Baby Emil was growing fast, and he was just the happiest wee thing ever. he just breezed through the teething horrors, never loosing one night's sleep so far, and sometimes I thought that God knew what kind of a kid to give us, as he slept through from about his sixth week. I was no spring chicken anymore, and if he was a bad sleeper I would have had a hard time coping. During the day now he had his nanny Berty, and he now slept at his own house, as we did not want him to feel that he belonged with me, and not with his family.
But sometimes it was hard to not cry when I watched him being so happy, and knowing that he was missing out on a mother's love. So very sad!
He still slept with me three nights a week when Jan and Andreas had karate practice, and it was to him the biggest joy to just chuck everything out of my chest of drawers, and sometimes he would sit in the cot with a pair of stockings or some other underwear around his neck, playing with whatever he could get hold of.
He was now nearing his first birthday, and had started to walk, and poor old Berty had her hands full running after him. He is a strange little thing, never playing with any of his toys, and when he and Berty went for a walk, he would pick up stones and sticks, which he then brought home, and beware the person who wanted to take it away from him! The cutest for me was when he came struggling over the rough piece between our houses on his wee wobbly legs, then gave me a huge smile before making for the cooky tin, saying 'mum, mum', that meaning food in Danish. Strange that nobody now spoke Danish since Nina died, but this baby called food 'mum' since he started talking. he would then clamber on the chair next to my work table, and stand there having his cooky!
 I had decided to take out all the grass on my home garden ground, as maybe that way I could get rid of the mole crickets. Not an easy task, as I have been neglecting my garden a lot since the tragedy, as looking after baby Emil that first seven or eight months took up a lot of my time. My lawns both back and front were now quite dead, and I could roll it up like a carpet, the larvae of the cricket moles having feasted so well on the roots that the grass died. Since I had lost my beautiful vine and two other shrubs because of the moles, I have declared a new war on them, but whether I would walk out as the winner was another story.
In the meantime Bush, my Zimbabwian neighbour, had decided that he would taxi people to Uniondale on Saturday mornings, and it was delightful to watch him washing and polishing this by now quite battered old car before picking up his passengers!
. I don't even think that he had a driver's license yet, and to see him pull away with grass and dirt flying in all directions, made me quite anxious about his passengers. His car was looking good when he first bought it, but after he landed in a few ditches and had a few bumps, it did not look so good anymore.

I have now managed to get all the big stones out from the heap of rubble that was dumped in front of my sitting room's window by the builders that had made the door from the main house into the bottom rooms. When I first bought the house of course, I had to leave the safety of my house, and run down to the built on part for a bath, or to use the toilet. That was not very convenient, but most of all it was unsafe, as there is quite a lot of burglaries in the village, and I was very far from other people.
Later when Irma came to live in her house, and then Jan and Nina, I felt a bitty more safe, but as their living space and bedroom was on the other side of their house, they wouldn't have heard me scream anyway.
But as nobody would dare to break through the half meter stone wall, I had to be content with living like that, and as I was only home during the summer, I left it for the time being.
But then when Nina died, and I couldn't go back to Scotland, I became desperate, as Haarlem is one of the coldest places in South Africa. Not having a door meant that I had to lock the small baby in the main house, then legged it down to the bathroom, then lock that door, and sprint back to the front door, which I had to unlock first, and if I had a shower, I was frozen to a lolly by the time I was back in the house again. The baby of course was my wee grandson who was only five weeks when his mum died in a motorcar crash.
So when Jan found a builder to close part of his veranda, I asked him whether he saw his way open to do my door, and he was full of confidence, and I less so, but he made a pretty good job of it. Of course he and his helper worked beautifully until lunchtime, when they would smoke a lot of pot, and after that everything was scew, so Jan had told them to only work till one, as they had to break down anything built after their lunch the next day.
