On top of all my sorrows with the moles, peacocks, rats, cows, pigs, and a lot more, the Housemartins had decided while I was away, that my thatching is just the thing to built their nests from! I got home to find that the rain had poured in at a few different places, where there never was a leak. It took me the best of two days to get all the mouldy things cleaned, and had to throw away some of the bedding, as it was unusable.
 I couldn't understand why it suddenly leaked at this new spots, but the next day I went to open the gate in order to go shopping, when my eyes caught some movement on the roof. It was two Housemartins plucking away lustily at the thatching, and I almost hyperventilated when I saw the huge gaping spots where they had already removed the thatch! I went to the co-op for help, but they had no solution, so I bought a can of foam spray that is sprayed in gaps when windows or such things don't fit properly.
So weaponed with this, I put up the ladder, which was a bitty rickety, the ground not very even, and sprayed the foam into the holes on the side of the house where the roof was low enough to reach. The front was a different story, as it was very high, and I just do not have the guts of five years back when I put the ladder on a table to reach the highest spots. I tried a few times, but every time the ladder wiggled a bit, my heart almost stopped, so after a while I aborted that effort, and decided to spray the foam from the ground, as I found that this can sprayed to the top of the roof on the side I did first. It did not work, so I tried to stand on the ladder just under the roof, and spray blindly, hoping to find the target! Bally great mess! Some of the foam got caught by the overhanging thatch, and low and behold, a huge piece dropped on my just washed head!
Now that was a disaster, as this stuff did not dissolve in water, so I ran for the turps, which did not do the trick either. I decided to wait until the stuff was dry, and then try to get it off, which was a big mistake, as it grew to an enormous size when it started to expand, and I had to cut off all the hair that the stuff stuck to. Must say, there is quite a resemblance between my tattered hairstyle, and my tattered roof!
Joy was glad when I got back, she is my new neighbour, as she had to lock herself in as soon as dusk fell, being scared of the thugs always prowling for somewhere to do their mischief.. Over the week-end, on our country's freedom day, an eighty seven year old nun was raped and murdered, her hands binded with her rosary. Darn it, it is twenty years since the new government took over, and when something like this happens, the nun's fate is nothing to the world, as the poor man who did it was so disadvantsged, and I bet my sox on the fact that he will be out in a few months!
The top picture shows my new beigbour, then just how pretty my garden is, and on the bottom one some of the damage the birds did can be seen.

It rained a lot while I was away, and all the small stones I used to fill up gaps in my little stone path had been washed out, making it quite a journey to get to the back garden via the kitchen door. The Jerusalem artichokes was in full bloom, and my garden looked lovely! It is nice to be home, and I think it might be quite some time before I drive all that way on my own again.
I was driving quite merrilly along this quite lonely road, when between a village called Ladismith, and the next one called Barrydale, my car's engin just suddenly stopped running. And I mean just that, as there was not even a click when I turned the key. I was devastated, as it was on one of the loneliest stretches on this road, with miles and miles of small brown shrubs and reddish brown stones scattered willy nilly inbetween. And it was hot, like in about 38 celcius, the sun one big whitish ball burning down mercilessly.
When I found that there was no reception for my cell phone, my cup ran over, as I now had to walk about three hundred meters to be out from between the two small hills on both sides. Not a wise thing to do, as there are such a lot of crime in South Africa nowadays, that a woman alone is in a precarious spot if alone and walking on such a lonely road. I assesed the situation, and realised that the car would actually run back if given a small push, and in that way I could hopefully get out from between the mountains, and get reception. So I trien sitting in the car and get it running by pushing with my foot, but in the end I had to get out, give a push, then dived back in. Almost a wee disaster, me not that fast anymore, and the diving back in not at all easy, but got the car reversing quite nicely down the small rise.
