Ah Ja!! 

I saw a picture of an old American motor vehicle stuck in a tree. There were lots of comments from various folk about this sighting for the car was an old Ford Falcon hence my question: Isn’t it a Ford Falcon? Even though its colours are somewhat dismaying it could be the male of the species. And, judging by the black and white markings on its rump it appears to be from the Bushmanland; more specifically Pofadder; probably why the old registration number for Pofadder is CEK. Did you know that Pofadder was going to be called Windpompiesfontein what with all the windmills in the town. But that was before the drought ended and they became redundant. Of course there was a time when a warrior from a past Hottentot war faction was going to have it named after himself. We know what happened then, don’t we? But I never mix politics with birding; ruffles too many feathers. Any way the snakes took preference over the warlord. Incidently, if you are thinking of queuing for votes May 7th, may I suggest you look at the Ubuntu party. Do you know they crowd funded the R600,000 needed to enter the fray? I may just change jobs and go crowd funding myself.  But I digress.

The other reason for suggesting the bird comes from Pofadder is the lack of equipment just in front and below the rump which is often used for propulsion. One can see before meeting its maker, the bird  in this ‘wonderboom’ was used by homo sapiens as a wheel barrow. Hence the front rubber-like feet still being intact. Of course these round rubbers have evolved and they have far better grip; no wonder we find so few few of this species stuck like the one in the pic. Ah, ‘wonderboom’ you ask? 

If you happen to visit Pofadder you will notice there are no trees whatsoever. The trees you think are trees as you approach the small town slowly, to avoid the potholes, and make your way down the eternally straight and long long dirt roads you will see these trees are actually creepers, some dead some living, but all climbing up those derelict windmills gracing the empty spaces. No trees in the Bushmanland, in fact it is so flat that even if you lie on your stomach you can see two weeks into the future. Unless of course you spot one of the two eucalyptus trees along the road from Bitterfontein. 

Sure, you may say that Bitterfontein has its odd mountain and koppie around its kontrei but them Bitterfontein is Bitterfontein. Anyway Bitterfontein is in Namaqualand and that’s a whole other story. 

No, at the turn of last century some oke from Australia decided to go gold-mining just above the small hamlet of Knysna and knew that he would need some strong stout supports for the holes he intended digging so he brought some gumtree seeds with him. That early morning when  he set off he lost his way as he stepped off the shores of the Cape and strode boldy towards those majestic Hottentot Holland mountains on his quest to fame and fortune. Perhaps the Vaaljapie he tasted while traversing a farm in Franschhoek pointed him north instead of east. Halfway along the road from Bitterfontein he was attacked by some highway men and robbed. Of course the seeds he carefully carried in his jacket pocket seemed to be useless to the robbers who nonchalantly turfed them out into the dry grass on the side of the deserted road. All but one seed which had secured itself in the turn-up of the poor immigrant. The rest is history. Almost.

The seeds on the side of the road were found by a passing crow who was chased by a rooifalk who felt his territory was being invaded by these black crows. A bit of air distribution won’t be amiss thought the crows but thought better of their lives and beat a hasty retreat dropping one of the seeds in a rather fertile part of the land; surprisingly there was  a small seasonal stream nearby and there after waiting a while the conical seed developed into ‘wonderboom nommer een’

