SEWEWEEKSPOORT: A BRIEF HISTORY OF MY VISIT!

Mr. Chairman, it’s all about the poort.

A poort is an Afrikaans term for a narrow traverse through a mountain range, usually following a river course. One such is Seweweekspoort, the naming of which is somewhat shrouded in mystery.

In my working life, we tried to keep meetings short i.e. brief. But, to emphasize our intent, we coined the term “brevit”, Mr. Chairman. At least it’s one letter shorter than “brevity”!

So Poort it is from hereon in, just to be “brevit”.

The southern entrance to the poort is via the R62, that picturesque route to Zoar and Amalienstein, about 20km from Ladismith on the way toward Calitzdorp. These little dorpies in themselves are seldom-mined repositories of small-settlement beauty. Try them!!

The idea was to explore the beauty of the poort while also assessing the accommodation options along it’s route. It runs from the R62 northwards for about 27 km where the road eventually splits. A left turn takes you to Laingsburg while the right turn takes you to the Gamkapoort Dam.

The latter area also includes the SANPARKS site of Boschluiskloof which I had visited many years ago. The name Gamkapoort also indicates that this area is related to the well-known Die Hel, a common name for the Gamkaskloof in the Swartberg mountain range to the east.

The latter description, if you have previously enjoyed driving the Swartberg Pass, will intimate to you what you could expect on this meander.

Once you turn off the R62, the mountains framing the entrance to the poort is a grand sight. And, as you slowly drive toward it, you will see a few ruins on the right-hand side, these being the toll-keepers residence.

So, for all you younger folk complaining about toll roads, remember that this is an old institution in terms of fleecing you. Or, from a different viewpoint, raising funds to maintain the road. Note: SANRAL had nothing to do with this.

As the mountains start peering down at you, you will cross the Seweweekspoort River for the first of many times. The Afrikaans term kronkelpad so aptly describes the drive i.e. switching back on itself many times.

The grand Seweweekspoort Mountain is the highest in the Swartberg range at 2 236 metres above sea level. It stands out as you slowly traverse, because you should travel slowly, the nooks and crannies of the poort.

Of course, the vegetation takes on a new look when compared to the flatlands along the R62. Trees and bushes come to life, adjacent to the river as well as on the ever-steepening cliffs, overhangs and baby gullies and canyonlets branching off.

Each switchback brings new vistas while some blind curves calls for cautious driving. Huge rock overhangs abound, in some places affording brief shade. The whole drive has numerous picnic spots to stop and breathe in the spectacular scenery.

Instinctively I started looking for leopard, even while knowing that it is unlikely that this cat would show itself willingly. Fat, healthy-looking dassies (Hyrax capensis) dart about furtively on the passing cliff and warm rocks. I suppose they are also aware of the threat posed by leopards and bigger flying raptors.

Thirteen kilometres into the drive we arrived at our accommodation (Aristata), which is named after a rare species of protea, viz. Protea aristata. At this point, I must point I must point out that our initial plan was to sample different accommodation offerings in the poort. We were surprised to find out that Aristata was the only one. So much for forward planning, né.

Suffice to say that Pietie and Lena Van Rooy, caretakers of the lodgings, turned to to be originally from Prince Albert. Salt of the earth as they were, they further proved a font of knowledge about the poort and it’s history.

It resulted long conversations about their lifestyle. These included once a month shopping in Ladismith, grafting lemon and orange trees, planting cherries and figs as well as Lena tending and expanding a flowering garden of note.

A perennial spring originates about 200 meters up the immediate mountainside which supplies all the water, including some of which is used to drive a small hydroelectric pump to supplement the existing solar panels and batteries. And the big pool was kept refreshed with this natural source.

Pietie’s enthusiasm for his crusade again nst drugs and alcohol in his community, as far-flung as they are, was only matched by his love if his job. This included dragging a 5 000 litre Jojo tank, with his wife and two sons, about 200m up the mountainside, carrying materials up for the base and channelling the water the natural mountain spring to feed it.

While staying there, the only sounds you hear are birds, some traffic rumbling through and the sounds of other guests and their children. Sounds for the soul!

As you drive further northwards in the poort, with a slight incline, toward the fork indicating the end, the roaring walls climb high and higher above you. The sandstone walls are gnarled and ruffled like a blanket carelessly thrown on bed.

