My morning did not start too well, and sometimes I can just shoot myself in the hakskene (heels) , as I am the biggest ninnyhammer on this old earth. Baby Emil was still sleeping peacefully, and as it was only five am, I knew that I had at least an hour to do some outside chores. In peace!
Now, I wanted to cut the grass growing against Peter's ugly fence, and full of optimism I donned my gloves, doing that because my poor hands had to be nurtured for Xmas, as they were looking quite nasty! But my scissors that I used for that was nowhere to be found! For the next forty five minutes I went all over the house, the yard, every one of my hoarding cupboards, all with no result. The day before I was out on hunting down moles, and I knew I had the bally thing to cut down some grass patches under which the little horrors hide, so it should have been lying somewhere on my wee outside table, or maybe where I left it when my phone rang.
Actually I have three old scissors that was no good for anything else anymore, two black handled ones, that had mysteriously disappeared, and this pink handled one, and I really coveted it, trying not to loose it as well. But now it had disappeared, and I even went down to the bramble bushes, where I have a heap of weeds and grass busy changing into compost, and that was quite hazardous, as the bees were very busy at the bramble flowers, and my disturbing their morning nectar hunt made them as cross as wasps, buzzing angrily, and flying around like they wanted to attack me. So I very hastily departed, without finding out whether my scissors were amongst the grass cuttings of the day before.
When I got back to the house Emil was awake, and putting up a nasty show of temper because I was late with his bottle. I knew that I would not be able to do any more work, as Emil would only sit in the push cart for a wee while before getting ants in his pants, and start wriggling and moaning to be let out. My yard is just not compatible with babies, as the steps leading down from the main house to the built-on bit, is steep, and a baby could roll down easily, and to top that, a little furrow runs about two meters from my front door, and that is always full of water coming from the mountain.
I had decided to cover myself in sunburn lotion when Emil went to sleep at ten, and have another go at finding my scissors. After another fifteen minutes of hunting, I stood for a moment in front of Emil's bedroom window to listen whether he was still asleep. I was sweating, and the sun was burning down mercilessly, and then, through a stream of tears as the lotion had come into my eyes and burning like the blazes, my eyes travelled up to the top of my red ladder against the wall, and there, shimmering in the sunshine, was my errant bally scissors.
But with my eyes burning, and the sun not letting up, I had to leave what I wanted to do, and wait till it was cooler!
But my day was not altogether wasted, as I then kneaded some dough to make bread. Today I have put in a handful of nuts, some pumpkin seeds, another handful of oats, and to make it a bitty interesting, some  dried   cranberries.