Our Australian friend with one adventure after another ended up in Middel Deur Vlei, a farm just 50 kilometres south of Pofadder which use to belong to the Louws. Erns and his brother grew up there in the mid seventies. I don’t know who is living there now. Perhaps the farmers gave up farming there and allowed others to do their best. There had been a six year drought during that period. When rain came they had more than two feet of rain in less than twenty-four hours. Well that’s what the Aussie told his mates while off duty one Saturday afternoon in the Pofadder Hotel bar over a game of snooker one evening. The game was a long one. They still have that full sized billiard table in one of the larger rooms. Although on the black ball side of the table there is a door, which when open, always gets in the way of the player’s cue. The door led to the ladies bar which was often frequented by those women who should have been at home making supper for their hard working farmer husbands. But they knew that most of these men were behaving like some Groot Marico farmers and who spent a great deal of time in the men’s bar watching cricket. Some of the ladies were, how shall we say, good lookers. The door therefore remained open and the black ball never saw the inside of a pocket; unless you were a stranger it was banned from the table. As the Aussie bent over his white ball to pot the blue he commented in his pseudo South African, “Ja, the rain drops were two feet apart,” and laughed. But no-one in the room laughed with him, for the door was wide open. It was just then that the seed that had been stuck in the Aussie’s turn-up fell out. The white ball was in such a position that he had to lean right over the table lifting his leg, rather like a dog, sometimes.  No, not the one with the seed in its trouser leg. However, he still could not get a good sighting of the two balls and knowing that his opposition was more intent on watching the goings on in the lady’s bar he lifted both legs, like a lazy dog in the hot sun. The seed rolled out awkwardly and fell to the floor landing almost directly under the part of the table where the black ball is normally placed at the beginning of the game and there it remained until the cleaner arrived the next morning to clean up.

 

Visit Pofadder today; you will see that tree standing magnificently behind B’n B which is always full. The occupants are very often found sipping cold drinks as they sit around the swimming pool in the shade of Wonder Boom (nommer twee). Nobody swims because no-one is willing to remove all the leaves. The B’n B is called The Outback and the present owner has a pseudo South African accent.

This leads me to the question: do you think the falcon in your pic is descended from the rooifalk which chased that crow at the turn of last century?

 

all we need is love for a bit of good education

all the stuff on the radio, on telly, in the papers in the theatres at the movies . When I look again I keep on getting reminded that had we all started on the right foot the moment we popped out of that warm amniotic fluid bath of Mother’s womb we may not be where we are now. Shado has just been chatting to two women about rape and guns and bullets and shooting about victims and perpetrators. while listening I couldn’t stop thinking about the word respect and then thatb lead me to think about dignity, trust and all those good feeling words that we use in speeches including this blog but abuse when practising them.

My mother may have taught me about them, my father may have demonstrated them to me. My teachers may have tried to pulverise them into my skull my spirit my soul and heart. Surely if we practised them if we respected each other from day one if we upheld each others’ dignity and trusted the fellow standing next to us…hell I could go on but to what end? How do I show my children the way forward if I haven’t instilled respect dignity trust and love in their hearts first? Any suggestions would be welcomed…

what’s new?

Here we are into the fourth month of the fourteenth year of the 21st century and I have only written two or three of these things called blobs; well called me a liar for a letter. My friend says once a week blogging is not a bad start so here goes.

There has been tremendous support for my single-hander; nearly called it a one-man show but then those of you who are slightly fixed on being politically correct might take offence. What the hell; it is a one-man show; I am a man and there is nobody else in it but me; so it can only be a one-man show. If a woman was in the show then it certainly wouldn’t be a one-man show it would be a one-woman show. But back to the point.

I have had lots of support lots of fine publicity thanks to Christine firstly; then Candice; then Celia; then all those at Kalk Bay Theatre, from Simon to Tracey even to Pinky who handles a broom deftly and sweeps up after the patrons have left.

The support has been such that the reviews have been excellent; reviews that could see the show taking off else where.  So I will stop here as I need to send a few emails to a few folk in Durbs…Cheers dear bog reader.

 

 

Now to learn some words for a pro bono at the Masquer come October…It’s a fun play called WISDOM OF EVE…see you later

 

So someone shows your work to someone and you think oh hell they going to take my writing and sell as theirs…but when you think about it the idea wasn’t mine in the first place, I just took an idea from Bosman then another bit of advice from henry and some   from Brian and finally an idea which my brother told me about which he had borrowed from a friend of his down at the club and viola!

Here are so many people trying to write blog; everyone writes and writes and those closest to us read what we have written and they either get excited because you said something that makes them feel rejuvenated or they are really pissed because you have shared  something really private and should not have or was never intended for public consumption…and then you stop writing to take a break, you go have a sandwich, a cup of coffee. Afterwards you feel you need a work out so you go to the gym and weigh yourself and find that you are still where you were three weeks ago. So what, at least that’s better than putting on more and more flab You come home, pick up the remote and find the ads are more entertaining than the programme. All very mundane but you write about it and you place it on your blog and think okay there is going to be someone out there who is going to read it and comment and you are going to eventually find someone who enjoys what you are saying and you think you may have something and you may get that book out to the publishers who may just think there is something…

What the hell am I saying?