Some acknowledgement to a previous form of communication in this area are the lonely telephone poles, now sans the once ubiquitous cables. Like sentinels, similar to the half-mens tree (Pachpodium namaquanum), watching the unchanging landscape

More silent waterfalls were encountered, drifting down towards us. Silent because, for the season, the small stream of water was wind-blown and landed as a mist and a dribble on the wet rocks below.

It occurred to me that an entrepreneur could take advantage of all this. The unique selling point would be a tour on a flat-bed truck with mattresses on the back. You could then recline and look straight upwards to view the magnificent passing show. How wonderful that would be! I’ll take 10% of the proceeds if you start it.

Driving back toward Aristata gives you a second, yet different view, of the poort. It almost signifies the busy life to which you will return in a day or two. Since there is so much to see, at least two traverses of the poort is recommended.

Arriving at our cottage after a couple of hours in the heat and dust was such a pleasure. We stayed in a cabin named Kiepersol, the other two being Aloe and Keurboom.

Interestingly, kiepersol refers to the cabbage tree, which was named tree of the year of 1987. The name originated from a legend about a lone towering tree in the African savanna.

During the Boer War of 1900, some England soldiers who had seen a lion, ran toward this tree shouting Kiepersol. Years later, the Boers realized the soldiers were actually yelling, “we hope the tree will ‘keep us all’”.

And so we said our sad farewells to the Van Rooy family, Aristata and the beautiful poort. We had made new friends and seen nature at it’s beautiful, peaceful best.

I suspect the poort has its own force of gravity since it was difficult to keep driving back to reality. Yet, until today, there is an attraction that makes us know our next visit is not too far away.

NOW WHEN LAST DID MY MIND FREEWHEEL?

When I first started putting convoluted and somewhat nutty thoughts to paper (wellll,you know what I mean), it was early 2020 in the Common Error.

Year 1 of retirement, month 1 of the impending COVID 2019 pandemic and my first experience of being told: “……with immediate effect” by an older bloke looking at two screens intermittently to intonate, because he does not speak.

Jirre, does that not irritate you? People reading off screens what they should be able to tell you from the heart without hesitation and technical assistance?

And whatever gibberish being told should at least come with “expression” i.e. with voice modulation, facial expression changes, appropriate gestures and the occasional curse or swear word!

My bliksem, even our most ordinary train preachers (when trains were running smoothly) could teach this git a thing or three.

Anyway, in the interest of progressing with my train of thought, which now also runs irregularly lately (and late, sometimes), let me make progress.

So, I was thinking, which I often do with great risks attached, about my life and all the things I have non-achieved, under-achieved, un-achieved or just plain chieved!

Like my handkerchief! It is definitely not something about which to think fondly, firstly because in my younger years, I had an irritable set of sinuses (do they come in pairs because I am bilaterally symmetrical?). So let’s rather leave that one. Or both.

No, I was cogitating about things I have not completed in life. One was a PhD due to many reasons, none of which was my fault. It was always somebody else or something else that led to this aberrant breakdown in the academic stream of life. But I am happy with it.

Now, this line of thought could also become a bucket list, but no! This is not that! I would not pull that trap. And it has nothing to do with my little red donkey. Only older folk will know what I’m talking about.

My singing career is another blot on my life’s landscape. Who knows where I could have been in the entertainment firmament if my voice did not break at a critical point. There I was, striving to sing bass with the manne, while what was emitted from my breathing pipes and voice box was the sound of a “wee, cowering, tim’rous beastie”. Yodeller supreme, eventually!

And then there was my nascent soccer career starting in primary school. I figured I was a left winger, not because of my undeveloped political leanings, but because I was a bit of oddball. I was right-handed, yet left-footed!? Go figure!

My brain wiring was mixed up from a young a young age, even though my corpus callosum was pretty normal. Not “pretty” in the normal sense since, if you dug your fingers in there, you would only experience a soft, gooey mess of stuff, very likely grey, but not like Gray’s anatomy. And I said that without even having met Gray!!

I finagled my way into the appropriate soccer team while in Grade 6 (Standard 4 in old-speak). In the process of “finagling”, I inadvertently ended up in the rugby queue (kwê, according to an aficionado).

It was only when they weighed us that the realisation dawned that this was not for me. Nobody laughed as I left that kwê, even though the scale only registered a few pounds and a smattering of ounces. This was pre-metrication or matriculation… Who cares?