Baby Emil was now crawling, albeit backwards, and time and time again when I put him on his tummy with a toy to lure him forwards so that I can get a few things done, I was startled when his powerful little voice would suddenly shatter the stillness of the morning. And every time I would find him stuck underneath one of the arm-chairs, having gone backwards again, from where he would tell the world how badly he was used.
It was very difficult at this stage, as he was a very busy and lively child, and not at all happy anymore to sit outside for long spells while I do some gardening. As the only time I could work outside was between five when I woke up, and about eight thirty, and as he now was awake from six onwards, and slept from ten to twelve, I had to juggle the outside chores quite finely.
Jan took him over week-ends, and sometimes when he was at home, or not too busy, as we felt that he should not grow up distant from his family, and never maybe feel part of it. What a wonderful dad-cum-mum my son turned out to be, as he just naturally took over the care over that times, and people were astonished at his dexterity with cleaning the little bum, bathing the wee one, cooking veggies and bottling it, and keeping both the youngsters happy.
I decided one Saturday when Jan had gone to friends for the week-end, taking Emil and Andreas with, to try again to work down the heap of boulders that lay right in front of my window, and it did not look nice, and apart from that, it was covering my water pipes, and if something went wrong, it would be hellish to get to the pipes.I had decided that if I again encountered the big green frog, I will ignore his questioning and myopic eyes, and take him down to the pond, where he would be quite comfy.
So, this time with glove covered hands, I started on the arduous task of rolling the big stones down the heap, as they were too heavy to carry, my back not exactly as strong as that of a horse, but when they were down, I still had to get them to their allotted spaces, and that posed a problem! But when you need to do something, and you try real hard, anything is possible, and with a lot of sweating, and swearing, and asking for help from above, I managed to slowly but surely get the path laid out.
I still had about a meter and a half to do, when, at lifting a boulder from it's cozy nest, a bally mole snake that was having a beautiful morning nap woke up, gave me a very cold look, and crawled right over my (luckily) booted feet, and disappeared into the a crevice in the heap! Must say, nothing wrong with my throat, or my voice! After a good and strong bout of telling the snake where he can go to, I was ready to commence work again, as a molesnake is harmless, but it is just the sudden appearance of one right under your nose that is a bitty scary!
I felt quite at ease, knowing where the snake disappeared to, and decided to not immediately desturb the heap at that spot.
I was sitting on my backside, working loose a stone from the sand that was getting more plentiful the lower I went, when suddenly, from underneath me, a loud, hoarse 'Kwaak' cut through the air, and when I came to my senses again, after going very, very cold for a few seconds, I was standing on solid ground, my heart pounding like a bally race horse at full speed! And there was mr. bally green striped frog, again looking at me with those big black eyes, silently enquiring about the reason for demolishing his house.
I ran for a yogart holder that would be just big enough to catch the frog in, but when I got back, he was nowhere to be seen. I took out some rocks where he was sitting, but he must have had a very long tunnel, and I couldn't just lift the stones left and right.
I decided to call it a day when the mole snake suddenly appeared from underneath a big rock that I was going to move next, as with all this beasties that was in my way, I felt that I had earned a nice cuppa, and a rest, and hopefully snake and frog would decide that it would be in their best interests to move!!

Today was just not my day! The first mishap occured when I took the kettle off the stove, and the wire cover that fits over the gas jets came undone, and I quite forgot that it was supposed to be hot, so I shifted it back with my bare hand, and it was a case of jumping about two feet in the air, as the pain was excrutiating! I held it under the cold tap for ages, but it took a long time for the pain to subside, and I was left with blisters on both my forefinger and my thumb. Eina!
Then I heard people talk outside, and it was oom Vlei, our munisipality foreman and his team coming to have a second try on opening the water furrow running in front of my house, as their first try was not quite doing the thing. I watched from my little bench, drinking my tea, and again of course only one man worked while the others smoked, and watched, leaning on their spades. But after a while oom Vlei, who had gone off after unloading men and tools, came back, and after some talking, all got back onto the pick-up, and off they went.
Still a little while later I heard one heck of a racket, like some huge machine was trying to eat up my house, and on looking out, I found that it was an earth moving machine that was put to use in the furrow. The next moment a deluge of water stormed down to my house, and I ran to close my door, nearly bally drowned! Well, just about! The machine had destroyed the main waterpipe feeding all the homesteads down along the river, and as it was going down so steep, the water pressure was very strong.
There was a lot of screams, and a big commotion, and then oom Vlei who had just came, departed again, followed by the earth mover. And I was left without water. I dressed in clean clothes, ready to go up and complain, when back came oom Vlei, with the workers, and I thought they were going to fix the pipe. No such thing! They stood around, laughing and asking each other what the heck oompie Piet had done now again. Oompie Piet I supposed was the machine driver. Then all of them departed again, and down came the earth moving thing, and started gulping up huge mouth fulls of earth from the furrow, and spitting it out on the side of the road. I think that as the pipe did not look in a good condition anyway, oom Vlei had decided that while on the job, they might just as well make a good job of it.
I salvaged about a liter of water that trickled from the tap, and drank very little tea, so as to save my precious water. When my throat felt parched after about four hours of abstaining, and I was relishing a cuppa, I found that a cockroach had fallen into my remaining water. I have never ever before found a cockroach in my house, and where that thing came from, I will never know!
I tried the tap, and a cupful of water trickled into the kettle, and that was my last cuppa for hours, as the water came back on at about eight that night, after the pipes were fixed.

