Back Issues of FAWLTY TALES.from 2003

TO ALL READERS OF THIS BLOG. I HAVE BEEN SENDING OUT A LETTER TO FRIENDS FOR SOME YEARS AND THIS IS ALL THE ISSUES FOR THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS

FAWLTY TALES.

So gentle readers are we all settled comfy bold fair square on our botties then I’ll begin.

This is the beginning of a still unknown tale of a country house on a hill at the very end of the road.

A beautiful place with sweeping views that rest the eye, hidden places to settle the mind which in every way proclaim the wonder of life itself, in every sculptured stone and each crystal stream.

The ‘house’ having managed to expel the smelly old foul-mouthed Hippy (namely me) that was squatting in the front room and painting his loony pictures in the lounge, has been reborn in its true magnificence.
All of a sudden there are people appearing dubiously watched by this weathered old wattle warrior of old, whose task it is a joy to say is almost over, and now I am forced to put aside the oh so comfy mantle of grumpy old fart and assume that of genial host, very worrying.
The establishment of this sexy lodge was a thing of pain for the squatter, like getting a divorce where even my chums had to contribute to the final settlement, in short the lodge got everything, Zaza Gabor would be proud of Ms. Fantasy Farmhouse who took the lot down to the toaster and steak knives that my sister had given me, the bitch. However in terms of the settlement I get a very irregular alimony from her he he! Though sadly we are still mainly entertaining friends and relatives who are loath to pay.

To date the punters have been uniformly charmed and delighted though the fishing boys have been a bit disappointed at the cunning of our fish, even though the dam is heaving with the critters The slaughter has been modest and something will have to be done to entertain these fishy hunters from the smoke, it has even been considered to employ a diver to hook the fishy onto the hooky for them.

We have been open now for 3 months with to date only one complaint about the service here, mainly from my sister, who must be obeyed, re the pathetic attempts of the gas geyser to produce the goods so that has been made redundant by the installation of an electric one, so now all is perfect, the ladies want to make babies here and the lads want to be real men, a triumph of my old Art Director skills of turning pigs ears into a luxury duvet wilderness experience.

Well that is your Monday fix of wit and wonder just over 500 words as some of my critics have mentioned that I am tooooo wordy
Your old chum in the scrub
Francis


28/8/03

So here I am a fully-fledged holiday resort owner, or as we are known locally a product owner, rubbing my greedy little hands together in keen anticipation of paying punters queuing at my farm gates. After getting the lodge into shape the lull after the strain was a bit testing but now it seems that though there is no actual queue panting at the fence, none the less the tense folk from Gauteng are coming along.
I am now deeply involved in imploring the public that this is the place to be rather than say Sun City or Florence and as such have signed up with all the local tourist wanker organizations all of who seem to think that I have to spend my waking hours designing their brochures and pamphlets for free, while demanding huge fees from me to be part of their enterprise. Today was a point in question the local HTO (Highlands Tourist org) who in conjunction with the regional MTO (work it out for yourselves) and incorporating the LTO under the auspices of the LGM etc. it goes on and on, had a meeting at the Boven school hall to discuss the new launch of the Mpumalanga Tourist brown signs.
Supposedly very exciting hmm?
Mac my neighbor who is a retired banker and the enthusiastic Chairman of our LTO, who needs to fill his days, dragged me kicking and screaming to attend.
The lads and ladies were on the stage already looking like they were in a coma, after 5 minutes my eyes had glazed over, did these oh so sincere folk really think that they would attract 40 journalists down here for a train ride and a lunch in the vain hope that they would flog our bit of the bundu. I can just see the hung over hack, fresh back from test-driving the new BMW, in Germany! Blearily scanning their invite to experience the spectacle of some road signs, earth shattering stuff.
We were exhorted to set up huge and professional stands proclaiming the wonders of our particular neck of the woods in their ghastly freezing hall, and then spent at least an hour discussing how to arrange the tea and cookies for our jaded journo's, ‘TEA and cookies pu leees’ these people need to be drunk I needed to get drunk but this suggestion of free booze and a press pack was considered lame stupid and frankly not funny, so I lit up a fag to their obvious annoyance and bowed out of the continuing tea and cookie table discussion.
They droned on and on my pooch who I had brought along was ready to commit suicide and I was considering a slow death over a small fire as preference to the seemingly endless and circuitous babble around me, I got so desperate that eventually I volunteered to do their wretched stand seeing as it was first to be erected at the Getaway show which is a good thing and certainly more likely to be of some use.
I eventually shoehorned old Mac out of there and had hardly settled with a sigh and a joint in front of the easel when the call went out. FIRE, the charcoal burners had been playing with matches and our world was soon a flame.
Fighting fires is one of the more popular sports in this district at this time of the year and all are expected to attend.
Every lad and his lads rush around in a panic with flappers and their fire fighting equipment feeling tre macho and important. A bigger crowd of chiefs you never have seen.
Five Assegais Country Estate I am sad to relate is not a great contributor to these efforts. I need to burn my place anyway to get rid of the wattle trees so a run away blaze is no problemo to me (no cattle or critters to feed) but none the less it is considered bad form not to at least be there so off, Zak, Douglas and I trundled with 2 flappers, a couple of bottles of water and the sprayers, rather than the very expensive kit that most have We watched with great amusement as they all yelled at each other, 2 of them nearly got into a punch up over how to handle this, while we sent our wekers to sacrifice life and limb in the roaring flames with their bits of twigs to beat at the conflagration.
The lads just love to roar around the place in their bakkies getting black and dirty, cutting down fences, and generally making a nuisance of themselves till the professionals arrive from forestry to do the job, but a great time was had by all, and we only burnt one silly bugger. This was I admit a spectacular fire which got into a vast forest of wattle and blue gum with mighty 50 foot flames, really quite entertaining this country life.
Anyway Hey ho back black and butch and beyond my 500 words so adios till next time
Francis

5/9/03

I should be strapped to the easel but I am all sore and tired from driving to the big smoke and back in one day! Which in my motorized wheelbarrow is a feat of courage and daring do, in deed.
Saint Bob the patron to Flake’s was punishing me for having dared to clean my keyboard without consulting one of their Guild.
Big mistake!!!.
I had received a fancy foam cleaner spray from the B in Law who was shocked, shocked and horrified by the state of mine. Many hours playing Spite and Malice with dripping fag and mucus filled cough had he felt done little to improve the efficiency of our organization and the investment was long overdue.
I admit that it did do great things the first time I gave it the old rub a dub dub, so fine in fact that I tried it on the camera, miraculous results, and proceeded to clean every item of electronic kit in the place, from the remotes to the fax machine and all but all came up gleaming and with all functions quicker better faster, though I did miss sticking the TV remote to my head, it now just slides into the most hard to find places, however I digress.
Bolstered by this confidence in this wonder product I felt full of confidence when the T key stuck, give it a blast with Nikko’s wonder ju ju juice! Sadly this time it blew the works to hell and back, nothing as dramatic as smoke or flames but none the less all died and after many frantic calls to the supercilious yoot I was informed that all was lost and if I was to hold my head up out here as the master of all things design and computer I better get to his shop and forgeteth not the cheque book, actually he did the job for mehala, deeply hung over from a long gawk at the Titty Tickler had let down his guard, always catch the techky early in the morning, they can’t cope.
The Eh tourism marketing is going like a train, with me hanging onto the back having foolishly volunteered to do everything just about in terms of logos exhibitions and adverts, an initial strain but will bring benefits in the future, which was why the pilgrimage to the computer shop was so vital.
We had a second meeting of the Skurweberg gangsters that was a joy after the other meetings I have slept through, the atmosphere of unbridled greed and optimism positively made my missing foreskin itch. Ably guided by our chirpy chairman and equipped by the tre professional paper produced by our co-ordinater a new addition to our local community from the dark jungles of the banking world, we flew through the inevitable LTO and HTT bits, agreed to pay for the fun with barely a whimper from the assembled misers, and swept through my presentation of the logo advert and all with only praise lavished on me for my efforts.
There was, as always, one dissenting voice from our local representative of the Davies clan, that have infested this district since the days of the Koisan. Being a lonely place the inevitable cross peregrinations have occurred with the inevitable weirdness being manifest in webbed feet etc. there I will put my claws back, just don’t make facetious comments about my work especially if you are not paying for it grumble bitch rhubarb bastard!
I did notice that our “co-coordinator’ Pat who had taken over the tasks that I was initially condemned to do, and having persuaded the company I was incapable of doing, minutes programs etc. all a closed book to me, which I had volunteered Pat to do instead was a Coordinator while I had been just a secretary! Shows what a life in the ivory towers will do to a girl! May be that she can explain to me what my daughter does
Well here on the farm a young chappy me lad has washed up and is willing to take the place for the weekend at a good price, most gratifying the way the neighbors are pulling together and sending the detritus to their local lads, this old specimen is as we write down on the murky waters in the freezing mist wind and misery flaying away, ver odd! Fisherman god bless their wet socks.
Francis


22/9/03

Well it has been a sort of sad and slightly ill at ease little country boy out here for last couple of weeks, the combination of low energy levels brought on by the tragic lack of funds, seasonal angst due to lack of rain and the approach of Mars have all combined to make me less than enthusiastic about the wonders of the universe and everything.
I have been sulking, smoking too much and generally being a lazy fat f**k in the bush neither painting with any enthusiasm or writing to all you poor folk out there in the smoke who have real reason to feel that life is not worth the candle, not that we have been unamused or unentertained.
The mighty force of the Skurweberg Tourism Organization has taken me from the path and been a source of constant distraction.
I blew it with the lads from the Elands Valley in whose eyes I am now dirt as I backed out of the Getaway exhibition.
My initial enthusiasm to create a wonder stand in the heartland of the African Ruhr Valley was considerably dampened by the complete and utter lack of any cash being available to create this marvel of marketing to convince all that this was the place to be.
Young Joanne and some other hefty ladies from the district met with a long slab in his fancy jeep and after a lot of distressing and depressing argument it became clear that I had volunteered to go to the city, just my favorite occupation not, to stick their old and tattered map of the region on the wall at the dome, a task which I felt really did not require my talents or expertise and was taken furthermore as an insult to my self proclaimed genius.
I am it is true famous for the smoke and mirrors I can evoke on a shoe string budget, but this utter failure to contribute at all and my sad lack of loot definitely sapped any enthusiasm I might have had to wonder around a nasty and tiring exhibition hall for three days so I bunked out of school with the inevitable disappointment reflected in their faces when we met up at the much trumpeted launch of the “eh tourism’ signage launched at Waterfall Boven.
Pat, Mac and I rolled up there with our hessian and posters and erected with I think admirable efficiency our stand after the inevitable bickering about where we should be, which our able chairman had booked and the fancy boys from Dunkeld Estates had tried to bump us from, don’t f**k with our chairman hmm?
The next day the good and the great assembled with dancing natives, tables loaded with shnakeronies, tea by the gallon and millions of brochures to punt our stuff. Mind you it was a love fest devoted to preaching to the converted as 90% of the attendees were fellow PO’s but the Politic ou’s were there in force and as elections are on the horizon they refrained from calling us all a bunch of conniving thieving white bastards so all in all, what with the train ride and the feast after a good time was had by all.
Francis

26/9/03

Playing a home game.

If there is one way to get the neighbors up to the farm there is no better method than sending smoke signals.

The rain has fallen but now sadly ceased and as such it is time for the annual burn. This has required a lot of lazing about plotting and scheming. Many pleasant hours having been consumed judging the lie of the land, shaking wekkers out of the bushes and the accumulation of some impressive kit from the lads around about.
5am the unsociable kick off time for these games, I was ready in my sturdy boots and gimlet eye there on the hill like Nero of Roman fame, to fire the world.
The first half went all my way with only a small blunder, burning a small section of Tanie Oliviers place. We with admirable efficiency set fire to the northern border and with skill and daring do which got the grudging admiration of Jan, who thinks not without reason that I am a danger to the area, and burnt the first 200 hectares with no tears at all. A triumph, especially as Jan had bolted up here as the first tendril of smoke went up, convinced that the idiot on the hill was about to f**k up and destroy his grazing, his grudging respect was a prize enough and I felt a hell of a man when I retired to the pit seriously clapped out as there is a lot of toil involved being the general of the troops, what with standing on a high place and admiring my handy work.
The second half, the next day, on the other side of the place started well and with uncharacteristic zeal I sent the team down the one side while I watched the other working the fire gently ups the hill. What a glorious morning, Mountain ribok, baboons screaming insults and a couple of wonderful birds rewarded my efforts at farming as I flapped my way with long smoke breaks to admire nature and once again the home side was triumphant. All but all were lavish in their praise for the cunning and obvious bush craft that I was displaying. Soon enough the boeties felt confidant enough to leave me alone to finish and sure enough that was when it all went haywire!
We had just one last little bit left to burn in the afternoon but with his usual lack of foresight Zak my none to able Inkulu had for reasons no one will ever be able to fathom sent the wekkers home while I was having a little lunch and a kip which put us back a few hours as I had to drive around the world to fetch them moaning and complaining from their hovels back to the field of operations.
Once assembled again we started the fire and sure enough a brisk breeze sprung up at just the wrong moment, this was further complicated by the hideous reality that the idiot had not only decimated the troops but had also lied when I enquired whether he had filled the fire engine with water, an essential substance when fighting fire, mine eyes glazeth over, the twit.
So here we are with 10 foot flames about to consume the planet, only two men, one old woman and a girl as the remnants of the team and my reputation as a mashugana about to be carved in stone as we frantically scrambled up the rocks with our flappers whacking away at the fire, even I the lord of all he surveys had to get involved in the labor of the day, and I have the blisters to prove it.
Let me tell you this was scary stuff! Fire is like a wild animal out to get you, it sneaks around and jumps at you from behind, just as you think you have it in its box it’s chum springs up in another place, and even though I had finally got the fire engine full trying to get a tractor trailer through the rather scenic rocks of the Skurweberg is easier said than done, nearly tipped the thing over in my efforts to get to bits that were threatening to escape.
2 hours later, black and humiliated we finally put it out, thankfully not under the eyes of the boys round here and we retreated back to the shower after some strong recriminations directed at Zak from the darker than usual lads and ladies of the team.

1/10/03

The Fantasy is coming true.

I know that I have been whining and whinging about the lack of loyalty and support from my fans and admirers who have been very shy about touching down here in da bush and this complaint is still valid, so shake, up and visit.
However my massive marketing drive is, it seems, starting to bear fruit and the lodge is gaining some visitors. Especially gratifying is a reputation among the women as the lodge to get. The fisher boys are less enchanted with my murky dam, which leaves some work to be done.
Reactions from first time visitors has been very flattering, with all the desired Oh, Ahhh Wow’s freely articulated followed by heartfelt assurances that they would be back, the highest praise in the “eh tourism biz”.
This influx has provoked a great deal of analysis of the differing styles of our benefactors, with the downstairs section of the staff. My first realization is that the average punter is a good deal younger than I had thought, the majority being refugees from ‘Friends’ and ‘Sex in the City’ thirty something’s on, at my stage in life anyway, the first steps to disillusionment and despair, with still that sooo sweet naivety of the unaware.
Poppy and Norah my faithful Ladies and in the most contact with the denizens of the ‘eh lodge’ are less cynical and are deeply gratified by every soul that passes over our gates. Firstly I am a good deal more cheerful and secondly they like the wek, and especially the tips, which are almost always generous to a fault. While some are as mean as cats piss, odd?
They enchant and delight all with their smiley faces, excessive zeal on the cleaning front and utter naivety concerning the levels of service that they are giving, way to high. Anything to keep from being chased into the bush to clear and spray wattle!
I am trying to pluck up the energy to register and generally formalize their jobs re tax, government and paperwork, mine eyes glazeth over and just composing their letters of employment alone are a nightmare. Sort of boils down to doing whatever the fool on the hill demands whenever, subject to the natural inclination of the fools indolence and political swings to from just to the right of Genghis Khan to simpering left wing Jewish guilt. Complicated hmm?
Back to the space invaders however, bless their little cotton socks we sure had a variable lot this week, what with ‘honeymooners’ who wanted to have nothing to do with the locals. Gave the ladies a turn to realize that the job was more important than their presence, a worthwhile lesson, but none the less caused a lot of whispers at their late hours and chairs propped against the door to dissuade them from clattering about, at midday here to them, but dawn to the couple in the house, a clash of ideals that ended in tears as the ladies took it a bit personally. Felt that the lad in question was very ‘eh rud’ especially, when for reasons best left unexplored, he snatched his case from their helping hands when unloading them, tre odd? We all were a titter to know what was hidden in there! But they were too shy to actually have a peek. A strange taciturn fellow it was universally proclaimed, unlike the blushing bride. Caused a lot of sage shaking of heads!
The other couple could not have been more different, took full use of the girls and my experience re walks, picnics and generally up at 6 and into the bush, mind you they were ‘expecting’ so were a bit further down the road so to speak.
This weekend is full again and next week too so we are content
Francis


