teeth of the storm on Friday night, with lightening flashing and thunder crashing all around us, and branches falling, as we slippy-slid the two hundred paces up to the pump house to turn the water on – and then again, 45 minutes later, to turn it off.. and  he is terrified of storms! I think that is what finally got the ‘flu into high gear, all the drenching.

It was very exciting though..! Unlike Jet, I love storms, the wilder, the better. I felt like a heroine in an old movie, fording the swollen river in the face of the wailing wind and icy sleet, bearer of  the vital message about the Boche raid for the brave men of the  Resistance, her faithful dog by her side…! A vivid imagination can get you through anything.

But today really is a bit of a Blue Monday. I was woken up by repeated calls on my cell which I ignored for as long as possible. It turned out to be someone called Klaas, a very sweet sounding man under any other circumstances.

“Hello? This is Klaas.. I’m at your gate?”

“Erm.. hi there Klaas…” (frantic brainscan for any forgotten appointments with Klaas, followed by second even more frantic brainscan for a Klaas, any Klaas)

“I lost my white Altdorf (?) German Shepherd..?”

“Oh – (stifling yawn and trying to focus eyes) sorry to hear that..”

“I heard it was at your house..?”

“Oh..!! (light dawns) Yes! Of course…!" (I had broadcast a message about a lost
 Pekinese on Saturday)
" But, … erm.. that was actually a Pekinese..?”

“Oh…” says Klaas, crestfallen. Then, brightening, “Can I see it?” (Just in case I had somehow mistaken a Pekinese for his white German shepherd. As can so easily happen....)

 “Um..the thing is, it isn't here. Oh dear…and you came down this awful road for nothing..? Sorry about that..! Frans de Bruyn knows where it is”

“Oh! Alright! Thanks, I’ll go and ask him. Bye..!”

The phone rings again.

“Hullo..?” I mumble.

“This is Klaas..”

“Oh. Hi Klaas..?” (can’t help sniggering at how this sounds, even in my sleepy state)

“Where do I find Frans de Bruyn?”

I closed my eyes again, wondering if I could recapture my unfinished dream and pondering the ways of desperate dog owners. In the distance I could hear the zero-to-three-thousand soprano whine of an engine revving over wheels that were spinning free and gripless in the quagmire outside the gate. I decided not to go up. My ‘flu wouldn’t handle it well and what could I do anyway? Best I didn’t see the ruins my road was being reduced to…I had thought that by now everyone in the valley knew better than to drive down my road after rain. And that had been some storm..!

Drifting… drifting.. back to my dream.. my arm is so cold.. shivering.. cold… and wet.. Wet? WET. Why is my arm wet..? Wide awake now! Whip blanket off, mystery is revealed in the form of Bubba, who is sopping wet, wide-eyed and shivering under the blanket, like an orphan seal beached on a foreign shore after a storm. ALL the dogs were wet. Their wet had just not penetrated yet.. I got up, sneezed, fetched a towel, sneezed, and started dying seven dripping dogs…Clearly this was going to be a long day..

In My Shoes

It is an amazing feeling, standing out under the trees at night.  Stand still, very still, for long enough, you start to feel invisible. As if you’ve melted into the dark. When you breathe, it breathes with you.. and you are careful to breathe very, softly, very slowly, mouth slightly open.. that way your breathing doesn’t mess with your hearing..

You are just ears and eyes and shadow, waiting. You see things as never before. An Agapanthus that you passed several times today and never noticed, looms magical and luminous before you, its blossoms glowing like crystals on a chandelier. You stare in wonder, trying to figure out what is causing this transformation. Is it filtered moonlight? Is it dew? Did it perhaps rain earlier..?

The birds start. Gently ease the safety off and point the barrel at the noise.. Ready – steady – the chatter dies down. You wait. It feels as if the whole night is waiting. The silence is oppressive. Lightening in the distance, a bit of thunder… The hush before the storm. The odd cricket starts, and is quickly silenced, like a child in church. You bless your ugly old shoes, the ones that are completely soundless outdoors and only just whisper indoors..

Will they come tonight? 

