Cabin Fever

A reader commented on the fact that I have recently posted a number of previously published works of “fiction” (3, to be precise) and nothing related to current events – was I somehow being prevented from experiencing current stuff to write about, they enquired. No, the answer is negative, but let me explain as follows:

Imagine you were living on Little Diomede, zip code 99762. You would effectively be at one of the last places on earth to “see the New Year in”, meaning that you would be very close to the International Date Line (in fact, about 970 metres east of it) in the middle of the Bering Strait.

(Above): A view of the entire human settlement of Little Diomede village (about 100) with the sea all around, the very steep mountain rising out of the sea, and very little else…

But, desolate as the isolated settlement may be, that’s no big deal for one day of the year, you might think. Until you think of what it might be like on Little Diomede in the middle of winter, such as on New Year’s Eve, for example.

Medically speaking, in my expert opinion, I am not suffering from cabin fever. I am healthy, I am not depressed, I am not indoor-bound, I have been out on foot and by car a number of times this week.

During that time, I found sufficient to keep me occupied during the grey days of this week, and these will be repeated, probably with compound interest and intensity during the looming winter weeks, but I thought (with scientific and psychological interest) of those few dozen people on Little Diomede. If not gainfully employed, what on earth do the Diomedeans with their time?

But it has been raining on and off for most of the week, making a concerted time outdoors not very practical. (I am not sure whether a “concerted” time is practical – I mean ‘a sustained length of time’). Today, that’s all changed and we were greeted to a clear crisp Friday morning, the start of a long weekend this evening with a birthday on Monday, courtesy of Her Royal Highness, our Queen.

(Above): The pines in the distance are outlined against a pure azure sky of the famous wavelength 488 newton-metres variety (blue for the non-scientists), while the tree in foreground is looking sparsely clothed. Today is a pure Kiwi summer morning except for the bite in the air… Excellent fare for a walk in the countryside, something which I will tackle later in the day.

Jade the cat, is lying peacefully sound asleep on top of the water tank in full sunlight for most of the day – no surprises there, mind. Bennie and Sophie the Labrador pair, like living solar panels, are spreading their black plumage so as to collect as much sun-controlled warmth as possible. Later today, they will migrate to the kitchen fireplace to absorb the made-controlled radiant heat from burning log fire.

There are no sounds of traffic or, indeed, any sign that there are any other humans on this planet – much like Little Diomede, I suppose, although that island would be pestered with the incessant sound of the sea and waves crashing against the rocky cliff faces. In the Reikorangi valley we have no such sounds, especially today.

(Above): The last of the stragglers in the potager jardin boutanique rose trellis, although slightly damaged, remain colourful commas in the whimsical autumn paragraph around the house.

(Above): A peaceful scene provided by looking through the pergola through the snake garden beds. Some interesting shades of various green hues.

(Above): With most of the green vegetation having disappeared for the looming winter, one now has a clear view through the secret garden.

(Above): Not all trees can be evergreen. Here we have two naked nudists with skinny arms pointing in all directions standing next to a fully clothed evergreen general. I can look at these nudists for hours and detect all sorts of stories hidden in their patterns.

Ring Ring [fiction]

A few years ago, our Honda Ballade car was stolen in broad daylight from a parking bay in a main street in a Cape Town suburb. Despite remaining in contact with the police department over a number of years, it was never recovered. 

One morning, Jeanette was sitting with her coffee reading the local Table Talk community newspaper. I don't look at the papers much, so she tends to be my contact when it comes to the news. Then she locked on to a report of a high-speed chase in which a gang of policemen chased a suspicious looking gang of scrummonkels down a suburban residential street at speeds exceeding the freeway limits. Apparently, the Hollywood-type episodes ended with the score Cops-4  Robbers-Nil. The cops had shot out all four tyres on the robbers' car, which made it difficult for the getaway driver to do much getting-away. That applied to his pals as well. Their vehicle came to an abrupt halt, and the crooks were forced to make the rest of their journey on foot.

What happened to them is not important to Jeanette's story. Standing there in a Summer Greens side-street as a piece of white metal with four flat black wheels! And here in the newspaper was a photo of the crime scene, including a photo of Inspector Gary Bierman, some of his co-cops and the flat Honda Ballade, which seemed no worse considering its recent ordeal. The car had been stolen earlier that day, the report stated.

If you sit on our duckpond verandah and observe the traffic flowing past our home on a main street, it would not be at all strange to see up to half a dozen white Honda Ballades of that shape pass by in a couple of hours. So, it was as common as the Volkswagen Beetle or Ford Cortina used to be!

So what? It could be our stolen Ballade? Naaaw, I told Jeanette - what are the chances. In any case, the Summer Greens incident happened more than a week ago, so the police would have contacted me by now. Surely?

I dug out my Grand Theft Auto Report (actually called simply Stolen MV) and found the number for Inspector Engelbrecht, the officer-in-charge. I dialled carefully and waited with bated breath. The tension started building up once more - I was starting to feel like a Bruce Willis, but probably came across more like a Mr Bean.

The phone kept on ringing. I slammed the phone down in anger, indicating that I meant business, that I wasn't prepared to dilly-dally in this important matter. I had banged the thumb of my left hand with the instrument and the rock pigeon sitting on the railing outside the window didn't even bat an eye-lid at the sudden noise, so I guess my show of strength wasn't that impressive. There was a slight hint of blood between the nail and the cuticle. Drat.

I sucked my burning thumb, and hit the turquoise "redial" button. Again, the ringing continued. Then, like magic, out of the blue so to speak, came the voice of Marietjie (Afrikaans for ‘Little Mary’, pronounced “mir-reek-key”) the last of the Afrikaans telephonist girls-friday, answering in her broken accented English, and in-quiring of me how she could be of e-ssistence. I explained, and she transferred my call.