24/10/03

Damn, f**k, piddle, bugger and curses, my guests have cancelled, depriving me of a fistful of dearly needed wedge, we are disappointed, depressed and a bit sad.
Nuff said, as all that is fine has as usual descended again upon this child of the universe, who can be of so little faith.
So I am cheerful enough now to write to you all, one of the disadvantages of trying to be a humorous scribbler is the required elation, which for a compulsive sulker can be a big disadvantage. Must be something to do with the lack of alcoholic poisoning, which seems to fire most hacks.
I had the privilege of visiting such a chap the other day.
One of the great advantages of having a favorably married sister, that loves me, is that I get to see places that my low self esteem, money wise, generally precludes, in this case Mr.Ratrays estate in Zululand.
Mr. R ‘s stories about SA have entertained me over the years on the radio. And we went to his lodge near the battle site of Isandwana where the Zulu gave the Brits a good smack in the nose.
We were unfortunately deprived of the actual man’s rendition of the day, but his stand in was also a master storyteller and under the awesome Sphinx like mountain, in the shadow of a thorn tree, wove a tale of human deeds in the grip of forces we surly cannot understand.
Everything that could happen, happened that day from celestial concurrences, an actual eclipse, to great acts of heroism, and all at the end of the day due to a stupid bigot and mischief maker, my how the balance of the world hangs on the swing of a butterflies wing!
I am inspired to try to find the equal here to entertain and scare the punters with spine-chilling anecdotes from the past.
I am sure that I can come up with great battles and blood curdling massacres, so that I too can lean into the faces of the awe struck tourist and snarl “ Gatsha! I have eaten!” Like the chap at Isindwana, dead sexy and gets him laid for sure.
I realize that skirmishes between the Pedi and the Swazi or the occasional cattle raid, pale a trifle, compared to the slaughter of 1500 of her majesties finest by a bunch of screaming half naked savages, which toppled the government of the then most powerful nation on the planet, but none the less I am sure that there is plenty to get my teeth into and being less married to the truth than the Ratrays are committed to, we will come up with some gruesome stuff, Victoria crosses or no hmmm?
Meantime spring is bounding the wild flowers are a blooming and there is turmoil as usual among the staff. Some time ago, two years ago in fact Loedje my old retainer finally fell at the fence and left to go home to his many wives and daughters. His room is now the source of great speculation and confusion.
Zak my ex builder and now general factotum has in my mind anyway replaced the old boy, but coming onto the place as a temp. was shacked up in what will one day be a shower stall, and not a very commodious one at that, clubby in fact, and the mind balks at imagining what it is like in there when he is entertaining his lady friend. A woman built on traditional lines, fat very fat.
In the spirit of the New SA I felt that these were less that satisfactory accommodations and as Loedje it would seem is unlikely to ever take up his slot here again it was decreed by he who must be obeyed that Zak should get the vacant space. Really quite a simple thing I would have thought but even my extensive knowledge of the African mind was left lacking by the convolutions and complications that these modest changes engendered.
The screaming and shouting, the taking of me aside to whisper the latest outrage went on and on for months at time and has now built up to the point where we are going to have a general meeting of all concerned, which should be amusing.
The farm is to get animals soon, in the shape of 70 brown cows that will be a welcome infusion of funds to spend on advertising as we are still lacking the interest that we at any rate are convinced we should enjoy, looking forward to a busy pagan period
Francis


05/11/03

We got COW’s

Contrary to popular opinion, nothing in the country is simple. Quite the opposite, what with the tragic lack of Espresso bars, cinema’s and Mall’s, we in the bush have a propensity for complication.
The tale behind the cows started innocently enough, with the arrival unannounced or invited, of half a dozen fat bovines with the usual annual Spring invasion of the Van Tonder’s milk herd, for a change accompanied by some free milk, and Tany Olivier’s horses belonging to a second cousins child from his sisters aunties side,
Having now a plumbed and watered kraal, I cheerfully locked them all up, and soon enough a young chapy me lad rolled up to fetch his strays, and gazed with envy over my many acres of unmunched pasture.
We discussed at length the merits of ‘our’ team, the perfidy of the selectors and other dark forces nibbling at the fabric of society and other deep stuff, and eventually turned to the heated subject of feeding animals in the current climate of drought and taxes. We wove around the subject re prices and quality and settled with a hearty manly muscular handshake..
Of he chundered in a cloud of dust from which rose the disapproving face of my beloved chairman
“Who is this fellow his spectral image demanded, what do you know about him? Will his f**king cows eat my flowers? Poke the dogs and what about the water? Which we will have to pump for the creatures, not to mention rental for the cow man who is to be established in the wekkers quarters and a whole lot of other sensible stuff which I should have established, like his telephone number!”
Shamed by my usual over enthusiasm and naivety I recalled that he mentioned that he worked for the flower grower in the valley so I called him to get a reference about this chap.
I had hardly said “gooya more” (good morning) when the truth came out that my lad was his lad as were the cows and I had been making deals with the wrong fellow!
“See I told you so you stupid schmuk” whispered the spectral Chairperson
Anyway a meeting was arranged, as my reverie of whizzing around the estate on a scrambler, purchased with the cow money went up the way of shattered dreams.
A couple of days thinking cows helped to concentrate the mind and after the usual chatter about all things great and small I again struck a deal, this time with all the relevant questions carefully actually written down beforehand.
Faced with such a cautious and well-informed pasture salesman Mickey the flower man and I decided that a trial period should be entered into before we actually went down the aisle. So one way or the other my bike has gone up in smoke which will only be good for my well being, dangerous things scramblers.
Lodge wise we are still tragically empty. All my heartfelt imploration to the general public has fallen on deaf ears and the only calls that my advertising engenders is from people trying to sell me more advertising, does this imply some sort of conspiracy?
The horse trails have also been struck a blow, the husky, seemingly indestructible lady who dealt with these intractable beasts was helicoptered off the hill, to Gauteng, due to the behavior of one of her beasts, and is bed ridden for 3 months. What prompts this love of the equine is indeed a mystery? Viva the internal combustion engine Viva!
Hoping and praying that at least some of you my beloved readers will come and visit me.
Francis

11/11/2003
Bad day for frogs and trout

When I first arrived here on the hill my romantic nature prompted me to wander down to Schoemans Kloof where I had been informed there was a Koi salesman working, and having constructed a small wier I was keen to put some pretty fishies into it.
So one day having little to do off I wandered off to find Myron the Jewish fish farmer, who turned out to be an old chum from the depth of hippydom’s youth. We loaded the truck with bags of carp, which I dumped into their new home.
We got to be chums the fish and me, and we grew and prospered, the fish especially so.
Taking advantage of the occasional floods they invaded all the dams, and started to throw loud parties which made them fat and numerous.
Still they harbored a fond part of my heart, being more of a bait distributor than a fisherman, their trendy outfits and friendly nature enchanted me a good deal more than the surly attitude of the trout.
However as we all know when the wolf is at the front door, love goes out the back. Being now keen to satisfy the blood lusts of townies and their sons, the mess created by the carp merrymaking, which made the water muddy with their constant copulation became a source of conflict between us.
The punters, who must be pleased, were not!
Somebody had to go and as the Koki were not paying, the decision was easy. Especially as they were most remarkably fat, colorful and large and as such looked more and more like loot on the fin to my gimlet eye.
After much soul searching and agonizing to and fro I decided that seeing as we are in the grip of a major drought this would be the ideal time to drain the dam.
So the tap was opened.
Out gushed the water as I stood at the edge with my liddle net and a bakkie full of buckets.
It took ages to drain, I had no idea how much water there was in the dam, gave me pause as to the wisdom of swapping the lake for an ever growing mud hole, in these dry times, not pretty.
Well we waited and waited for the water to drain, went to sleep and returned, still no chance at getting at the fish. Went to sleep again and Sunday dawned bright and sunny, the dam was now but a puddle heaving with fish, frogs and the odd slip slop.
As with all things country, after much tedious waiting, to the point of coma, it was panic stations. The trout were having the worst of it, drowning in the mud, and there were some monstrous animals, that are now tragically residing in the deep freeze. See photo oh you fisher folk of little faith.
In we waded, slipping and sliding through the mud, shuttling enraged fish to the swimming pool as the frogs made a bolt for wetter climes. I am sad to report that a lot of them got a bit crunchy, a fatal complaint in the amphibian’s world.
The koi however seemed to revel in it and were soon all residing happily in their new home as I tried to count them and the money they represented. They are enormous and numerous too.
Well all went well except for the frogs and trout, and the cynical voice from the koi man in the valley as to the real value of my haul. I am now of to get a blue paddling pool to photograph the critters, the internationally accepted way to present them I am told.
We mourn those that lost their lives, it’s all tooth and claw out there! A crane is enjoying the last left in the puddle so Bon appetite to him.
Francis


17/11/2003
The Black hole of Five Assegais

The relocation of the fish seemed to have gone well and all were in the pool, grumpy but ostensibly, reasonably content, cruising around their new home when, plop, up floated a dead one, then another and another something was fatally amiss!
First to go was old scar face, featured on the last letter, followed in quick order by the rest of the trout. Panic stations as the kitchen filled with filleted fish being heaved into the freezer.
My theory as we gazed mournfully into the murky depths of the pool was that the trout had been so muddied and distressed by the move that they had turned up their flippers in disgust, as the Koi were seemed quite happy swimming around.
I watched in distress as every trout gave up the ghost but as the Koi appeared content I took these losses on the chin. The Koi after all, are valued by the centimeter while the trout go by the kilo and there were a good deal more centimeters than kilo’s.
Saddened but full of false confidence we retired to the pit and arose the next day, brewed the wake up call and elegantly attired in white dressing gown and slippers went to check the fishies.
Oh whoa, of fook bugger damn the pool was awash with dead Koi, all many centimeter ones to boot!
Fook fook fook I yelled at myself as I danced around with the net hoiking them out and short of mouth to mouth doing every stupid thing I could think off to bring them back from the beyond and into an asset in my wallet, my missing foreskin was in agony.
Thankfully fishy farming is early morning toil so Myron was well into his day when the hysterical Jew on the hill came whinging down the line at 5.30 very AM, calling forth all the points and our mutual heritage going back to Moses to force him to make a plan for me before the entire lot were but wekker meat.
Unshowered or washed with only half a cup of coffee in me sucking fags and in a BAAAAAAd mood I stormed down the hill, even paying the thieves at the toll plaza, such was the frantic nature of my mission of mercy.
Haunted by the vision of suffocating fish and tortured by the inevitable guilt of having been the cause of this gruesome carnage to my gaudy chums, not to mention the loss of hard cash, I was bereft.
Saint Myron of Fish Fall Farm, the man for fish, is a calm and tranquil chap behind his ferocious beard and soon had me back with tank and oxygen, paid the toll plaza thieves again, more pain and humiliation, returned again, had to pay the toll mobsters for the third time, much gnashing of teeth and evil eyeing of the hapless lady in her booth as she snaffled my loot and got back to deposit the fish in the tender care of the chief gynecologist of carp with thankfully no further casualties Whew!
Francis

IMPORTANT NOTICE
FOR REASONS UNKNOWN MY OUTLOOK EXPRESS WITH ALL INFO AND GROUPS WAS DELETED, SO SOME OF YOU WILL NOT WANT TO RECEIVE THIS, SORRY I HATE SPAM TOO PLEASE REPLY TO BE DELETED
FRANCIS
24/11/2003

Tis the season of Discontent.

I love Christmas, but the build up to this annual Bacchanalian feast is a pain. We in the southern hemisphere take these northern games seriously. From Rugby to cricket, us lost colonies are still immersed in the watered down ceremonies of our past masters and my wekkers are particularly keen fans.
Why, why? When their Boss gets sooo grumpy and mean is a mystery.
From about the middle of November there rises this atmosphere of expectation, mixed with a sad note of resignation that none of their desires and hopes will be fulfilled. Tis a sad and grumpy wekker slouching around the estate that they think is the way to encourage the paymaster to dig deep into empty pockets to fill theirs. Odd neh?
I myself have yet to come by a Christmas bonus, being of the class that furnish rather than collect, which puts me at a disadvantage when it comers to plumbing the depths of these annual politics of coercion.
They leave me in a state of confusion, surely one would put in a bit more effort, rather than the other way around, especially as the lodge has been so lacking in paying guests, but noooo quite the opposite. They get cross sulky and unbearably moody, like being with a gang of old women getting their second or third dose of the menopause combined with PMT, it is contrary to nature and good sense. That’s religion for you! Nothing but money and sex.

On a less tiring subject, I have tried for quite quiet a while to entice birds to share my space with me. One of the deep sacrifices I made by moving to a wattle and gum plantation was the lack of all life in there.
Having now restored the land, if not to it’s former glory, at least back to a grassland, the birds have also returned, but they studiously ignored the seed I spread, it all just got blown away, disappointing.
About 6 months ago Diana my beloved ex wife came to stay as she is wont, and put her chewed paw-paw skin on the stump in front of the new studio, which I noticed attracted the immediate attention of my resident redwing starlings, who have been ensconced under the stoep for some few years already, but this was the first time they had taken any notice of me other than to shout insults. Intrigued by this success I continued the practice and soon enough the pair of them were practically getting me out of bed in the mornings for their fruit breakfast.
Encouraged I again stuck out some seed as well which the starlings don’t like and sure enough, soon enough, the local LBJs and doves noticed the starlings living large and came to have a peek. Where they found to their general excitement a pile of food. My theory is that these country birds just did not suss that scattered grain was grub, not the way food is ever presented in the wild, but boy did they ever twig on fast, and they all told their friends. This was a triumph! Fruit was the secret!
.
The Blue Gum stump bird restaurant is getting a reputation of note among the better-heeled tweedy birds of the Skurweberg. The old regulars are constantly bringing in more and more of their chums as they arrive from where ever they arrive from, and others who were there for ages have toddled of to where ever they toddle to hopefully to return soon.
Birdseed and rotten fruit are now high on the list of life’s little necessities
Getting very Jewish as 25/12 approaches
Francis.



28/11/2003

Giving up.

I led a dissipated youth and to be perfectly honest a dissolute adulthood too, and as a consequence I have had extensive experiences over a number of years with various behavioral quirks and substances of abuse. Luckily I have managed to get through with only a damaged memory thingy (I still blame old fartage myself) however I was ill prepared for the reaction to giving up Free Cell on the computer!
A while ago, due to I hope understandable depression, caused by the constantly tragic state of the world. (I have been particularly worried about the ‘Atlantic Escalator’ a current that warms Europe.)
Relentlessly under the strain of the imminent secession of this movement of water led me to play an inordinate amount of Free Cell on the computer instead of say working, reading a book or even bugging the wekkers, not good, not to mention writing this.
After a long period agonizing over this new indulgence and knowing my own slack and undisciplined nature, I with inordinate reluctance deleted all traces of anything more amusing than Billy G’s Word from the hard drive and my life.
This was no easy decision, I agonized for quite a while, and procrastination is too short a word. I hesitated, I vacillated, I did not want to do IT, but like a good little soldier, I did it and the inevitable happened.
I was bereft, really missed it, the days stretched long and empty.
This was really creepy, I was having serious withdrawal symptoms for god sake. I caught myself gazing forlornly at the bleak screen of my life, fiddling with the mouse as though there would magically appear, a mind numbing game to distract me from the pursuit of life, love and happiness.
This was all too too familiar and as is usual with all addictions came as a big shock. Addictions are rather like falling off a building, it is only when you stop that it hurts! And I had hit, hit hard bounced and hit again, and all just because I liked playing a card game. Fooking unreasonable.
This was I felt a gargantuan injustice of ‘old age’ proportions, I was and still am shocked! Shocked and appalled.
There are many of you out there who have faced the bleak and lonely world of self denial, or you would probably not be getting this, and we all know that it is always a tedious burden to bear, certainly it was a shock to get this load of distress over something so innocent as a little mind game with a machine.
Set me to thinking I can tell you straight.
The hold that this machine has over my soul is very alarming, a constant call to cyber inertia and distraction. An excuse and avoidance of looking at the sky, really really out there weird.
It is as though; I can no longer remember when a computer was something in the mind of a science fiction writer. This is as bad as any drug. In fact my whole attitude to all things electronic is in flux, TV is the next one to go I suspect. Don’t know if I will be strong enough for that. Just the thought of the hole in my life that idiotic entertainment would leave, gets my skin crawling and spiders creeping from the dark corners. Makes one think????
All this staring down the barrel of a cathode ray gun powered by the detritus of dinosaur’s strikes me as being the work of shape shifting lizards, as being frankly the most logical explanation.
When one considers the time and effort, Nay life itself, that is being pissed up the wall around the world on mindless computer games and TV, the mind boggles! We would have cured cancer, old age and the riddle of existence itself with half that energy spent, think of that hey? Now switch this off and look at a bird.
Doing the 12 step tango in cyber space
Francis


03/12/2003

Tany Olivier my neighbor has returned from her dance with death in our medical establishments. She has been gone for some considerable time, disappearing very suddenly as the sick are wont, and I am afraid to say that I really thought that, that was it, for her. Tany (Aunty in English) is one of the old breed shacked up on 60 hectares of rocks, weeds and vermin, which straddles the waterfall and is how I met her and found this place. So I have a considerable emotional and sentimental attachment to the old bag.
She and her clan have infested this area for the last 100 plus years or so and have accumulated a funny sort of half brick and cardboard construction fortified to the rafters with steel bar and dogs on chains. This rambling crocked little emporium placed for no discernable reason in the middle of a field and surrounded by eclectic rusting structures and the detritus of corroded farm kit from better times, which includes the corpse of her husband under a stone. This hovel slavishly worships the school of Minneapolis baroque trailer trash architecture and combined with an electrical system that would pass muster among the lowest connections in Bangladesh is nonetheless charming in its pure hideousness.
One must approach the settlement with some caution as it boasts a pack of dogs which are mercifully generally chained up, I hate that, but eases the entry through the Gestapo camp fencing, which is electrified and razor wired, to be welcomed at the bars covering the patio by herself, generally with a quite disconcerting kiss right on the lips.
At night she is furthermore draped like Marlow’s ghost but with guns and knives rather than chains. This is one tough old bird.
Inside the first thing to strike one is the complete lack of windows due to the massive fortifications, all of which it must be said are very dickey and would take an enraged savage five seconds to dismantle, some of the walls appear to have been tied on with string but he would not get through her quite so easily!
The walls were painted before the second great war and by that I mean Kruger’s war, in a delicate shade of railway bog green to compliment the deep burgundy carpeting and furnished with the lowest depths of randomly acquired Goma Goma furniture which reflects a level of tastes that would make the Diaspora look like a trip to the sea side. The rest of the house, if that is an apt description of this rambling monument to the lows of human habitation is riddled with pitch dark rooms that I have deemed too dangerous to my low opinion of mankind, to explore but must contain many pits for sleeping in as every now and then she is invaded by a quite startling amount of relatives.
Tany herself is now only about 4 feet tall having been shrunk somewhat by her latest setback, lost a few kilo’s too, shame the poor old cow it must have been quite a battle.
After a lifetime of Wit Blitz and Chesterfields combined with the inevitable depredations of giving birth to and rearing a large litter, really far more than I can keep up with, she is doubled over but still slides up and down the steep stairs to my place a lot better than some teenagers that have visited.
On the sickness front I too have been struck low, thus the lack of your weekly read. I consumed something that was vile and evil, I think a tin of tuna which sent me puking and wailing to the great white porcelain throne consumed by the agony of choosing which end to point first, deeply uncomfortable and humiliating to boot. Definitely not on my Christmas list.
Francis