I woke up to a sun that was trying to peep through my window, and the birdsong was something to really get exited about, so I got up, although it wasn't even five yet, and baby Emil was still deep away in the land of dreams.
I had a very sad moment because of the baby the night before.His mother had made a shield for the cot to prevent him hurting against the wood, a beautiful padded one, and she had tied it on the top sport all around, and although I knew it needed a wash, I just couldn't untie it. But one by one the bows came undone, and with every one that came undone, I felt another pang, as that was done so lovingly by a mother for her baby. Last night the last one came undone, and it was as if the last bit of his mother had now gone from his life,and I just felt the tears rushing to my eyes, and a great sadness enveloped me. I stood for a long time looking at this baby that would never know his mother, and realized that the last bow becoming untied was to me a kind of greeting, and also for Emil.
I took my coffee outside to watch the birds doing their early morning things, and sat wondering what was to happen in our lives in the near future. Jan was talking about going back to Denmark, where having help with the kids was so much easier than here in South Africa. He was actually talking a lot about different plans, one other was to go and live in Capetown.
I was really worried about him, as he was becoming so thin he resembled a pencil stripe, and I knew he was suffering tremendously. Not only with the death of his wife, but Rene was also giving him a lot of problems with not being able to cope, and using computer games to escape from the grieve. But I was worried, as to me it seemed as if he was just too into that for his own good, but at the moment Jan could not cope properly with that.
Xmas was nearing, and the fruit was swelling beautifully, and I was looking forward to drying peaches and apricots in Jan's solar oven, as I read that it is masterly for that. It is a wonderful contraption, made of tin or something, with a  shiny alluminium interior, and a strong reflecting lid, that reflects the sun into the oven. He had made bread in it a few times now, and although it could be a bitty browner, it baked perfectly. I mean to get one for myself if I go to the place called Riversdale again, as that is where the guy making them stays.
I mean to can a lot of fruit with the minimum of sugar, as I have been using a lot of the fruit I canned during the last season in my smoothies in the morning. If the peacocks and the snails do not get to the ripe strawberries before me, I managed to get a handful every morning to supplement my smoothy, and I also use bananas and all the fresh fruit I can get in winter.
So I am looking forward to the fruit ripening, as there is nothing nicer than a peach or apricot, picked and eaten from the tree when it is still warm from the sun. Delicious! And my smoothies would be so much fresher!

The people in this village are really strange, not all of them, as I have met some good, hardworking families, but a lot of them just never do anything in or around their houses. In a lot of cases they will let the houses go to ruin, and when a wall gives, and tumbles down, they would just vacate that room, and live happily in the ones still standing, until it was impossible to go on.
There is one very quaint place in our main road, and every time I pass it, I expected another room to have caved in. It was a typical Haarlem built, one of the long ones, with the rooms all in a row, making it possible to rent it out as rooms, in which a whole family sometimes lived. This one, with one room already flattened, was recently painted a sickly pink, I suppose to cover the raw clay bricks, as the biggest reason for so many walls caving in was the exposed bricks, as nobody would ever replaster the walls, leaving everything open to the elements.
In Haarlem of course anything goes, and it looked quite beautiful, but at least they had stopped further damage, and hopefully the house stood for another few years. It is such a pity, as a lot of the houses are historical, and protected by the Cultural and Historical laws, but nothing is ever done to protect them.
The best one to me was still the orange house! Also on the main road, almost across from the pink house, a family had decided to renovate their little house, and I every time I passed there, I saw the guy and his son bussily working, and when I came back from Scotland that year, my eyes got a shock, not only for the reason that the house was beautifully restored, but the colour! It was painted a bright, bright kind of light burnt orange!
Gary had built up the caved-in wall of the old water mill, as the bodies responsible had never even tried to do anything to protect it, but the roof was stolen off, and it is now just a ruin, with the old mill open to the elements.
I think people saw me as one very mad and strange woman, as they would stop on passing by and I was busy painting, or patching up, or working in my garden, and just stood looking at me as if I was exhibit one!
Another house that was actually saved for a while, as the occupant had built up the fallen wall, and had lived in the semi ruin for quite a few years now. But on passing the other day, I saw that the wall, that was built up with pieces of bricks and stuff from another fallen house, had started to kind of lean dangerously to the outside. This was now propped up with a few poles, and the lot living there looked as happy as ever.
I was quite busy in my garden, and as Emil was so happy when outside, I parked his push cart in the shade every morning, and tried to get my veggie garden sorted. I was putting boxes down, with chicken wire underneath, as the bally moles were going crazy, and wherever I put my feet down, I sunk away into their tunnels. It was very frustrating, and I usually went quite beserk if I found my newly planted seedlings all wilted and no soil underneath them.

