Remembrance of things past

A little tribute to Marcel this week - shallow as it may well seem. Having grown up in Pretoria both Pat and I have a bred in affinity for Jacaranda trees. The rich blue avenues of them that lined the Eastern Suburbs in spring and early summer created magnificent mauve archways for our bicycle rides to school - to friends houses - to the Hillcrest Swimming Pool on hot summer afternoons - the popping of the fallen flowers under our steel steeds’ tyres - a shady respite after the taxing climb up Roper street (our bikes were basic, heavy, no gears). Some years were better than others, and I can clearly remember as a boy of about twelve or thirteen turning east onto McKenzie Street from Duncan Street and being absolutely blown away by the sight before me. I remember stopping to soak it in and silently making a mental note to try to remember that sight always. I recall taking our children (younger then than I was by about three or four years) for drives in the area during early summer in the hope that they might catch the same mental imprint that I had, but I don’t recall seeing anything quite as magnificent as that first impression and the indelible memory that it left me with.

In our garden on the York Road boundary we have two huge Jacarandas, plus an extra one right next to them in the Corner Shop garden. They are so bright and beautiful and welcoming they do everything to bring those remembrances of things past flooding back each time we approach the property, or spend some time at the blue table in the garden.

Birds: One swallow doth not a summer make as the saying goes - but there are quite a few Barnswallows around now along with quite a few other migrants. We have been lucky enough to see a Purple- Crested Turaco (Lourie), a Black Cuckoo, plenty of Green (Redbilled) Wood-Hoopoes, some Cape Whiteye’s (happily chowing the aphids on the rose bushes), Dark-Capped BulBuls and literally hundreds of sunbirds. Today we had two Crowned Hornbills visit and call for some considerable time before moving on. We have plenty of Hoopoes now and quite a few Drongos who never cease to amaze me with their antics as they dive bomb insects spotted from their perches. Early morning in the garden is a veritable choir of birdsong, and Sunday midmorning Pat and I were attracted by a cacophony of sound coming from our large Chestnut tree. There were birds of every conceivable description diving, jumping and  screaming in a mass joint effort to dislodge or chase what could only have been a snake. After going down into the garden with the binocs and carefully studying the tree I caught a brief glimpse of a snake’s tail moving across from one branch to another …………. but that was all - I simply couldn’t find it again, and after about ten minutes the birds began to dissipate and things began to return to normal. A really fascinating phenomenon.

The early morning also brings other visitors ……….. a couple of days ago I looked through the living room to the deck - there was a Vervet monkey happily ensconced on the deck dining table chowing one of our peaches while a good dozen of his friends were playing Tarzan in the Wild Fig. No amount of shouting and clapping would budge them, but when I fired off a couple of pellet gun (sans pellets) shots, they quickly disappeared down George Street …………. no doubt to go and tackle some other unfortunate person’s fruit trees or veggie gardens.

We have now picked our second bunch of bananas since moving into the house, and search daily for signs of another developing bunch - but nothing as yet. The figs are coming along beautifully and we are looking forward to quite a few jars of Green Fig Preserve …………. that should be ready just about when the chillis start presenting themselves ………… Yum Yum - hot chilli and garlic in olive oil with Green Figs and some fine Brie from La Petit France in Hilton ……….. who could possibly ask for more?

This entry’s Bird is the Black Cuckoo (Cuculus clamosus) with its quite mournful call ………… thanks for visiting us buddy!

Black Cuckoo (Cuculus clamosus) 

Simply pretty

The Jacarandas on our pavement

Beautiful

Halloween, Rugby and Muddy Roads

Friday the 2nd November saw quite a Halloween (Night of the Dead I think they called it), thrash at the Pig ’n Whistle ……………. good music (some great slide guitar), more than plenty to drink, lots of dancing ……….. I reckon a great time was had by all - we certainly enjoyed it. Then on Saturday most of the same faces were to be seen there again to watch the Boks snatch a one point defeat from the jaws of victory …………. so many really silly mistakes, and that final tackle (sic!), made me think that the TMO would have been best advised not to go walking in Southfield (London), for at least a week.

The weekend also saw the Bathurst Arts Fair taking place with plenty of good stuff on show at a number of venues - loads of cars and plenty of people in the village, though Sunday's rain did put a bit of a damper on the fun (if you'll excuse the pun).