10/12/2003

One of our readers has correctly complained that ‘Tany’ is actually ‘Tanie’ and being the product of a Potchestroom vegetable sales person, who am I to contradict him, especially as he is or was the Mayor of Sodom and Gomorrah so Tanie it is. This letter has also been accused of being pointless which I take as a compliment, life is prickly enough without more evangelisms.
However the fact is I was stung, and as this has been the month or week or whatever of moaning and groaning about gender violence I though that a pithy and relevant comment in this letter would be a good idea.
For a start one should consider why the average wife beater and generally nasty drunk bastards should care about a bunch of women wailing in the wilderness.
These men, for in truth most are men, who have control over their poor cows are so concerned about their lack of power, voice or influence should consider the fact that though they can make their only friend miserable and silent, this does not in anyway make their voice heard, not that they can think at all when they are pissed.
The truth is that all this misery is due to booze; I am convinced that not many women or children have been assaulted by sober men, if any. And that goes for crime, motor crashes and all the other idiotic stupidities perpetrated by these alcoholics.
However for those sober chaps and zol smokers who don’t feel that this is their problem let us consider the mathematical certainty that if the smallest voice is not heard the only voice that is heard, is the loudest, so if you are not called Bush or Saddam you will not be heard no matter how you yell.
I would like to also point out that the more say and respect a society gives to its women the richer and more stable and successful that community is, so all you nasty buggers out there that think that women are just empty vessels for their pathetic sperm should be jumped on by real men and taught the error of their ways
That is my pithy comment for the year Francis

15/12/2003

Another annual ritual has passed, i.e. the ‘eh patty’, meat burnt, beers drunk and as only a half jack was tossed into the fray, with little damage done to property or persons for a change.
I remember the first country party I hosted at Cosmos farm. I had just sort of completed the house and the large team of builders was ensconced in a tin shack nailed to the old barn. I was still a beginner, in fact a virgin, at these punch-ups and being also a bit of an amateur drinker myself I was altogether too lavish with the booze and the timing of its consumption.
The evening started well enough with general levity, heartfelt prayers for the wonder of the food and the boss’s generosity as is de rigueur for African knees up.
The beers flowed washed down with burnt meat, pap and tomato sauce, the first blunder was dishing out the hard tack before the food so the level of drunkenness was swift and devastating.
These chaps drink what is opened, till it is gorn, as fast as they can pour it down, Savoring the quality and or smoothness of the booze was not on the menu, the object is to get as blotto as possible, the journey is not part of the holiday at all.
The differences in opinion about things that a white man who treasures his sanity will never try to plumb (survival instinct usually locks in) start being screamed and shouted over a space of three feet, with a steady rise in the undercurrent of immanent violence becoming very apparent, so I retired to the pit with the squeeze of the day feeling generous and nobles oblige and all that rot.
Being only about 100 meters from the tin shack that was now the main area of operations meant that I had a virtual front row seat and the sound of tribal warfare grew steadily. Eventually there was a hesitant knock on the window of the bedroom where I was in truth hunkered down over a nasty headache from my own consumption of 2-week-old brandy.
“What???” I yell
“Eh Boss they are fighting” I am informed over the steady thump of my aching head
“Oh Jeeeeses F**k off” is naturally my immediate management reaction, as I roll over groan in agony clutching my pain killers in a death grip……..silence for a bit, but by the time of the second tap on the window arrives, I can now clearly hear the bodies flying around a confined space, quite a distinctive sound, immediately recognizable.
“Eh Boss pleeeees you must come” is the desperate squeak from the youngest of the lads crouched under the window, “ They are killing each other boss, come quick now pleeees”
No getting out of this that is for sure, I stagger out into the night, taking my massive 4X4 Toyota Land cruiser with the steal girder for a bumper and a cannon that I had bought off a particularly paranoid crack head, it was huge, and my fat staffy Crossbow. We drove at speed into the side of the shack with the satisfying result that one wall fell down completely allowing me to leap out of the truck and be silhouetted and dramatically lit in the dust and the lights of the truck blinding the very startled revelers. Even the one that was flying through the air froze in place. Two cartridges of heavy gauge 12 bore into the air only added an element of gravitas to the gathering. I had their undivided attention.
Crossbow who had got the biggest fright of all was in the arms of the largest and main protagonist, quivering in terror, that old girl will never be a gun dog.
The lads needed no further instruction and I could retire with an easy heart that all but all would be quiet on the farm for the next few hours.
Dictatorially
Francis


19/12/2003
Ohh I am such a trendsetter, but as usual I only discover my trend ness well after all the loot has been made by someone else.
It turns out that I am a ‘Blogger’.
I must be in fact the first of the bloggers as this ‘blog’ has been going for years already! I only discovered this from last weeks Sunday Times, which I get on a Wednesday, of there being thousands of idiots that get a vicarious thrill from spewing forth, internet wise, to enliven their dreary and irrelevant lives
I am crushed,
I am just part of some sad modern urban sycophantic syndrome, of the general malaise of modern, dysfunctional and compartmentalized urban life. A marketing Internet phenomenon. The humiliation and self-loathing is profound and deep. It was bad enough discovering that my most shameful and humiliating sexual fantasy is just a common perversion with a million web sites devoted to nothing else, practically soft porn, with millions of adherents, but to have Barry Ronge write about the web phenomenon of blogging in the Sunday Times, which is the trend to have sites where people post the rambling thoughts and observances of their daily life, such as ‘Faulty Tales’.
For a dedicated weirdo and marketing incongruity such as myself, this is a blow to my studied eccentricity. I am torn whether to quit, or get a blog of my own, worry worry worry.


However till this momentous decision is made here is my Blog of the day.
I don’t know whether it is the sad state of the sky, cloudless, the inevitable introspection of the festive season or just being a bit broke, but the underlying angst about being a NON member of the previously and presently disadvantaged, among so many who feel that they are were and still are disadvantaged, and that the advantaged, among the previously disadvantaged, are leading the cry that those such as me, who are not disadvantaged, are the ones that are disadvantaging them! Non previously or presently disadvantaged however feel, non the less, that they were never that advantaged and that their advantages as far as they can recall, from the sad state of their over draughts, bonds and child support payments, are less advantageous than the disadvantaged seem to appreciate!
Got that????
OK then let me translate into South African
This White is pissed off about being White among so many Blacks who recon that they are Black because of the Whites, and that the Blacks who are now White are the ones who are telling the Blacks who are still Black that the reason they are still Black is because of the Whites. Whites think that they were never that White in the first place, and anyway that being White is not as White as the Blacks think!
Is that easier?

Look I am confused and a bit irritated about our South African revolution, it was just the best one ever, what with Saint Nelson, the Rugby World Cup, and happily and advantaged we would all work together to get rich! And to a greater rather than lesser extent we have had this dream, which is nice, so why am I and so many around me (Whites, advantaged etc.) so worried now?

Why do we get the message that we are tolerated, just, resented and that we are the problem? By we, I am talking about the ‘Foreign investment’ that is so sought after, that has invested everything down to the lives of their children in this country.
The Whites!!!! The problem, the source of all the misery and poverty in our land. Oops so sorry, their land.
It is me personally that is standing in the way of all, but all, getting a 3 bed 2 bath DSTV fed obese life, its true, it’s my fault completely, and while I am in the mood let me apologize to all in the universe that have had the winds of change, change them, and take all their money too.
What crystallized this mysterious fear, when after all I am told, nay implored by the good and the great, that I am a treasured part of the fabric of the land where I was born, was a small incident that was reported on the radio the other day.
Dingaans day, Day of the Vow, and now day of reconciliation or something, but generally a great and venerable South African Tradition of bringing in the season of the great laze about in the sun. This fab extra Sunday is when the good and the great are expected to attend really tedious ceremonies in the dust and heat with lousy refreshments and long speeches that no one will hear.
Well one such celebration was being thrown somewhere and it had something to do with all the ‘religions’ getting together and doing who knows what? Speeches I suspect, some singing and tea and buns for afters, the usual but it was reported in tones of shock and horror that only 3 of the ‘White’ churches had attended this ‘Black’ event. I wondered with little thought which ones had pitched and made a whole lot of suppositions like it must have been those racist white churches that always hated us and don’t respect us now and blah blah blah with a whole load of guilt attached. Heard the report a couple of times when hey ho what happens but some bloke phones into the program and explains that in fact all but all the ‘White’ churches had pitched and that in fact what had happened was that the show was scheduled to start at 2 and all these colonial oppressive bigoted swine did the disgraceful deed of arriving at 2, waited around like lost farts for 3 hours, drank the tea wondering no doubt if they were in the right place as they were alone there and eventually having flocks and families or perhaps a life wondered off, leaving only three to welcome the extremely late and tardy hosts.
This was never then explained in the official news pronouncements nor was it reported in suitably shocked tones that the leaders of this land are totally unreliable.
So I think what??? I have been through this with the last lot inventing and creating a climate of fear and loathing so is I wrong?


12/01/2004
HAPPY NEW YEAR

I am a bit ashamed of the last missive I sent out, very down and negative, I blame the weather.
Here in the bush we are slowly surfacing from the surfeit of turkey, 2, and Christmas Pud, just one, and all the other nasty stuff that I have absorbed in the spirit of Christmas cheer.
The drought is a big worry though I am fortunate that my dams are nonetheless filling up and soon I will be again able to offer the aquatic hunters from the smoke some good sport.
The other hot news is that I have achieved 53 wins in a row at FreeCell which considering that my previous best was 6 is a triumph of note, with such momentous stuff happening out here it is little wonder that the stream of drivel has run dry.
On another note, matters of faith are occupying my mind, or rather the lack of such, in my heart, this is a thing of concern, considering the fact that there are no atheists in the trenches it seems churlish to doubt in paradise.
Some time ago, almost 2 years ago, in fact I was invited to attend a Barmitzva a ceremony that I, even as a non fore skinner missed, so I was indeed intrigued and was as such willing to attend the whole kapish from the Friday night Shabbat as well as the inevitable party.
I pitched dressed in my suit with shiny shoes, borrowed a yarmulke from one of my Christian mates and being a good school Christian arrived in good time to be warmly welcomed by the gathered Red sea pedestrians outside the synagogue in deepest flat bread land. Howard after ascertaining that this social liability was not going to get him actually excommunicated or driven into the wilderness by his having brought along this well known heathen escorted me into the temple.
This was in fact the first time that I had ever been to a Jewish ritual other than burying my mother and Grandmother and marrying off my sister all of which were notable by the lack of Jews in attendance. All three occasions in fact were attended by more poofs than pyramid builders!
Unlike the heathen services which I had been forced to attend by the fascist institutions that had attempted to bring me to a state of grace in my yoot, this was very different, for a start the women were all banished to the upstairs section and there seemed to be no order or hushed respect prevalent in the austere God shows that I was used to.
When we got in, the place was already half full of rowdy Jew boys all of whom seemed to feel that this was a stock exchange or social gathering rather than a place of worship with all the cheerful chatter associated with those sort of places, lots of “hello Sollies, how’s biz” type chatter as kids ran about the place and all but all ignoring the chaps on a big box in the middle who had started the show some time before.
To my confused eyes this seemed a bit off, as they were putting a lot of effort into putting up a good performance. They were lavishly dressed for the occasion with all the kit, white scarves, silly hats and transistor radios strapped to their heads singing, nodding and chanting away with not a soul taking a blind bit of notice.
Well the place filled up, the volume of chatter rose and then something went down that I missed but all there suddenly stood and started with the actual service, lots of cheerful singing and barrog Israeling with coordinated turning this way and that, not a word of which I understood but I followed as best I could so as to not shame my chum who had taken such a chance with me.
Now lads and lasses as you might know I am a Yid by birth and as such had a lot of them to the house for pork on a Sunday so a lot of the words though incomprehensible were none the less quite familiar but the real shock was as I looked about was the fact that I had never seen so many Jews in one place before in my whole life, came as a bit of a shock especially as I could recognize every single one from my yoot, I gazed in awe at my tribe for the first time ever, I was transported to a place and a society that I was part off. For the first time in my life I was without doubt part of something, a group, a community, 6000 years of history surrounded me and for the first time ever this little soul realized that I was not alone that I was after all not a stranger in a strange land that there was a place in this world to which I belonged and was a part of.
I was stunned shocked and in fact outraged that this treasure had been hidden from me for all these years, that I had been denied my birth right, that I had been all alone and drifting like a lost fart my whole life, that even the cold and indifferent bastards that were my English relatives who had so studiously ignored and shunned me and my sister had done more to include and Anglesize me than my Jewish relatives, I felt robbed of something precious, I have been so confused about this that it has taken me all this time to resolve and settle it in my mind, I wept for a day and could not bring myself to attend the rest of the celebrations except for the party.
The thing is gentle readers is that I am now and have been for sometime such a fervent anti religious person that I really did not want to become a tasseled Yid now, it would to my mind be hypocritical and whether I had found this dubious connection or not the truth is that it is no closer to the way for me than any other religion and besides which I am like all Jews an anti Semite.
Meditavily yours
Francis

18/01/2004
Nineteen thousand three hundred and fifty eight and a quarter sleeps as per last night, and the doors of Five Assegais were flung open to celebrate this auspicious event!
19358.25 seems an innocuous number, no mystical connection that I can see or definite lotto numbers for that matter, but none the less divided by the number of times the planet rotates, relative to the space of time it takes to circumnavigate a minor globule deific, comes to a date based on the nativity of a peasant on the bit of land that joins African and Europe, which was a bad day at the office for my mother.
So we are wont to buy meat, get worried about whether anyone loves us. Get depressed about the state of our diminishing years and all the things we should and shouldn’t be doing and have or haven’t done. It seems a strange thing to do but after 875.6 one twelfths of each planetary rotation, I intend to do it again, just one of the little foibles that we all do and which this time I really enjoyed.
Greg my particular chum who has shared about 18 circumnavigations of the sun with me, started close to the spot on rout at about the same place as I did and at the exact same place as Andrew a neighbor did. This naturally inspired a veritable orgy of celebration in the area.
Komati Lodge started with a booze and flesh fiesta which gathered the denizens of the Komati valley, Katrinasrust, Five Assegais and chums and various others who propped up the bar down there, Pat had organized a couple of young women to keep the lads at the trough which I thought was a fine gift for her man and got me all over excited and keen on visiting the optician or rather the tasty optician’s assistant that was flashing her underwear as the yoot are wont. The underwear flasher being the sister of the bar lady who between them had been round the sun less times than I had, so it was fun flirting with them, got me all over excited, hot and bothered and annoyed the older women there no end.
They all took the opportunity to remind me that I was nearly a 20 thousander compared the luscious young lasses with just over 9000 and don’t you think it is sad and disgusting that I was dribbling over young flesh and worse getting some fun from her? Blah blah blah.
I had arranged to meet my chum who was coming out from the smoke for the celebrations and by some great feat of coordination arrived at the same spot at the same time, magic.
I have been shy of the wacky weed for a couple of weeks, since last year in fact, so this year, up to Friday the 17th anyway, is the first year in 30 years that I have been straight!!!!! I bet you are impressed?
Now being a man of sober and restrained habits the first thing I did upon this joyful reunion was bum a smoke off him which I flicked out just as I turned onto the Doorkop track, boy was that a hairy ride??? Caused no end of amusement to the ones following to watch me sliding over the wet and very slippery road, nearly got stuck for which I would have been mocked over for years.
For my 19358.25 we actually burnt meat on 19357.25 and most of the celebrants of the previous night pitched for a repeat, thankfully the optician’s assistant, she of the exposed knickers and desirable flesh had stuck to her own. avoiding the recriminations from my personal squeeze, the squeals from the other squeezes was quite enough. It was most pleasant with English being the language of use being in the majority, a first in this area for me, for the times they are a changing la la la di da.
It was also notable by the complete absence of any drunks lurching and falling about ones person, what a joy, I find that my tolerance for slurring idiots on fermented fruit is getting less and less, I suppose after being arrested and generally persecuted by the booze parade for years I am a trifle over sensitive but I just hate it when they invade ones personal space with no foreplay, let alone consent, silly dangerous buggers.