Ring Ring. This was a bit like a stalemate game of go back to go, and start again. After a while, I got to speak to Marietjie again, Ring Ring, and later again Marietjie. She was sounding as if my repeated request was starting to pee her off ever so slightly. More ring ring. I think that Marietjie had pushed some other button, because it just kept on ringing. I felt that I couldn't hang up now, after all the effort that Marietjie had put into her job today. More ring ring. Then I realised that I had no real loyalty to Marietjie -- it didn't really matter if I slammed the receiver down now. How would Marietjie know, and, I asked myself, would she really care?

Wait. The ringing stopped.

It was Thombasola. Thombasola was a girl. A girl policeman, that is. For those not familiar with our African culture, if it had been a guy, it would have been Thombasolo - like Thabo -- if it ends in an -o, then its masculine, and those ending in an -a are feminine: I confess, and apologise for my white dishonesty, I've just manufactured that law of Black grammar, but I think they should use it, if it is true. By the way, "white" dishonesty has nothing to do with race -- it is the act of telling white lies. I've just invented that law, too. I'd better be careful, or I'll end up sounding like the late Dr Piet Koornhof!

Anyway, Thombasola sounded female. I think. No, I'm sure she must have been female, because she gave a short giggle, like a girl. No, she couldn't help me with any queries, she giggled.

I think she giggled.

Now, what on earth made me this that this girl policeman would be able? I didn't know for sure that she was a policeperson - she may just be a telephonist, like Marietjie, or even a cleaner. Of course, on the other hand, given our equal opportunities policy, she could also be the station commander. Anyway Ms Thombasola explained that none of the detectives would be able to come to the phone until further notice, because they were all helping to move the desks, the filing cabinets and the countless boxes of case dockets from the front offices across the way to the row of vacated cottages, from where they will be operating in future. Jeanette had also read something about the Milnerton detective branch being relocated, so I reckoned Thomba was probably being truthful.

Did she think they would still be very long? Yes, she thought they would. On account of the fact that there is a lot of stuff to move, on account of the fact that the stuff is heavy and its quite a long way to carry all the heavy stuff, and also on account of the fact that some of the officers have called in sick when they had heard of the furniture-carrying lark, and on account of the fact that they were short-staffed before they started in any case. She had also heard that three of the remaining four detectives, who were busy struggling with the long big table at the corner in the passageway, were discussing their decision that they should put in for three days' leave.

No, seriously, Thomba was reasonably certain that they should be finished moving most of the heavy stuff by the end of the week. She wasn't prepared to guarantee the deadline, but she thought that Friday was a reasonable estimate. Good grief! We were only on Monday now... Tuesday...

If you like you can play a bit of music, or go make a cup of tea now. That's to indicate that two weeks are passing between the paragraph above this sentence, and the one below.

Two weeks later.

I dial the Milnerton police station, in search of Inspector Gary. Somehow, in my bones, I have this lucky feeling. It's called optimism. The stuff fools live on. There is a different Marietjie on desk duty this time. Curt to the point, and not even a "going through!" call.

Ring Ring. I understand that this is the secret code by which the Milnerton detectives can deduce that there is someone dialling their number. Heaven help members of the South African public if they are in desperate trouble and in imminent danger at the hands of desperate dangerous criminals and they are hanging on the line waiting for the cops to answer the phone. What am I saying! This is exactly what happens each and every day. Isn't it strange that we put up with the lack of service. We should stop paying our taxes. As if that will change anything.

A miracle! What a miraculous miracle of biblical proportions! I cannot believe it! Inspector Gary himself! The man of the moment.

I relay my sad tale of woe, and my plea of "What-about-the-white-Honda-in-the-newspaper". End of miracle. Inspector Gary is no miracle - he obviously never attended those psychology classes where public servants get instructed in using tact to get people to think that the officer has their interests at heart, or how the training sessions that teach them how to handle and soft-soap traumatised members of the public. Maybe he did attend some of those classes, but I think he got an "F".

No, he replied after giving the matter a certain amount of deep thought and consideration - all of five seconds. No, if that had been my car, then the Kuils River yard should have sent them a fax message by now, because it is the Kuils River yard's job to check all the recovered vehicles against the database of theft reports, to marry up the cases and then to fax the reporting station.

Again my optimism. Something Inspector Gary has obviously not heard of -- not, a I'll-contact-Kuils-River-and-get-back-to-you. Not a perhaps-if-it-is-your-car-I'll-let-you-know. Nothing. No fax no recovered car, it was that simple, in his book. When I suggested, somewhat in jest I suppose, that perhaps the fax had been out of order, or someone had not plugged it in after the move, or maybe it was out of paper, again Inspector Gary showed his total lack of optimism.

Shame on him. If I give him the docket number, won't he just take a quick look? Yes! He said he's write down the docket number. Now that I think of it, that's what he said; he didn't say that he would do anything further. After all, what did I expect him to do? Find my car? What sort of miracle worker did I imagine he was? Certainly not an optimistic miracle worker, I guess.

He wrote down my case number. Like an optimistic fool, I believed that he wrote it down. I asked whether I should hang on while he looked it up. Good heavens, No, Mr Optimism, he explained. He would have to go down to the records department, and that could take quite some time. I could believe that. And he would have to fill out a T728A form in duplicate for records, and that could also take some time. And then he would have to draw the docket and that could take some more time;

Yes, yes, yes, I wanted to know more. My brain hungered for police-style education, forensics, target practice, apprehend and arrest, stand and deliver. I needed to know all the gory details! Yes, yes, and...? He droned on in his non-optimistic monotonous sing-song voice; And then he'll have to look into it. Apparently, he didn't know if that would take a long time. But, there's only one single solitary foolscap page all on its lonesome own in the docket! How much looking could it involve? No, thought the detective, it would be better if I leave this matter up to him and his colleagues. He will give the matter his personal attention and he will phone me as soon as he has some news.

That was two weeks ago. I suggest that we should have dinner or go to bed or something, to indicate a much longer wait. I expect roughly for.... forever.

I hope that this is not....