The heap of sand and stones outside the window was bothering me, so I pushed the baby out and parked him underneath the biggest tree, and that was not very big at all, but I wanted to lay a path with the stones. The path I had done before was just two row of stones, and I wanted to do the whole path, and the trouble was that I could only work till about half nine in the mornings, as by then the sun would be baking down mercilessly, sending the most hardened living things running for shade.
It was difficult with Emil, as actually the only time that I could do some work outside was when he was sleeping, but as he sleeps from ten to one at the moment, I had to take him out with me, and stop when the sun became scorching, or roast myself to an ugly looking red.
I was sweating, and cursing a wee bit, as some of the rocks were too big and heavy for me to get off the heap, and Emil thought it oh, so funny, gurgling with glee every time I spit out a few hard words. Would have to start watching my vocabulary, as he was getting big now, and I would not like his first word to be one of my favourite swear words.
After I had a good old struggle, of course coupled with a lot of grazes, and a few blue finger nails that ached like the blazes, I found that it was quite easy to let the rocks roll down the heap, if I first made a smooth path for it. Emil found it wonderful sports, and he was rocking wildly in his pushcart, laughing and screaming. He was such a lovely little thing, and the fact that he hardly ever cried made him very easy to bring up, well, if one forget about his little temper! But he only revolted when he couldn't get his bottle immediately.
I was really giving my all, and tried to forget my aching and wounded hands, and also my left foot's big toe that somehow got underneath a rolling rock, and I was too scared to look, as I thought it could be broken, as it was aching like the blazes.
My eagerness for the job was abruptly stopped when I took out another huge boulder, and there sat a big, green and white frog. The poor thing must have been in a deep sleep, as he sat for a moment with his eyes closed, while I watched closely in case he was disorientated, and decided to jump, and jumped onto me by mistake. I was definitely not scared of frogs, having a whole army as unwelcome house guests, but a frog jumping on me was a no-no.
But this poor frog opened his eyes after a moment, and looked intently at me with two black myopic eyes, as if to ask: 'What are you doing to my house?' That was the end of my day's work, as I just did not have the heart to destroy the frog's house, so I took baby, and retired for the day. I would maybe be more remorseless on another day!

Baby Emil and Andreas were doing well, but Jan and Rene was struggling to come to terms with Nina's death. Jan was not himself, and I could see that his work was suffering, and when he told me that his partner Mark was worried because he didn't get any further with his work, and I spoke to him about it, he told me that he was not interested in where the company went. That was so unlike him, as he is a meticulous person, both in his private life and his work.

He is a chemical engineer, who is an expert on bio-gas, and also water cleaning, but the bio-gas is his big interest, and he had already spoken all over the world at seminars, and just loved to talk about his work.so this kind of lethargy was strange to me, but I also had to take into consideration his loss. On the other hand, he had three kids to provide for, and that in South Africa is expensive, specially because when going to high school, they have to board.
Time was going on, and Emil was growing very fast. I put him on his stomach, with a toy just out of his

reach, and he was trying very hard to get to it, but kept on going backwards instead of forward, and landed underneath the chair behind him constantly, and from there he would put up a racket that make me run at full speed to rescue the wee one.
He was an amazing child, and as I said to my friend Louise, God was kind, and knew what he was doing, as the little one had one tooth after the other without any fever, or ear-ache, or crying. Also, he never moaned to go to sleep, just drank his bottle, and when I put him in the cot, he would smile while I cover him, and nothing was heard from him till six in the morning.
But he had quite a temper, and I dared not let him see his bottle, and maybe found it to warm, and then take it away to cool down more! He would scrunch up his little face, and screamed so loudly and lustily, that he would go blue in the face. Gave me a scare in the beginning, but I just laughed at him, and told him calmly that his bottle was too warm. Of course he didn't understand, but as time went on, he realized that the bottle would actually come back again.
It was now nearing the end of October, and the temperatures were lifting, and it was quite pleasant during the day, although the nights were still very cold. But the roads were lined with German Camomile, that was brought here by the missionaries from Germany, and it was an amazing sight and I meant to harvest quite a lot this year. Before I was never back in time from Scotland, as I went to visit my sister and daughter Trienkie before coming home.The previous years my whole place was covered with the Camomile, albeit a wee bit dead by the time I came home, but this year the kikuju grass had taken over everything because of the lot of rain we had., but luckily the cattle and horses graze away on the grass growing oalong the road, leaving the Camimile to flourish.

