Had a bit of a set to with Sheila again! Across from me there is an empty plot belonging to Jaque and Mitzi, who live in Germany, but come to Haarlem every year for three months. As on this plot there is nothing but an old Oak tree and grass, Sheila was grazing her cows there every day, and this cows leave a nice little present in the form of some really good heaps of manure. As the time went on, this heap grew and grew, and as nobody took it away, I thought it a good plan to collect some for my ever hungry plants.
I had Nickey, a really pathetic human being, who is always on a high from drink and cannibis, but at least he is quite trustworthy, for the day, so I instructed him to take a few bags and collect us some manure. Nickey you have to watch all the time, otherwise he would just loiter around, srubbing here, and poking there, without a trace of any work having been done, So With one eye on what I was doing, and the other on Nickey, who was listlessly scooping the manure into the bags, I could shout at him the moment he sat down, or start a conversation with a friend passing by. And he can be very, very cheeky, asking me why he can't even have a wee talk to a friend. His talks mean leaning casually on his spade or hoe, or against the fence, and if I do not remind him to work, he would easily wile away half an hour at a time. As gardeners get paid by the hour, I feel it only fair to keep him working, as he gets ten minutes to drink a coffee on arriving, then fifteen minutes for tea at ten, and an hour for lunch, which I have to pay him for.
So, with me shouting reminders to stand upright, and stop talking, he eventually had three big bags filled, and with great effort and a lots of moans and groans, the manure was pulled into my gate. Then I went inside, after telling him what he had to do for the day, and telling him to take out the weeds, and not my flowers again, which he constantly does. He just gave me a kind of a jaundiced eye, and grumbled that I don't have to tell him again, as he knew what to take out, and what to leave!
About an hour later poor Nickey appeared in the kitchen door, his face a greyish white colour, and told me that Sheila's Grietjie, the maid, had come to tell him that Sheila was getting the police because he stole her manure! It took a cup of strong sweet tea to calm him down, but it took a long time to convince him that Sheila can not get the police, as the manure was on somebody else's plot!
I called Grietjie and asked her to inform Sheila that she she owed me much more than three bags of poop for all the damage her cows, goats, peacocks and chickens had done to my stuff in the past. So now we are at war again, and it was a bitty sad, as after the cow fell into my sewerage, we did not gave one another the time of day for a long time, and was just starting to nod stiffly at each other in the passing!