26/01/2004

Everybody just loves Five Assegais except the parrot
What can I say but that I was spoiled rotten, got loads of pressies from sexy underwear, (what you think only girls like that sort of thing?) Candles, booze and best of all lots of rain and more than that I have now lost so much weight that my Adam’s apple has returned!
Gave me a nasty turn, I was shaving the pelt from my face, a strange habit, when I noticed a peculiar movement in my throat that had not been there the last time I looked. The great flab of flesh that used to grace my chin had disappeared to return my hidden neck to the gaze of men, and women too. I rushed to the scale and sure enough I had lost yet another 10 pounds which I am sure is a bit of knowledge you are all amazed that you have lived without for so long, I am however thrilled with old-new lump.
I was also treated to a rare spectacle, one of the big plusses of having cows around is that they bring crowned egrets with them and they tend to hang decoratively around the dam, the other day with the advent of the summer raptors they were attacked and harassed by a large brown eagle, diving and swooping through the flock, sadly for the eagle his efforts to have egret for breakfast were unsuccessful, but the chase was pretty dramatic none the less.
I have also attracted a Redcollard Widow in the new pasture above the house a notable triumph to watch him flapping around for his lady friends in fact the life that is now booming on the estate is a wonder to behold though the maids are less than enchanted by the corresponding invasion of some of our reptilian chums like the night adder that is sulking under one of the gas cylinders, warm and safe.
We spotted a family of mountain Reebok with a bambino the black shouldered kites are gathering for their annual orgy and I have got a parrot, verily the pirate in me has succumbed again and I am the proud owner of a very shy blue African green who at the moment goes under the name of Stony, as it comes from the stone quarry. He or perhaps she is still after a few days less than enchanted with its new arrangement and I worry that it is pinning for company, but sadly there are no more chums for me to get for him at the moment so it spends an inordinate amount of time in the cozy box I got for him and bolts back inside at the first sign of a human face, I am being very patient as I am sure that the love I feel for this very expensive chicken will soon be reciprocated, we live in hope.
Francis

29/02/2004
Due to the shortage of good jokes and some personal quandaries I am sending this letter out on a monthly basis from now on so stop whining, after all you don’t pay for these words of wit, and I am going to try sending pictures too, sometimes, but onwards

Hello chums,
Well a long and momentous month it has been just shows you what an extra day can do.
The wattle war has now been officially won HOORAH AND TALLY HO!
I had this orgasmic moment when gazing out over my hills and saw nary a tree, the troops are still out there flaying and spraying away at the stragglers, this is a vicious and merciless war with no quarter given, but we, here at central HQ, are now celebrating and planning on how to split the booty.
The consequence of this is that I have indulged in an orgy of gardening and planting, a change from the mindset of tree killer. I am now again contemplating the joys of feeding animals and getting the ‘farmyard’ on the move, we already have cows and now horses!
My mother warned me, my sister beseeched me, my inner voice positively shouted at me but nonetheless, hey ho and off to break our necks we go. With a “front end bites” and a “backend kicks” and “ the middle is a horrible place”, on our lips,
I have grown to enjoy these beasts, having negotiated with a local Copper, a sturdy young chappy built on the lines of ‘Desperate Dan’ with a small head and huge chin, and his equally horse mad wife who is the local nurse, to run a Horse trail. Thus I get a free horse to fall off!
They brought a bunch of horses over at the beginning of the month and I have been feeding them and generally getting to bribe my way into their good graces with tidbit’s and oats, which precipitated an adventure even before I had climbed onto one of them, the oats, that is, as you will see,

It is a little known fact but Middleburg is a den of iniquity!
This is not immediately perceptible, as on the surface it is a typical small high veldt town.
It boasts many glittering manifestations of the sleepy dorpy such as a snappy new KFC franchise, old and beer soaked hideous hotel, sturdy municipal structures, towering grain silo’s and war memorials to fallen hero’s of yore and naturally malls, none of which indicates the criminal nature of this backwater, except perhaps the hotel.
I have had the privalidge and joy of wondering fairly widely around the planet and my own peculiar proclivities have taken me into a lot of tre seedy and murky spots, with nary a nasty moment.
However having had the dubious delight of visiting this particular blight on the face of the planet perhaps a half a dozen times I have been stitched up there TWICE now, weird.
These brushes with jeopardy have all been precipitated by lightning, blowing up some piece of electronic gear, requiring a pilgrimage to the nearest box fixer, that being Middleburg, in the middle of nothing and far from anything, so aptly named, though I feel lacking in any great thought, which is also a valid point.
The first incident happened some time ago, when I went to collect my fried DSTV box and was enjoying a chicken with a chum when ‘they’ swiped it from the bakkie, right in front of our eyes! He had neglected to lock the door, a very amateur job as they missed all the camera gear and other valuables. An obvious snatch and grab operation, hardly worth mentioning.
The last and more recent escapade however was a bit of a ‘cunning plan’, calculated by Middleburg’s nefarious classes to alleviate local fat old farts in ‘Bakkie's’ of their property.
I being, such a victim, was blithely sitting in my motorized wheel barrow chatting on my cell to the TV mender in the mall, when I was disturbed by the extraordinary sight of a young chappie me lad unloading, unbidden, a 25 kilo bag of oats (remember) from the open back of my trucklet!
I was naturally filled with a righteous outrage at this blatant act of banditry and leapt, no doubt, as expected, like a silly old macho bugger into the fray, to confront this lad with a great deal of finger wagging and “Are you fekking out of your fekking minding” with this young man, protesting in a vague but convincing way that he was just being a helpful fellow, doing the bidding of his betters and richers
He demonstrated that admirable African innocence and surprise at my outrage, gesturing vaguely around as to indicate some higher authority, before, quite suddenly conceding. With elegant virtuosity, he drops the sack back into the truck and ambles off into the local taxi rank.
I was left gaping with surprise at this strange encounter as he disappeared into the heaving masses, I climbed into the cab wondering dully, with more than a bit of adrenalin coursing the veins, what the hell that was all about, and trundled of to the coffee shop to await the TV to be finished.
It was there that the veil fell from eyes, upon the discovery that I was missing cell phone and wallet! Lots of scratching around under the seat and unbelieving patting of pockets confirmed the awful truth.
Old Mister Streetwise had been swindled, conned, tricked and befuddled by a couple of ignorant yoots who think that Swaziland is overseas.
Oh the shame.
While the oat stealer was distracting me, his accomplice, was rifling my car, a clever little scam.
Really quite a gentle and considerate little ploy, I could not but be secretly impressed and certainly better than a gun to the head nes pa?
In retrospect, the oat stealers calm calculation, and control was inspiring, the way he pointed away from the action to keep me
pre occupied in the wrong direction was a masterful stroke, these lads saw me coming and played me like an old fiddle, real Oliver Twist stuff.
The Old Bill arrived chop chop, but were less than useless, surprise surprise, the resident car watcher, even more so, probably in on the scheme, the blond armored copper implied to me.
I was bereft of communications, money and identification, and was humiliated, worried and somewhat annoyed.
Thankfully the TV guys, who claimed that every day in that area was a constant battle against the forces of darkness, fronted me with a hundred bucks. The bank gave me my card back and stopped the old one, very quick and smartish, the telephone was zapped and made useless, a lot harder and more complicated to achieve, requiring a many digit number and a surly attitude by the service provider.
Machadodorp municipality lifted some wedge off me for my new Drivers license and sent me here and there to get all the pictures, police number and all the other tedious demands of an established plutocracy in just a couple of hours, with tea tossed in with the Captain while we waited, the post office did not have enough stamps for the gun licenses but the copper involved is going to deliver anyway so hooray for country life, take you 3 months in a line to get that together in town!
Otherwise the lodge has been, for the first time ever, full, every weekend, this month, “HOORAY AGAIN FOR COUNTRY VISITORS!”
It is raining a storm, so the roof is leaking, it has been so dry this year, that I have not had to get to that job, and now I curse the rain, spread buckets and pots around and wait for it to let up, we are so ungrateful.
Well as I said a momentous month, got into the Saturday Star Travel section, a whole page with pictures and everything, filled the lodge this weekend directly from that, went out with the horses for the first time, thankfully uneventful, glorious in its uneventuality, I am still not sure about these beasts, Desperate Dan did take a most gratifying tumble, which was disconcerting, him being the ‘expert’, but all agreed that, that was a loopy animal as the rest were unfazed.
Thank the lord, as these animals can go like the clappers. Scarrrrrry
I have since ridden for the first time, on my own on a horse that knows me and that I saddled myself, really great, with the dogs running along side, a team, in fact today I went all the way around the Skurweberg, it really really doesn’t get better than this. I also got interviewed on the radio, Fame!!!! Well enough about me how goes with you?
Your chum in the bush
Francis

March 2004
Tiss the season of mist and mellow fruitfulness, with my guests huddled by the fire, quite embarrassing, as it is wet as well as cold, not the show that a concerned Vakansy Ordenaar would wish on the frazzled punter. One can only hope that they don’t get the impression that this is how it always is here, seems to rain every weekend, odd.
However I am achieving a level of contentment not seen since the last farm. Life is good, other than the trials and tribulations of Spaniards, Israelites and others the news at home is uniformly and pleasantly dull one would think that Bra Nelson was still in charge! I try to worry about Zim and crime, but really those old chestnuts seem to be but the sound of waves or wind, in short the trout are fat, though still uncooperative, the braai’s they burn and best of all, the lodge is full, oh happy days.
I now even have a chum in the area that I can pop in to, too share a joint with, a first in 12 years of country pursuits, mine cup runeth over!
We had the first art lesson in the studio, all the local ladies came equipped with, wine, food and cookies, we settled in to a still life which I had arranged with flowers, drapes, fruit and veg which totally intimidated the class and was reduced to a lonely pumpkin, however undeterred, we all got around it as I strutted around trying to explain how to draw, see, compose and paint, something I have never done, not so easy, as I have not really ever thought about how I do what I do!
Our ‘group’ it is safe to say will not any time soon threaten the status of the ‘Everad Group’ who were painting around here 80 years ago, you will be amazed to hear that The Standard Bank Gallery has as yet not approached us for a retrospective, but we sure had a good time, a couple of hours at the easel to justify the soul followed by food and vino in the sun is a great way to spend a day, the fact that between us we have lived several centuries only added to the stories, chatter and bonhomie.
In my now constant search for self promotion and free publicity in the never ending hunt for visitors we had a young travel writer chappy here who will promote us this Saturday on Safm at about 10.15am so listen up, and also an article in the Biz day not a journal I take regularly. This prompted a major tour of the region and sneak views of the competition in the area as I trolled him from fishing hut to country mansion, ohing and ahhing at the wonders displayed, there really are some great places here to stay and the interest by the steaming proletariat to visit is heart warming, I wish that Easter came a few times more every year, the amount of folk that want to leave town at this time would have filled the lodge 10 times over.
Our local Tourism org. got together for our AGM which was an orgy of meat and booze in Tim’s newly constructed disco which he has fixed up in his a bit smelly fish processing barn, with all the kit from UV lights to smoke machines and mirror balls so now we lack for nada out here except for semi naked nymphets on E, and dark chaps from Nigeria flogging crack at the door but we live in hope, for the nymphets that is, we chatted about ‘eh toorisem’ got a lecture from the girls and boys from Mpumalanga head office who dispensed packets of marketing material that we were all to busy bopping, burning meat and drinking, to read
I am touched by the reaction to my complaint that I was not getting enough jokes from you lot and as you can see some great funnies have swamped me, thanks.
One of the disadvantages of having a good time is that contentment does not make for funny tales to relate so hey ho enjoy your jokes and see ya here soon, I must mention a magic moment as I was feeding the horses the other evening, the sun was setting as a small storm swept passed creating a magnificent rainbow that ended above the house where I had a couple spending their Honeymoon, it was soooooo romantic and cute I nearly puked.
Your Vakancy Ordenaar
Francis


April 2004

Hello Chucklers,

Another full month Hooray, strange thusly, how I am still flat broke, the tourism biz she is a fickle mistress!
May looms with nary a single soul keen to taste the thrills and spills on the farm, worry, worry, worry, so on to more delightful tales.
‘Die Ou Mense’ as we are apt to describe the settlers in the region, who built the original house, built here for several good reasons, but the most important of these was access to gravity feed water, which was notable by its absence.
I had after some scrabbling around in the bush discovered a sad damp patch that I assumed and was assured by the few remaining denizens in the area. from 30 years ago, was in deed, the original spring and did indeed used to run always.
Well I might have mentioned, the recent wattle war that we engaged in here and I might add, WON, as such spoils were to be expected, but such a bounty as I have received was more by far than was ever expected.
For the first time this year the damp patch is now a considerable bog, the lower springs are behaving in a way that was also very heartening, all this combined with the happy coincidence of a free yellow mega digger persuaded me to take the plunge and open a huge hole.
Out flowed water, a stream of crystal pure water from the very base of the rock, a mystical miracle, much dancing around. And whooping it up!
Soon the whole hole was a muddy puddle and still the water flowed, I felt most Mossesish as I pitted that night.
Next morning still wild with excitement at the thought that soon I would have free water, I rushed up to gaze into my hole which I knew would now be a pure clear puddle, but what I found was a wonder that I still visit almost three times a day, and drag every visitor to see in the sure knowledge that I will get a resounding Ohh, Ahh Wow, that is amazing, from all!
Picture if you can an opal in a golden field, a jewel of blue water, blue, blue water, not just clear water such as in the next spring down, but a wonder of some coincidence of nature to create a stratified multi colored clay, blue water pot at the base of the god head of the hill, this is something really special.
We are overcome.
I have strung a pipe down to the pool at the house that my sister forced me to install, with dry remarks about the unsuitability of a laydiee to cavort in a pond, and the water is still this wonderful color.
This is big time pay back for many years toil
In less obvious ways though, I am rewarded for the work we have done here, cash would be nice but the steady return of life to the house is equally if not more satisfying.
Five years ago there was not a bird, lizard, mouse or insect on this poor blighted bit of the world and now I will have to invest in a snake remover! Night Adders sunning on the patio!
All this is good news, so it was a blow when the water for the house ran dry, with the house full of Guests too, including babes in swaddling with concerned and perturbed Mum in tow, who felt that this lack of the old H2O from the tap was a major management failure. I had to concur, panic stations was the choice of the day
When first I started camping here, I had purchased a very smart and powerful electric water pump, however what with the tardiness of our local utility company to supply the power required, I had fallen back on the old farms technology, i.e. a petrol clunker that has been pushing the aqua yea verily for the last many years, and the electric pump had been consigned to the back reaches of the dusty store, under the principle that what works don’t need to be fixed.
This had changed and required solving as in now!
What had transpired was that I had stripped the thread in the thingy at the top of the what not on the motor, I naturally blamed the staff, but the truth be told it was me, however blame having been laid at the wrong door did nothing to repair the damage but being a man with a spare pump in da store I thought this would be just another opportunity for me to demonstrate my bush tracker skills.
Not so, the forces of darkness were after a bite at my pink white Holiday Resort manager’s bum.
It seemed that some distant conflict between management and the toiling classes in some far away industrial zone having made the availability of copper cable a thing of the past, thus leaving me bereft of the ability to string vibrating electrons to the machine, thus this very dear piece of kit was left less than ineffective, no bloody use at all in fact.
I was alone with a crowd of punters who could soon turn ugly, not to mention dirty and unwashed, this is considered among the professionals in the trade to be a boo boo of note. My distress was only added to by the utter dearth of any local alternative, all pumps being firmly attached to their pipes and unavailable to a weed-smoking idiot on a hill.
Thankfully my fellow Red Sea pedestrian in Schoemanskloof who grows goldfish for a crust and consequently shifts, in the tradition of our forbearers, a lot of water, did thankfully, have a pump which required a frantic trip down the hill to fetch it, where I found a less than enchanted pyramid builder who had had his squeeze attacked by creatures of the night and was still so that concerned by this episode that he carried the copy of our local rag which had featured the attack on the front page!
In the spirit of blind optimism, though the attack was shocking and distressing and all that, I did take some small comfort from the fact that these nasty bastards did not do what they were so won’t to do just months before, being rape and murder. They were, I suspect restrained in their behavior by the sure knowledge that the bloody death of a white madam would bring a great deal more attention to their enterprise than just lifting her kit, so even though Myron was still convinced that they were after his thinnish white arse, I felt that the outcome was a lot better than it could have been.
I tut tutted away with him for a while before returning to the sad unwashed crowd at the lodge with pump under arm, confident, not, that this pizzily little low veldt pump would cope with the conditions here at the top of the world, and it did not.
This required a great deal of aggravation for the wekkers who had to pump water into a little water tanker on wheels, tractor that to the top of the hill and pump it into the tank, a long and laborious process which made one well aware of how much vita is needed to keep us in aqua.
We are fully watered by gravity and electricity now, so all can be welcomed by a spring fed swimming pool and as much water both hot and cold as even the most tiresome guest could demand, a pair of which washed up from the celestial heights of the corporate booze towers in the form of Bells Whiskey punters.
The community of local bed leters here, having the overwhelming desire to turn our backwater into a destination of choice, have been plotting and scheming to get the rich and influential down here for a days fishing, as such a ‘Trout Festival’ is on the cards, thus the Bells boys, sponsorships being the order of the day, were dragged around the area for a peek under our skirts, Tim in particular lifted his and we were all amazed and impressed by the wonder of pristine river and dams that the big boys from the local mine, keep for their executive stress, fact made in flesh the wonders of nature that many millions can achieve, the Bells team were suitably blown away and a meeting of souls was proclaimed especially after they met Pat.
These old corporate soldiers can see a fellow comrade across the room and they were thirsty anyway.
A booze fest developed into strident celebration, with competitions over who could mix the most devastating cocktail, I was left under the table, tre remorseful and ashamed the next day, boy the things one has to do to get people to come and stay.
One of the dubious benefits of this excursion was being introduced to the wonders of river fishing. A lot more tricky than flogging the fat lazy lucky trout that infest my dams. Being as I am, keen to plumb the depths of country pursuits, I feel obligated, started with the horses and it can only be a slow dive into fishin, shootin, and prayin, you can understand my lack of enthusiasm.
It is quite a lot of fun, when you have eventually got ones cast out, without getting tangled and in a mess. The whole universe seems, in that situation to be hell bent on catching your hook, except for the fish of course, they cruise past you, bold as brass, in the gin clear stream, making rude remarks and giving one the old fin as they sail past your tangled excuse for a lure, the buggers! Have been down now 3 times and have actually caught some fish, enchanting stuff, these river fish make a hell of a fuss when you snag them with much leaping and zooming up and down, and these are just the silly stupid tiddlers that I managed to con! What a big one does to the adrenalin levels, well the mind boggles.
So there you go, busy times with doom and even worse penury and disgrace but a blip on some distant computer away, aloe season is here again so do come and see them if you get the chance, Pooky my parrot has reconciled himself to me, though he still prefers women, who doesn’t? The temptations of the horses has faded into the realms of toil beyond the returns of pleasure,
Blue waterishly yours
Francis

MAY 2004

Hello Chucklers,
May, may come and May, may go and to be frank I am glad it is gone, phew, what a roller coaster ride, lucky to be alive, or if that is a bit melodramatic, lucky to be still in biz anyway!
April was a wonder of keen young things infesting the lodge, and the phone ringing off the hook with anxious last minute punters trying to get here, I thought that I was at last in the clover and from now on I would be spending my days raising the rates and collecting loot.
However from the last week in April the calls suddenly ceased, stopped, came to an end, to such an extent that I was sure that the phone had been cut, which it eventually was.
The cows soon got the message that this was a place of woe and disappeared into the valley, the horses, which had received so much love and attention also deserted me for greener pastures, Telkom with their usual aplomb cut the phone, the only time the cell sounded was to harass me with demands for wedge which was not available, and now even the cellular boys and girls have decided that I am a poor bet, all is misery, ohh woe is me.
Even the new spring went dry!
We plumbed the depths, lost faith, got scared, resented the rich and poor alike, all of which seemed to be after my skinny bum.
Next year I go away for May.
So I did what any would do and painted like a fury, you don’t? Well it works for me.
First came a commission, through the Mastodon pictures, this is the first time ever that I have got work from art done, what that says about my stuff does not bear considering!
Got a couple of bookings.
Paid the staff (God I hope I don’t have to retrench them)
Got the phone back and paid who I could but all too little and to late.
My pathetic appeals and frantic PR efforts to promote the flowers here came up with not a singe reply!
Therefore I can only recommend that if any of you want to visit me it better be soon as it looks more and more like this is the end.
Here are the jokes I got this month, enjoy
Hope I will be sending this out next month
Penurily
Francis
June 2004