My first and second matches were totally in keeping with my timid make-up and even timider build i.e. much ado about nothing. I did however get one swipe at goal where the ball did not move while my foot gracefully glided (glid?) Over it, followed by my other foot, with my butt landing in the sand! That career stopped there.

Listen, I was not a total bumfluff at sport. I played much squash and did much cycling, all of which went nowhere but which was accompanied by significant fitness, later used for hiking and meeting a bevy of beautiful women, something which Bev did not mind too much.

One of main failings was my short attention span i.e. about 20 seconds. I think. I often found myself flitting, or bumbling (choose your poison), from one interesting topic to another. When PCs became a thing, my previous HoD helped me in this direction. I just liked the logic related to programming. Fortunately, the speed of the cutting edge in this field left me in its wake in short shrift.

One thing I did finish, and with great pleasure, was a short course in Science Communication. I did reasonably well at it due to my maturity (read years in the field, not intelligence). Yet, it is still unfinished, since I did not pursue it further.

Oh well, jack of some trades, master of none (except the MSc), made me who I am. As the description says:

“...a retired would-be academic of no particular consequences in the universe…”

The donkeys think differently if me though! And that’s my biggest kick!! Donate to an animal sanctuary near you.

VERANDA OBSERVATIONS & MUSINGS!

In Afrikaans, there is a wonderfully descriptive word viz. kaskenades. This term covers all sorts of japes, comedic interchanges and activities.

So, on a recent road trip, we spent one night at a rural hotel of long standing. What an interesting experience. The title of this piece should more correctly read STOEP KASKENADES!

The hotel is “old”, as in its design, size, frontage and its old-stylishness. Wooden floors, high ceilings in dark corridors with beautiful fittings and oddments of antique furniture. It just exudes “coolness”, both in terms of temperature and attitude, when you approach the reception desk.

After checking in, we repaired to the beautiful stoep facing the main road and large parking lot. The intention was to recharge with cold beverages and eventually dinner. However, we were blessed with a lot more value than just that.

You may have read P.G. Wodehouse and his golfing stories as related by the Oldest Member sitting in the clubhouse? I felt that I played the same role sitting there. So, let’s relate some of these observations from a similar perspective.

I cast my eyes across the parking lot where, under large bluegum trees, there was a gathering of local folk enjoying the Sunday afternoon sun. It was situated right next to a small convenience store.

Loud banging, shouting and bursts of laughter was punctuated by the crowd dispersing and rapidly coalescing again. To the inexperienced eye, this behaviour was reminiscent of a potentially fractious event, possibly ending in bloodshed.

But, my rheumy eyes, being worldly-wise, immediately identified it as a game of dums, otherwise known as dominoes to some genteel folk. A milo is as good as a winning mile in this competitive world.

This was interspersed with loud snatches of modern music, much in line with the young folk of today, I did not need to use my ear horn that often.

An interesting sign in the parking lot told us that the Intercape Bus Liner made its stop here to pick up passengers en route to the next hamlet, or schoolchildren on their way back to boarding school. This threw up a host of interesting folk and interactions.

One such was the appearance of a few young ladies ready for the trek back to school, accompanied by assorted adults. Joining us on the stoep, beverages of different varieties were ordered and quaffed. Not for the two younger ladies though, something upsetting which I would have frowned upon with my grizzly eyebrows .

We were informed that this was standard practice by the locals where the “event” allowed for relaxation, catch-up and communal planning for the week ahead. In between drinks, smaller buses popped in and out, bustling off with more passengers after disgorging others.

The conversation by the stoep folk drifted from the mundane to the serious, interspersed with laughter and ribald ribbing. All the while the dums game carrying on at an increasing volume on the side.

My own reverie was interrupted by our Waiter informing us that the big bus would arrive by 19:00 and it would be accompanied by the hotel supplying pre-ordered victuals for hungry travellers.

Random tour buses also passed through, often allowing passengers to stretch their legs and look around.

By now my eyesight seemed to weaken due to an impending overdose of amber liquid. Simultaneously the volume of the conversation increased slightly, with more animation accompanied by exotic drinks appearing. Were they Jaeger bombs or something along that line?

Suddenly iur Waiter donned an orange bib and armed himself with a short whip as the big bus hove into sight. A mini-deluge of well-mannered wayfarers alighted and, in a quick flurry of activity, collected dinner, used the toilets and left just as quickly.

Suddenly, it was dark, the Waiter was on his way home, the other stoep partners were swayingly making their ways home and we were suddenly left on our own.

