The next day broke clear and sunny, and sitting on the stoep with a cup of steaming coffee, with birds of all kinds serenading the upcoming sun with their beautiful songs, it was almost possible to forget the ordeals of the previous night!
I decided to stay another day, but I was in no mood for the rest of the walls, as the likelyhood of that plaster coming off too loomed strongly in my mind. The trees had to be planted, so I chose a few spots closer to the house, and started digging. As this sight was also closer to the river, there was quite a thick layer of soil before I struck the dreaded clay! I remembered reading that in clay soil, you have to make a big hole of about a metre by a metre, so I set to with the strength I had actually built up through the night.
The pommegaranate had the honours, and after struggling for about four hours, with lots of tea inbetween, I had one monster of a hole, so in went the bonemeal, then the fertiliser, this being cowdung I had picked up in the road.It was with a lot of satisfaction that I stood back and looked in wonder at my first tree standing with its roots in the soil.
I started on another hole, as I was eager to get all of them in, as I would like to see what grows best so that I could fill my whole place with that.I was adamant to grow either the olives, the pommegranates, the almonds, or the naartjie. (tangerine) trees, as I did a bit of research, and according to the clever people, olives like the mist coming over the mountains from the sea, while the others all liked cold weather.What I actually wanted to plant first, but unlucky at the nurseries who were either out of stock, or did not stock them, was cherry trees, as apparantly they grew fabulously in that climate. I must just mention that Avontuur, about ten kl from Haarlem, is the second coldest place in South Africa, and I can vouch for that! By tjaila time, that means time to stop, the next hole was almost deep and big enough, but I was now pooped and couldn't work a stitch further.
So I went over to Sheila for a shower and a braai,(barbeque) and we sat outside until the early morning, they downing one beer after another, self on the gingerbeer. It was a lovely evening with no wind or cloud, and the three of us became quite merry. I was sleeping in Irma's house again, so when the first learner cockarill with its voice still breaking started his wake-up calls, they walked me home. At this point in time Sheila had decided that at Haarlem people should walk barefoot, and was in the process of hardening up the soles of her feet. We must have been a strange group coming down the road, as Sheila, who was quite drunk, tried to miss the sharp stones in the road, crying out some unmentionable words when stepping on a sharp stone, all the time going on at Peter whose torch lite was so faint that she just couldn't see the sharp stones, while Peter, just as intoxicated, was laughing and falling also all over the road, and me, believe it or not, also very drunk, and that on Sheila's famous gingerbeer!At least I now knew why I had such a headache after a previous visit and three glasses of that potent 'soft drink!'
Sheila was actually a highly gifted artist, who did beautiful paintings, and also a lot of book illistrations, but looking at her, her hands red and rough, the forefinger missing on the one hand as a result of a bicycle accident, you would just put her down as a real Hillbilly! Peter again wrote detective stories, and he, after inheriting some good money from an aunt in England, could afford to take life much easier than his wife.