Hole in Hell [fiction]

In 2012, we made a conscious decision to emigrate from South Africa to New Zealand, mostly for personal reasons. The procedure involves a formal process which kicks off with the submission of a lengthy formal Expression of Interest. The applicant is required to submit certain original documents, one of which is the Birth Certificate. Here follows my account of part of my attempt to apply for such a document from the SA Department of Home Affairs (DHA):

If I may continue with my quest to obtain Unabridged Birth Certificates…

…Take a look at the Lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?…

I glance down at my wrist-watch. 10:00am

I have tried the Atlantis DHA office, but it appears that the sole employee is simply a law unto himself, and one would do better by buying a Lottery ticket than taking a bet on whether he would be at work on any particular day.

I have therefore considered the situation in detail and very carefully, and, after two minutes deliberation, I have decided that I shall try the DHA office in Bellville, Boston Estate to be precise – quite an upmarket old Apartheid stronghold in the Northern suburbs – I guess that they should cater for the professional likes of someone like me – wearing my black public service attire.

So, off to work with me and this afternoon I will concentrate on Boston. It’s about 25 minutes’ drive from Atlantis to our office in Century City. On a good day.

This was not one of them, as I hit a road-block less than 5 km outside Atlantis. They call it a ‘Ride-Go’ for some reason: I would think of it as a ‘Wait-Stop’. They use a number of ladies to man the two end of the length of rural road under construction. I use the word ‘construction’ loosely, as it really consisted of five or six men standing next to their vehicles chatting.

Used to ride the highway
I used to know where I was going
Now this shady dirt road is feelin' cool beneath my feet
Used to ride on
To get to where I was going in a day
Now I've got to stop
And go and stop and go along the way

I come to a halt at the huge ‘STOP’ sign. I am second in the queue, behind a huge blue truck, the driver with radio volume at 9.5, was rapping to the oomp-chooka, oomp-chooka, oomp-chooka! Will they never find anything resembling music?

Sniff, sniff! Urgghh! My early morning stomach heaves. The most horrendous feeling. Three other vehicles draw up behind me, and there’s no chance of a possible exit in any direction. The huge blue truck is merrily discharging liquid from all corners upon the tarmac surface.

Liquid rotten fish, or special shark bait dead fish, or hyaena/hyena lure most aptly described the liquid. The stomach heaved once more. My stomach. So, I held my breath.

I’m not good at holding my breath. I eventually surrendered and gulped down a lung-full of the foul air, but held my nose tightly closed until my nostrils pained. It didn’t have the effect I’d hoped for, though.

“About twenty minutes or so.”

This was the terrible news I extracted from one of the ‘Ride-Go’ lady attendants, who was quite obviously oblivious of any odour in the air, let alone the vapour of death! “The road is closed for about twenty minutes, or maybe a half-hour at a time,” she advised in answer to my question.

Suddenly, my ordeal in the Urine Wing of the Altantis DHA office did not seem half bad anymore.

3:00pm

I’d finished my trip from Atlantis to the office without further mishap, spent a reasonably successful half-day writing many letters to various property owners about all sorts of aspects of the properties and answering their queries.

It is now 3:02pm and I am easing into a parking bay outside a barber’s shop in Boston Street. I drive a Toyota – not a new Toyota, but a model which is particularly popular with young Xhosa men who love them for their reliability and taxi properties. If you’re a Toyota driver, you always make sure that you park where you are least likely to be minus a car when you get back. Of course, I had no guarantee of safety in this spot, but it was the best one on offer, and time was running out.

Three minutes later I was approaching the DHA building in Voortrekker Road. Ahead of me was a group of youngsters – I’m always wary of such situations, so I push my ID book deeper into the safety of my pocket.

The pavement is quite narrow between the shop-front and the parking kerb. There is an amputee sitting in a flimsy ramshackle of a wheel-chair, his back to the shop-front. The other three are gathered on each side, like a Roman arena. Wheel-chair guy has his pants undone and is busy spraying urine across the pavement, trying to reach the window of the parked vehicle. The steady stream and resultant yellow pool is unbelievable – what had this fellow been drinking? There is much merriment, and the group members are totally oblivious of me, as I step off the pavement and dodge a couple of taxis in the traffic in an effort to avoid any of the wind-blown pee.

At the DHA mall entrance, six over-friendly photographers of various ethnic groups fairly assault me, in an effort to get my business. I protest, “I don’t need photos, I am going to get certificates.. Sorry, no thanks…”

They all seem to think that their’s are the best passport photos available in the world. And at such a bargain price, too!

At the bottom of the stairs up to the DHA hall, I am accosted by about a dozen ragged urchins, some seem no more than four or five. There are a couple large motherly women half-lying virtually across the step, with blankets and shopping bags. Probably waiting for friends?

I manage to negotiate my way to the top. It’s 3:10 – that leaves me 50 minutes to get my chore done.

The hall is noisy, the rays of the slanting sun through the dusty atmosphere of the huge double-volume service venue. My ears close and I can hardly hear anything other than the blood pumping in my head.

There’s a single reception queue on the left, manned by a tiny Indian lady wearing a colourful sari, protected from the jostling noisy crowd by a stout steel mesh grid.There must be more than fifty people standing or sitting in this reception queue.

I spot a security guard leaning against a pillar near the back of the hall. “Hi, young fellow, how are you this lovely afternoon,” I enquire.

He looks quizzically at this strange white man, “No, fine.”

“Look,” I move a bit closer, but not too close, “I simply need to fill in an application for a certificate and pay them some money. I do not want my fingerprints and ID or Passport, just to pay for the Certificate…”

It turns out that there is simply one choice in this place. Go to the back of the Welcome queue. And don’t be in a hurry. It won’t help. It was another one of those Ride/Go situations.

It seemed as if half the city’s population was in the hall. People of all ethnicities, colours, shapes and ages. Or perhaps they simply live there, it was hard to tell. There were groups having picnics of Kentucky Fried Chicken, there were those simply drinking from cans of coke and lying against the wall. I wondered where these people relieved themselves, as there seemed to be no sign of ablution facilities.

The strong smell of urine under the stairs in the entrance foyer… now I understood.

There were three nanny mothers breastfeeding their young. What’s the chances of that happening elsewhere in the world? Three at once.