Seeing all the clouds on Sunday we decided to take the “Poor Man’s Game Drive” through Sibuya Game Reserve to see what it was like. Hardly had we gone through the gate on the Southwell side when the heavens opened turning the track into a veritable river. Everything was fine until we hit the downhill about a half a km from the gate ………… pure clay that caked itself onto the wheels in an instant and sent us sliding in every direction. It was simply impossible to move even a few feet without the weight of the vehicle taking us sideways towards the dropoff on the edge of the road. Having no idea how far this situation extended (the bottom of the valley looked a very long way down), and with absolutely no chance of turning around, I decided to call Sibuya Management. They dispatched a Ranger (Chris by name), and he was with us within about 15 minutes. He explained that this bad clay section was only a couple of hundred metres long, but we had no way of resolving the situation other than to drive it. We loaded Pat and Jesse into his vehicle with its huge fat mud tackies, and I slipped the Ford into low range and switched on the Diff lock and proceeded to crawl my way down in 1st gear under compression - literally inch by inch - just touching the brakes very gently each time she began to slide. Eventually I made the gravel with a huge sigh of relief (most of you know how I feel about heights), and continued on down to the river - then up the other side to the exit gate some four or so kms away. Chris kindly followed with Pat as far as the gate and I tipped him with everything we had in the car. Pleasant, helpful ….. a real star. Thanks Chris, I do hope you come and visit us in Bathurst sometime.

For dinner I put together a tasty little Risotto for the two of us before wandering across the road to end the weekend with some of Barry and Annie’s sublime guitar and accordion playing with their special brand of vocal accompaniment ……… Annie somehow manages to make that thing sound like a very good copy of Stephane Grappeli’s violin, and every now and then Barry’s playing reminds me of Django Rheinhardt ………. but I suspect I’ve said all this before. What a pleasure to listen to. 

The past week also saw a lot getting done in the garden with the construction of a stone retaining wall for the herb/pepper garden last week Sunday which almost broke my back. On Monday we collected the huge array of bamboo’s that Graham had his guys stack to one side for me after endeavouring to clear the swamp at the bottom of his garden. Now all we need to do (ha ha), is clean them, sort them and make a deck ceiling out of them. Sometime - sometime! 

Everything was looking beautiful until Tuesday brought an almighty wind which took down half the Mulberry tree and littered the entire garden with branches of every description from the vast array of trees we have on the property ………… Wednesday was definitely “pick-up parade”.  The wind also managed to put out a large section of Bathurst’s lights until about 9am Wednesday morning - but it did make for a nice relaxed candlelit dinner and a relatively early night. 

The moles too have been going crazy and driving Jesse around the twist. As soon as she spots the sand moving she begins to stalk, pausing like a Pointer with her nose just a few centimetres from the mound before striking like a leopard on its prey ……….. but the little buggers manage to get away nine times out of ten and no amount of digging achieves the final end. She has managed to catch two that I know of, and, as they say, practice makes perfect, so one day she might just rid the garden of these little pests.

Our neighbours on the lower east side of No. 6 have a goat by name Lola. She’s a real cutie and when Lianie (not sure how its spelt), takes the dog for a walk on the lead Lola follows along like a well trained pooch that needs no such restraints. She really enjoyed my Mulberry tree clean-up this weekend as she got to feast on the myriad leaves I passed across the fence - leaves that I suspect she has being greedily eyeing since they made their appearance at the beginning of the season. The tree really takes me back to my childhood in Pretoria when a great many very happy hours were spent up in my parents tree feeding my face and staining my clothes - now I simply pick what I can reach each day before freezing them to be enjoyed in a more cultured manner at some later stage.

Monday saw the start of a fairly substantial new contract - it will certainly keep me off the streets for a while,  and is one that I am very much looking forward to watching go up as we tackle the various stages - something different and quite challenging in many respects ………………. will talk more about it as we move forward.

This week's bird is the Yellow Fronted (Yellow-eyed) Canary which spends a good deal of time in the scrub at the bottom of the garden.

Yellow Fronted (Yellow-eyed) Canary

A look into the distance from our deck through the 600mm lens

Proprietors of the Pig, Lucille and Gavin Came getting into the spirit of things

Lucille (centre) with a couple of friends

Apparently Chef Carl Penn had a difference of opinion with the kitchen staff

Manageress Natalie took me a while to recognise

Jesse stalking a busy molehill

ATTACK!

The Banana trees looking very green

The Fig also looking particularly good