Book?

Don’t be daft…this is just a way of getting it out there…it just blog…that’s all.. BLOG  great sound that word BLOG reminds me of the way Rowan Atkinson says some word on his comedy shows…I forget which one; he sort of draws in his lips so that they don’t show and then blows the word out; something which I think we called a glottal stop at drama school. Anyway blog also sounds very close to bog which is an easy slip of the finger and this could all land in the bog instead of on my brlog I mean blog…b-l-o-g…

What I mean is that I think I am getting the hang of it all and that it doesn’t really matter whether anyone reads it; its just a way of clearing the air.. the only trouble is it needs to have some kind of structure; some kind of beginning, middle and end instead of just gushing out.

We do a lot of that don’t we?

Gush!?

The sun comes up and warms the day or the sun comes up behind some clouds, lights the day and we start ours by getting up, taking the children to school,  feeding the dog, cleaning the house answering some emails, the phone, and the door…the door you think…well in our neck of the woods at the bottom of Africa we have quite a few who come knocking on the door, friend and stranger; the latter usually asking for bread, food, money or work…usually in that order. If my wife answers they get something, if I do they don’t unless they ask for work first. Why do we waste so much time try to help these poor people when we are struggling ourselves trying  make ends meet and trying to see that our children get the best time of their lives while at growing through puberty, adolescence to adulthood and beyond…what?  

You think children just free-load until they’re 21 forget it…these children of mine can free-load until they’re ninety and I am 130…’cause how else do we learn to behave unless we listen to them and watch the way they do things. For eg. My son who is 48 years younger than  me showed me how to electroplate something and how to make a LED light up and how to work this laptop and how to work my mobile phone and how to behave when travelling by train and it’s fills up and how if you are strong and fit  you get up to let those perhaps weaker and frailer than you take your seat.  Yes, these children they teach me a lot…so…perhaps now I can begin to say what I really want to write:

 The other day a friend offered me a way to save money and make money simultaneously…through networking. After following his instructions and going to a few Thursday afternoon workshops I realized that what I do on stage is similar to what he wanted me to do only the product I was investing in could be applied over and over again to those people out there who bought into this referral scheme after me and thus I would start earning from it…Make any sense?

Well theatre and by theatre I mean performing a show night after night, week after week if that were feasible which in these economic times is not really, I do the same show over and over until everyone has seen it then I have to create a new show and do that until everyone has seen it and so on and so forth. As my audience starts believing that what I am doing for them is good enough for them they will come back for more and more.  Some of them even returning to see the same show, as one or two have done recently…how brilliant is that?   This is similar to this new venture.

Now to make both work. The other interesting thought is that both can work anywhere in the world and that if I play my cards carefully and thoughtfully this could mean filling my coffers in such a away that when I dream of that A180  Mercedes Benz which does 3.8 litres/100 kilometres and has enough torque to pull my boat and trailer to those lakes around the country or that I can afford to send my children on some fantastic overseas trip where they will not only learn about how the other half lives but will also have e a jolly good time doing so or that my wife and I can quietly slip away to the Okavango Delta on a makorra while both children remain at school I realize that these dreams are coming true.

And you call this blog?

Ah well, so be it…certainly is one way to sort it all out until you know where you are going so that you can start the journey, enjoying the steps you take so much that the goal is almost forgotten of course you will know your your destination when you reach it… Death? Yes. Birth? Yes; for the one follows from the other doesn’t it? Someone told me this afternoon at a Thursday workshop that people are being born all the time…just as people are dying all the time…and so life goes on and so my dream to uplift your life and mine is fulfilled…and so before i tell you more it’s time to close…

Enough now, let’s hold those thoughts until the next time we meet…,

Cheers. Have Fun!

Dee Gee Mee

never-forget-the-thrill-with-which-i-picked-up-the-rose-amitie-lee-took-the-pic.jpg