Over in the corner, a large mother has beating the living day-lights out of an impossible nipper, who simply couldn’t wait a week or two like the rest of the population. She stopped the beating and looked around. She wiped the perspiration from her forehead, and then she climbed into him again for making such a noise with his crying.

It appeared that no-one had the courage to come to the aid of the kid, in fear of being beaten up as well!

There are a few other queues at other metal grid windows, but it is quite evident that they as for phase 2 customers – those lucky folk who have waited in the welcome queue, who then got their forms filled out and paid their fees. The elderly Portuguese fisherman explained this process to me in broken English.

“You must be prepared to wait maybe one days, maybe two. That’s what I am trying to say all the time…It is not too easy, that’s what I’m trying to say. Understand?”

I thanked him with a cheerful smile, and wished him the very best of luck. Hell, what a life. I am so lucky!

Dear reader – I have a confession, and I’m not proud of it. I am impatient.

I will attempt to get my unabridged certificates at some other DHA office – maybe Guernsey or perhaps possibly somewhere in Alaska? I turn, wave a farewell at the young security guard and the Portuguese fisherman and leave the hole of hell.

Food For Thought [fiction]

Thursday 31 December 2009. 18h15

'Hello? Hello? Debonairs? Is that Debonairs?'

'Yeah, this is Circle Debonair Pizza Parlour, here. Yeah, that’s us.'

'No, look here see now:  we're busy closing shop right now, right? We cannot supply anything else today, right?'

'Yeah, No, we are properly and fully closed, and the staff is all washed up and ready to go home. Like they say in the movies, man, actually already we're out of here.'

Oh. And so now what on earth do they expect us to eat? We always support Debonairs. We always buy pizza from them. Well, probably once in three weeks on a Saturday or Sunday night. What are we supposed to do now? Hey? They know we have always supported them. Why, they even know exactly what we buy, down to the bit about the extra cheese filling, simply by keying in our phone number of their cash register. They even know our name! Ok, ok, so they read it on the screen, but it makes us feel so important.

But now the fellow doesn't want to help me. Where has good old-fashioned service gone? Doesn't he know how important I am? Surely the customer is king? Where does he think his salary comes from? This is just not nearly good enough. It isn't as if they are the only place where we can buy food, you know - after all, there are other pizza shops around. And, they are not really the cheapest or the best value for money either, you know. In these times of world recession, don't these fools realise that there is no place for laziness and off-time? You'd swear there was some kind of impending holiday on the horizon, like the president's wife's birthday...

This has nothing to do with fast-food takeaway meals. It has nothing to do with my last minute meal planning. It isn't even a rant about service, good or bad; it has nothing to do with our way of life in the 21st century. It is simply a statement of the sort of sad sorry lives some of us have managed to carve out for ourselves. We have done so, without even realising what we were doing -- that's not fair: maybe deep down we knew, but never wanted to admit it. The psychologists will be able to explain it (or is it the psychiatrist?). Who cares... 

It was last in December 2000 that I was actively involved in commercial trade, where I rendered a service to the community. That's a posh way of saying that it was the last time that I worked for a living; the last time that I was still making such a valuable and important contribution to the world. Nothing as mundane and ordinary as rolling out a blob of pizza dough into a circle and spreading cheese, tomato paste and other bits and pieces over it.

No, I did something a million times more important than that! I assisted mankind in... in, well... in decorating their most valuable possession... selling paint... helping to load... nay, loading heavy drums of paint into the boots of expensive cars, so that their owners could hand them to hired help to pretty-up the outward appearance of their holiday houses, in so doing to impress upon their friends how successful they had managed to be in the past year.

And compliments of the season to you and your family, too, sir, and may you have a wonderful and prosperous New Year. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks...

New Year's Eve.

Getting an early morning start was important, because some last-minute shoppers were sure to want paint in all sorts of strange colours and shapes. Our staff (known as the 'Unfortunates' because they were unfortunate enough to be selected by democratic ballot to work on the last day of the year) would want to leave a bit earlier, to get back to their families, already on holiday at the pool, or in the pub. Yeah. Ok, the concession was that the gate would be closed at 12:00 noon sharp. Signed and agreed.

By 11:00, the Unfortunates had slowed down their activities to the pace of a snail on Valium and by 11:45 had already carefully and neatly packed away their invoice books, shut the windows and cutting off the supply of cooler air from outside, and drawn the vertical blinds. Louvredrapes, they were called, remember? Yeah, beige. And they had two cords - one to adjust the angular alignment letting in more or less direct light and the other to draw the blind completely. And why did you always pull the wrong one?

Each of the Unfortunates had already built neat little pyramids comprising his or her car keys, cigarette packets and Zippo lighters on the desks in front of them. Check. Each had already visited the loo, flushed and washed their hands. You don't want to return to work next year with a bog smelling like a railway station. Check. Each had already visited the loo a second time - why do you think that is? Is it perhaps the anticipation of the impending jubilant departure that makes your bladder cause pressure as if you have an imminent pee on board? Or is it perhaps an unconscious effort to make the hands on the clock spin a bit faster?

Yours truly is naturally different. Naturally. I had a goal in life, an aim, something vital to mankind.

I shall assist the two last-minute cannot-decide-what-we-wanters. They have pitched up after the Unfortunates had already cashed up their invoice books, after the final whistle signalling the noonday deadline. Of course, yours truly knows how important it is to supply paint to these miserable cannot-decide-what-we-wanters. Goodness gracious, as the Unfortunates squirm and rapidly squeeze out through the semi-locked front door, another cannot-make-up-his-mind slips in with an expectant air of expectant expectancy. Obviously these folk had great expectations. The one was slightly pregnant, although she looked a bit old for that sort of activity, so perhaps she was just full of expectations.

Now that I am out of the commercial loop, I can recognise the arrogance which was oozing from every pore of his being. His is accompanied by his grossly over-perfumed wife with the huge colour card and clippings from the You Magazine decorating supplement edition and their three wild kids who want ice-cream, continually argue and smack each other and generally were in need of a good talking-to.