I then had reception, and phoned Trienkie, as Stephan and she had the particulars of my insurance, because my lovely son in law insisted on paying that for me. So I left all to them, the reception not of the best, and sat in the small bit of shade that the car made. A white Toyata truck stopped, an I started hyperventilating, as I was very, very scared. But out got two women, and asked me if I needed help. As I had word from Trienkie that they were doing their best to get a tow truck to me as soon as possible, the one woman gave me a paper with her cell number, and said that I must phone her if I needed a place to sleep, as she had an extra bed.
I was very thirsty, as I had planned to buy something to drink at the next village, so the woman, whose name was Wilma, gave me a small bottle with water, and they left. I was by now burning up, as only part of me fitted in the car's shadow, and was feeling very sorry for myself, when back came Wilma, with a big plastic bottle filled with ice cold water, a yogurt, and an apple. I was so thankful, and when she told me that she and her little boy would stay with me until the tow truck came for me, I was very much amazed. Wilma worked at the church as she is a social worker, and they look after the farm kids, whose parents are all drinking too much, and neglecting their offspring. And this says a lot for South Africans, as I am a white woman, and Wilma is a coloured woman, the result of marriages between the old Dutch who came to South Africa in 1652, and the khoi people then living here. There was as yet no black people living in South Africa at that stage.The press always depicts the different races here as hating each other, but there is indeed a lot of goodwill.
 After about four hours the tow truck arrived, Wilma and self said goodbye, and I promised to have tea with her on my way back. I was then taken to Swellendam, about one hundred kilometers away, where I slept in a guest house, and resumed my journey the next morning, my car having been fixed.

A bitty tired, but safely home! Had to drive to cape Town, which is six hundred kl away, as Trienkie my youngest sprout, with a hubby and two boys, had nobody to look after the kids during the school holidays. She does have a fantastic black woman named Angelina who usually looks after them, but as it was Easter, she wanted to go to a big church gathering for the week. And seeing that she never asks for time off, or come late for no reason, Trienkie asked if I would come.
Cape Town, like the rest of the country have a hard time marrying the western and black cultures, and it is very hard for me with a Europian upbringing to understand the way Africa thinks. Like on the day that Jan brought me back to Trienkie's house after I have spent a few days with him and Erna and the kids. We saw the smoke billowing into the sky, but had no idea what it could be, until we got closer. The street leading out of the suburbs and into the city was blocked with tyres heaped upon each other, and then put on fire! It was a horrible scene of smoke and flames and angry people, with the policemen standing on watch. What was very noticable was all the taxis standing parked around the scene, so we assumed that it was another taxi war, which indeed it was.
As all the taxis wanted this part of the suburbs as their chief pick up place, there was such a congestion that the city had decided to zone the areas, and of course the ones taken out of the biggest hub was not at all happy with this state of affairs, so they decided to block off the roads so that the ones doing bussiness there could not get out! To me it seems so stupid, but a lot of blood had been shed in the past because of this taxi wars going on and on. One year a lot of taxi drivers, and a lot more innocent passengers were killed, and it took a long time to stabilize the industry again.
We then had to turn around and take another route that was twice as long, and made Jan hours late for his conference!
Trienkie and Stephan are both in full time jobs, and that was why I decided to treat them to a garden make over! Trienkie was delighted, and we drove to the nursery for plants, but Stephan, who hates working with his hands, just snorted and left the scene mumbling to himself. I think he thought that he would have to do all the work, but I soon put his soul at rest, and told him that he was really not expected to do anything. I think if you don't like gardening, you can't be made to like it, so I started digging!
I told them that I would murder them if I came back from Jan, and everything was dead from lack of water, and appointed my six year old grandson to see to it that my newly planted stuff were watered regularly. He did, and Trienkie laughingly told me that every evening he told them to go and water his Ouma's plants! In the bottom picture, I think they were contemplating sending the interfering old Mama back home!!!!
But my own garden looked wonderful after all the rain we had while I was away! Just a wee bitty overgrown with weeds!