No place to call home

Werner had by this stage, sold his house. He has a very dear old friend, who had bought an investment property with Werner in mind, and would rent this property out to him.

The problem with this was that the house was not available yet.

Werner began a strange “in between life” with no place to call home.

The university has a few properties, one of them a house, which was being converted for offices. He was granted permission to store his things there, and on the side, he could sleep there – as long as no one became aware of him there.

He slept on one of his couches during the week, got up early in the mornings before anyone arrived, packed everything up again, and got ready for work. On weekends he would go to his folks in Pretoria.

One of the consequences of this “not belonging anywhere”, was that he had no place to take his children to. He would visit them, but never took them for weekends.

Eventually, it became too difficult to stay on in the house, and he began looking around for a place to stay.

I knew of a lady in our street, who wanted to earn some extra money by renting out her garden cottage.

Werner went to see her and secured a room with her.

Somewhere around this time, he began coming over for meals once a week. The children still frowned and gave dirty looks. But his visits had an advantage – which they had never had before – PUDDING.

Well, they all love pudding, and so does Werner. So, I made pudding on those nights – and by mistake – “bought” their sort of approval. They “tolerated” his visits – because they loved the pudding. Eish.

Whiskey

We drove home beautifully. Garmin did her job, the trailer behaved and we arrived home in one piece. I pulled straight into the driveway.
Now I am not sure you get the picture - when I say "straight" - I really mean - straight - car in front, trailer behind. Once you are in, you need to unhook the trailer and roll it to the side... or - REVERSE.

Do you think I had EVER reversed with the trailer on the car? Oh no! I had seen it done before, seen how that little trailer runs in the wrong direction and jack-knifes ... and was firmly of the opinion that I would NEVER EVER reverse a trailer and car combination. So - "STRAIGHT" has problems of it's own!

With all that kind and willing help on the Drakensberg side, the very first time I actually needed to unload those bikes on my own– was Sunday evening at 9 pm – when I arrived home. Ironically, I had all the help I needed until then, and no one – including me – had ever thought any of that through.

Full of confidence I called the kids to bring the tools. After all, I had watched this process a few times over. How hard could it be. Turned out – taking the bikes off was no problem at all. THAT process I had down to a T. However, I couldn’t get the trailer unhooked from the car. The turny goody was just turned too tight.

Now I was in trouble – keeping the reversing problem in mind, so unless I got the trailer off, I was not going to make it to work the next day.

Well, if you are not strong – you have to be clever. Taking a hammer, I approached the problem with a fat attitude of – I WILL get you loose.

I tapped the turny thing – but unfortunately, in the wrong direction. But it moved. Then I tapped it in the other direction, and lo and behold – managed to get the whole lot loose.

YEAH!!!!!! I felt inordinately pleased with myself. ACHIEVEMENT – BIG TIME. Without the help of a man – GO GIRL.

Well, I decided to celebrate my success. The Prof had left me a bottle of whiskey – with the cryptic words: maybe one day it will help you. I still wonder what he meant. Did he mean I could “drown” my sorrows? NO WAY. I had decided long ago I would never touch the stuff in sadness.

But hey – this was a celebration – I thought it a good enough reason. Out came the whiskey and a glass. Ummm… and now Yvonne? Well, um, I guess I just pour it the way I saw the Prof doing it. May sound funny – but I had never poured a drink. I had decided not to help the Prof along that particular path of destruction.

He would drink a glass of whiskey every evening, claiming to only feel normal when he had had a whiskey.

So … the only example which I had to follow, was the one he had set me i.e. filling the glass with lots of ice, and then pouring the rest full of whiskey.

I poured it just like that, drank it – fairly fast – hey what did I know about that either, and then slept very VERY soundly that night. I almost didn’t make it to work the next day – but for different reasons than I had originally thought!

Drakensberg

After the success of the Fish River Canyon hike, I went with the same group of hiking friends, for a family camp-out in the Drakensberg. I went with the children, the tent my X-Mother-in-law had given to us as a gift, once upon a time when I was still “in grace”, and the kids bicycles. (Did I mention one of the biggest advantages of divorce - X mother-in-laws! Mmm)


Well, this posed a little problem for me. The trailer had a bicycle rack mounted on the top, but I had no idea how to dismantle the bikes, and then mount them on top of the whole affair.

I enlisted Werner’s willing help. The kids had seen him around on the odd occasion, but still viewed him with extreme suspicion, so much so that I asked them to simply be polite to him.

Well, since he was willing to help with the bikes, and see us on our way to the Drakensberg – the kids decided to put aside their nasty looks, and put up with him.

Werner, is not one to take offence. He took the kids and their reaction, in his stride. It makes him a comfortable and easy person to get along with. He neatly took off bicycle tyres, put the bikes on the trailer rack and even helped us pack the trailer.

Then armed with my Prof Upgrade (Garmin), off we went. That all worked like a charm, and once we arrived in the Berg, there were more than enough willing hands to take the bikes down again. We put up the tent – once more with more of those willing and knowledgeable hands. We proceeded to have a wonderful weekend.