Hello Chucklers,
What a roller coaster ride this resort bizy,ness is, who would have thought?
After all the doom and gloom, self loathing and distress of May, all returned to joy, though hardly anyone got to see the aloes, again, this year, but before you fall on your swords in disappointment and distress at missing, again, this wonder of the world, it was a poor season with only 1 out of 10 shrubs blooming, who knows why, drought, cold, it is a mystery. Try again next year.
The Place is looking amazing none the less, flowers or no, and very much the benefit of loosing the trees is manifest, I love winter up here, best time of the year, clear days crisp nights around the fire and the parrot munching on my shoe laces all very cozy

Bit of a break

Oh lordy lord, got as sick as a dog, not a thing that I am used to, having a constitution that caters for my erratic life style.
I never get the flu, well not like this anyway, where I crawled into the pit.
One of the grave disadvantages of not having a live in lover is the lack of the cooling hand on the fevered brow, not to mention the TLC that they are so good at.
Well there I was, I all alone, ag shame, sweating and shivering with nothing in the drug draw to combat this latest assault on my ebullience and after 2 days of Valium and Grandpa with just a little soup and sandwiches from Mac, Tim pitched with Med lemon and some other major juices to ease me into oblivion while the organism did it’s thing.
Let me tell you that Med lemon, 3 and hot, washed down with 2 Grandpa’s is like smack without the puking!
I am convinced that the rejection of my painting that I had offered to the bleak gaze of the art world was the cause of this distress, it certainly depressed me.
One of the ‘joys’ of painting are the deep and personal insults to ones debased feelings of self worth by the legions of critics, snotty nosed gallery ladies and the complete lack of enthusiasm for ones work by the general public, truly at times it is quite hard to believe at all!
Well we are recovered, after a week of depression, and it is still as cold as a witches tit, and when would the chain saws decide that they are old and grumpy and were no longer willing to accept the abuse lavished on them for yea verily the last many years, now, typical, so wood has become for the first time ever short, actually have to hand out cold hard cash for it!
Anyway this letter is very late, August looms, the school holidays are drawing to a close with the inevitable empty weekends that, that creates, starting to take keen interest in school time tables and public holidays, which as a non wekker have been things of little concern in the past, just another of the many little skills that the holiday resort owner needs to nurture.
Cold but cheerfull again
Francis


JULY 2004

The second cold front is upon us, and the country is huddled and shivering, the dogs are quaking at my feet in terror and fear what with the thunder and all, just the time to amuse and entertain.
July on the vakancy front has been good, not excellent but enough to give me a short stick to whack at the wolves, better than pathetic appeals to their better nature that’s for sure.
Well anyway the month started badly, the girl friend had a serious wobble what with the double full moon, and her boss who is equally erratic, has been on her case, so naturally I got the benefit and the same is transpiring again this week, so no nooky for me this weekend!
I can only take consolation from the fate of a thankfully distant acquaintance I have with Mr. Simon Mann in Zim who has had less than I for the last little while.
On the suffering front I was committed by my deep debt to our local tourism mafia to suffer the slings and arrows of cruel misfortune and spend some many hours manning our stand at a temple to conspicuous consumption in the better part of Pretoria.
Being one of Vosters Children my perception of that capital city is some what jaundiced by the memory of being dragged there in chains!
This time I had been sentenced to 2 days at the Menlyn Park Mall! Oh woe is me.
I was welcomed to our spot on the concourse by Pat, a big improvement on the last waiter I had had there, believe me on this one, and my cell mates were a good deal less scary too.
The Belfast girls were there in force, they are really keen there, must be their proximity to Dullstroom, who were notable by their absence, the other corner of our 25 square meters, was occupied by a grumpy pair of wrinklies from the depths of Marble Hall, I have no idea where that is and they seemed equally confused! The fourth corner was taken by a bunch of others who seemed to have no particular reason for being there but had lots of posters, glossy pamphlets and enthusiasm for the resorts in their gift. I think they had something to do with Badplaas.
I settled into my bit, which was decorated with our posters, and my bunches of grass which had already proven their worth and had been knocked over several times and were shedding like fury, pretty but tiresome rather like me ☺
Unlike the last cell I had occupied in that town, the fascists here were a good deal more restrictive, where cell 23 was darker and grimmer with a good deal less on offer in terms of distractions and products for sale, one could at least ease the pain with a smoke!
Well the hours simply sailed away with nary a prospective tourist to be seen, quite a lot of traffic past, by folk that were without doubt on a mission and shied away from our advances with a good deal of suspicion and I soon realized that the Marble Hall wrinklies were depressed for good reason. Sitting there was like being sentenced to three hundred years of all in wrestling, nary a soul was interested in who we were, where we came from and what we had to offer, not good.
However we soon discovered that the coffee shop allowed smokers and I had a great time taking the piss and reading a book, rather like being on holiday, but in a mall.
On a final thought about the deep need to get deposits, I am distraught that I am responsible for the early demise of an old lady, as I neglected to get a deposit from her daughter so the old dear gave up the ghost and I got a cancellation
Francis


August , 2004

The month arrived with the first breath of summer, just an illusion but welcome nonetheless and brought a considerable expansion in our operations. I am now the governor and general marketeer for the ‘Pongola Express’
One of my northern neighbors, is a formidable Afrikaner Royal, of gimlet eye, steely gray hair and generally a grand old lady of some considerable substance. She must be one of the first lady attorneys in the country, and the proud owner of a pair of splendid old SAR Railway carriages parked in the Skurweberg valley.
Tany Gritjie (as I am now allowed to address her) and I have been conducting a mild flirtation for the last few years, on the odd occasion that she comes to stay.
Having shared a crust and a drinky I have managed to ingratiate myself to her, and what with the nature of the tourist biz, i.e. being plagued by the punters all wanting to visit at the same time I mentioned that I could have filled her carriages with paying guests for cold hard cash, this touched a cord, and the deal was made!
Aunty G some 35 years ago, when she was younger but I suspect no less sprightly had managed, I know not how, to drag a sleeper carriage, first and second class as befits the dark days of yore, and a stupendous dining car, lined with exotic timbers, with just the greatest workmanship from the long lost days of elegant travel. We are talking ‘Orient Express’ with views to make the eyes water.
I have enchanted and delighted Tany Grippy already with her first deposit and as such am flavor of the month, and she sent some people to visit who had been expecting to come for free, and made them pay my share of the wedge so this is a relationship made in heaven.
However not all has been wine and roses in the Skurweberg and I am wracked with Jewish guilt, Tany Leni my erstwhile and much loved neighbor curled up her toes and departed this mortal coil, not unexpected really as hers was a life spent having children, washed down with Klipdrift and Chesterfields which has its side effects but a shock none the less and she will be surely missed.
It transpired that her daughter had had a terrible car prang, rolled her Toyota and poor old Tany died of shock. The guilt comes from the remorseless fact that I had not been told of this tragedy and had not visited her in her time of need, and there is never a chance to repair that sort of neglect.
Her funeral was a classic, held at the rather magnificent Ge reformde Kerk in Carolina, a dressed stone edifice complete with stern Commandant in bronze in front. The kerk had sadly been subject to a rather disastrous 60’s renovation inside and frankly the paisley brown carpeting and industrial sound paneling on the ceiling did little to elevate the spirit. The passing of the years and the obvious depletion of the church funds since then having disallowed any further improvements added a further feeling of despair.
The funeral was well attended and we gathered out side in our raggedy once a year suits, on the vast scorched highveltd winter plains under the bleached blue orb of sky to face our shared mortality, without the benefit of our late departed, why oh why can the cause of the gathering no longer be present to ensure that we know what we are doing?
The domini a stern young chappy me lad popped in and out of his pulpit like a jack in the box, rather disconcerting, as his stage was redolent with gravitas as is the wont of that particular sect, their deity is a grave and stern visage and the pulpit and the design of the layout would have done any aspirant Mussolini proud, the service was equally cold and distant as with all dictators and he managed to send me into a coma with long and tedious sermon on the longevity of the old profits and how we are all going to meet our maker sooner than they did and he intimated that we would receive a cool and deeply judgmental welcome when we got there, these people are tough in deed, but I wept for her and felt very alive so it was a success.
The other not so great tragedy that has struck us here in the bush is that my beloved parrot Pooky, wandered out of the studio while I was walking and clipped wing, not with standing, has gorn, leaving me bereft.
Though he was such a shitty prickly little presence in the house we had come to start to trust and rather like each other, I miss his little soul sitting and shitting on my computer and nibbling my ear as we watched the TV together. I have given up hope that we will find the poor little chap and taken down his house to the great joy of the staff and the dogs who all felt that he was a big mistake in the first place.

Some time later.

On the 19th August 2004 no less than two auspicious events took place, Mrs. Darvall and I reached 30 years since we were married and the first meeting of the Pongola 146 chapter of lodge owners was convened at the Pongola Express, the train that is always on time!
Having invited all my chums in the district to try out the wonders of my new facility, Lesley-Anne suggested that we all stay once a month at each others lodges, get drunk eat and generally enjoy ourselves, this was to be a serious secret society with our own secret hand signals and costumes.
Wine was drunk, Chicken a la king and goulash was consumed, Pat tried to convert us to catering being a reborn cuisineer, and the Brewskies as usual with their deeply ingrained country wisdom begged off staying the night, very wisely as it turned out as the Pongola in the tradition of SA Railways, sports beds that suited the old bits of leather that constituted their average punter of yore, but is less than bliss for those used to the wonders of a Sealy posturepedic bed with the down cushions and sumptuous duvet, the booze did not help though I was ver discreet and only shared a bot of white with Tin though on due reflection I recall the Champagne that Pat sneaked into my system, but none the less the next night at home was bliss.
Well the month is now past and a poor month it has been re the booking front, no one it seemed was interested in the pleasures of country life at my place anyway with only a few days profitably sold ho hum but at least the paintings in stock are mounting up
Talk to you all next month
Francis


September

Hello all,
This edition of the Fawlty Tales is in fact an obligatory ABJECT apology to the august and venerable members of the Skurweberg Group.
Our venerable organization has decided in their wisdom that a ‘Highlands Trout Ball’ will be just the thing to put us on the map and as the local girly boy I was seconded to organize the festivities for the wives of the fisher folk that do not, themselves, enjoy this particular country pursuit. A day of spring baths, massages and general pampering at Badplaas was deemed the answer.
Charged with this massive responsibility I tried in vain to get through to anyone at that resort, that could or would help me and was in despair of ever achieving this. Their switchboard alone would try the patience of an anxious creditor let alone a prospective client with wedge to spend.
Thus sometime later it was with great relief when manning our stand at Melyn park the main man from that very institution pitched up and after cornering him and explaining my difficulty he assured me that my problems were now over, and he personally, would ensure that an executive of ‘high caliber’ would be in touch with me very soon.
Two weeks later, at least, a young lady and her Mum washed up on my doorstep with snappy biz card, flyers and brochures of glossy quality and even R20 gift vouchers for the local golf club eatery, we went through the whole thing, at great length and in considerable detail, Twice at least and she departed from here fired with enthusiasm for this project with fervent promises that she would very very soon send me a detailed and extensive document breaking down all the details of our long and all-embracing discussions, itemizing menus and prices and all the wonders that her institution could offer to make 60 plus women feel like goddesses!
I was overjoyed and awaited this document with bated breath.
Quite some many days /weeks later I received this

Dear Francis,

QUOTATION : 30 PAX TEAM BUILDING

Lunch @ R65.00 per person
Team Building (Attached)


Have a nice day

Ansie

This came (attached massive file which I will spare you) with an e-brochure extolling the wonders of their torture trail where they send unfortunates into the bush to be persecuted with hideous and futile exercises to complete before they are fed, which entailed swinging over crocodile infested rivers with weighty logs on their shoulders while being insulted by a Nazi, even the dimmest I felt would agree that this was as far off the mark as one could get I thus snapped of the following I thought considering the situation a rather witty reply

Dear Ansi
What the hell is this all about? I asked for a quote to pamper and spoil a bunch of women with spring baths and massage and you send me this bolocks about torturing them on some corporate torture trail.
Are you all in a coma down there in Badplaas?
Get your act together this is so out of brief to be embarrassing
Yours
Francis

This sadly did not go down very well and Ansie got very ansy and sent back the following (her own spelling)

Dear Francis,

I do not appreciate the tone of voice used in you e-mail and no, we are not in a coma.

Nobody informed me that you required Hydro Treatments, I was told you require team building. There is a uged difference between team building and pampering.

Will you please e-mail me exactly what your requirements are so that I can work out a quotation for you.

Have a lovely day

Ansie


What a bloody cheek thought I being the client and all, and felt that a swift repost was called for, after all I had told the story to the man, his ‘executive of high caliber’ and her Mum and really felt that if after such it would be futile to try to illuminate this illiterate in this medium, if all other transfers of wisdom had fallen on deaf ears, and I was you remember spending money too, and quite a bit at that, there were to be 60 ladies not 30 and we were expecting a lot more than a R65 snack, we are talking a day in paradise with the personal attention of the arch angel and his minions so I wrote a little less witty reply,

Dear Ansi,
It is not my problem what you were told and if it was incorrect talk to the person that did brief you, I spoke at length to Susan van den Berg, she even visited me to get the details if you want our business talk to her and sure as hell do not get uppity with me
Francis

This was met by absolute silence so I made some other plans for the women, to whit to take them to the local game park for a drive and a ‘white mischief’ picnic by the hippo pool. Armed with this alternative I arrived at the next meeting of the committee full of confidence, the ‘Ansie’ issue long forgotten.
As usual I got the time wrong and was late, I bounced in and announced to the assembled coffee slurpers and cake munchers, “that Badplaas was off”, which was greeted with a chorus of ‘We know’!
This was bundu drums beyond my reckoning. I actually blushed in confusion at this common knowledge of my private communications, the buggers had copies of the above correspondences, which had been read out loud, to great merriment to the combined forces of the committee, by the deeply shaken and concerned CHAIRMAN himself, these are country folk not computer hackers for god sake.

It transpired that the ladies of Badplaas were so shocked, shocked and horrified by my ’tone of e-mail’’ they had felt compelled by their sense of decency and moral fiber to complain to our CHAIRMAN, forwarding the ‘offensive evidence’ with the expressed desire that he take me out to the old wood shed and give me a whacking for my cheeky behavior or consider the entire community of The Skurweberg excommunicated, banned and disgraced in the eyes of the Badplaas group, thus do vendetta’s grow, we will be fighting them down there for the next 200 years, Hozaaaaar!!! Oops ☺

To avoid this slaughter I am thus falling on my blunt sword in mortification at my outrageous behavior with the proviso that I still think that they must have the sense of humor of an aardvark with nail up its backside.
Anyway the long and short of it is, is that my name is dirt and the locals cross the path to avoid me. I am mortified and promise never to pee in their pools again (at least not from the edge) as repentance for my sins. (The sword was really blunt, rubber in fact) So don’t panic girls.

Well the month being blessed with a long weekend is full of people trying to all get in at the same time, even had folk trying the day before, amazing it is like a conspiracy, try to flog the following weekend and boy are you alone.
My good friend and ‘Ornithologist to the Stars’ P Prof. Benson has used his less than obvious charms to inveigle a wonderful spread for me in the country life pages 34-36 October edition with color pictures and even with me as Michael Cain on a horse, you got to get it to see, which should in theory makes me wind swept and interesting and draw the teeming masses to my gates. We live in hope.
Hope the warming thing did not get you down too bad, scared me
Enjoy the jokes
Francis


October/November 2004

Hello again friends,

Well I am late with this letter been busy painting away, getting more fishies done, and been severely humiliated by all that were approached to display them, as usual.
I took a whole show up to the Klopenheim Hotel who have treated me like a leper. Jerry who I thought was the man at that establishment had kindly offered me a space there to display my stuff and with wild enthusiasm I cleaned up all my old easels made a special sign and labels with prices for all the pictures to create I hoped a tre professional show which I erected in the spot indicated and awaited the expected sales only to discover that no sooner had I got to the bottom of the hill than his homo manager had dismantled the whole thing and chucked it with contempt into a back room where not a soul would ever see them. Not what I had hoped and did nothing for my deeply held insecurities about my work, then after placing my stuff at a couple of shops around Dullstroom I discover that they too were all consigned to dark corners where not a soul was likely to ever see them, let alone buy any!
Deeply and profoundly depressing in light of this personal and professional rebuff I have been less than enthusiastic about anything thus the delay in sending out this missive.
Anyway here are some of my favorite jokes and stuff, have a good pagan celebration and New Year
Deeply and totally humiliated again
Francis

October/November 2004

Hello again friends,

Well I am late with this letter been busy painting away, getting more fishies done, and been severely humiliated by all that were approached to display them, as usual.
I took a whole show up to the Klopenheim Hotel who have treated me like a leper. Jerry who I thought was the man at that establishment had kindly offered me a space there to display my stuff and with wild enthusiasm I cleaned up all my old easels made a special sign and labels with prices for all the pictures to create I hoped a tre professional show which I erected in the spot indicated and awaited the expected sales only to discover that no sooner had I got to the bottom of the hill than his homo manager had dismantled the whole thing and chucked it with contempt into a back room where not a soul would ever see them. Not what I had hoped and did nothing for my deeply held insecurities about my work, then after placing my stuff at a couple of shops around Dullstroom I discover that they too were all consigned to dark corners where not a soul was likely to ever see them, let alone buy any!
Deeply and profoundly depressing in light of this personal and professional rebuff I have been less than enthusiastic about anything thus the delay in sending out this missive.
Anyway here are some of my favorite jokes and stuff, have a good pagan celebration and New Year
Deeply and totally humiliated again
Francis

December 17, 2004

THE DINNER PARTY

Dear Francis, Nick, Caroline, Tim and Lesley-Anne

Andrew has not heard from the lawyers re the court case so everything looks set for tomorrow night. We are looking forward to having you all for the night. There will be no guests here so we will have the place all to ourselves. We expect you around 7ish but if you want to come sooner and settle into your rooms, please do. Sundowners on the veranda are always available. I make a mean strawberry daiquiri.