In due course Jan found some time to help me with installing the washing machine, and from then on things looked a lot brighter.
The bathroom floor had still to be done, so once all was installed, joined, and working, I redid it, and it was such a good feeling.
A new problem had now stuck out its head in the form of water syphering through from the road, and down to the bottom part, and the walls first started showing signs of damp. I went up to the munisipality offices to complain, as the little furrow running down passed my house got blocked just before going underneath the road across from my house, and as it on public property, it is the responsibility of the munisipality to keep it open. I have tried before, as they never appeared the previous time I complained, but as a lot of soil gets washed down and pack solidly in front of the hole, I was not very successful.
Oom Vlei, the bloke who was the master of the works came to have a look, and sent down a group of workers to open up the furrow. When the furrow's inlet on the other side of the road is blocked, the water can't get through and run away down to the river, and it accumellates on the side of the road, from where it then drains down to my bottom room, as there is a steep fall down to the river.
It was wonderful to watch the guys work. I don't know if in other countries the same method of working applies, but in South Africa, specially workers from the munisipality have their own special way of doing things. One bloke will work his butt of, while the others stand leaning on their assorted tools, and if no handy leaning-on tool is available, they would either lean against the closest tree, wall, or fence.
What is so strange about this, is like I said, this method of working happens mostly in the munisipality, and what to me is just absolutely amazing, is that it doesn't happen only in one town or area, but all over South Africa.
As there was just too much water coming down, and the furrow running down was too shallow, a lot of water started leaking into my garden, and I went to complain again. Nothing was done, and then Bush told me that the gadget closing off Danny's water was broken, so I went to have a look, and found the pipe and the gadget that was inside the bigger furrow coming down rom the mountain, all broken. I again went to complain, and when after a month nothing was done, I complained again, and then went to see Gary, my neighbor, who had some doings with the water supply.
He phoned Oom Vlei, and some hard words fell, but nothing was done, and when I complained again, I was told that there was no money to buy the gadget, and I wanted to laugh hysterically. So Jan fixed it temporally, and for some time my place was a bit drier, although my almond and lemon trees had died from too much water, as the whole area was now soggy.

With the floor painted in a much lighter colour than before, the sittingroom looked bright and cheery, and I was really pleased with it.

But Jan was away a lot with their newly won project, and just never got so far as to fix my pipes, and I was later quite disheartened, as there was no water in the bathroom, except for the toilet.

So one morning when I was again carrying water down to take a bath, I decided that I had enough, and would rejoin the water pipes myself, and shift the washing machine, and fix the brackets on the wall for the hand basin.

I had a good look at where and how, but as I did not have the right tools I had to ask Jan for his, and he was a bitty embarrassed, and told me that he would just finish a telephonic meeting with the clients, and then he would definitily come over and do it. I told him that I had a good look, and I was quite sure that I could do it myself, but he was adamant. I knew how busy he was at the moment, but on reflection, and remembering when I had put the gadget for the washing machine's connection in, with the plentifull runs up and down to close the main supply, when the thing kept on jumping off, so I said yes gracefully, and went back to wait. 

While waiting, and trying to re-arrange the furniture to a practical state, I got a brilliant idea. I had an old washing table from Irma when they moved, and had a bowl and beaker that I had made in pottery class years ago on it, and trying to find a space for it, I was hit by the most brilliant idea. Instead of fixing the brackets for the basin, I tried the basin into the hole of the little table, and voila, it was a perfect fit!