Our only company at this point was the Barkeep, sundry folk walking up and down the main road and a couple playing Scrabble. But, not for long, since a car with helium balloons indicating a 16th birthday in progress loudly paraded past us with the hooter announcing the joyous event. Or was it a 61st?

What an exhausting afternoon for one not used to such frenetic activity. But what an entertaining and pleasing one as well. We saw small-town living in a nutshell. Life being lived in a rural setting.

The biggest thing to me, as a city slicker, was the energy and pleasure given and taken from doing what must be done by ordinary people going about their business. None of us were glued to screens, whether a TV or otherwise, yet we enjoyed a swell, mellow day.

Maybe I belong on that stoep more often. Yes, we will be back, maybe to meet the same folk or another set of players along the same storyline.

How interesting!

HOW WE SHIFT THE FURNITURE IN OUR WORLD!

Look, what I want to tell you is but a tiny fraction of a big thing. So, to contextualise it, I will have to pretend to be writing a research proposal, first covering the bigger field and finally narrowing it down to the nub of the point I wish to make.

Sidebar: yitte, I make a small thing big, né. No, no, not that!!!!!!

Everything we do affects the whole web if life, much like the butterfly that stamps its foot. And the effects are often not seen to be linked to the action. And so it goes in terms of our effect our natural surroundings.

I used to cycle a lot!

Sidebar: what does “a lot” mean? It’s such a lazy, catch-all phrase, so let me re-phrase it.

I have cycled over many thousands of kilometres the byways of the Western Cape, including twenty Cape Town Cycle tours, from the time when was originally known as The Argus Cycle Tour.

Now, in my 67th trip around the sun, I spend my time walking, a more sedate but equally refreshing exercise. My routes include my neighbourhood, nature and rough yet pampered slackpacking trails.

Both cycling and walking the roads throw up an interesting phenomenon i.e. the amount of spare parts released by automobiles, some without them even knowing about it.

This includes bolts, nuts, assorted brackets, number plates and suchlike. You could start a second-hand (no, pre-owned) spares shop if everybody did their duty by picking these up and adding to your inventory.

How do these vehicles keep on keeping on? Their efficiencies must be evident to the driver. Should I not see more broken down broken down vehicles on the roadside (repetition intended)?

No, these expendables (it would seem) are a more visible manifestation of what’s left behind. What about exhaust gases (’nuff said) and, more concerningly, tyre material in the atmosphere. Your tyres release materials due to friction in the road, slowly wearing out. Thousands of cars, billions of particles!! What do my lungs do with it?

Ahhhh, maybe that explains, even partially, my over-excitable immune system and its allergic response to the world.

See, small things having major effects without us necessarily linking the two.

I look at the road with new eyes!!

To make amends for it, please support a donkey (or any animal sanctuary) near you!

A HIDDEN GEM IN SAREPTA!

Now of course, all my international readers will not be familiar with the Shire of SAREPTA, Sareptashire to be correct.

It behoves me thus to locate it more geographically as somewhere between Bellville and Kuilsriver, not too far from the railway line, a few churches and a hospital. You get it né? Oh, near Cape Town. Or, for all you GPS users, just type in Suzie’s Restaurant. There you go.

Oh, 27 Joubert Street, SAREPTA, in old-fashioned speak.

Our meeting with the establishment and the couple was due to a familial lunch which had been long-planned. What a pleasure, finally.

Local, reasonably priced, small entrepreneur with an author husband to boot, eclectic furniture decorations and ambience!!! Who needs to go to Barrydale (where we were recently) or Riebeek-Kasteel to experience such.

Of course, the fact that it was ôns mense made it all the more special. Suzie and Willy Mathys made our visit a special event. Of course, our fellow diners, of the Joe Brenda variety, added to the spice.

Now I could go on about the cuisine, but suffice to say that, to Bev, it reminded her of the local cuisine she experienced on a visit to Mauritius a few years ago. Down to earth, value for money in an atmosphere of friendliness and cameraderie enhanced by the waitron and Willie acting as the lubricant between food and mouth.

Are we going there again? Definitely!

By the time if writing, I hard started reading Willy’s book, “Tjerel-Tjend, Wat Praat jy Als? Having just finished two books written in Kaaps by Chase Rhys, I was intrigued by the title. The first few pages has already heightened my appetite for more.

