Said the Walrus to the Carpenter

..let's talk of other things.

My lawyers say my brother hasn't a leg to stand on, so all that remains is the heartache. Hell, I always thought that a poetic overstatement, but it's real enough - a pain in the chest - and there was I thinking my brother was just a pain in the arse! Goes to show how people can surprise one!

Any old how, life must go on and so will I. Had a glorious swim in the farm dam this weekend - in all my clothes - somehow putting on my cozzie would have taken the excitement out of the moment. Grazed my ankle a beautiful shot getting out again, and my dress needed stitches, but there's a price for everything, and it was worth it.

I may be a bit scarce for a while - I wait for better days and better thoughts - ones worth the sharing of. I bounce back easily as a rule, so I shouldn't be 'gone' for too long: watch this space.

Today's pic: The farm dam avec Egyptian geese - one of them is a mummy.

The soap opera continues

My mother left a handwritten will. It was pretty good, according to my lawyer. It also declared me as sole heir. My mom said that she did this because my brother is not to be trusted with money. I've first hand experience of this.

Anyway, a will three months older than the handwritten one (but done by a lawyer) surfaces, and my brother sends me a letter alleging that I wrote the handwritten one myself. This is the same guy that walked into her house while she was in intensive care and pointed out which antiques he wanted straight after saying 'Hello'.

I let him have the household contents - all of it. I let him make off with the ten thousand the family gave him towards the funeral I paid for. I helped him to get the fifty thousand life insurance money. He's obviously spent it all now.

I got the dogs and cats and the liabilities involving her house. Later, I'm told, when her will comes through, I might be rich woman. I can't imagine that. I've always been on the scruffy side of middle class. I've no wish to be her sole heir, but it was her wish.

Unfortunately, allegations of fraud mean that I will fight this to the end. If one thing is worthwhile to me - worth more than money - it's my good name.

I no longer have a brother.

I'm hurting. It would be so nice if life would become boring - instead the soap operas have nothing on it. Mom dies, I've the pets to settle, I find that I'm ill too, I get my date for surgery, my brother accuses me of fraud. What next?

Please let it end.

Cuban Doctors do not Smoke Cigars After All

Another day at the hospital: the queue to get files is always the most curious. It’s a seated queue, and every now and then, you shuffle along a few seats. It’s like a very slow game of musical chairs: it takes about two hours.

In a ‘line’ of fifty souls, there were just four books in evidence (counting mine). A woman with a ‘phuza’ face (booze face) pored over the popular tabloid, ‘Die Son’. An old lady crocheted something frilly in lilac and a young man messed about with his cell phone. The rest just waited.

The man next to me was wearing short pants, sandals, T-shirt and a woolly balaclava hat pulled down over his face so that only his eyes showed. There were burns on his arms, some quite nasty. A bad smell emanated from him. I don’t want to know what he was hiding under that hat.

On my other side was a neat, young makhoti (Xhosa married woman) who smelled of soap. I leaned towards her to breathe in the clean scent in an attempt to banish the odour of putrification.

Once I had my file, I recklessly blew R20 on a toasted sandwich and a cool drink (not beer, worst luck) at the hospital cafeteria with its stainless steel, operating-theatre-like tables and hospital-green plastic chairs. Thus fortified (it’s amazing what courage one can draw from a cheese and tom sannie) I proceeded to the outpatients’ consulting rooms.

There was another long wait, and then the nurse called me in for my test results. It was the Cuban doctor again. We have lots of them in our hospitals.

Our South African doctors love to emigrate, so we get Cubans to take their places. I don’t know whom the Cubans get to replace them in turn. He was brisk and professional, he didn’t smell of coconuts or have a cigar. I didn’t have to have any bits looked into, which was nice for a change.

Upshot is, they’re pretty sure they’ve got me in good time - just a routine hysterectomy in March and everything will be beer and skittles again. I’m very happy with this. I suppose I will be less happy with it on the day and for some days thereafter, and especially when I get my bill, but that’s okay too.

Todays pic: clear horizons and time for reflection (Phew, that was imaginative)

Job's comforter

So my dad phones this morning to wish me luck and encourage me prior to my next hospital date - it's tomorrow, but he thought it was today.

He gives me a graphic description of his partner's daughter who was operated on yesterday - intensive care and this and that.

'Don't worry, Dad' say I, 'I'm just getting some test results tomorrow. Then I'll know what comes next.'

'You watch, they might just whip you into hospital right away - they've been taking their time with your tests and cancer grows.'

Gee, thanks dad. I felt fine this morning when I woke up, but for some reason, I'm all shaky now.

He continues by suggesting I get medical insurance. It'll save my life he says.

'I can't afford it.'

'You must!'

Even better, so now something that is beyond my reach is required for my survival. Nice shot, Dad.

Sigh, I do love him, though the farm dog (in today's pic) is much more comforting.

To fart is human

On the day of mum's funeral, I left very early in order to get to her town (about 500km away) on time , and by seven that morning, we were halfway there. I was dying for a cup of coffee, and looking forward to hitting the town of Riversdale where an old-fashioned road-house serves wonderful filter coffee at almost any hour of the day.

