Italy #3

SCENE: Parking garage, Milan, Italy
CHARACTERS: Family members x 5
ACTION: Cameras, bags and mountain bike in boot. Close boot.
M: Where are the keys?
J: In the boot.
M: OK, we'll get in from the inside.
J: The doors just locked automatically.
M: Oh no! Self-locking when the boot closes. (Takes out cellphone, calls car hire company. Words per minute and hand gestures more Italian than the Italians. Finishes call.)
M: They don't have the spare key.
Chorus:  But we're leaving for Tuscany tomorrow!
M: Don't worry. We'll break a window and pay for it. It's cheaper than hiring another car.
REST OF SCENE: None of us has ever broken into a car before. What do we use? We try a spanner. A hammer. A spark plug. My father, who I believe has never committed an act of violence in some 84 years or so, grabbed this opportunity to engage in a nefarious deed and bashed away industriously. To no avail. Not a dent, chip, scratch or crack. We tried every window. Nothing. They must be made from some military strength material. What are the Italians afraid of, drive-by shootings? (That could be it, of course.) We are forced to give up our attempts at breaking and entering, and head off on foot for the Duomo and a spot of sightseeing while M takes a taxi to the airport to hire another car.
                                                          -END OF PART ONE-

Paris #1

I was in Paris some years ago with a friend and we decided to visit a fleamarket which we'd read about in the guide book. We made our way there on the metro, and when we came out into the street, found ourselves in the dodgy part of town. We could as well have been at any fleamarket anywhere in the world, as the stalls were manned by the same foreign nationals from West Africa, selling the same cheap goods from the East. No charming Frenchman (is that an oxymoron?) displaying traditional French bric-a-brac and homemade delights. Having slogged our way there, we browsed anyway, and found ourselves at a jewellery stall with a group of Japanese tourists.
I suddenly noticed that there was an arm between me and the lady next to me, and that it was up to its elbow in her handbag. This struck me as being incorrect and without a second thought I turned and hit the owner of the arm on the shoulder quite forcefully, dislodging his arm from the handbag. He stepped back, opening his jacket to show us that he hadn't taken anything yet. In that instant it flashed through my mind that he might have been part of the group, but his retreating back as he ran off allayed that fear. He was also a foreign national, a legacy from the French colonial past.
The Japanese group kept bowing to me, a little embarrassing for a Westerner unfamiliar with their politeness. I was just relieved that I hadn't made an awful fool of myself!
We decided after that that discretion was the better part of valour and beat a casually hasty retreat from the area in case the would-be thief had a gang of friends. I doubt whether too many people hit him. And I am rather pleased that my instinctive reaction was attack rather than retreat. I would have made a good caveman.

My husband the racing driver

He Who Can Fix Anything (aka Richter - after the earthquake scale as a measure of his temper at any given time) is a motor sport fanatic and 'amateur' racing driver. He is in fact last year's winner of the Fine Car category at Killarney, Cape Town, and is the proud displayer of the No. 1 sticker on his car for the 2012 season. Not bad for a 1968 Ford Escort 1600 racing against 3 litre monsters. Of course it is all the years of driving around Chapman's Peak, honing his cornering skills, late braking (if at all) and overtaking in the most unlikely places, that has contributed to his success.

I was hoping that he would retire while he was at the top, but that hasn't happened. All modifications and repairs are done by him and barely a weekend goes by without taking out the gearbox to replace a gear or the head cylinder to replace a gasket - and as for chasing those elusive oil leaks! The air turns purple when things don't go smoothly (most of the time) and the garage is a place to avoid. I suspect the neighbours can hear his inventive language, as they never seem to come outside on weekends. He assures me that he is enjoying himself, but I'm sure working on cars is the cause of his high blood pressure.

Needless to say, I am the mechanic's assistant and have to stand by at all times to pass the 12 spanner or long-nosed pliers, but mainly to help lift the gearbox back into place and bleed the brakes, one of my least favourite occupations. After a hard day in the garage, he then expects me to have also produced dinner of restaurant quality, even though the cook hasn't been in the kitchen. He doesn't even help with the ironing. 
But at least I can spot an oil leak and change a tyre!

Porcupines #1

The porcupines dug a mineshaft under my fence last night. They have been digging in from the empty plot next door nearly every night for the last 3 weeks. Apart from eating all the freesia and sparaxis bulbs that I forgot to lift and store until autumn, they have eaten nothing. They trample through the patch of cocktail tomatoes, yet don't eat them. I suspect that they are really after my neighbour's magnificent crop of giant tomatoes on the other side of a vibracrete wall but haven't figured out that they should be digging under his wall and not mine.