The food was good. The conversation afterwards even better. The friends made, including the identification of “lurkers” amongst us in terms of a Facebook group, knitted the building friendship together.

I can see our return visit being of similar vein. Maybe some Wyn would have been the catalyst for even more and deeper examination of our collective roots.

And, if I had the talent, I would compose and perform a country & western ditty, based on that called Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie. It would be called Suzie’s Restaurant.

Lekkertjies, my mênse, kô ôs doenit wee’!

UNDER THE GREY SOUTH AFRICAN SUN!

A bit of a contradiction in terms, né!

Let me explain the context under which I arrived at that titular epiphany. And no, it is all above the waistline, sunshine! There are no tjêrries in this Bangkok!

The individual factors relate, firstly, to the fact that an old Matric mate of mine passed away yesterday. We had last met at our 40th reunion of our matriculation, not the 40th reunion as such. It was sad from the point of view that we, as a cohort, are entering that phase of our lives. Yet, the comforting thought is that, as one gets older, the thought of shuffling off the old mortal coil becomes less of a threat and more of an accepted inevitability.

This may sound a bit blasé, but it has to be so. I recall my late Mother (Margaret Ann Dolley neé Savona) sitting upright in her hospital bed with the blotchy skin of age and ill-health, looking at us and saying: I am ready to go! I think it was the same evening which the attending Nursing Angel asked me if I am her husband. She had classified me, as far back as then, as in the waiting lounge of my life!

Then, considering the fact that we had been on an upper after a good visit to Seweweekspoort, I woke up this morning to warm, yet grey skies and weather. You know how it is: bright sunshine makes you want/need to arise and shine. But the dull sky inhibited my serotonin (or melatonin) release (you choose your poison)! My limbic system was in a bit of a quandary as to what to do!

And, in the background, upon waking, I heard the dulcet sounds of a movie. This refers to the very soft soundtrack of  Under The Tuscan Sun, one which Bev had been dying to watch again. Based on the nature of the storyline, the volume of the narrative and music was consistently peaceful.

I joined, and the overall effect it had on me was to add to greyness of the day. But this did not last long as the story lightened and the caffeine started perking me up.

Now, the day is beautiful. The initial frenzy of feeding two cats who live here, and two who board here, was overtaken by an omelette-induced soporofism.

I would suspect that dunking the old hoo-haa in the pool later will be the order of the day. I will conduct a pool pit reading to the masses (usually two said cats). Life is good.

Amen, bro’s and sis’s!!

Note: the “old hoo-haa” does not refer to a person!

IS IT THE DECIMALIZATION OF OUR HABITS?

Maybe the question should be whether it is the Americanization (Americanisation?) Of our habits and our spalling as well:-)

You see, it started at the microwave oven, when a sudden, overwhelming urge came over me. I was about to nuke some lifeless organic material and, as is my won’t, immediately dialled in the number of minutes for such.

My primitive reaction kicked in when it showed it as 23 minutes duration. Nope, said the obsessive compulsive part of the part of my brain near the hippocampus (which is not an animal) – change that to 20 minutes! Or any other value rhyming with 10! Or even it’s half-brother (5) would do!!

Another activity where this underlying condition kicks in is when setting the TV volume. And a fixed fact in my life is the size of swimming pool: 9m X 6m! Why not 10m X 5m, for goodness sake. For one (or two), it would have meant some saving on the area of pool cover required as well as chemicals, as expensive as they are!

Strange, né! How DECIMALIZATION has come to rule our anal-ytical thinking. This after the IMPERIAL system of yore foisted on us by the Empire. And also the Empire knowing that the abacus had 10 beads per line. But no, they were only Babylonian nians who did not know much about civilization!!!

Fortunately, when I started primary school, “tens and units” were the order of the day together with a number line, etc. but I won’t go in too deep in this since my maths prowess was the reason I did Maths 1B (emphasis onB) at varsity and not that other highfalutin’ stuff.

So now, people, a bakers dozen usually only associated with eggs and bread rolls in shops. Everything else, thankfully is sold and priced in the metric. But it does prevent the spaza shop and informal sellers from adding the pasella sometimes?

Fortunately, decimalization also means that, if it were not instituted, doing sums (‘Rithmetic) became a little easier, né?

And Ben11 does not sound as good as Ben10, or Eric Eleven Haag.

But anyways, I am happily stuck with my OCD behaviours, including not stepping on the lines between tiles in the mall.