There. Yours truly is now alone. On the delivery side of the counter that is. The kitchen staff has left, probably to get drunk and be merry, the dough is back in the fridge, the tomatoes are in the store. On the other side of the counter, the service side, the hungry mob waits with growling stomachs. Four adults and three kids. I felt proud. I was being of service to others in need. This realisation that you are indeed needed, that you indeed are fulfilling a useful, indeed invaluable, function - is indeed a good enough reason to live. It is, isn't it? Come on, help me here - I need to know.

Stop. Halt. Backspace. What was I thinking? Why had the noonday rule been thrown out, like toddlers in the bath-tub, with the Unfortunates? I was being taken advantage of by these... these... I suppose we should call them the 'Inconsiderates' They were not standing there as very-last-minuters demanding service and discounts from me because they loved or supported me. They were not there because I was offering products of such excellent quality and at too-good-to-be-true never-to-be-repeated bargain prices. They were not there because they respected the best free professional advice I was dishing out.

They were there for a very real reason. A reason which I refused to believe. They were there because I was the only fool still at work on that last day of the year. I was the only fool who understood that the high pace of their important lives had dictated that it had been totally impossible for them to have planned their trips to the supermarkets and the hypermarkets and the toy stores and the liquor stores and motor car show rooms in any better way. This was the very first opportunity that these extremely overworked and very busy high-level high-worth haughty-high-on-their-horse people of importance had been given a few spare minutes by MAST (the Ministry for the Allocation of Spare Time) to call on my shop! Shame, I need to help them. Indeed, I must not fail them. We owe it to them for their dedication and hard work for.., well, for..., skip it.

The telephone rings.

I pick up the receiver and speak in an ever-so-friendly fashion. Why? Well, why not? We already had the final whistle, the departure of the Unfortunates, the arrival of the Inconsiderates in extra time. Extra time has come and gone, the whole half-hour. We've been through the penalty shoot-out stage and the drawing of lots, the flipping of the proverbial coin for the Total Professional Bastards.

3:00pm has come and gone. Mrs You Magazine is still not happy with the depth of the Apple Green enamel for her upmarket plastic-wood tea-towel rack, and I still see fit to answer the telephone. Perhaps it is an important customer, perhaps the wife, perhaps someone with New Year's greetings, wanting to wish me all sorts of wonderful Chinese blessings, and for my family, and for all my ancestors. Perhaps it is an architect with an order of millions of Rands worth of orders for the New Year. Perhaps..., yeah, perhaps.

The sky is darkening outside. The clouds have been building up all afternoon while the various Undecideds toyed with various colour combinations and the Total Professional Bastards waited while I worked out how much paint they would need and how much it would cost. And then they had decided not to make a hasty decision - they would go home and discuss the project in depth and then return next week. Perhaps.

It had become unseasonably cool and the threat of rain was becoming more real. I felt hot and bothered. I locked the door and breathed a sigh of relief. Kicking my hot shoes off and across the Marley tiled floor, I loosened the knot of the tie (perhaps there was no tie, perhaps it was simply that choking feeling which you get whilst serving people who cannot make up their minds). I lit a Texan plain, in slow motion, reflecting on the important people whose lives I had touched that day. I sprawled in the easy chair, normally reserved for important customers on the delivery side of the counter. I drew the hot foul-smelling man-of-action-satisfaction vapours deep into my lungs and blew the resultant cloud at the large lazy black fly sitting on the window-cill. He did not even move.

The sharp shrill ring of the electric telephone on the nearby desk brought me back to reality. How long had I been in the chair? Did I really care? The clock on the wall pointed to a quarter past six. The persistent ringing continued. Surely not another customer? No, it's getting dark and it will surely rain.

Let the thing ring. I attempted another fumigation of the Unfortunate Fly. Alas, a failure again. The ringing continued, on and on.

Eventually, my frayed nerves got the better of my resolve. As I lit yet another cigarette, I cautiously lifted the receiver, but without any friendly greeting this time.

'Can I still have a pizza delivery this evening, or is it too late now?'

150 Days

Isn’t it amazing how time flies when you’re not paying attention? It has now been 155 days since we left Johannesburg on Christmas Eve. We’ve seen summer and autumn and are standing on the brink of winter, our fifth mensiversary, if you will.

Searching through my pictures for an appropriate image to associate with this subject, I happened to find this picture. It was taken during the second half of January 2011 and it shows our waking/sleeping adjusted hours timetable based on my planned JAC project, a highly-successful (in my opinion) program to maximise one’s acclimatisation to adjusting to vastly differing time-zones over a short period of time.

(Above): The last few days of the JAC project, with departure from Cape Town on holiday to New Zealand on 2 February 2011. The times in brackets refer to JAC-time, for Sunday 31 January, we went to bed at 1:30pm (as the neighbours were preparing to have lunch) and we were due to wake up that evening at 9:30pm to start our Monday morning. It sounded strange, but worked out perfectly well.

At It Again

Listen! He’s at it again still.

It seems as if he never stops. In the distance.

Correction: there are two of them. And another correction: I suspect they must be bitches, because they seem to communicate with each other without respite. 

(Above): This dog may appear to be a common “house-dog” to the casual observer. But, no, he represents a very special breed and will soon be known the planet over as the world’s newest recognised breed. I understand that the application process with the FCI in Belgium is underway . He is a Huntaway.

Moves to Trademark this breed – See the One News Video here (sound).

Huntaways, according to Wiki, are large, deep-chested dogs that generally weigh in the region of 25–40 kg. Their coats can vary in colour; colours include black, black and tan (usually) with some white or brindle. Their coats can also come in different textures; they can be smooth, rough, or grizzly and they are generally floppy eared. A huntaway’s height is usually in the range of 56–66 cm.

The huntaway was developed as a breed in response to farming conditions found in the New Zealand high country. The vast pastoral runs or Stations, such as those in the high country of the South Island, required teams of dogs who could work mustering for days on end, covering great distances on rough steep country. High country stations typically cover many thousands of hectares, and were often unfenced.