On this occasion, I had company, co-driver and moral support rolled into one in the form of Gus who I might or might not say more about another time.

'Riversdale!' I exclaimed 'I can smell the coffee!'

'I just farted' admitted Gus.

It's probably inappropriate to laugh so much on the way to one's mother's funeral, but I couldn't help it.

Bear with me, I'm not telling gratuitous fart jokes here, there's a point to all this, but I need to set the right tone in order for you to ponder my point properly: so... to anecdote the next.

I was living in the little bedsitter after having left property and posessions behind in the prelude to my divorce (I still have niether, but some things are more important than things, if you see what I mean).

Anyway, the walls of my room were so thin that I could hear my neighbor splashing in the bath of an evening, and since my loo backed onto that bathroom, I supposed that this worked both ways.

Now what do you do in that situation when you want to / know you're going to fart? It wasn't that I thought I'd get evicted for my toilet habits or anything, but one should be considerate of one's neighbors.

I suffered an enormous moral dilemma about this one day when my neighbor was doing the splashy thing in his bath and I wanted to do another sort of splashy thing which I knew was going to be heralded by a sound not unlike the last trump but not as melodious.

I paced the room (quietly so that I wouldn't disturb my downstairs neighbor), I probably went a bit green around the gills, I debated the matter with myself at length and guess what course I took? Sigh. I let fly, of course. Best fart I ever had.

I related this to a friend of mine, and he said, with great pride: 'My girfriend NEVER farts.'

'Oh!' said I, 'are you sure she doesn't at least 'Whooosh' - you know - the silent sort.'

He was quite offended and stuck to his guns. His girlfriend of the last fourteen years NEVER farts. Now that gets me. In fact, I'm reasonably sure, based on the evidence before me (and behind her) that she's not human at all.

And that's my point: she can't be! What do you think?

Today's pic: some non-human splashy things

How to not pee in your hiking boots - a woman's guide to outdoor survival

That title is pure plagiarism - it was the title of a book that I decided not to buy. I still regret not having it. Oh, my aim's pretty good and my boots stay dry, but it's the sort of thing I like having on my bookshelf if only for the quirky title.

It also reminds me of a lady I once knew. She was one of those women who is very pleasant to look at. It took some work, mind: I personally watched her change her clothes three times before she was sufficiently satisfied with her appearance to venture out - on a picnic.

I should have known better than to drag her up a mountain, and so should her boyfriend. Oh, she made it to the top and looked absolutely gorgeous there, but as we were standing admiring the view (As one does) she upped and said she needed the toilet.

'Widdle?' I asked thinking that the situation needed some clarification: sometimes, it really IS necessary to go the actual WC. She nodded, blushing. As you know, beautiful women do not widdle. That is for ordinary people, so she was rather embarrassed.

I pointed out a convenient bush and suggested that I keep cavey for her, but no: top of the mountain or not, it was a toilet of the water-borne sort that she wanted.

Her slightly less smitten than before boyfriend accompanied her down the mountain and to the nearest filling station with a rest room. I imagine it must have taken close on an hour to get there and her bladder must've been so full that her eyeballs were bobbing.

Respect. For me, there are limits to how much I will suffer for being a lady, but this girl deserved the 'lady' award with brass knobs on plus a medal.

Takes all sorts to make a world, you know.

Today's pic: miles and miles and not a WC to be seen (and I'm not talking about 'Winston Churchill' either - just in case all this MLK-ing has confused folks)

Piebald people, promenades and pics

I spend a fair amount of time in the sun fully clothed, so I have a brown face and arms and white legs. When I go to town, I see a great many women with white faces and brown legs (arms optional colouring).

Either permutation seems to me to be unnatural, though I doubt I'll begin running around the farm without my trousers on as a result of this notion.

After seeing so many piebald people, it was something of a relief to visit an ice-cream beach and see people who were pretty much the same colour all over. It might be funny when they take their trunks off, but I won't be there (presumably).

** Pic below: What a lot of prohibitions. You mean I can't pull out my gun and take a few pot-shots at dolphins? How about a crossbow then? That seems to be okay - it's nowhere on the sign.

An ice-cream beach is one with lots of people, a promenade and ice-cream shops, as opposed to the wild beaches, which have none of these. I usually go to the wild beaches. The swimming isn't good unless you know where to swim and are cautious, but I like them best.

At this point, I could write a long description of how lovely the wild beaches are, but it's boring and it's a vice (something like paranthesis - another of my habits - and one which I'm cutting down on) so I'll spare you. Suffice to say, there's something about concentrations of coconut oil on the wind that pleaseth me not.

This said, I went to see Herold's Bay: a village with ice-cream beach cradled between magnificent cliffs about 25km from here on Sunday. I know most of the coast around here, but not that spot.

After taking a walk on the wild side of the tame beach, I had ice-cream on the promenade: a proper twirly, melty cone with a choc flake jammed into it. Yum. Sticky.

Couple more pics - for some reason I failed to photograph the bay with it's triple-story hotels in fake-Tuscan style. I wonder why not?