11-4 Good Buddies!

CRICKET AT ST. GEORGE’S PARK IN THE GOORROLDAYZZ!

Watching some cricket this afternoon brought back memories!!

Not just of the cricket, but everything that goes with it. And more so in my school days when we took a bus into town and then walked a stretch to get to the grounds itself.

Now being of an upright, faux puritanical upbringing, this was never done during official school hours. It was weekends or school holidays.

The trip in itself was a story on its own, but this is for another day. If all things were equal and we were monochromatous, that is to say the same colour, there would not have been a need for two busses and a walk. It would just have been a walk up Brickmakerskloof road just about right up to the Park Drive end.

Ok, “our” entrance was the first one as you turned left where the old man selling peanuts greeted you, hoping to make a sale. “Our”, of course, means people of colour. That is to say, the wrong colour in terms the law of the day.

What you see today at the Park Drive end, where the band endlessly belts out music, is luxury compared to the simple banked seating, and also standing area, back in the day.

Nevertheless, this as we spent our time watching the match, almost directly in line with the stumps. This gave us a brilliant view of play where you could just about follow the flight and speed of the ball. The poor sods in the main grandstand, consisting of skin colours with a larger L value than ours, could only see it side on.

How sad for them. All they saw was a big white oke thundering up the wicket to deliver the ball to the big white oke at the other end. For the next fraction of a second, while the ball travelled to the batsman, they did not see a thing. That ball was usuall too fast to track. They just believed there was a ball somewhere between the protagonists.

Their theory was then proven by a run being scored, or a wicket falling. Unlike us!!! We were our own ball-tracking devices. Who needed TV to see it?! Oh, sorry, there was no TV in those days, obviously kept so by an almost totalitarian state in order to control our diet of news and possible lust-inducing movies.

Of course, this was summer with many windy days, but usually quite warm ones. When lunchoen was taken, we had to walk quite a way to the nearest cafe to re-evaluation our calory intake. The stadium catering for people with L tending to zero was pathetic.

Of course, being ourselves, we were experts at the game, even though someone like myself had never played a formal match in my life. Who needed so-called commentators? We were all we needed!

And, of course, we would then retrace our travel route in reverse to get back home. Some days, a parent or two would pitch up toward the end of the day after work.

This resulted in us mollycoddling whoever their lucky spawn was in order to cajole a lift home, usually in an over-full jalopy or two. But that was how people rolled in those days.

I smile to myself as I type this on my device while listening to amazing lunchtime jazz on Fine Music Radio 101.3. Not just listening!! Typing away in time with the music.

Because I am multitudinously ambidexterous like that. And also, we have not been dancing for a few weeks now. It’s quite an experience, especially when the slow foxtrot plays. Try it, with one finger. You may like it and then take up ballroom dancing.

So, with 5-day tests, this process would be repeated whenever all the stars aligned in terms of pocket money, parental permissions, weather and enough pals to make it worthwhile.

Mmmmhhh? I should maybe have have taken up cricket as a full-time occupation. Then again, nah! With my thin legs, a ball at high speed would have broken them, especially if the bowler mistakes them for wickets.

Nowadays, most us watch via TV transmissions. How boring! We laaities did the real thing in real time, you weaklings!!

Like Hagar the Horrible said: Ek wil taai manne hê, manne wat nonsies kan vat! Ek wil getroude manne hê!

That’s how tough we were too, us non-cricketers!

THE LARGEST ORGAN IN, OR ON, YOUR BODY!

Ja, right, I can see where your mind headed when reading the above, purely innocuous, title!

When I was at school, and I am sure you were too, the size of certain organs of one’s body could often result in denigration or admiration. For both males and females of the species, I can only recall one of each that could elicit admiration. However, for both, size considerations were multiple where it could lead to denigration and, in the modern context, bullying or even more.

Think of nose size (some “poor” politicians have run this gauntlet), ear size (Disney comparisons and throwing shade), foot size (mashing potatoes as in “patat trappers“), butt size (comparison to a figure of historic and colonial significance or Kardashians) and tummy size. All of these would be related to ridiculing, sometimes in a familial fashion but mostly in order to humiliate, classify or “other” the recipient.

I suppose other appendages could be appended to this list. However, to avoid being caught in a honey trap, I will leave it to you, dear reader, to extend the list.

