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.