You know they are coming back to fetch the looted copper pipes they stole last week, and dropped about 40 paces from where you are standing now, when you fired  at a noise more sensed than heard... You never saw them. You only found the flattened grass, where they had lain,  hidden. Your shot must have sounded terrifying at such a close range. The man who came to look, reckoned there were three or four of them…

Ten minutes, fifteen. There is no wind and the mosquitoes are eating you alive. Apparently, you’re off the hook this time. Click the safety on. Careful to stay in the shadows, you pad silently back to the house, where the dogs lie trembling, every bit as tense as you are. They hate it when you go out at night like this…

It may be over, but the feeling that something is off, not quite right, persists. You remember that single shot you heard two years ago, that you called in. That shot, that had come from the house of a woman in the next road, had been the sound of her dying.. Shot through her window as she lay sleeping. You didn't know her. They said it was an accident, that the thief tripped, hadn't meant to kill her. You don’t want to think about it, but you can’t forget it either. That night your dogs had been restless too, and you had been listening in the dark, just as you were tonight…

You won’t be taking that joyous silvery moonlit swim tonight.. nor will you be getting much sleep… Not tonight.

This is the story of how my father came to live in the Valley. It was originally written for another blog under the title "Prudence & the Pill". Because of this, there is a lot of Afrikaans in it..

As I've already said, it takes a special kind of person to live on a plot. We came to the life totally unprepared. It has been a long and exciting learning curve!

We ended up here in this valley because my father was a Romantic.  He’d  been told tireless tales about his father's older brother, who at thirteen had watched in helpless rage as his farm near Brits was burnt to the ground and his mother and younger siblings were taken by the British to rot in Kitchener’s infamous camps. Alone in the dark, this young boy had waited for the soldiers to leave and then searched for his father in the Kommandos and joined them, running beside his father’s horse until one was found for him. He had fought with them until the end, and survived.

 As if this story was not enough, his imagination had been further inflamed by fireside tales his mother told her eager children of far-off lands and deeds of derring-do and knights in shining armour.

So it is not really surprising that at seventeen he ran off to fight in WW2 - much to the disgust of his father, who, as a survivor of the camps, felt he was on the wrong side. It wasn’t so much that my grandfather was pro-German as just bitterly anti-British. But my father wanted the glory of battle, and he wanted to fly a plane, and he was terrified that the war would end before he got a chance to be in it.

He survived that war as his grandfather and father had survived theirs before him, and his father (grateful to have his his eldest son back in one piece) forgave him, but that was not enough for him. Exposure to foreign countries and ancient civilisations just whetted his appetite and made him yearn for more adventure. He cast about for a ticket to adventure and finally hit on an unlikely source: the Civil Service. So he became a Civil Servant, packed up my mother and me in 1954, and travelled the world.

When we returned in 1972, he surveyed his office in Pretoria with distaste. He didn’t like being given orders, and he didn’t much care for the petty bureaucracy of Head Office. He much preferred dealing with them from several thousand kilometres away.  He had certainly had a lot of adventure; he had lived in London, Hamburg and Buenos Aires, and travelled the length and breadth of Europe and South America. But now he yearned for a closer relationship with the land of his birth, specifically the farming life of our Afrikaner forebears. He wanted to stare out at vastness, emptiness, and to feel the hot African earth between his toes.

So he sold our beautiful, shady old house in Irene, and acquired a small shoe-box  on 22 acres of treeless, windswept savannah in this sunlit valley, along with one extremely bad-tempered Jersey cow, and a huge shiny Shangaan of indeterminate age with muscles like ships’ hawsers. This giant’s name was Samson Baloyi. Well, we didn’t actually buy Samson, of course. Samson just stayed, along with his family.

Samson didn’t think much of people in general, and especially not white people; and as far as white people went, he particularly did not like English speaking white people. True, my father was Afrikaans, but as a city slicker, he didn’t count. Real Afrikaners worked the land and sweated and slaved along with their workers. Samson had no time for lazy soft-bellied fools who sat on their flabby white bottoms at desks doing nothing all day and getting paid handsomely for it. Any idiot could do a job like that, even a woman (the lowest form of life in Samson's opinion). If you couldn’t go out and kill your own dinner with your bare hands and pee standing up, you were worthless in Samson’s eyes. And he was not shy about letting you know it.

In fact, the only reason he tolerated my parents was their beautiful cars.    My father had an enormous metallic gold Caprice and my mother drove a nifty little Volkswagen-Porsche 914. They had been bought purely for their overseas resale value, the only money-making perk of an overseas posting, but we had not completed the two years of our second tour of duty in Argentina, so they could not be sold. Samson adored these cars, and kept them showroom-shiny. But nothing else about us impressed him.

We were keenly aware of our ignorance on everything to do with farming and relied heavily on Samson for guidance. One evening we arrived home to find our cow, Prudence, mooooooing plaintively and wandering around restlessly. She didn’t want her evening treat and was off her feed. No-one slept that night. Prudence made sure of that. She mooed without rest. We were worried.