Jan was also impressed with this, as I would have struggled to fit everything in nicely and practically, and I wouldn't have liked to get rid of the antique little table, as I loved it so much.
He later came over with his tools, and it took him the whole afternoon to sort everything out, and connect the pipes.
It was wonderful to have water in my bathroom again, and that night I lay for a long time in a bubble bath, just my eyes and nose sticking out. The bath is very old, and very green, and very ugly, but it was the longest bath I had ever had a bath in, and as I am tall, I kept it, closing my eyes to the colour. But I had mixed the same kind of green and applied touches of that colour to the floor, and painted the bottom part of the wall in it, and now it doesn't look quite so bad!
but the washing machine was still to be positioned and the drain pipe connected, but at least there was movement, and I could shower or bath again.

I had decided to colourwash the walls lightly to hide all the bad places, as it is a wonderful camouflage for walls that were fixed by the likes of self! Definitely no expert! It looked really good, and I had just finished with that when Jan returned from Johannesburg, and he could take the baby for a while so that I could repaint the floors, as I did not like to expose his little lungs to any fumes, although as I used a waterbased paint and varnish, it wasn't too bad.
My room looked stunning, and I was very pleased with it, but what I appreciated most was the fact that I did not have to sprint down to the bathroom in the freezing cold.
I couldn't decide what to do with the steps going down to the bathroom. The two top ones were just cement, while the bottom ones were bricks, and I hovered between just varnishing it, or tile it, maybe doing some mosaic.
As my house was known to the locals as the Snake house, they believing that a big snake lived in my roof, I decided on a bit of fun, and painted a snake crawling up the stairs, so that if someone try to burgle me, they would think it was a real snake, and take off without taking my stuff. That was just for the interim, while I try to decide what to do.It was such a good thing that someone had started the rumour about the snake, as my house stood alone for six to eight months every year, and nobody had ever touched it.Yet.
As there were lots of burglaries around, I was actually extremely fortunate.
We have this druglord called Zjivago living in Haarlem, and he gets the kids onto drugs, and then sends them out to burgle houses in order to obtain drugs. The most horrid stories went around about this man, and I was sure he was behind all the nonsense, as he was in jail for about five years, and the drug problem was a lot better, and there was also a lot less burglaries.Now that he is free again, there is a lot of problems, and a story went around that a house that burned down killing parents and two kids, was him taking revenge
But our policemen were so corrupt, and the people tell me that they have seen the police bringing alcohol to the shebeens on Sundays when they had run out. Shebeens are illegal drinking houses, usually in somebody's house, and according to Charmaine, there was about twenty one shebeens in the little village with not more than maybe  two and a half thousand people.

It was quite a lot of work to fix the floor again, as it meant a few days spent on my knees, and me not exactly a spring chicken anymore, by the end of the first day, when I had filled all the holes with tile cement, they were red and swollen. The next day I could take a bit of a breather, as the cement wasn't quite dry, and as the bathroom floor was also damaged, I started sanding it down to be re-painted. The guys had mixed cement on the floor I think, as the paint had lifted, but at least no rocks were dropped on it.
As Jan had to go to Johannesburg again, I was left with the two kids, and no water in the bathroom, as the pipes were not connected yet. What a botheration, as I had to take the children over to their own house for a bath, and as it was so bitterly cold, it was not quite an idillic time for me or the kids.
When Jan came back Andreas went to have his casts removed, and he cried hysterically when he saw his thin arm and leg, and was miserable for about two days, not believing that it will ever come right again.
The winter holidays had now come to a close, and the two boys had to go back to school, Rene to boarding school in George. Andreas went with the little school bus, and had to be taken to the busstop before seven, when it was the coldest part of the morning, and when Jan was away it was quite an operation to get the baby in the car without him freezing, but I had found that one can always find a way to manage.
The people in Haarlem was wonderful during this time of stress, and some came regularly to see that I was okay with the kids when Jan was away.