Yet, the largest organ, which is the skin, is one which also lends itself to many ways to describe/ disparage/ or mock the owner. Of course, in our somewhat blighted country, we still have vivid memories of how the colour of your skin dictated your expected station in life.

It gave me some pleasure many years ago, during another life, when we were able to procure a colorimeter. This was used to measure the “colour” of different products to enable quantitative comparisons between products of different batches to ensure uniformity of quality.

Now, this field of study is not as simple as it seems. We, ourselves, in person, usually judge colour using our eyes. We accept, sometimes incorrectly, that what we see is what we get, yet is not always so. The “joke” among us was that parameter of colour (the L value) which relates to whiteness (100) or blackness (0). We could use this, in loose scientific conversation, to classify skin colour based on this. A science cognoscenti joke!

Oh yes, skin! Forgot about that. It’s your barrier between you and the rest of the universe. If it were not for skin, you would be similar to, but much larger than an amoeba (or is the singular: amoebum?), oozing all over the the place. So, trying to keep things together in today’s frenetic society would be even more difficult than it is for us “normal” ones.

And, keep in mind that, were it not for the specific shape of the sac you call your skin, each of us would be wildly other-shaped, as opposed to the politically incorrect word: mis-shapen.

For all it’s advantages, only some of which has been covered above, it also has its drawbacks. One such is the changes it undergoes during aging. Yes, you know these changes based on the exploitative “beauty” industries taking advantage of wrinkles, blemishes, sagging due to loss of subcutaneuos adipose tissue and general crêpiness (not crêpes suzette, not creepiness, but maybe that too). Even I, with my young, alabaster, taut skin of yore am undergoing gerontologically negative changes. Yes, it’s now turning to hide (as in tanned animal skin).

My only nod to beauty therapy is, of late, regular pedicures since my pedagogical (or some word similar too that) countenance is not good on the eye. In fact, I think I was once prevented from entering a place of ill repute, either because of my bergvoete, or my relative youth. Not too long ago, for those of you trying to guess my age.

The skin keeps things in (important to survival) and prevents others from entering, very likely harmful to us. UV rays from the sun fry us and also help to generate vitamin D at the same time. And then we have the temerity to start tattooing all over it. Why? To extract revenge?

My skin has no such abnormal markings, beyond vaccinations from years ago, two small scars (a cut and a hernia op) and a war wound obtained during a violent period in my life. Some people insist it is my navel. It naval. Or a type of orange.

Yet, I am held in one piece to this day by a thin layer of living cells, some dead ones which I slough off every day and an array of sensory cells, adipose tissue, specialised organelles (sweat glands, nipples, sebaceous glands, etc.).

I am. My skin says so!!

BIRTHDAYS – AND THE ANOMALIES ATTACHED TO SUCH!

As a kid, birthdays were da bomb!

Well, not entirely using that slang in my day. The obvious reason for birthdays being such had nothing to do with military ordinance. It was more to do with what we as birthdees, which is to say us that were experiencing a birthday, could get out of it.

Yep, it was almost an extractive experience where you would pre-empt the day by psychological grooming, willing the listener to consider parting with considerably large splodges of wonga. In other words, bigger birthday gifts. It sometimes worked.

Yet the biggest wonder for me was that birthdays happen on the calendar day that we were born, mine being the 7th May. And religiously (maybe regularly, rather than religiously) we go through the ritual of celebrating it in one way or another.

And, in actual fact, it’s not your birthday which you celebrate, but rather the annual commemoration thereof. ‘Cos you can’t have a birthday after you pass on, but a …… Ok, don’t wanna repeat myself!!

And yet, some us do not celebrate the commemoration, but ignore it altogether, some for religious reasons and others due to lack of interest. I find that strange but will leave it be on the understanding we all have our own beliefs.

As previously mentioned, the process itself can be seriously extractive depending on your age and gender. The younger you are, the more it matters. I will not comment on the gender aspect since I do not have my body armour with me.

I have moved way beyond the extractive and into the philosophical phase, where peace, happiness and goodwill between people is all that I want.

Oh yes, and cheap sweaters, donations toward future hiking trips, camping gizmos, new muscles for my legs, new corneas or lenses for my eyes, springs for my step, a proper 4×4 van, unlimited fuel vouchers, a bank account with no bottom, a beer production plant, vegetarian steaks exactly like the real thing and socks.

You know môs, I need very little to survive!

Please feel free to donate to a donkey sanctuary or any animal sanctuary near you as a Xmas gift to me! Doenit!