As of August 2013 the Huntaway breed was recognised by the New Zealand Kennel Club (NZKC). This is the first recognition of a dog breed of New Zealand origin. There is an NZKC standard for the Huntaway breed, but the standard notes, "It is the opinion of the New Zealand Sheepdog Trial Association that a Huntaway should never be shown, due to the large variance in colour, type and size and the inability to prove in a show ring their core (and only) task of working stock. It is the opinion of the New Zealand Sheepdog Trial Association that a New Zealand Huntaway should not be kept solely as a pet.”

(Above): Statue of a Huntaway in Hunterville, which is situated about halfway between Bulls and Taihape on SH1.

The centre for Huntaways seems to be in a little place called Geraldine, South of Ashburton in South Canterbury:

Frosty Walk

In celebrrrrration pictures of the second half of the walk, nor any of the return leg.of the first day with a real winterrrrr feeling, I went with Jeanette and Bianca on a walk northwards along Ngatiawa Road in the direction of Mangaone South Road. Unfortunately the camera battery packed up after about twenty minutes, so I am unable to display.

(Below) : As we were leaving, I was amazed that, even after 9:00, the frost was still present on the roof of the car.

 

(Above): Bianca was observant enough to spot that the colour of Sophie’s collar almost matched (sort of) Jeanette’s colour scheme. Here the two girls are standing at the approach to the Kents Road bridge over the Waikanae River.

(Above): Parts of neighbour Gerhard’s farm lies frosty white in the morning shade.

(Above): A little further along Kents Road, other neighbour Shane’s place was similarly frosty white.

(Above): Shane’s Milly Goat sporting her rug in the morning sunshine.

 
(Above) At the top of Shane’s Hill, Jeanette discovered a pair of these brightly coloured mushrooms, at least six inches in diameter, they were.

After this, the camera started flashing “battery low” and moments later, kaput!

Early Morning Visitor

Tuesday 27 May 2014 just after 7:00am. The sky is pale blue as the sun is poking its rays across the Reikorangi Valley. The air is still and windless. We are five days away from official Winter 2014.

And we have an early morning visitor.

A visitor named Frost, Jack Frost.

With camera in hand and the Labradors on foot, I do a quick reconnoitre of the garden, icy gumboots doing nothing to comfort my tingling toes…

 
(Above): Bennie half-crouches in the long frosty grass, as he prepares to “attack” Sophie.

The black trampoline surface is more a milky grey, but makes an excellent “blackboard” to announce the onset of winter.

You May Wish Me…

You know that you’re somewhat out of touch with cutting edge social communications when….

you receive a Happy Twitterversary wish… and you’ve yet to send your first Tweet!

A long time ago (it seems) I thought it expedient/ appropriate to set up a Twitter account, because… well, because… well, I just DID! Ok? But, to date, I have yet to send a  single Tweet…

Twitter.com sent me a congratulatory email, by not free gift or cheap offer. Perhaps some other Tweeters will…

Set for Winter

The firewood situation has now been resolved for this winter, and the wood-shed was reorganised and the newly-delivered wood transferred to its storage place.

(Above): Local pine fire-wood cut into sizes suitable for the heating fire stove in the kitchen. The dog food pack contains pine cones, collected from windfall along the border fence, are to be used as fire-starter kindling.

(Above): As darkness creeps over us, Brynn and friend, bathed and pyjama-ed, play a board game on the kitchen floor, comfortable in the warmth of the pine stove-fire. The dogs are never far off, when it comes to warmth, either.

Chuck Some Wood

Cutting and felling trees, milling logs and preparing firewood is not an exact science. It surely dates back many centuries, and many of the practices and terms of reference have remained unchanged, because… well, because… Hey, that’s just the way it is.

How much wood is on your truck?

Different folk will give you different answers for the same load, but generally they will express the quantity in cords or cubic metres or cubic feet.

According to Professor Wiki, the cord is a unit of measure of dry volume used to measure firewood and pulpwood in the USA and Canada, although the term is used informally elsewhere. A cord is the amount of wood that, when "ranked and well stowed" (arranged so pieces are aligned, parallel, touching and compact), occupies a volume of 128 cubic feet (3.62 cu.m.) This corresponds to a well stacked woodpile 4 feet (122 cm) high, 8 feet (244 cm) long, and 4 feet (122 cm) deep; or any other arrangement of linear measurements that yields the same volume. The name cord probably comes from the use of a cord or string to measure it.

We ordered some pine from local supplier Richard down the road, who advised that he supplies 4 cubic metre loads (about 1.1 cords). Now, it isn’t that Richard wants to be difficult that he has such an odd unit of supply, it’s that Richard’s 2-ton delivery truck holds 4 cubic metres (approximately)

Richard’s loaded truck does not look as neat as the load in the picture above, meaning that he has not followed the international specification of “ranked and well stowed”, but rather loaded in a more non-orderly fashion. I believe the correct technical term is probably “chucked on.”

(Above): White-gumbooted Richard arrived quite promptly at half-nine, as he had undertaken. Alone. He had no assistants to help offload what is quite a few bits of firewood. No problem though, as he reversed slowly and docked close to the four pallets I had pre-placed on the driveway. Hand-brake on, and the thing started tipping, depositing the firewood on the ground easy-peasy.

But, like a dog poo-ing on the wrong spot, half the wood landed on the hard surface instead of the wooden pallet.

Now, there is still a supply of firewood in the shed, and this new batch will not necessarily be burned immediately, or even this winter. Time will tell, so it needs to be neatly packed in the back of the wood-shed – stock rotation is the name of the game. The re-packing of the shed will take a large part of Saturday, so I need to secure the new arrivals securely and safely from the heavy rains which the weatherman has been promising – we’ve already had 3 mm this morning.

(Above): Re-packing the haphazard heap into a slightly more orderly pile on the pallets is an easy job. Simply do it one or two pieces at a time. Theoretically, one could perform this process for 40 cubic metres, it remains the same, it simply takes a bit longer. But no fear, we only have a 4 R.Cu. M. heap ( Richard Cubic Metres)

(Above): Midway through, I was greeted by a cup of tea. Very nice.  Then the Roofing Contractor (yes, I’ve already forgotten his name!) arrived unexpectedly to do a provisional inspection of his tasks ahead – also a welcome break fro 10 minutes. Eventually, we had four pallets, packed almost 1 metre high – in my book, that makes 4 cubic metres.