There was this one delightful old lady, who told me she was going on for eighty nine, who regularly walked down from her house, about two kilometers up the road, to come and see how we were. I asked her in for a cuppa every time, but she always declined, until this day, when she said she would be glad for something to wet her dry tongue. She sat on the point of the chair, and looked at me without her eyes wavering once from the minute I put the tea down, then she took the cup and holding it oh, so daintily, she took small, elegant sips. I was entranced by her, as one just couldn't make out one special feature on her face, the wrinkles curling like small snakes all around her face, and her toothless mouth almost completely obscured by her chin! I thought her amazing.When taking sips of tea, her top lip would first emerge from somewhere between the chin and her nose, then the bottom one would peep out, and they would both disappear the moment she had taken a sip of her tea!
I had decided to re-paint all the walls in the almost destroyed room with the new door, so I put baby in the stroller to watch me, and he was quite happy for a while. He loved being outside, so when it was a nice day, I put him amongst my flowers, where he would sit gurgling for quite some time before starting to moan.
But with Jan away so much, it wasn't always so easy to do my reparation work, and it went much too slow for my very impatient nature.

What should have taken just one week, took three weeks in the end, due to my builders's complaints about their backs after again not appearing the next Monday and Tuesday. But when they had the opening done to the height of my hand basin, we found that they had their calculations wrong, and the basin had to be shifted to another wall altogether.
It was quite inconvenient, as everything was fitted in so neatly, and I was a bitty sour because I had asked them how many times about the position of the opening in relation to the shower wall and the basin, and I was assured over and over that they do not make mistakes. They were like two schoolboys caught out in doing some mischief, explaining with wildly rolling eyes that because of the huge stones they went a bit off target, but I did not buy that, as when the drew the lines of where the opening should be, I already had my doubts, and told them so.
So they removed the basin, and Jan promised to fix it for me, but that meant that the washing machine's draining pipe had to be moved, and also, with the basin's pipes that was connected to the shower, all the pipes had to be redone! What a botheration, and all could have been avoided.
The next step was to built the steps, as the bathroom and adjoining bedroom. was about half a meter lower than the rest of the house.
But they did finish, albeit after two weeks more than was neccessary, but I was glad when at last they started on the plastering, but had to laugh at the main man's idea of nice. As the house is so old, and was so neglected through many years, and most of the plaster was patched up by me, with plenty of mishaps, said walls were not what could be called a nicely finished bit of plastering.But my builder thought it very nice, and told me that as the rest of the wall was kind of done in Spanish style plaster, he would do the parts he had to plaster in the same way. Sweet!
I was elated when I paid them their last wages due, as I couldn't wait to start cleaning up the mess. The whole room was covered in about three inches of dust from the grinder, and the other room, although not too bad, had also to be cleaned from top to bottom.Only when I had cleaned the floors did I see how they had ruined my floors, but as I knew what a heavy job it was, I just shrugged and started fixing the holes made I suppose by rocks that slipped from their hands. Luckily my floors are all cement, painted and varnished, so the damage was not too severe.

Slowly but surely the hole became bigger, and the two builders shakier. I don't think they had thought that the wall was that thick, and the heap of stones building up outside the window was becoming like a small mountain. But they manfully struggled on, and when Friday came they were eager to get paid for the week, and make for the liquor shop, to get a 'papsak', that is a kind of a tinfoil, but not quite so easy to tear, bag that holds three liters of wine, cheap and deadly for the normal stomach, but they were so well seasoned that they just get very happy.
I asked them if I will see them on Monday, and both immediately became very shy, and like two naughty schoolboys, stood scratching the ground with the toes of their shoes, and looking well passed my eyes, they very solomnly promised that I will not be disappointed, as they meant to be in on Monday. Of course I had no hope of them being fit  to come in, and after they worked for Jan, and wasn't at work on any one Monday, I just laughed and told them not to drink out their children's food money, and have a good rest, and to go slow on the pot.
Almost all of the men smoke pot, but it is just one of those things, and as long as there is no stronger drugs involved, we except it, as that is so much part of their life.
It was a week-end from hell, as the house was so dusty, and I had to clamber over the furniture to get to my television, but Jan came and brought it into the front room. Nice.
On Monday there of course was no sign of the two, neither was there on Tuesday. On Wednesday I was just starting to give up hope, and did a bit of quiet swearing, when I saw the two come ambling down the road, both a little bent, and both looking well under the weather. They looked at me with yellow miopic eyes, and explained with much gusto that the stones they had taken out the previous week had buggered their backs, and on saying this they got a bitty more bent-up, and, they groaned, that is why they were absent the first two days of the week.When I told them that they looked a bitty sozzled still, they sagged even more, and said that they had to take in a lot of wine before the back aches were feeling better, and I did believe them, about the back aches, as the stones they had taken out were enormous.
I made them a strong coffee, and they sat outside on my little bench, lamenting in whining voices about their poor backs, but as the biggest stones were already out, I turned a deaf ear, and before long the two were working away quite happily.
The picture is of the heap of stones, now much deminished, and overgrown, as I had laid a garden path with most of it.