As it is our last "Pongola Express" meeting for the year, and essentially our Christmas dinner, I though it would be fun to do something different and have decided on a "Priest & Prostitutes" theme. Please come dressed accordingly. Men as prostitutes of course. I can just see Francis dressed up as a queen - the mind boggles!!!

See you all tomorrow.

bye for now

Pat and Andrew

We here in the bundu have started a not so secret society called the ‘Pongola Express’ to have a regular get together in each others lodges where we do despicable things under the full moon.
This months meeting to be held at Pat and Andrews place, coincided with a visit by my sister and her hubby who were flying back to England the next day. They were already in a bit of pre flight nerves but were nonetheless persuaded to join us in our pagan celebration.
We climbed into his rental and trundled many miles down to our rendezvous filled with joy at the forthcoming feast aside from when we got to the Komati river crossing we saw with the cunning and caution of country folk, that this was impassable in a tank let alone a dinky rent-a-car such as we had, the river was about a meter above the bridge!
Even an amateur tracker could see that this was a no go, so with heavy hearts, we returned to higher ground to find a signal to call Pat to tell her the sad news.
Pat however is not a woman to be foiled but a mere raging torrent, and sent her other half to fetch us via the back path.
Now as you will have noticed from the invite this seemed like a fancy dress party but was in fact a ‘cunning plan’ to punish Lesley-Anne and Tim who had not pitched for a previous date. They were the only ones who would be dressed up, ha ha ha. As I said we have poor reception here and this sort of prank keeps us amused in the bush, so when we arrived at the meet only Tim was in fancy dress, Les having a more cautious attitude to life came dressed in black, so if the worst came to the worst she was covered both ways, however Tim who we all suspect of having ‘closeted’ depths, was in the full regalia of short skirt and fishnet stockings!
Andrew nearly had a hysterectomy he thought it was so funny.
Being the ‘author’ of this ‘jolly wheeze’ I felt a pang of guilt but just a pang. It was a laf to catch out old Timothy, though, I suspect, has some devious plot already being hatched to exact revenge!
We pilled into Andrew’s twin-cab, women in the front and me with the hairy-legged transvestite in the boot, trundled into the mist and rain into the unexplored bundu, over rocks and cliffs. The wild night and speedy negotiations causing a great deal of intimacy in the boot as we plunged ever deeper into the unknown, till our enthusiastic chauffeur drove us into a hole.
The wind did lash and the rain did wail!
Lots of revving and reversing etc.
The pleasant polite chatter from the cab had ceased.
We were stuck
The cross dresser and I plunged into the darkness to do our manly shoving bit, darling.
There are few places quite as dark as the wrong end of a 4x4 and we were in a dark place already and to my eyes there was no track, road or even a path visible, just a mad man in fishy tights dancing in and out of the headlights. Hey ho we got out of that easy, but damp and covered in mud, fun fun fun.
Of we roared feeling pretty butch, having escaped with little discomfort; the PPC (pleasant, polite conversation) had just recommenced when Andrew found another cavity, deeper and darker than the last, with rocks in it.
More revving, roaring, cursing and advice, like “are you in 4x4 Andrew?”
Got out of that one, and into yet another, this time with a large tree jammed under the vehicle.
“Are you sure you are in 4x4?????” was the plaintive reaction from the now wet and soggy slut in heels???
“YES YES I locked the wheels myself!!!!” Andrew insisted.
By this time all thought of polite conversation had ceased, the English side of the party were too busy coping with their lives flashing before their eyes. At this point, we mounted a hillock at speed, sailed through the air and in the pregnant pause before we landed all that could be heard, was Andrew hissing through clenched jaws,
“ Oh shit!! We are in the dam!”
Expectant pause, the deathly silence punctuated by hysterical laughter from Tim, Les and I, though the thoughts of the rest of the party does not bear thinking about, Nick and Caroline just knew that they would never get out of this alive, let alone catch their flight tomorrow, Andrew could see his reputation as a bundu basher being the source of much mirth and finger pointing in the village for years to come. He is undoubtedly going to have his leatherman confiscated particularly as it was later discovered that he had not been in gear after all.
At this stage the consensus was to fire the nut behind the wheel and install Tim, not withstanding his costume, but Andrew was spared this ‘final walk of shame’ by the blissful end to the journey.
And then we had dinner, thanks Pat.

New year 2005,
Oh lordy lord another sectarian marker, goes past and as usual I have sworn on all that is holy, to achieve the following good intentions for this next circle of the sun.

1. Stop masturbating in church,
2. Stop stealing "Bridge Out" signs
3. Stop peeing in the coffee urn at work
4. Stop groping my girl friends senile grandmother
5. Stop secretly videotaping my guests going to the
bathroom (I installed a hidden camera )
6. Stop making my girl friend make "sheep" sounds during sex (hey, I'm
just a country boy!)

To date I am pleased after a whole hour of self denial that I have achieved number 3 with 100% record, (don’t work) so that was a trick resolution, blew the rest but I am still proud of even this modest achievement as I am sure you are too.
I personally am not a big fan of this time of the year, it always catches me by surprise, for some reason deeply psychological I am never ready for this annual feasting, I am always broke, no bonus for me and plenty to pay is the usual problem, sort of like rent and interest payments, they are never convenient when not on the wage slave cycle.
The last couple of months have been, over and above, the New Year, birthday, and the biz slump in the lodge, a time of deep introspection. I have been over run by offers to buy my farm, gratifying in the sense that they were all quite substantial, reassuring, but not really more than one can grab without a second thought especially as I am expected to toddle into the unknown as part of the bargain (for them) and when actually totted up it is amazing how many governments, banks, agents and debts would have to be paid before I get mine, balanced with so many if’s and but’s that at the end of the day one is left with only the dark suspicion that they all want what I have for nothing and are just a bunch of conniving crooks
Anyway January is already over and February has already brought its share of amusements.

MY BIG DAY IN COURT

Those of you that have been reading my ruminations for some time will know that I have a neighbor from hell, a real enemy, though sadly not one that I admire or even hate personally, so a bit of a disappointment. I am I know quite irritating at times but generally considered pretty harmless so to date I have never had an actual enemy. I had great hopes but sadly he is just a miserable displaced old Zimbo bullyboy however he is mine and a source of some diversion and chatter.
A couple of years ago there was a fire in the area, while I was building the studio, normally these are events which I enjoy attending, however this one seemed far away and being on a building schedule rather than a country one I was absent from the sport which ‘ mine enemy’ bless his cotton socks decided was reason enough to sue me!
The full majesty of the law (does one have majestic law in a republic?) was summoned to my door, interviews were conduced between myself and the constabulary, the local prosecutor gave the case the attention it deserved but was disinclined to prosecute, due no doubt to the fatuous nature of the matter, he would have the entire farming community in jail otherwise, but none the less a civil case was put forward.
Kim my ever present legal rotweiler was stirred to post a brisk rebuttal before my insurance company stepped in with their own retained legal beagles who sent up ‘investigators’ twice, instituted a flurry of correspondence where scary letters were exchanged between themselves and their colleagues attached to the cause of the opposition. Witnesses were sought and interrogated; a great deal of coffee was drunk and abuse heaped onto the head of he whose name must not appear in print.
All very exciting but actually nothing to do with me anymore, out of my hands and I was reduced to a mere spectator to the fight, but close to the action. Front row seats.
This all built up to the big day last week when our day was set, to be judged, ooohhh.
The team from the insurance chapies arrived, lawyer and posher lawyer, attorney or something, with big black bags and dark suits, awesome, I felt like Larry Flynn.
We spent the evening eating fillet and strategizing the demise of the antagonist and gathering our last remaining witness, one having died in the meantime.
I was commanded to clean up for the occasion in my full Domineer outfit and we arrived at the appointed hour to a deserted court, notable by the absence of a magistrate or electricity, not a good start.
The courtroom, a 1930’s neo colonial red brick monstrosity, had not received a coat of paint in 20 years, featured the inevitable wood benches, designed by a proctologist in search of new custom, a matching box for the missing magistrate, with a large hole in the wall behind his head where the hated symbol of the ‘apartheid’ justice system had been hacked out and never replaced, which completed the general atmosphere of fear and loathing that cloaked this leaky roofed melancholy room.
My team assembled their side of the table with weighty tomes, loads of files pens and volumous briefcases while I smoked and waited for about 2 hours for the magistrate, a slow start and as we had already ascertained that the enemy had appointed a lawyer who no longer practiced, we knew that this was to a damp squib.
However this bit of news had come as a bit of a shock to my assembled vultures, instituting a flurry of activity and frantic searching for legal bits and pieces. There is little in this world that distresses an attorney as much as unbilled time and they wanted to ensure that this tab fell on another’s shoulders, they were hell bent on making sure that this would be covered, the whole aspect of the day changed. But fear not gentle reader I was to see a bravura performance which has elevated ‘mine enemy’ to celestial heights, he really is more than I thought, almost worthwhile.
TE (the enemy) played a game that was a pleasure to watch. He was good very good.
TE has been resident in this neck of the bundu for a good deal longer than I and has been an active member of the community before being disgraced and plummeted from being a ‘Made’ man in the mines to his present status of ‘has to work in Taiwan for a dollar’. Some nasty business to do with transport allocated to himself, blackening his name in the mining community, so was altogether too friendly with the local constabulary, worried my brief, but none the less came dressed as a man of the soil in the full regalia of much washed white shirt, old khaki pants completed with veltdskoens with no socks, with pathetic crimpelened and cowed wify in tow.
What a coup here we were the nasty slick avaricious, suited and wealthy Attorneys with their smooth slicker client ‘bullying’ this poor bewildered hardworking farmer who sat bowed and humble before the court as I lounged in my finery and pigtail, the magistrate was almost moved to tears by his broken and pathetic show, to the extent where he actually advised this serial litigator to get some representations, even as he lied through his teeth with nary a blush and made out that I was at fault for the delays, he was great and conned all including my lot who were so consumed with getting paid that they lost all perspective as to what was going down.
After my slickness the attorney had presented his argument for payment and allowed the TE’s fibs to go unchallenged TE was I am happy to say told to pay costs to date to go forward which was a win for us and hopefully will put an end to this sorry saga but I suspect not.
Well as usual the course of justice grinds extremely slow so really there was no conclusion but next time we will have to be on our guard, I have since learnt that TE has successfully sued a neighbor for the same thing in the past and got paid out from a real man of the soil to the tune of 78 big ones and to think that the magistrate considered him to be naive
Yours litigately
Francis.






Easter 2005

Hello friends and chucklers,
It has been a while since I last sent out my ruminations been busy and also I am never to sure if anyone reads this, then just as I am about to give it a miss someone does send a note to demand the next episode. Just out of curiosity it would be nice if you sent some comments or even a demand to be excluded, thanks.

Well the bunny has come and gone the crowds have followed and once again we bask in the peace and tranquility of the bush, which was disturbed by a bunch of froggy visitors that graced the wonders of the Pongola and irritated me beyond speech with their desire to renegotiate rates, refused to pay for fish that they poached out of the dam with bread and spinners and even neglected to pay poor old Johan for the wood he cut for them, so I hate the French.

We have in the area a very enthusiastic lady who has made it her mission to promote the wonders of Machadodorp, a very thankless task and decided that what our dump required was a craft market.
I was blackmailed into participating by one of my painting ladies and rolled round to sit with her in splendid isolation at the local park by the river where we drank coffee, were hassled to hand over dosh to dancing pikeninies who did a gum boot dance in the background with wild and noisy exuberance but with few to watch their efforts. The day was as usual in Machadodorp another episode that nary a soul was aware of, but we had fun drinking coffee, eating tartrazine and generally agreeing that it would be but a short moment before the amazing (not) sights and phenomena of this craft fest would forgotten, what with Cheryl’s dead cow skins and mangy live chickens, the cookie stall the flower stall and my pictures making up the entire show, it was not a success in the long tradition of Machadodorp enterprises.

However as the paintings were packed into the truck I ventured over to Dullstroom which was a hive of young things getting the country air before they bred children and would be consigned to the depths of school fee penury and child activities, who fresh air not withstanding were uniformly disinclined to invest in my art, surprise surprise, but the cheese stall were giving free tasting so I gorged myself on their stuff read a book and got sun stroke in my futile efforts to enlighten and delight with my creations, it is rather like this little letter, a sad and futile effort with no return, though I must admit that a sort of modern relative, the boyfriend of an ex girl friends mother, did lash out and grab one at a heavy discount so all was not lost.

We have on the other hand had as I mentioned in the last episal, had a veritable flurry of steely eyed investors who wish to alleviate me of my farm and have flashed seemingly large wedges of dosh to temp me to vacate the premises, in fact they nearly reached the magic number, but after a good deal of soul searching they were all told to go forth and multiply as in the final summation after Mr. Mbeki, the bank buggers and others had all drunk deep from the cup there would have been precious little for yours truly, but we are gratified to see that what we are doing here is at least of some value to others with a less romantic outlook than mine, more than can be said of my painting, not that I am bitter or twisted.

Tim my particular chum out here was kind enough to entertain a bunch of eco loonies that I communicate with and who send me the most depressing stuff concerning the state of the planet, and of the perfidity and greed of large corporations, the predicament of the peasant populations and other dead depressing stuff that I religiously scan and delete.
Fifty or so of these very concerned folk gathered in his barn to sing to the choir about their particular complaint, from the vervit monkey saviors to the anti everythinger’s and plantations in particular crowd, who came armed with slide shows and multi thousand rand motor cars, with token voters in tow to demonstrate their deep commitment and caring attitude.
They were uniformly well informed and I admit did teach me a thing or two though the overwhelming feeling I got, being counted among that sick and demented group known as land owners was that I was more of a problem than part of the solution, in fact I got the feeling that some thought that I might be a spy/informer which after all my efforts I felt was a bit thick.
They munched on Tim’s excellent burgers drank his tea and coffee and generally had a grand old time boasting about how wholly holly they all were and how not withstanding their well healed appearance all claimed to be hard done by, frankly these chaps who know how to get grants all seem to be doing very well thank you very much, I particularly enjoyed the monkey crowd, who are expending a great deal of time and money on these charming tree rats, and their chief monkey man a tall good looking fellow with silver hair done in a pony tail obviously got laid a lot for his efforts, what the local black chaps thought about all this the mind boggles, but he was surrounded by gorgeous young things doing their gap year so I was dead jealous.

Well that’s that life goes on with no real sense to it, love driving my motor bike around the area and popping into my neighbors places where I seem to be very welcome which is nice, they feed me and show me their latest efforts in the building game, take me to their favorite spots and as I am getting older and thus no longer a threat introduce me to their daughters and chums, enquire after my health etc. on that note let it be known that I have not had so much as a sniff of the weed for 2 whole weeks now, no perceptible change what so ever which is less than encouraging but I am having the most fantastic and erotic dreams which is a great consolation, like going to the movies every night, don’t forget to send me some indication that you have read and appreciate this letter
Francis

10th April 2005,
Twenty one days and counting, since last my chapped lips grasped and gasped on a dube cigarette, just another 7 and I will be, for the first time in 37 years, street legal, able to pass the most onerous tests as to what is circulating in my blood and brain, I am sure that you are all impressed with my deep commitment and strength of character, however the truth be told, virtue has a lot to do with the lack of temptation, ha!
Nonetheless I did face the leering visage of enticement yesterday and resisted, what a saint I am.
Now as most regular readers know I do love a good funeral, so Poppy, Norah and I were all decked in our finery for the dead old fart in Italy, who was added to the ranks of lifeless old white men in the bowls of that epitome of conspicuous consumption, the Vatican. They had their Five Assegais overalls and I was crowned with my Hymie’s discount kosher meat yamika and Velcro foreskin but unlike the internment of that late and beloved bulimic stupid tart of Prince Charles’s where I wept with gay abandon I am sad to say that the old boy squeezed nary a tear from my sentimental eye, to dull, to long and in fact boring, we await the entombment of the dead old white man from the casino on the Med, with bated breath.
I was at the Vatican a few years ago, to worship at the feet of the master, Michael Angelo, and was deeply impressed, his ceiling, his tombs etc. all reflected the hand of a great artist but the whole show originally built to intimidate the Moslem hordes who at the time were at the gates of Venice sent me into a fit of rage at such a palace built by those that proclaimed the virtues of poverty, the waistlines of the red clad cardinals at their latest party, is proof positive that their concern for the fly speckled malnourished of this mortal coil is but a show, the words hypocrisy, pretence, double standards and lies spring to mind which did affect my unbridled distress at the funeral.
Anyway when I was there gazing up at the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, having quoted on a job or two myself, my mind was transported to the day the FOWM in charge at the time called Mike to discus his latest extravagance.
“ Hi Mikey, this is the Pope, are you busy?”
“ Don’t take the piss Raphael, I’m not in the mood, got a fearsome hang over”
“No really it’s me the Holy numerno uno Papa”
“Puleese you tried this tired old gag last week, Ralph, get a life man”
“Hey Angelo” the irritated pope shouts,” It is me, and if you don’t recognize my voice that shows that you have not been attending mass for some time, so get a grip and listen up”
“Ohh”
“Well anyway boy, I have a paint job I need a quote for”
“Yes your worship sir, I am a bit busy doing some grave stones for the Prince but I will get down there in a couple of weeks”
“Hey you grubby little brush, this is the Pope here, get your ass down here now and no stories about kings and such I am the top dog and when I say I want you, you drop the rest and snap too, understand? Or I will give the job to Raphael”
“ Yes SIR”
“Good, see you after lunch I will meet you at the new chapel I have skinned the heaving masses to build, don’t be late”
Later at the building site those less fortunate than his grace carries the FOWM, to where Mickey is staring in some trepidation at the soaring heights of this latest temple roof.
“Mickey my boy” gushes the Papa, “glad you could come, lets get this over with, the half a cow and gallon of wine I have consumed needs attention, this is the job” he says waving a pudgy bejeweled hand at the roof. “I want something straightforward to reflect the simple and holy life of the saints, you know the sort of thing, paint me as God with those scheming bastards of the Cardinal’s college in the nude below me suffering the misery of hell, being persecuted by demons and devils, I want my mistress over there in the corner, she insists, and make her tits a bit bigger than they actually are, and smooth out the pox marks while you are at it OK”
“Yes sir” mumbles Michael craning his neck.” It is pretty big sir”
“Now don’t give me a hard time Mike, it’s a simple job, just slap something up to get a bit of colour into the place, miserable draughty bloody place and I have to sit here every day while those grasping bishops demand more and more money so I need something to cheer the place up, how long will it take?”
“Urrrr???”
“Come on man I haven’t got all day”
“ Will you pay for the scaffold and stuff?”
“ Just build that into the price, man I don’t have time for silly details, how much?”
“Urrrr???”, stammers Mike, “ 10 grand?”
“ ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND???? You get 2 and I want it finished by next week, get some help in, at your own cost mind, entertaining some important people so there might be a chance for you to get some commissions from them, Jeeze you should be happy to get the chance to do the job at all, Raphael said he would do it for one and half, you know, so get on with it and if you pull finger I will send up a special prayer for your soul OK?”
“But but”
“Mickey, Mickey Mickey, just get on with it, you know I think you are great, think of the glory man, the whole world will see it, this is your lucky break, it not as big as it looks, won’t take you long and I tell you what I will get the builders to knock up some ladders for you for free, how’s that?”
“Welll I’m not sure”
“Look do a good job and I will let you do the wall behind the alter too, OK Deal?”
“But, but but”
“ Look just send me a sketch, and sort out the details with the Chaplin, and don’t muck about I don’t want you and your smelly apprentices cluttering up the place for years, well see you later, need to meet with Chantal, Ciao”.
Some things never change
Yours funeraly
Francis

14th MAY

Maize a golden prospect,
Scarlet ‘BOOM’ of ancient aloe.