(Above): I appreciate that the purists among you will try to point out that a little rain-water has never hurt any pieces if fire-wood, but I eventually ended up with this wrapped stowage, because (a) I like things to be orderly and look pretty, especially when its in the front of your home and visible to the street, and (b) I’m not sure if there is any logic in piling chunks of soggy firewood on top of each other in the wood-shed.

The next job on the list will be to re-arrange the contents of the woodshed. Neat.

Jabbed!

I walk past the Pharmacy, past the Waikanae Health Centre displaying a sign with two huge arrows outside its door, towards the “Specialist Centre.” This facility is used as consulting rooms for various migrant medical specialists, who leave their practices in Wellington City to attend Waikanae patients on specific days of the week.

I glance at the reminder notice which advises that my appointment has been booked for 11:09. My watch reads 11:00 am.

Good timing, mind.

I open the large glass swing door. About 40 pairs of eyes follow my every movement. There are both men and women, warmly dressed, seated on the rows of blue upholstered chairs, like a provincial clinic. Most of those seated are either grey or bald. A number of the ladies are wearing scarves, like our grandmothers used to do.

In earlier years, I may have felt a bit awkward under such circumstances, but I simply walked over to the reception counter, smiling, as if knowingly, at a couple of the lookers. Most looked away.

No, I was on time, the elderly red-head receptionist advised, but there had been a bit of a hold-up earlier, so things were running a bit late.

Please take a seat and you will be called when its your turn.

I clambered over a few sets of outstretched legs to reach the solitary vacant chair in the far corner. The coffee tables had no coffee but there were piles of back copies of Weekend Gardener. At least my additional waiting time could be productive, I mused.

Every few minutes, a lady in medical attire appeared at the end of the room and called someone’s name. Generally she would have to repeat her plea, as it appeared that many in the audience were a bit hard of hearing. Closer to 11:30 , my turn eventually arrived and I was whisked down the short corridor and into a large consulting room.

I was greeted and asked whether I have any allergy to eggs. I wanted to advised her that I am not keen on over-boiled and prefer soft boiled. Given the fact that she was running late, had obviously had to deal with a whole gang of old farts already, and was probably doomed to attend to quite a few more this morning, I chose the sensible reply.

She nodded and gave me the choice: “Right or left arm? I will do this right at the top.”

Thirty seconds later, I was back in the waiting room. I had been instructed to remain there for 20 minutes, in case I developed any serious allergic reaction to the immunisation.

Pregnant women, people over the age of 65 and those with ongoing conditions such as asthma, diabetes or heart problems are eligible for free influenza vaccinations.

I am still Ok writing this post, so you can deduce that I suffered to initial setbacks. Thank you New Zealand Health Ministry.  

Trophy Presentation

Picture this.

Thursday 22 May. Its fairly chilly , the time is just after mornin’ chow time around the camp-fire. The eggs have been ate and the ‘baccie’ has been chewn and spat, and the boys are kickin’ closed the embers and preparin’ the hosses to hit the old trail once again.

The place Reikorangi Valley, more specifically just north of the Steep Ess Ranch near the Chartwell creek. I was standing on the level ground, when I heard a thudding of feet behind me.

Eight feet. I turned.

It was Bennie and Sophie. Trusty Labradors. The boys’ friends.

Why, lookee see – Bennie arrived with an interesting trophy in his jaws. Big smile, but not so big as to drop the trophy, which was firmly clutched between his snow white molars. He dropped it at my feet, and stepped back like a soldier receiving a medal from the Queen.

Good Boy.

 
I look at it carefully. Perhaps a petrified prehistoric sardine? Perhaps an old-fashioned sea-horse. Perhaps… Hmmm…

Definitely one of Grandma’s trophy driftwood items collected from Otaki Beach. Ooops, the tooth-marks and frayed edge at the tail of this here fish… Not good news for Bennie’s favourite Grandma…

Surely Grandma will forgive her grandson Bennie for this minor misdemeanour? For who on earth cannot do anything other than really love that goofy grin…? I wonder what’s going through his mind…

A Cone, Anyone?

In summer an ice-cream cone might be very welcome. The same may not be true during winter, though.

As part of our general after-autumn clean-up campaign, we collect all the branch off-cuts, windfall pine tresses and other organic material and relocate such material at our composting area or burning ground.

As well as pine cones.

(Above): This was the first garden trundler-load of pine cones. After two further loads, it appeared that I’d managed to collect the majority, except for those still attached to branches on the timber piles.  They will be harvested at a later date.

The reason for collecting the cones and storing them under cover to allow them to dry out a bit – they contain pine pitch (sap) which is excellent as a fire-starter – good for the winter fires. I know there are various ‘recipes’ but we simply use a bit of meths with good results.

So far – three cartons (Ref 3 400x400x500) filled with pine cones. There is an old saying, “you can never have too many pine cones.”

As a matter of interest, wood can be measure in cubic metres, or, more practically in cords, where a cord measures 4ft x 4ft x 8ft. converted 1.22m x 1.22m x2.44m which equals 3.63 cubic metres. As a further matter of interest (or not), our three cartons of cones represent approximately 6% of a cord.

Little House on the Prairie

At Chartwell we’re rather far from the prairie. Or any other flat rolling country grassland, for that matter. As implied by the name Reikorangi Valley, hills, ravines and valleys are more our surroundings. But, if you can picture an isolated farmhouse in the middle of nowhere with smoke rising lazily from the chimney, then you will understand the picture I’m trying to paint.