But this heap of rubble was a sore eye, and I decided to make a rockery, first by burying the pieces of rubble underneath the sand, then use some of the rocks I managed to take out, and pack a kind of round shape. But first I made some steps, as I would need to get to my window now and then. It was no easy task, as the holes inbetween all this pieces of rubble were infested with mole snakes, and although they are not poisonous, it is very disconcerting when an enraged foot long snake suddenly crawls from some hole, and wriggled crossly straight towards ones feet. Landed on my backside a few times, and could only laugh at myself. But darn it, I may work like a man, but I am after all still a woman!

My lawn, actually my had been lawn, was now just a piece of soil with here and there a tuft of grass waving forlornly in the Haarlem breeze. I have been to every shop within a radius of a hundred and forty kilometers, and even tried Capetown, all to no avail. According to the garden experts, this Cricket Moles are quite a new pest in South Africa, and everybody is running around with their hands in their hair trying to find a way to destroy the little pests. Well I have now tried just about everything that came to my mind, all with no avail, and have decided to plant the whole piece of where the lawn used to be with Agapanthus, as it didn't look as though the larvae could destroy their roots.
Some days I think I looked very peculiar, as with me trying to flush the things out of their tunnels, the ground became soggy and muddy, and I usually had a few plonks in the mud! That made me so angry that I talk in strange tongues, shouting words to the heavens that my children would not believe I even knew!
It was during one of this periods, me having had quite a few dives into the sticky mud, as I have a lot of clay patches, and my clean hair standing in all directions, caked with mud, and my nerves a wee bit on the raw side, that somebody called me from the gate.
I gave a grumble like very heavy thunder, as usually it was somebody wanting money, supposedly for food, but in reality all the money they can lay their hands on went for the drink. There were just a few people in the village who were complete alcoholics, while the rest work on the farms, but the drukards could be a nuisance. The others do drink over week-ends, but they are not alcoholics.
At the gate was a small woman, the flesh on her face like pieces of dough stuck on the bones, with dark spots all over, and she was smiling merrilly at me with a pair of swollen lips, far outdoing the new botox lips of Meg Ryan and Angelina Jolie. Their was only one tooth that I could see, and I must say, the sight of that face was not a nice thing to see.
But what caught my attention was the dirty towel around her body, with something very much resembling the shape of a small baby underneath.
The other woman with her saw my eyes staying on the shape, and she started telling me about this woman's hardship without a husband, but the toothless one was not happy with that, and told her in no uncertain way to shut her mouth. She then tried to turn so that I couldn't see the baby, and begged me for a vyf randjie (five rand) for a rookdingetjie( something to smoke)
I told her shortly that I am not giving her anything for drink or cigarettes, but I demanded to see the baby. She knew that I would go bonkers if she was so paralitically drunk, walking around with such a small wee thing, as I have given a few of them hell before this, and news travelled far and fast between the villagers.
When at last she capitulated and showed me the baby I was aghast, as it was the tiniest, maybe a few days old wee thing, with a head of tight curly hair almost smothering it.
I gave her some milk and a few of Emil's clothes that was meant for another baby, and told her to come back, as I will get blankets and clothes for the poor little thing from other women with babies that had outgrown them. She was not very happy, and stumbled on up the road, and kept on looking back and making remarks about the suinige mense (stingy people) in this village!

Coming home was always nice, and I was by this time only too well prepared for all the beasties  that would lie in wait for me to return. Usually the spiders were busiest, and one kind spun the most awesome webs that hung down like silky curtains. But when I was only gone for a short time it was not too bad.
This time however I had burned poisonous sticks called fumi-tabs, as the small field mice had just about taken over my roof, and that being thatch, it was disastrous. They pull out great tufts of thatching, and after a while it started leaking, as if I did not already have enough leaks!
So even though I was prepared for a lot of goggas having been killed, I was still shocked and sad on seeing the spiders that had also died. I love the big rain spiders that grew about as big as my hand. They are quite harmless, and I usually have a few watching me at night with their black eyes. I never removed them, as they catch the mosquitoes and during the day also the flies, and my house is almost pest free.