Werner and I were at that stage good friends, smsing each other on and off.
Ha – I only heard much much later, that he spent that weekend worrying himself silly, as to how I was progressing, and if I needed help. After all, I had never ever attempted anything of this sort alone before.

Help? ....Nope – had plenty of that. At the end of that weekend, the guys loaded up the bikes, tightened all the turning things with their strength – not taking into consideration that I would not have the same strength to undo the whole lot.

We left again, all in tact and loaded up, and Garmin to show us the way home. Easy peasy...or so I thought.

The stage was set for WHISKEY...tomorrow!

Footnote: Guess who wanted the tent back after our successful camp out... and the trailer. Well to be fair, the Prof said he would share the trailer with me.... but hey - who wants that hassle. Gave it all back to him. The trailer is being used, but I am sure he lost the tent in his garage along with all the other stuff he wanted back. (The garage is a mess - his - not mine! 2 Cars worth of parking - and it is all packed with stuff from his previous life - stuff he HAD to have back!)

Here the kids are with my missionary friend Jonathan.

Train stops and ballerinas (present)

Yippeee - the speeding train stops - SOMEWHERE!

It actually makes an unwilling stop - for just 1 hour a week – but it stops, provides a power socket for my laptop – so we are back in business!

Guess where?

At the ballet!

Marinda is dancing some or other important ballet exam.(Oh dear - I forget which one.) Her dancing teacher wants her to go for extra classes with another ballet teacher once a week, and that place is ... oh just a mere 20 km from my house, and the ballet times are from 5.45 till 7 pm. Imagine my glee when I discovered all this!

I was moaning and groaning so much better last week this time. I was sitting in the car… alone, waiting for the class to finish. The sun was setting, and when I looked again – it was actually pretty. Eventually, calming down somewhat, I walked into the hall, heard the music, saw the big open space, spied some tables and chairs, and a power socket (my laptop’s battery is dead… deader than dead actually).

Mmmm…. The wheels in my head start turning. The train stop idea was born.


Now I am sitting here, surrounded by ballerinas, some music and I’m thinking – perhaps my writing will turn into something lyrical now! Perhaps I'll be sorry when the exam is over... perhaps we shouldn't tell a soul when the exam is done - just get in the car every monday and drive over to this class.... so that I can sit in peace for a while. Maybe 20km is not so far, and maybe 7pm at night is just an awesome time to get out of the rat race.... MAYBE this is a huge blessing in disguise...

So, I managed to type up 6 blog pieces, and they are all coming up shortly! Watch this space.

...Priceless, For everything else there's MasterCard

Three things happened all at the same time, conspiring against the Prof, to create this... one of the most priceless moments of all time.


The 1st was that the Prof still took the kids to school,

The 2nd was that I took to cleaning out the garages, and throwing away stuff,

And lastly ... the Prof was aware of my friendship with Werner.


THEN arrived the fateful - Dustbin Day. The ultimate catalyst.

I pushed the dustbin outside early on the morning of dustbin day, before leaving for work. The Prof duly came to fetch the kids and noticed the extra full dustbin, and of course, his curiosity was quipped.

Imagine his dilemma: Shall I? or shan’t I? MMM yes, Oh dear ... maybe not....
Apparently he decided: I shall. And so, on this day, The Prof - a highly educated and intellectual individual - dug in my dustbin, to see what was happening in my life.

I kid you not! OOOOOOEEEEEE - how the mighty have fallen.

The children witnessed this and to add insult to injury they were asked : why did your mother throw away this thing, or that thing?

Can you believe it? How low can you go? Keep reading - he manages to top this incident with another, concerning driving the kids to school (coming up shortly).

Apparently digging in dustbins is not too low – no matter what your education level.

Of course Werner and I laughed till the tears ran down our faces. What was so funny? Well, all the things we imagined we could throw away in the bin, which would shock the Prof out of his socks. We had a good number of fun suggestions for that problem. O how I wish today that I had had the courage to ask a pregnant friend to do a positive pregnancy test, and come throw that away - nicely positioned at the top of my dustbin!

Mud houses

I am literally talking about a mud house!!

My dear missionary friend Jonathan, whom I had met doing the Fish river Canyon hike - taught the children how to make a mud house. Since the Fish River canyon, his family and mine had become family friends. During those days, he brought his family over to play games and talk. They brought a sense of normality back into our lives.

Look at the mud house he built with the children.

That house stood in our garden for about 9 months – with grass shooting up around it. It symbolized happiness and healing, and gave the children a vision. Even the gardener worked all around the house, so as not to break it. It withstood wind and rain quite remarkably well. Eventually, we leveled it and turned that whole area into a lovely vegetable garden.

I often think of Jonathan's family as a splint, which God moved along side of my broken family, to strengthen us in a time where we needed to heal. Jonathan’s wife was here when the Prof made harassing phone calls and scared the living daylights out of me, they listened to my heart ache, they gave advice, and became wonderful role models for the children. They showed us how a family was supposed to function, with love and boundaries.

We had a few such precious visits before their time was up in South Africa. They are now involved in missionary work in Malaysia.

We miss you dear friends. I know your family prays for mine, as we do for yours.