(Above): This is Sprott Farmhouse, Alabama from many a yesteryear, when such forested areas were occupied by cotton fields – without smoke rising from the chimney stack. It is really more like the picture I’m trying to paint. But I digress. English literature lecturer would rap one over the knuckle for wandering off the subject…

In New Zealand, winter officially occupies the months of June, July, and August, although the country is not known as Aotearoa (‘the land of the long white cloud’) for its cuteness – the weather is very changeable, whatever the season…

With this in mind, you will understand that our leak-raking and gathering is petering off, as the numbers of remaining autumn leaves starts to dwindle. Winter is definitely on its way to us, when you feel the temperature of the long wet grass through thick rubber gumboots.

(Above): The piles of leaves are becoming progressively smaller as the trees convert to nudism for the Winter.

 

(Above): The trees through the pergola in The Snake are of the last to start undressing. The trellis seen at the far end marks the eastern boundary of the North Wing extension.

(Above): This weekend Clayton conducted a dress rehearsal of the kitchen fire to check the fire-worthiness of the different classes of firewood in the wood-shed and to evaluate the draught and condition  of the chimney flue (in case it needs sweeping). All went well, with the dogs promptly settling in to enjoy the radiant heat for the night.

So many of us associate the acrid city smell of wood and garbage smoke with the poor urban and rural settlements where any and all combustibles are set alight for cooking and heating. What we don’t remember are some of the aromas I experienced on Sunday evening: the rich aromas (as opposed to smells of burning rubbish) of pine, macrocarpa, eucalyptus and wattle – each with its own burning pattern and fire temperature range – and own distinctive aroma.

Inside the kitchen/ dining-room there was a cosy ambience with the orange of the flames flickering about. I guess that this will be most appreciated on the cold winter’s days still to come. Then I took a slow walk outside to enjoy the rich wood aromas, as the smoke gently wafted from the chimney and out into the pines, before dark set in.

It was simply quite invigorating. Stand still and close you eyes for a while and imagine…  its much like being near a House on the Prairie. 

A few steps towards the orchard part of the garden, and a brief gusty breeze rustled through the apple trees, like the hand of an invisible giant shaking the tree-tops. Platoons of dozens of variegated leaves came wafting down to the green carpet underfoot. Hmmm. The consolation is that leaf raking will soon be a chore of the past until next autumn.

But even a task as mundane as leak raking can be quite therapeutic, if you allow it.

How Sweet … But No Petrol for 140 Km

Q: Why did the elephant paint himself different colours?
A: So that he could hide in the M&M packet without being seen.

(Above): Boxes of M&M’s which have been distributed as a national product promotion  campaign by leading New Zealand paint manufacturer Resene Paints. (Those readers not familiar with M&M will know the name ‘Smarties’)

Having been associated with paint manufacture in South Africa, I find it gratifying to see how much Resene does for the education of the kids, quite obviously future paint consumers.

  

Deena Coster of the Taranaki Daily News wrote:
A little school that could has won first prize in a national mural competition. Stratford's tiny Huiakama School, which has a roll of only 12 students, has won the central North Island category in a competition organised by the Keep New Zealand Beautiful campaign. Principal Gwenda Pease said everyone at the school was absolutely delighted with the achievement.

"It's been a perfect end to our year really," she said.

The inspiration for their first ever "Wall Worthy" entry came from the late May Harrison, a former teacher at the school.

"Mrs Harrison was a wonderful, inspirational woman who gave so much to Huiakama School and community, that we wanted to do something in loving memory of her as she is no longer with us," said Ms Pease.

The students, aged from 5 to 12 years old, wrote poems about Mrs Harrison which inspired the several mural designs they submitted as their competition entry. Following on from this success, two permanent murals will be installed at the school during term 1 of next year. The children will be assisted with the painting by Wellington-based art teacher Barbara Spencer, who helped with the original plans. Ms Pease said the school also won an electronic whiteboard, headphones for each student, $750 worth of Resene paint and 210 packets of M&M lollies.

Stratford's view of Mount Taranaki (facing west), with Fanthams Peak to the left of the main peak. Stratford is a service town for the many dairy farms of Taranaki.

Stratford is at the junction of State Highway 3 and State Highway 43. On SH3 New Plymouth is 39 km north, Inglewood 21 km north, Eltham 11 km south and Hawera 30 km south.

On SH43 Taumarunui is 146 km to the east. This road is known as "The Forgotten World Highway", due the scarcity of settlement along the road in contrast to its earlier history. A sign reads "No Petrol for 140 km".

More Bull

In February this year, I introduced you to some of the livestock in the paddock to the North of Chartwell in a blog called What a Load of Bull. On our Southern border in the direction of the river, the neighbours have a small flock of sheep, some chickens, a gang of ducks, a solitary pig and some cattle.

Clayton spent a number of weekends with the chainsaw in the pine border plantation to “clean up” the appearance and the security of the fences, resulting in a number of piles of branches, to be allowed to dry out and be cut for firewood. While busy with this cutting process this morning, I heard the sound of ladies clapping their hands, shouting and calling out in the distance,

“Shooo,  come on, shoo!”

(Above): The creature on the left (with horns) is huge. Apparently she’s called Kathleen. Name or no name, she remains a formidable animal. I’m not a brave farmboy, yet.

Truthfully, I am not sure what they were calling, but the general idea of the “noise” was to shoo the bullocks from the front paddock into one of the back ones. Guess maybe the grazing had been depleted in the front. I could hear their voices, and see their arms waving around in the air, confirming the fact that the animals were being herded. Brave girls, really.

(Above): I managed to capture the falling rain against their black hides. The guy on the right almost has that I’ve-just-smoked-a-joint look in his little eyes.

Buildlogue #1

Just as we have had a travelogue describing blow-by-blow details of a travelling holiday, we now have a Buildlogue (a term which I have just coined)

Buildlogue Day 1:  14 May 2014, a letter of confirmation has been sent today by our architect to the contractor John, advising him that his tender has been accepted, and that he should commence work after receipt of the Building Consent from the KCDC. No news from the Council yet.

Among the personalities we are likely to encounter on this project besides Barry and John, there are John’s staff, Bryce O’Sullivan who will be doing siteworks and preparation, Roofing Direct, Happy Plumbing, PCE or 2Connect Electrical, and Rylock Windows.