As I was dying from hayfever, and needed a gasmask to go into my house, with the two builders grinding away with gusto, I cladded myself with about five layers of clothing, as it was freezingly cold outside, and sat down in Charmaine and my lean-to that we had put up on the back of the house. I had started a painting of Irma's cat Nina some time ago, but with bringing up baby, and helping to pick up the pieces of my son and his family's broken lives, I had almost put it on the never-never. But things were a wee bit brighter , and as the baby had to stay with his dad while the grinding goes on, and finding myself with nothing to do, I thought it a good idea to finish said painting.
At last all the stones that had to come out were exposed, and I was alarmed at the size of most of it, and had grave doubts of this two men actually finishing the job.
But, I underestimated their wine and pot beleaguered bodies, as after some hard chipping around one enormous stone, it was ready to come out, and with bodies almost doubled up, and legs shivering like jellies, they managed to get it out, and carried it out and onto my front lawn. After that they asked for coffee, and sat down under the Oak, and soon the overwhelming smell of their pot blew downhill, and into my nostrils.
It was very difficult to carry the large stones through the house, so we decided that they would take the window in that room out, and shove everything through there. Then he had to first put in a lintil where the stone was taken out, so they chipped away the mortar to the sides, which was at the height of where the top of the door would be.
I was beginning to have a thin ray of hope, as at least, if they couldn't go any further, I thought I could put ladders on both sides and crawl through to the bathroom! Joke!
On Friday when they finished for the week-end, the hole was big enough for me to actually walk into the bathroom, but I was too scared in case the whole kaboedel collapsed onto my head. So I still did my running up and down in the freezing cold, but knowing that after all this time my lavvy and bathroom would actually be part of my house, made this just a wee bitty better.
The top picture is of the giant old Oak under which my two builders had their pot smoking sessions daily, the other one is of my painting that is still not completely finished.

Knowing from experience on just how hard the plastering was, I did not envy Johnny's helper, whose name I never managed to catch, his job of chipping it off the stones. I have tried umpteen times to drill holes to put up some paintings, without success, as I think the plaster was just as hard as the stones itself. But he manfully laboured on with Johnny watching him like a hawk, very cool and calm, why his labourer sweated and suffered.
But after the first morning had passed, without much of and indent into the plaster, the two sat conferring under the oak tree, and as the wind blew strong smells of pot down to my house, I knew that they were indulging in a favourite passtime of a lot of villagers, and only hoped that Johnny would have the guts after inhaling this to help the other one, as it was indeed backbreaking work.
But after lunchtime none of the two were any good, and although their spirits were sky high, and they talked and laughed a lot, not much was accomplished, and I was starting to think about also having them in the mornings only.
The second morning things looked bad, as the plaster was like rock, so Johnny said he would ask Jan for his big electric grinder, and he would try to first get some starting place from where they could then do the chipping. I ran for old bed sheets and plastic building sheets to cover my furniture, as this grinder made one big cloud of dust. I also took baby Emil over to Jan, as it was impossible to keep him with me, as he was already sneezing and wheezing, and they had only started.
It wasn't long before everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, including the two builders, who looked very strange with their tight curls all grey, and their yellow eyeballs peeping from between their powdered lashes.
The grinder was a big help, and it wasn't long before the stones became exposed, and I started having doubts of this two slightly built men getting the huge boulders out.
When lunchtime came I made them a good lunch, and some strong and sweet coffee, and told them not to smoke such a lot of pot, as I was not going to pay for them having a social afternoon while the work didn't get any further.
The rocks in the pictures were the first to come out, and I stated making a rockery, as I could not move it from where the two men had put it.