Every morning before letting the dogs out, I have to do fence patrol to make sure that Monty can't get through the latest hole. He is a real Houdini, and just loves to escape and run up and down on the rocks at the lighthouse for hours, while I stand like an idiot, calling him, knowing it's futile.

The latest excavation is about 3 feet deep. The concrete blocks I lined up along the fence withstood the digging to form a bridge that any engineer would be proud of. My master plan was that they would sink gently in tandem with the mining, but it was not to be.  We have sunk a length of wire fencing into the ground but this is no deterrent and merely encourages deeper digging. About a cubic metre of sand now covers 4 square metres of lawn, making it impossible to refill the hole which is now beginning to resemble a sinkhole.

To add insult to injury, they puncture the irrigation system at the same time, necessitating numerous joins, and making it look rather like a string of beads. I'm reluctant to trap the porcies because this causes them tremendous stress, and as there are two of them, I wouldn't really like them to be separated.  It is only the danger they pose to our dogs that is a real problem. I'll just have to wait until they get bored and find a better place for dinner. Hope it's soon!

A Sunday afternoon

  We drove along the coast road between Strand and Muizenberg yesterday. The sea was a beautiful turquoise and little waves broke neatly along the shoreline. The south-westerly wind blew very moderately on-shore, and large flocks of seagulls stood beaks to the wind, forming a natural weathervane. The mountains surrounding False Bay rose grandly from the sea and colourful fishing boats chugged across the bay.
  When the prevailing summer southeaster blows, the sea is turbulent and windswept, a dark blue-grey, and the sand whips across the road, stinging legs and sandblasting cars. But today was a fishing day. There was an almost constant line of anglers for a few kilometres, rods planted firmly in the sand waiting for that big one to bite. Camping chairs were set up further up the beach for the few resilient women who joined their men, with baskets containing refreshments for the long wait. Small groups gathered, possibly to discuss the bait of the day.
  The scene was one of relaxation and harmony, proving that no matter how bad the world seems to be, there is always a place where man can co-exist in peace with himself and nature. I hope they all caught a fish as well.

Baboons #1

It's been a while since I had a baboon in my kitchen. They used to be regular visitors, looking for a gap to get a quick meal without getting their hands dirty.  There was a lone male, Eric, the pioneer of house raiding, who was almost expected on a daily basis. His long, shiny grey fur looked like an advert for shampoo as it blew in the wind, while he sat on the neighbour's roof, daring me to turn my back so he could slip past into the kitchen. He would yawn as if bored with waiting, revealing an impressive set of fangs just to remind you that he was actually a wild animal.  We used to be able to frighten him off with pot lids or other loud noises, but eventually he became so socialised that nothing scared him.  Our little white yappers chased him down the garden once and he casually leaned back as he sat on the wall, reaching out for Monty, who was snapping at his heels. Fortunately he changed his mind and left him - I was in a panic because baboons have been known to disembowel dogs in an instant. A small white dog was once found on its owner's roof (alive), proof that baboons have a sense of humour!

They don't chase baboons anymore.  A quick whimper will let us know that they're in the vicinity and then the dogs hide indoors. I am quite sure that they have been given a backhander and now have a healthy respect for these animals.

My house has been ransacked frequently over the last 20 years or so, always my fault through carelessly leaving something open. While the destruction can be annoying, I still regard it as an occasion for celebration that these fascinating creatures are still managing to survive despite man's encroachment on their territory. We have many videos of the troop foraging nearby; while the male stands lookout and the mothers gather food and groom each other, the youngsters play as all children do, running back to mommy when things get too rough. We are privileged to have them pass through here.

Perlemoen

Cleaned up the garden yesterday. Piles of perlemoen (abalone) shells with grass growing over them, half buried in the sand behind the shed, brought back memories of the days when we were allowed to harvest and eat this delicacy free from the sea. Today, superstitious belief in its aphrodisiac qualities has led to uncontrollable plundering of this resource along our coastline for a foreign market. The price tag is so high that the criminals involved risk their lives in shark-infested waters and gunfights on the beach to get their loot to the buyers. I say criminals because our government has always placed a restriction on harvesting by recreational divers for the very purpose of preserving our perlemoen for future generations.

In a way, one can hardly blame the poachers, who are usually at the bottom end of the economic scale, for succumbing to offers from organised crime to help them feed their families when they have no other means of employment. But once the resource has been eradicated, what next? Limpets? Mussels? Not unless they have aphrodisiac qualities. Law enforcement is unable or unwilling to effectively deal with this plundering, while the recreational divers (us) are now denied the pleasure of the occasional treat of a free meal from the sea on the premise that they will seriously harm the availability of the resource. What fools are these that presume to apply different rules to different people?

Corruption and greed will ensure the extinction of yet another species that was provided as part of the whole earth's ecosystem for our use. Are Man's days also numbered?