But I was delighted the next day when I noticed one humongous spider in my bathroom, and then one in the bedroom!
I was horrified on walking around my house even before going in, to see if all was well, when I noticed something strange at the one window. I have very thick iron bars that was installed into deep holes being drilled into the walls, then filled with cement again. It was very well done, and I knew that the bars were too strong to be easily broken. But somebody had tried to remove the bars by hacking away at the cement, making huge holes, but as the glass of the window was intact, and the window still closed securely, I knew that their effort was in vain, although, as the bars were quite loose, I thought that they might have been inside. However, on closer inspection, everything was just as I left it, although I saw marks on my front door, showing that they also tried there.
As I had to stay longer than intended, I was afraid that my garden would be ruined, but it must have been quite cool, as my veggies were all still standing up straight, with two butternuts ready to pick, and dozens of cherry tomatoes hanging like beautiful jewels from their stems. Oh, my heart just sang with the joy of coming home to the peace and tranquility of Haarlem.
Of course that Saturday night, like every other one, Haarlem was not so very tranquil. Saturday night is the playtime for the hardworking fruit pickers, and as we have something like twenty six shabeens (illegal drinking houses) in the tiny Haarlem, the people were walking from place to place looking for fun. As they were all nicely sozzled by two or three in the morning, and by nature not shy to raise their voices, and use the most obscene language, and laugh wildly at their own jokes, it made for quite a noisy night. And all that coupled with the excited barking and howling of all the many dogs that were all running on ropes, and the screaming of Sheila's bally peacock, it was useless to even try and sleep.
But I loved living there, a bit out of the village, down at my lovely river, where the frogs sang their throaty songs to lull me to sleep!

I had to go to Capetown for a wedding, but was reluctant to leave just at this time, as the fruit was all ripe, and my tomatoes had just started to go red. To me it is such a big schlep to leave my garden that I had worked so hard in, and spent so much time just when it was time to harvest.
I have told my kids that the past Xmas was the last time that I would go to them, as the apricots and plums ripened in December, and this past Xmas I had lost all my plums, and could only salvage a small amount of ripening apricots before I left, and couldn't make enough jams and chutneys to last the whole year. I always keep a few jars or friends and family who came to visit. Was a teeny bit upset!
The wedding was nice, as it was a bit otherwise, the service not held in a church as is the custom, but in a gazebo in a park. The wind was a wee bit nasty, and just when they had to state that they would love, honor and obey, a gust flared up, almost lifting the gazebo, and the loving couple, into the air.
It was also a sad weekend, as one of my oldest, and most loyal friends died, leaving quite a big gap in my life, and instead of rushing home on Monday, I stayed till Wednesday for the funeral.
I thought that all my veggies would be dead as doornails from heat and thirst, but they lived up to the hardship, and survived beautifully, and I harvested a huge amount of cherry tomatoes that were beautifully red!
While in Capetown, my son got fed-up with me and my old brick of a fone, and he bought me a new touch screen, evil looking machine! After sitting with me for ages, trying to drum all the mysteries of this thing into my brain, I told him that I was sorry, but did not understand a word of what he said. I did understand something here and there, even managed to send a whassup or whatever message to the family, but of the other wonders of this bally thing I understood zilch!
Now I am home, and I am as mixed up as a bally smoothy, and I think the poor fone's tin brain must be even worse! Then the bally thing decided to ring, and although Jan had shown me how to answer it, I forgot to press on the wee fone sign, then drag it to the middle. After the sixth time, I was really harrassed, and screamed at this thing that I was tired of its ........., and going to smash it on the ............ wall, not knowing that Trienkie had in the meantime given the fone to her youngest for a minute when the doorbell went!
So!!!! Jan believes his mum is stupid, Trienkie is very, very cross with me, as her three year old Stephan loved my language so much that he is walking through the house chanting the naughty words over and over!
But, I am sure that sometime soon I will master this evil thing, but for the time being I put my sym card in the old fone if I want to send a txt message!!