Nearly everyone that has a place like mine, hears one thing a lot,… ‘I am soooo envious of your life’ or variations there off, and usually one cannot help but think ‘O yea! I should have your problems! You rich git’ or variants there off, but actually one really can understand their sentiment’s what with the sun set’s just so’ the hills are just the right blue and all is great………
Then everything fell off the rails.

6th JUNE

I had just arrived back from a successful ‘girlfriends birthday’ always a fraught occasion, especially as I had failed in spectacular manner a couple of times in the past, but this time all went without a hitch, smelly and card were wrapped and presented, dinner and wine etc, contentment reigned and I returned to the farm triumphant, to fall down sick.

Being blessed with a fine and sturdy constitution, susceptible to only the regular doses of poison that I am wont to pore into my head, this was my first diagnosis. My first clue that this episode of distress was not the usual, was the lack of action at the porcelain altar, where no devils and demons were regurgitated from neither front nor rear!!
The pressure mounted.
I was a very unhappy bunny, weak as a kitten, hot and cold with the weirdest sensitivity in my skin, I could feel my clothes! And the pinky on my left hand had gone numb too!
All very strange.
I was spending my time switching the electric blanket on and off, interspersed with anxious episodes praying to all that is wholly holy and all the spirits, totems and spirits of the sewerage system for relief.
But they scorned my entireties, I was cast into the outer darkness into the world of pain, the organism was busy repelling boarders and had no time to send much to the brain, my world closed in, so I tried the method that had given me such a fine reputation in the district as a healer and general gu-gu man, 3 Panado, 2 Grandpa and some Valium.
Well that worked well enough, except when I emerged from the coma nothing had changed, disappointing.
After a couple of these treatments had passed, the look in Poppies big brown eyes started to make me panic.
I realized that when the entreaties of the faithless were fruitless it was time to worship at the altar of science; I called the local nursey,
Who sent her Mum!
Who gave me a shot in the arm of some unknown liquid?
Some ver big pills and soup.
Whatever it was I cared not, the sort of high of being ill was wearing thin, she could have given me a horse tranquilizer, and probably did as I sure as hell cared not a whit as to the state of the Ivory Coast economy, Bush’s war or the one in my body, in 5 seconds flat, this was Medicine with a Capital M.
I can see all the crystal clutcher’s and vegan homo readers thinking at this stage that I was being very foolish, allowing such an intimate invasion of my body with strange and powerful drugs, but it seemed to work and I was on my pedals in time to welcome my chum Greg to accompany him to the Machado Riverside Market to flog pictures and coffee.
Machadodorp has been ‘blessed’ with a new ‘Hero’ by the name of Trina, who has taken on the thankless task of making this sad excuse for a village the next ‘Thang’ and has in her wisdom deemed that this will come to pass through the creation of a monthly ‘Craft Market’.
She has to date of writing, done 3 of these, the first was a total no show, performance, Cheryl the chicken and cow girl came with, wait for it, chickens and a dead cow, there was a display of potted plants and a cookie stall, a large contingent of leaping pikaninies with gum boots who at indefinable moments would swing into action, leaping and gum booting away with wild enthusiasm, but other than Trina’s virtuoso display of cello accompanied by a sax lady from Soweto little was achieved as there was nary a single customer, though Cheryl, dead cows, live chickens, my trout paintings and I had fun drinking coffee and nibbling biscuits in the sun on the pavement, very pretty down by the river.
The second market I missed as I went to Dullstroom to sell paintings that was an even bigger disaster and was a distressful and humiliating day, featuring utter and complete indifference to my work.
This one, she had managed to get coverage on the radio and in the press was better attended, the cookie kids were back, there were no live chickens or dead cows, but a stall with knitted bog roll covers, a boereworse roll stand, fishing tackle stand and us.
Still not quite a triumph, however we were there, with coffee makers, posters, pictures on easels, there was no going back. You cannot believe the amount of cr@p required to flog coffee and paintings; it’s endless, from easels to extension cables.
I swung into full smouse mode but was constrained by the lack of passing trade, always considered to be a failing, by even the most innocent of outdoor sales people. But we started selling stuff to each other, the stand holders that is, which got the ball rolling, not a fast ball, but a ball none the less, and a few rather startled folk did find us lurking at the bottom of the park, but Trina was a driving force and rallied the troop’s, and Greg got his gas bill paid,
I did flog a picture!
To Trina, so I am forced to attend a couple more markets, a worrying prospect.
However the true butchers bill for this little jaunt was yet to be presented and payment extracted the very next day, I was sicker than ever, same bloody thing had come straight back, and seemed strangely at home in me!
I was thunderstruck, gob smacked, amazed and annoyed!
I did the tough little trouper thing for a couple of days and eventually after a great deal of no doubt needless suffering the nurse was summoned once again, but this time she felt that her Mum would not do, I should go deeper into the temple of suffering and dragged me to see a doctor.
Who I was distressed to see, through the haze, kept court at the Belfast Hospital!
This is a deep deep apartheid structure of merciless red brick with the charm and welcome of a army barracks, thank the lord I had Ammelda in her uniform there to guide me through the initial maze of bureaucracy, and extracting my ID from my wallet, left me slumped like an old rag to be cheered by the dreary Aid’s and cholera posters.
I had expected to be taken to some local quack and this hospital thing was a bit of a surprise. Un nerving, but I was so miserable that there was no fight in me and I followed like a lamb, but the stream of suffering peasants being sent away was distressing, I had envisaged being slumped in a country doc’s front pallor, not plunked here in an institutional passage, anyway after a bit contemplating the leveling effect of socialist medical PR I was ushered into a cubical space with all the kit, old gear but very clean and shortly a youth, to young to have a driving license? But draped with the universal symbol of medical authority, the stethoscope, the ‘doctor’ was standing in front of me.
Dr Mac Roberts no less.
We bleakly considered each other, neither I thought very pleased with the choice on offer, but we chatted about chills and poo, aches and pains, pee and swellings and other intimate subjects. This cheerful chatter went on for a bit, I pointed to where it hurt, I got the strong impression that he was loath to touch me which I felt was a bit weird, no pulse stuff, no temperature taking and he did not even use his stethoscope, but then he didn’t nag me about my smoking or do the rubber glove thing which was a relief.
Pregnant pause…….
Then he started in, I could see the thought process moving over his face like a movie. 50 plus old fart with a bellyache…PROSTATE !!! For sure.
He homed in on the pee, which was fine, but he was fascinated and was not to be deflected by details, like the lack of action on the other side! He liked PROSTATE, all old farts had them he declared after a very tedious description of a bladder, it’s a bag, got warmed up and was having fun cheering up a bleak underpaid Wednesday by scaring an old fart.
The bugger, but I could see how it could be fun.
Certainly his idle chatter about reboring the ‘old chum!’ Catheters and other nasty things that go places nothing should go, concentrated my mind a good deal and I found that I had suddenly and miraculously recovered.
There was NO WAY this child and his dubious helpers were going to stick anything bigger than a needle into me. Not there anyway, I have as yet not discovered my feminine side to that extent.
I demanded and was given a big bottle of penicillin, good stuff, let them take some blood, to test for Mac Rob’s bleak prognosis, and let him write me a script for the bladder/pee-pee area.
He really was not to be deflected from his diagnosis. But I was less convinced. I felt an alien presence in the organism that my system needed a bit of a boost to get rid off, to save the ‘massa’ some discomfort. None of this bags and swelling glands nonsense, let alone the big C bollocks, but sobering nonetheless!
Got the drugs and was sent out without having to pay a cent, amazing, and staggered out into the sun where the prostrate that Mac R had dismissed with nary a glance what with his desire to invade my prostate made it presents felt, Doc’s opinion not withstanding, I needed the bog in the most urgent way.
The Doc gave me the info needed and I scurried off, had the draws at half-mast when I saw there was NOOOOO bog paper, F@%K!!! Bolted down the long, long corridor and explained my predicament to the receptionist dolly who waved me to the staff facility, sweet child I thought, to find when again I had my pants half down, the arrgh of relief on the tip of the tongue to see, that here too there was noooo bum whipping gear in it’s handy little holder!
Double F@%K!!!
Well I lost it, I found this rather formidable Matron and started yelling about all they had to do here all day was deal with vast amounts of blood, puke, pee and more importantly Shit and how it was a crying shame and what did she think I was to do as nature would not wait and there was no way in hell that I was going home in soggy pants, NO SIR!
Well I think out of a sentimental sense of times past, they had not had an old white man shouting the odds down those corridors for years, creating a great deal of scurrying around and a compromise was found.
I could understand their pricing policy.
Well I bought them a packet of bog roll and was dropped back into my pit with some real bombers from the nurse and a handful of Penicillin in the tummy, which sent me away to await developments in the world of nod.
I awoke a few hours later, wet to the bone, from sweat, but I could feel my brain coming on line again, always a relief after a long party, this was familiar territory.
Just shows you, nothing like a scare and a good kick up the rear end to get the mind in order and the organism follows, the penicillin went forth and killed every living thing in reach, I poured soup, carrot and ginger root down by the gallon and was soon up and cheerful again.
I love a happy ending, the Doc in the short socks was forced to eat his words too, got a prostate like a teenager, well used, pha! Youth, I tell ya; they don’t know they’re born.
Well the lodge is filling up again after a very dreary May, will have to give big discounts next year, yet another hard learnt Lodge owners trick
I especially apologize for the long delay to the girls at GHASA and Country Life who have made this into a professional letter and have sponsored my writing with a free ad and no subscription fees this year.
Happy to be back in the saddling
Francis

June.

Flogging the tractor

I have in the area, very dirty and raggedy woodcutters and charcoal burners who live in utter poverty.
Being a chap who is keen to help his fellow man when he can, and realizing this, these chain saw specialists were soon lining up to get their hands on my kit.
Albert a very handsome Swazi chap was a regular, and his competition in the form of Chadrak also abused my liberal tendencies to use my stuff for free. Having to a large extent achieved the goals that prompted the acquisition of this gear, and the consequential idleness of these possessions, this was an irresistible temptation to ask to loan self same, whenever the need arose, which was a lot.
Contrary to the best advise of my neighbors and friends I loaned the tractor and soon enough their predictions of doom and disaster were manifest, Chadrak crashed the tractor into Steven’s new pick-up.

Well as you can imagine this turn of events caused a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth, thankfully Steven was insured but somehow these third world navigators had managed to smash up the tractor, virtually snapping off one of the front wheels! How they achieved this is a miracle, this tractor could drive right over a pick up with no damage but hey ho they had gently slid into this Jap plastic box with 5 tons of steel and bent it (the tractor) beyond driving.

We all met at the site of the incident with sad faces, Chadrak the cause of this distress was doing a suitable groveling act, punctuated with oh so sincere proclamations of how he will put everything back together, and the Boss must not worry, yea? Sure!

Well my lovely red tractor stood unattended and certainly unfixed by Chadrak on the side of the road. I being broke, as usual, was unable and also unwilling to invest the ammo required to attend to it’s needs and Chadrak it soon became clear had no intention of straightening, that which he had bent. A bigger liar and bullshiter I have yet to find. The bugger would look straight into my sad brown eyes with his evil blood shot ones and say whatever he thought would appease me, with no intention of doing a single thing, he was willing to swear on his sainted mothers grave, he would do.

This was an impasse that had no happy solution in sight; I was constrained by our new constitution from taking a whip to the lying thief and as such had little recourse, even his check to cover Steven’s excess, having been swiftly returned by the bank.

There seemed little hope of any satisfaction. So with a heavy heart I reached into my own skimpy resources. When the machine got home I was determined that this sad episode would never be repeated and knowing my own inability to say NO I was determined to be shot of it. When visiting the local mechanics’ emporium I was assured that I need look no further as he would sell it for me!
JOY! As I am ignorant in the way’s of flogging tractors.

I then took ill as per the last chapter and this priority along with everything else when skywards, till I got a call from selfsame mechanic demanding to know where the machine was , I was supposed to have delivered it to him. Keen, thinks I through the fog, and summoning strength from pure will power managed to get a driver, pump the tire and get a ride to town with my chum, I being still too knackered from the lurgy to drive!
Well we rolled into his yard I roll out to join him in bleak contemplation of my lovely big red tractor, while he kicked the tires mournfully I tried to sing with enthusiasm the wonders of my LBRT, power steering I gush, and not one but 2 spare rear tires too!

“OK men” say’s he, “Come into the office” where he placed me sitting very low as he loomed over me from the edge of the desk, as I huddled in deep misery.
“ Hes eet gott eny peper’s? No? thets OK naw probleem” he started in with the negotiations.
“ Naw check theese ut men, aw ken clean it up a bit, but eef you gonna sell eet, eet will be to a blek, Raught? End they tek a hell ov a long tarm to pe, Hey?”
“ja But well” I croak. I was less that enthusiastic at that point anyway.
“So look ahl giv ya twenty eight, cash OK?”
Was I happy? Did I feel beter? Did I get warm and cuddly all over? YES!
I had hoped to get a few bob as the man mentioned from a poor African fellow spread over a long possibly indefinite period, and just not having the machine around for the local lads to smash up was plus enough and here this saint with the terrible accent, was going to press real folding money into my hot little hand, I had only paid half that amount and worked the thing to death!

Well I was politely asked to wait outside while he got the ammo!
What!! ? He was going to give me ready money! There and then. This was too much to believe I was transported with bliss.
I could not believe this was transpiring. 5 minutes later I was recalled into the presence and presented with this huge pile of loot.
Joy, Joy Joy!!!
The transaction having being concluded Hendrik, for this is the name the Mackey glories in, felt that he could come out of negotiation mode and be a bit sympathetic to the miserable creature that he had just screwed (or so he thought, best kind of deal that when both parties think they have screwed the other) and informed me that what I needed for any stomach complaint was a teaspoon of Detol antiseptic in a glass of hot water. The man is insane!!
“The werst paat is dringking eet men” he assured me, “bet eet reely weks Ja”

Well I trundled home a happy chappy and smacked all the wolves on the nose.
Still got a bit leftly
Francis

PS Re the Chadrak saga, I was delighted to hear that his army of raggedy wekkers had turned on him for being a lying, cheating, non paying their wages type bastard and duffed him up good, bleks can beat up bleks even in today’s liberal climate, so I took them a crate of beer and we had a good laff.
















JULY 2005

Hello Chucklers,
I have to date written this episal with just 2 fingers but I got a book the other day and have learnt touch-typing!
How is that for an old fart?

But the truth be told I am still very slow, the interesting part of this exercise is the way the fingers learn faster than the brain, one has to trust ones fingers to do the correct thing without looking, when you try to think and control your fingers the whole thing gets tangled up.

This month has been very smooth and in consequence there is little amusing stuff to relate, odd how it is the disasters that are fun to share.

My latest crusade is the distressing state of my waterfall, I have watched with great anguish how it gets smaller every year. Having watched this particular wonder with great delight for 10 years and come to know its moods and passions well. I think better than anyone.

For the last 3 years the waterfall has steadily shrunk. It used to have 2 streams making the Brides veil that was so distinctive. This has been reduced to being only manifest when the rain is very heavy, and for the last 3 years the Bride has been bereft of her full regalia and been reduced to but 1 stream. This sad situation vexed my tiny mind and I have ruminated on the problem in various sates of awareness.

I blamed in order, every user of the water from the Bankspruit but after due consideration of the history of the water system this seemed to have no basis on fact, as there has been no new usage over the last few years, all the dams and stuff being a good deal older than when I first started to notice the change.

This was now becoming a vexing situation with no immediate solution, and I worry, worry, worried!

However as with the ways of the bush, steady if aimless consideration generally makes the situation clear.

The first spark of understanding came through one of those endless but enlightening conversations that spring up around here, my chum Tim explained graphically how the water table works. I am sure that you have all heard of this mythical table that exists some where under ground.
I am still confused by the whole concept, what exactly was this table, I mean it is solid rock down there, what did this table look like? And where the hell was it? Is there a big lake sort of floating around somewhere? All very confusing.

Tim did not make it much clearer but gave me this image of this sort of level of saturation that is in a sort of balance. If you draw a squiggly line to represent valleys and mountains and draw a line through it that is the table, right? I didn’t think so, that is it and in a way that made me understand how activity very far from oneself will have an impact greater than the obvious things going on under ones nose.
The next revelation came through Philip Owen the head honcho of grassland huggers who wrote about the problems affecting the Kango Caves down the road, these caves and the surrounding mini eco system of rain forest, are being destroyed by timber plantations, that are now maturing, that had been planted on the leading slopes behind the caves.
Please note that a dry cave is a dead cave, and these caves have been around for 400 million years, us monkeys come around and destroy them in 20!
I realized that this was happening to me, caused by the plantations that are getting mature about 10 kilometers from the waterfall, makes one realize how really silly we are being letting these inconsolable companies to continue coning us with their constant invasion of land, bequeathing us a future nightmare of desertification!