The next morning the three of us gathered gloomily outside her paddock. She was still mooing disconsolately and pawing the ground every now and again as she paced her paddock restlessly.

“Merciful heavens! Just listen to her!” exclaimed my mother irritably. “Hennie, DO something! We can NOT go on like this! I haven’t slept a wink!”
“She’s certainly not happy”, observed my father, sucking deeply on his pipe.
“Well whatever is wrong, please fix it” snapped my mother, who regarded sleep as sacred. “D’you think the Vet is awake at this ungodly hour? If he is, he doesn’t deserve to be. After all, he is only 10 kms away. He must  have heard her. It is quite bad enough living in the middle of nowhere without having to spend the entire night listening to a cow carrying on like a dying diva in an amateur Opera.  She sounds as if she’s wailing for every cow that’s ever lived!!”
“Or died”, I suggested.
“She does rather,” conceded my father, sighing deeply.
I was standing well back. I was terrified of cows, especially this one.
At that moment, Samson ambled up.
“Samson!” my mother brightened, sensing relief at last. “What is the matter with Prudence? An ideas? Anything at all..?”
Samson gazed pityingly at the three of us.
“Sy soek die Pil” he said. (Translation:She wants the pill)
“Pill? She wants a Pill? Good heavens, man, what sort of pill does she want? Hennie, find out at once! We must get this pill!”

Now of course, one must remember that pills were BIG in the sixties. Everyone lived on the knife-edge knowledge that they could be blown to smithereens at any moment that the Presidents of either Russia or the USA absent-mindedly tapped a bony finger on The Button and launched us all into Atomic oblivion.  Global neurosis was at an unprecedented level and wealthy psychiatrists, psychologists, and of course, the big chemical companies, bloomed as prolifically as bright red poppies had on the battle-bloodied fields of the great wars.

 By the seventies, there was a pill for every occasion.  Your fate was in your (and your Doctor’s) hands. You could control whether you speeded up, speeded down, fell asleep, stayed awake, got fat, got thin, got happy, got pregnant, got Septicaemia, Dyspepsia, Acne, Arthritis or  Tuberculosis. There were even pills to make you tell the truth.. (though of course, those were never really available in pill form - too many marriages would have been ruined) Rock and Pop groups extolled their virtues in song. The Rolling Stones sang about them:  “Mother’s Little Helper” foreshadowed the hordes of grey-haired pill-popping prescription-addict grannies of the eighties and nineties - and even movies were dedicated to them. If the world could be blown up in an instant, at least we could all go calmly. Even Prudence, with any luck.

 Clearly my mother was also hoping for some such calmative effect for Prudence – and failing that, for us. She had embraced the pill-popping culture with the devotion of an early Christian for a piece of the True Cross.

Samson cleared his throat.
“Nee, Mies – nie daardie soort pil nie. Sy soek die BILL.” (No Ma'am - not that sort of pill - the Bill)
“She wants Bill? Bill who?”
Samson rolled his eyes.
“Hennie!” demanded my mother impatiently, “We must find out who this Bill is and get him here at once! Ask, him, Hennie, ask him!” she pleaded.
Before my father could get a word in, Samson interrupted. With an air of martyred pain, he gazed heavenward. One sensed that he was asking the Almighty what he had done to deserve such suffering.
“Dis nie die mens wat sy soek, Mies. Dis die BUL” he said carefully –  as one does to not very bright children - “die man-koei”…(It is not a person she seeks. It is the man cow)
What my mother said next doesn’t bear repeating. My father and I were laughing too much to remember much of it anyway.

Christmas Dinings, Whinings and Woes (Part One)

When things go wrong on a plot, they tend to go very, very wrong. There are no happy mediums on plots - unless they are the sort lucratively employed in communicating with the dead.

So, when my borehole pump started tripping at the main board, I knew I was in trouble. Not even I, accustomed as I am to the vagaries of country life, could have guessed just how much trouble it was going to turn into.

The first time it tripped, I thought my pump had been stolen. This happens a lot out here. As I waded through the shoulder high grass to the site of the borehole, my spirits lifted. Not even a water-diviner could have found it in this wilderness of weed, grass and bramble - and so it proved; the borehole and its pump were intact. So what could it be?