I am torn what to do, I could say nothing, quietly go about my biz and just burn the trees down.

Or make a ver public fuss get into the eyes and be ignored by the companies concerned as they do not care, most people think that Plantations are forests and thus good, so an old fart squeaking in the bundu is hardly going to get some suits to destroy very valuable timber, and then I remove my option of chucking a match into their trees, and getting away with it that is.
A conundrum.

Under savage pressure in the bush
Francis


August 2005

Hello chumsters,

It is dry, ball cracking dry, the red dust of Africa is in everything and the world is on fire, but not the cursed plantations as they have so much kit to fight them with. My driveway is a misery and took off Corinne’s sump causing much wailing and gnashing of teeth but has thankfully not deterred the guests who by the time they reach this road disguised as a river bed are committed anyway.

It is getting misty again for the first time this winter, and tiny buds have appeared on the Blou Bessies. Life in a strange way has finally settled into some kind of order, the lodge is running, the trees are all dead and the studio is thick with the smell of turps and paint, all should be perfect and so it is, but one prediction of the crystal wavers and star gazers that has always been pertinent to me, i.e. their claim that Capricorns always get what they want, but then have no idea what to do with it, and so it is for me, a goat on a hill.

So when a wedding invitation and a free air ticket came through to go to Cape town I was enchanted, I needed a break from paradise. Little did I realize the strain that would ensure?

Weddings for an unreformed recluse are a minefield of hazards and this one started even before we got going. Sisters do not like their brothers girlfriends, no matter what they say, I have had a few, girl friends that is, and they have all been universally despised by my one sister till they dumped me, when they were miraculously transformed from the evil one into a NBF (new best friend), against the new intruder and it turned out that my innocently inviting my present incumbent to the fray was a big mistake.

The screaming and wailing, the recriminations and distress were something to behold. E-mails and international calls, at huge expense, were indulged in and my sainted sister took the opportunity to take a solid swing at her elder Boet over this insult to her finer sensibilities by my inviting ‘my slut’ (her words) to this do and there was no way that she was going to have anything to do with her etc. etc. while going through my entire history of social blunders, which took a quite a while to get through. The boys at the NSI who listen to our calls must have had a good laff at my expense.
Well when she had finally run out of steam, and I had informed her that I had arranged finer and more convenient, free accommodation for me and mine a compromise was reached and the vacation could start, joy was all abounding and SS (sainted sister) having got a lot of pent up frustration off her heaving bosom could settle down and be her normal loving self, I did take a large container of Valiums with me for her none the less.

Well what can one say about the fairest cape in all the world? It is fair it is true, nauseatingly so, the only relief to the endless cuteness are the occasional and well concealed acres of miserable heaving humanity in their tin huts, which the Capies kindly have laid out on the way from the airport so you can get that over with and live in cuckoo land with a clear conscience that you have seen and been suitably shocked and appalled as one quaffs the local brew with a prawn.

Cape Town has and I suspect always will be an old age home for al de kakkers that poffters visit when the sun goes down. I spent a few glorious years there when young and beautiful, which featured a short stint at UCT art school and some years painting for the local Operatic and dramatic society in the long gone days when Cape Town had a soul called District 6, and frankly the total domination of the landscape by the old and the rich which eased those people into their purgatory on the flats has turned this wonderful place into an overpriced Bloemfontein by the sea, boring.

However visiting all my chums who are now old or homo, and have gone to the top deck of the Titanic rather than taking the chicken run of yore, was fun though sobering to see how ancient they have all become while I have aged not a jot ha! They are all being very creative and interesting, sincere about saving the feral cats of the flats and fully connected with their inner selves, hey my brother, and so pleased that there are so few ‘bleks’ only coloreds around to do their dirty work, but I am not bitter or twisted at all about them all having a great time and feeling happy and content in their little island of peace down at the bottom of Africa. Saw my first whale, another thing to tick off the list of things that must be done before I die. Pretty bloody splendid but mostly far away and they never got out of the water so we could have a good look at them.

Well back and under attack from the bank who want some paper for tedious and depressing and useless bureaucracy or they will close my account so I have to drive many miles at my own expense to give them a copy of my ID which they have had for years but now suddenly feel the quality is not to their satisfaction and they want another, very dull.
Yours travelingly
Francis
SEPTEMBER 2005

Coffee with the Devil’s spawn.

After my last but one little letter re the plantations, I was contacted by many with good advice re the matches versus legal tactic’s, to rid me of these pestilent plantations, (matches won out by a significant margin) among which were the e-mail addresses of various salaried tree huggers who all worked for SAPPI the numero uno villain of the piece, which was a surprise as the info came from Philip Owen the local chief grassland hugger.
I contacted these chaps and ladies who all were very prompt in reply, which in itself was worrying. Even more so when they were far too available to visit me at their own expense on the farm, which they did last Friday.
These representatives of the evil corporations arrived promptly in their rattely pick up so I knew even before they had parked that these two were way way down at the very bottom of the pile, corporate ladder wise, and were bereft of any influence and were just a fop to my heartfelt cries.
I was nice to them none the less and made them decent coffee rather than the instant brew, while they brought out a huge packet of documentation, re the effect of timber plantations with lots of multi-colored graphs and pie charts, lots of if a=g then the peasants will starve type figures that seem to enchant such refugee’s from youthful idealism.
They did not have a map of the region but did produce a very detailed one of their activities that seemed indicative of their concerns. They would go to any expense to ensure the efficient use of the land they owned with nary a care about the surrounding area, and then they lied to me and said that they had not planted new area’s of tree, but had only replaced the gum with pine. This to a man that uses the road past their plantations on a regular basis to visit my only smoking chum in the area so you will understand that I pass their place a lot. Pissed me off, but I bit my tongue, realizing that these two were just wage slaves to the machine and probably knew less about the situation here on the ground than I did.
I brushed aside their volumous propaganda and told them my tale of woe, and was as swiftly brushed of with that old chestnut about there being no scientific proof of my assertions and reducing my observations to the obviously biased opinions of the terminally bigoted and ignorant sweaty masses which did nothing to endear them to me.
I swallowed my pride again, with a fervent ‘ forgive them Lord for they know not what they do’ and tried to convince them that I was actually a chap that loved the rich and avaricious and appreciated the need for plantations, that I was a very reasonable chappy, a good old boy who had a rational and justifiable complaint against a plantation that was there more by default than good sense and that they could do a bit of good with little cost to their masters.
These fellows who had the un enviable task of going around the place taking the abuse of their companies neighbors and trying to justify the unjustifiable under the title of ‘Environmental Officer’ did elicit my sympathy, they could say nothing, promise less and we all knew that they were there to prevent me bothering their bosses.
The first, the ‘Environmental Officer’ the obvious spokesman oozed PR cream from every pore, young and still glossy from the ecclesiastic world of the new religion ‘eco-science’ was accompanied by a very taciturn and uncommunicative chap who gave me a very aggressive and antagonistic vibe which was clarified when I eventually managed to get him to admit that he was in fact the manager of the offending plantations so perhaps had a greater interest in their preservation than most.
Well we danced around the subject, and we all soon realized that there was going to be little satisfaction form our talk, that no matter how pertinent my complaint was there was no way that the ‘corp.’ was ever going to give so much as an inch, that even if I was successful in getting this plantation closed the ‘corp.’ would insist on their being given alternative no doubt pristine land to plant their trees on instead, a lose lose situation for all.
This was purgatory, the underlying knowledge that these very aggressive and antagonistic companies, had only profits and growth in mind and be damned the rest was deeply depressing, one wonders what the children of these bastards would think if they knew what their fathers were doing in their names. Even these representatives of the evil one knew in their heart of hearts that what I was saying was true and that they were on the wrong side, but not on the record, after all they had children and bonds to pay off.
Eventually boring of this pointless conversation they waddled off with I have no idea what in their heads as to where this was going, I doubted that they would institute a research project to prove my assertions, that they would tell their bosses that they had to cut a million Rand’s worth of trees or in fact do anything at all, hoping that I would just fade away before the majesty of their vast legal recourses.
After they had gone I settled down to read their paper which did in fact prove me correct in my assertions that they were fully aware of the damage they were doing, every graph and pie chart showed them to be the bastard’s they were and yet they continue along the road they have started and in fact are daily increasing the load our blighted land has to tolerate for their corporate greed. The hypocrisy of this activity beggars belief and I hate them a lot.
Yours rattling his Safety Matches,
Francis


October 2005

WALKING ON WATER

At the beginning of this year I was entertaining my particular chum Howy, who like myself is an aficionado of a card game called Spite and Malice, during which I discussed my trials and tribulations caused by my having gone into bat way, way over my weight farm wise. This estate is really far to large and expensive for an artist that rarely sells his work to support, and in consequence I was trapped to the extent that I had to skimp and save to travel to the local village, let alone say a trip to Venice. In fact I was so tight that a pair of new underpants were an extravagance that I could ill afford.
Well Howy though the ex Mayor of Sodom and Gomorrah, is in fact a soft hearted fellow, and was touched and moved by my sad tale of penury, being broke is something that got to the waters in him and he suggested that he ‘might’ be willing to invest in the farm, and would be willing to ease my fat ass over my financial hurdles if I could ensure that his loot would be spent wisely on the estate rather than on fast women and slow horses as my biz rep from the past indicated.
Going on my knees before him while slobbering wet kisses on his rings I promised anything and swore that I was already a changed man, if he would release some of his hard earned cash on a loony picture painter in the bundu. PULEEEESsss
He was unmoved by my groveling and insisted that my loquacious and moving plea’s would be insufficient and he required some hard documentation that assured him of my plans for his wedge.
Thus did this old anarchist enter into the sordid world of hard busyness.
With dreams of wealth beyond my wildest dreams firing me, I got hold of she who keeps me from jail, my long suffering brief and my equally perplexed accountant and told them to get ‘my angel’s’ needs met, chop chop.
I also joyfully proclaimed to my partner that we had a white knight in our sights. He briefly thought that after many years hemorrhaging vast sum’s to maintain his idiot brother in law in poverty, he might get a little of his back, which is understandable.
I had as usual got the whole idea wrong about what it means to most when somebody buy’s shares in a company, i.e. that the partners get the money! That would put him high up in the claim line. However the deal was that the loot was to be spent on the estate, not on us, which was fine by me as that is all I wanted to spend the money on anyway. Though there where a few creditors who had strong opinions about that.
Well that was a big disappointment for him and required a great many long distant calls to resolve. Why he enquired with doleful pathos should my overdraft be settled and not his? And further more why should he have to relinquish two thirds of his shares for free and I should get half of those and the other half should be sold and he gets nothing? A good question.
Well being a long sighted chap with a depth of patience rarely seen among the hard nosed and wealthy of this world he accepted that this way there was a small chance that sometime in the distant unspecified future he would get his, rather than the present one where there seemed no chance of any possible return and a good chance that his wallet would be called on again to save us from doom.
Well this took a couple of months what with having to produce ‘financials’, esoteric documents that tell me I am broke, very useful I am sure, however they enchant and delight the bean and copy boys. Various delays such as, end of years and cycling trips in Ireland kept me in a state of anxious despair as in my tiny little mind the deal had been sorted the very second that it had been tentatively mentioned, such is the way of my head.
So the document got longer and longer and I got more and more confused and depressed. My professionals, my brother in law, Howy the ‘BIG INVESTOR’, all seemed to rely on me the biggest idiot among them to guide us through the labyrinth.
Howy has the alarming tendency to dive down avenues of interpretation and content with regular and startling sagacity, the attorney was constantly pointing out to me that I had got it all wrong and that it could not be done that way as did the accountant coupled with dire warnings of massive and crippling debt to the tax man, and all the while I stood at the gates of my financial prison, in heaven it is true, waiting to get out, to get in, all very trying. And it lasted for month after month, wavering to and fro with the loot seeming to be constantly on the point of being spent on more sensible things like Aston Martin DB9’s with but the slip of a lip.
To and fro the paper flowed, into Johannesburg I would ride with wings on my toes to return later with lead in my heart as yet another incumbent had been found which needed correction, adaptation, clarification or amendment, for a fellow that needs to take a Valium to go to the post office this was a nightmare.
Eventually after too many to’s and fro’s I was in a state of nervous collapse to the extent that ‘The X Mayor’ knew that he had to put me out of my misery and came to visit for the weekend, with his girl friend, which was a good sign as I doubted that he would bring me bad news with her in tow.
Ladies do not like to see grown men cry, I mean the man knew he was trapped by my cunning tactic of agreeing to everything! So he might as well commit finally, JOY.
I still had to run the gauntlet right to the last moment, there was Jewish New Year, tedious accountancy thingies, share issues, documents that had to be changed and signed in England and returned by post, letters of warranty to pass before anything could be finalized, and then when I arrived at the room for the big signing my lawyer came steaming into my face with some huge complication that I did not understand with the threat that once again I would go away empty handed, thankfully pathetic appeals to her professional pride got her reared up and she solved her problem for me and so we got to the end, but nooooooo not quite.
I have watched Howy do what he does in this long process, and have known him man and boy for the last 15 years or so and one thing I know is that his word is his bond and he gives it out thus, with caution. Unlike myself who is a man of straw.
Now as I have said this document had gone through many changes and I noticed that he read the thing every time in front of me from beginning to end even though he had obviously already studied the paper a lot on his own as there were note’s in the margins and every time he came up with a very pertinent and obvious mistake, he did not care how often he read it or what questions he asked and right there at the gate, at the very edge of the precipice, he again found something that indicated he might have to commit to percentages over that agreed, and the suits had to scurry around to do their job and settle this, which they did, just, but it shows you the guys with ammo read the paper for good reason and at the end of it I know that his pedantisism made the thing right for all.
Then suddenly it was all over, signatures were signed hands shaken, a HUGE check written on his lap in his Beemer and I was dumped on my chums doorstep with two small pieces of paper which represented five years serious toil, all my problems changed, my dreams come true, harvest time, BOOM just like that.

I could not help but smile.

Still smiling
Francis
PS
I had throughout this negotiation dreamt of a pick-up with a cup holder, ahh the dreams of the permanently poor, but sadly after due consideration I have settled for a new set of tires and a clip on cup holder.

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NOVEMBER 2005

Hello out there, is everyone still there? The last few weeks have been very quiet, dead quiet on the booking front anyway, the phone has been so dead I have on occasion panicked and checked the receiver to be sure that I am still connected.
This sad neglect of my sexy lodge is doubly depressing, as I have just invested lavishly in the comfort of these absent guests, equipping the lodge with new cutlery, crockery,sheets, towels and even new rugs to maintain our reputation as a lodge of distinction. This has irritated my other half as, as usual the lodge is the very model of a duvet wilderness experience, while my own quarters are a pit that no girl should have to experience. Men’s caves are at the best of times smelly dangerous places and mine is worse than most. She seems to feel that an old bent scrambler is no substitute for cotton sheets, thus does the gap between the sexes manifest itself.

Equally absent from my door have been the minions of the evil one, the plantation punters, who came here, drank my coffee and disappeared to where minions disappear to and nary a word has been heard from them since.
The chattering classes however have been vocal and shrill in their reaction to my last flip epistle, accusing me of being everything from an irresponsible twit, to a saint, to a girl, a blond and dippy one at that. Conversely the general tone has been one of shock, horror! However unless their living is being actually affected, I recon most people, myself included, think, what the F@*k they are at least creating jobs etc. and what with the world, our own little bit of it included, having some, I would venture to suggest, more pressing problems, I cannot see much coming from all this, when faced by the inertia of corporations.
I weep for the goldfish farmers in the Kloof and all their chums, I gaze mournfully at my springs and dams that are dry. I am deeply sympathetic to all these cries in the wilderness but hey, what is to be done? My suggestion that we burn them to the ground was universally considered to be, A not funny and B no one is amused, so so sorry.
One less responsible reader who is more of my mind suggested that I acquire a copy of the ‘Anarchists Cookbook’ which deals in length on the subject of plantations and how they have been fought elsewhere, successfully, Having ordered this dubious tome from Amazon.com I will not be wearing any turbans for a while, and I suspect that I better wait another 20 years before I go to Disneyland or face some penetrating and personal questions from their immigration chappies, who have probably flagged me as suspicious already.
After the initial lull, after the windfall, things are now going a pace here, natives of various skills have been shaken from the trees to labor in the sun, smooth young things with sexy equipment have been commissioned at vast expense to fly over the estate and do magic to produce a contour plan of the next stage in transforming this wilderness into a rich man’s plaything.
I am now reconsidering the whole idea of renting rooms to the proletariat. I pegged out the wonderful site of future fornicatoriums, that I briefly considered a vital element to the estate, but gazing at these pegs in the ground and drifting back to episodes of pain from the past which had all begun so innocently like this, with pegs in the soil, and had turned into financial and personal disasters I have reconsidered the entire thing. I never wanted to have a guesthouse, the dreams of the bed and breakfast brigade are not mine and I recalled what we were here for i.e. to sell wonderful country houses to the privileged few.
My chum down the road who is a genuine country chap convinced me that growing meat is the thing, he has pointed out that my hills and dales of wonderful grasslands are in fact a protein factory and that all I required to live a life of ease is to install the necessary critters. He has mentioned strange activities that are required, such as sticking my arm up their rear end, but my observations of the chap that runs his cows on my place at the moment have been that this form of agriculture has maintained its popularity through the ages due to the great ease with which vast mounds of flesh can be accumulated with little personal effort. Not like planting corn, that requires a great deal of toil.
I am now immersing my soul into that great African Zen experience of growing Nguni cattle a marvelous beast with great personal magnetism. These cows are great, I have never been very fond of cattle except when served medium rare on a plate but observing these unique African beasts I must say I have been converted, they are as intriguing as wild game and have the independence and spirit of same, unlike the great lumps of flesh that we have developed in the temperate zones.
Well that is it for this month,
Yours busy and contented
Francis