I checked at the board in the house – nothing. There was power, yet there was no water. So I called my local knight-in-shining-armour, Papa Delta, for help. Shortly after, he called back to say a bakkie bearing water was on its way to me, could I open the gate? On my way there, I checked the main board at the water tower. It had tripped. I switched it on again, and the storage tank started filling…

I grovelled suitably and blushed and apologised for my incredible stupidity and the kindly, long-suffering man drove off with his water-laden bakkie, no doubt privately cursing all women, particularly those who did not immediately check their main boards for tripped switches.

But the switch kept tripping. And not the psychedelic kind either.

Every time I used a lot of water, it tripped. Luckily the rainy season had come early and the garden did not need watering. So the problem went undetected, growing bigger like a hidden snake, biding its time to strike at just the right moment..

And suddenly Christmas was upon us.  Frantic polishing and cleaning.  Days before, I started washing sheets for my Christmas houseguests. Sheets and blankets always smell nasty after a stint in the cupboard, and I love the delicious anticipation of getting into a really cleanly fragrant bed. All the sofa covers needed to be washed too, because otherwise they smell of their default odour, which is damp dog. I have seven dogs, five of which are devoted sofa-snugglers. Two of them are also pond-waders, so I always keep a pile of clean throws to toss over suspect sofas for unexpected visitors, but this had to be thorough. My ex-husband was coming over for Christmas.

I am not a keen fan of my ex-husband. But I read that according to Karma, lessons not learned in this life will be repeated in the next, and if I do not make peace with him, I might well be married to him again in my next life.. That is not a risk I am willing to take, no matter how small the chance.

And that was not all. My gay ex-brother-in-law was coming along too, with his boyfriend, Bunny, who was the only one I looked forward to seeing. Bunny is vivacious and full of fun, a real sweetie. What he sees in Yawn, my ex-brother-in-law, is a mystery to me, but there it is. Besides, who am I to criticize? After all, I married into that family. The only shining light that lay over the whole event would be the presence of my daughter Morgana, who can turn a funeral into a party.

And so I was slaving away, trying to make my crumbling old house look its best. As old houses do, it resisted. It summoned the forces of nature to help it. As spiders grumbled at having their comfy old cobwebs disturbed, the skies rumbled, thundered, and smacked fat sulky clouds until they retaliated by dropping their heavy load directly overhead.

As always happens with such storms, the power failed, leaving the polisher stranded in mid-floor. Muddy paw-prints planted by ozone-charged dogs  gathered around it; clean washing blew away and settled damply in branches like cartoon ghosts abandoned on impact. The old house sighed contentedly as it settled into its thick, churned-chocolate mud bed. So did I, although rather less contentedly, and turned to polishing the brass and silver instead. That always cheers me up. I love the warped reflections in shiny objects, and the way the light bounces off them.

In the cold-hearted manner of things mechanical and electrical, the gate also started giving me trouble. When the rain stopped, the gate wouldn’t open to the remote control, and there is n other way to open it that does not involve wallowing in the mud. It just stood there, shivering and straining as if it was about to give birth. Closer inspection revealed that during the week of rain, it had silted up. Water from the Magaliesberg had rolled unencumbered down the road, bringing a rich collection of topsoil and debris with it, until it had come to the gate, where it nested. I cleared it. It still wasn’t happy. It rumbled and grumbled and shivered until a hearty shove sent it creaking on its way. But at least I could get out. It never did manage to open all by itself again.

The day before Christmas, the switch kept on tripping. I had done a lot of washing. My daughter, Morgana, arrived with her friend Mondrian and his relatives, some of whom I had never met, and I unexpectedly found myself swigging Brandy and Coca-Cola. We all became extremely happy to have met one another, and found ourselves and everyone else to be amazingly charming and witty. The switch tripped, but no-one noticed. When they left two hours later, a nap was necessary.

Having fallen behind schedule due to these unforeseen circumstances, we laboured late into the night. It was only the next day, when Morgana was sluicing down the enormous verandah, that the switch became a problem. I kept having to run up and flip it. It was proving to be more stubborn each time. I had to turn the mains off first, then flip it before it would take.

Our guests arrived, minus Bunny, due to a last minute lovers’ tiff. Much effusive and largely insincere greeting took place. Drinks were poured, and everyone settled in. Shark (my ex-husband) had taken the precaution, at Morgana’s urging, of  slightly pre-roasting the lamb and potatoes and other vegetables, because the power levels have been known to drop radically on Christmas Day in the past resulting in lunch being served in the evening and everyone being sozzled from drinking on an empty stomach. 

Lunch was a splendid affair, in spite of the entire table, an ancient oak refectory table, having to be carried indoors twice due to rain. There was mint jelly as well as mint sauce made with freshly picked mint, glorious wine served in the finest cut crystal glasses, and a salad colourful enough to shame a hula-girl. Malva Pudding with Liqueur Brandy  followed, along with grapes, cheeses and plums. The table looked lovely with a fifty-five year old hand-embroidered Irish linen centre-piece and napkins. Everyone was on their best behaviour, and in a truly festive mood. Not so the plumbing.

It was just after lunch that I noticed that one of the toilets, newly fixed, had started leaking again, and that the other had come out in sympathy. We rallied, and spread towels to absorb the flow, which was luckily clean water. Eventually we all drifted off to bed, Morgana and I totally exhausted but replete, and congratulating ourselves on the day having gone unexpectedly well.

 The following morning, the only water to be found in the house was that on the bathroom floors. The switch had tripped for the very last time. Even the most ingenious coaxing resulted in a baleful flash of sparks that boded ill. Luckily, I always keep some bottled water for these little emergencies, so we could at least make coffee. Yawn was mildly perturbed because he couldn’t get hold of Bunny. He wondered whether he might have committed suicide as he thoughtfully sipped his coffee.

We called the Drain Scurmudgeon. They offer an excellent 24 hour service, and I’ve used them before. Their man was nearly here when we had a power failure. Without power, he wouldn’t be able to find the source of our woes.  Sadly I phoned and he turned back. Not twenty minutes later, the power was back on. More phone calls, desperate pleas and some sharp words later, José was on his way back to us. In retrospect, it is a pity we were so convincing.

José arrived in a flash of mud and white teeth, a very personable young man. He looked efficient enough. I’m not an electrician, what do I know? Shark kindly escorted him to the board up at the pump-house and confided man-to-man that the only problem with the board was that I had let it get wet. Then he returned to the comfort of one of my saggier sofas, where he and Yawn quaffed more wine and muttered mutinously about toilets having to be flushed with buckets full of pond-weed and lunch being delayed while I flitted about the in the undergrowth with electricians.

 José bustled busily about. Morgana and I followed him like devoted magician’s assistants as he flourished his screw driver like a wizard waving his wand. I instantly trusted him. He bypassed the troublesome switch, which turned out to be the transformer, and the tank filled with happy gurgles and splashes.

“It cannot trip now!” he proclaimed triumphantly.

There was a loud bang.

The water tank was nearly full, but not quite. The pump had stopped. He asked us to open all the taps so the water could run out. With some misgiving, I did as instructed. But I was worried. How would we fill it again?

I asked him why we were emptying the tank. He explained patiently that he wanted to see what would happen. I demurred, on the grounds that I knew what would happen. The tank would drain, and there would be no more water. Firmly, I closed the taps. He looked disappointed. He said that in that case, there was nothing more to be done, and that he would return early in January, when the shops were open and he could get spare parts, to replace our tripswitch.

“Why do you not have municipal water?” he enquired accusingly.

“I don’t know, José. We pay rates and taxes. But apparently our Government has more pressing needs, such as the refurbishing of our beloved President Zuma’s private home in KwaZulu”

“Ah!” he exclaimed, sympathetically “This Zuma has too many wives. Me I do not even have a paved road to my house! And he is spending millions! I am never voting again. It is useless.”

“Well, José, we are in the same boat in that respect. Do you see any paved roads here? See you next year!”

 Then he was gone with another splat of mud and flash of teeth.

By then the enormous Pizza I had made for lunch was stony cold, but still very tasty. We made short work of it, washed down with a lovely Cabernet Sauvignon, and life looked less bleak. We laughed uproariously at feeble Marie Antoinette type “Let them drink wine” jokes before retiring for a much needed siesta.

We awoke at about five to the rumble of thunder. Morgana rushed off to wake her father.

“Dad, it’s about to rain. Aren’t you working tomorrow?”

Shark surfaced reluctantly.

“What...?? I am! Rain..? Oh God no!” and he was off like a shot to wake Yawn. Amazing the effect news of rain has on visitors who know our road. Moments later they were on their way. And not a moment too soon. We had barely returned from the gate when the heavens roared their discontent and let fly with a storm that would have left Wagner speechless with envy. We lit candles, sank exhaustedly onto the sofa, comforted dogs, and drank hot cocoa. With Brandy. We had survived. We had no water, but we had each other, the dogs, and lots of Brandy…And relative peace, if not of mind.