Diggers Well

A Tribute to Miss Cara: a beloved Waterfall Cat.

2014-10-08T16:47:00.001+02:00

A Tribute to Miss Cara: a beloved Waterfall Cat.

“Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though. That's the problem.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

It is well documented that animal companionship from horses to gerbils has a positive influence on human society in general and a therapeutic effect on people in particular. Everyone from small children to the elderly seem to benefit from the companionship and shared affection. Cats are said to have been worshiped by the ancient Egyptians and domesticated by the Assyrians and Babylonians. Cats are an acquired taste for some and as irresistible as chocolate to others.

“Cats will amusingly tolerate humans only until someone comes up with a tin opener that can be operated with a paw.” ― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

Although cats are maligned for their apparent haughtiness and accusations are made as to their selfishness, cat lovers will testify to feline submissiveness in private not to mention their devoted loyalty. It seems to me that cats are great actors. I’m reminded of the Billy Joel Song: “Always a Woman to Me.” In the song Billy Joel narrates how ‘…the most she will do/Is throw shadows at you/But she's always a woman to me.’ Cats are just like this. At first impression and often in the company of others, your cat is aloof and distant. But when she’s comfortable in her surrounding and especially when alone time, kitty rubs your feet in worship and purrs like a didgeridoo and makes loving eyes at you that speaks volumes in otherwise unenunciated devotion.

“I have lived with several Zen masters -- all of them cats.” ― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Such was the nature of our beloved Miss Cara. A very pretty light grey cat, slight in stature and quietly spoken. Carey had decided that after the death of her very dear exquisite Tortoise shell, many years before, she wouldn’t get another cat since losing her was too painful. However the years passed and we lived in a new location, the girls had grown up a little, the time seemed ripe for a new feline friend in our midst. We did the ‘right’ thing and supported the SPCA and were introduced to the youngest mother of kittens you could find retreating, perhaps a little overwhelmed from the attention of her litter, at the back of a cage. Carey just knew this was the cat for her in flurry of intuition that only certain types of people understand.

“The smallest feline is a masterpiece.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

Miss Cara was a juvenile and still had some playful kitten in her (which she never lost), though it was clear that before we met her she had been habitually kicked either accidentally or on purpose since she remained fearful of anyone in shoes all her life and big feet were watched suspiciously from a safe distance. She loved to play with the standard, shop bought, catnip filled mice. She became quite hysterical having imaginary hunting and wrestling games with them. Best fun of all for Miss Cara were her boxes. Our house became not unlike a Mondi Recycling drop off point with shredded boxes littering the house. Our daughters began to notice a distinct disparity between the level of discipline aimed at their untidy rooms compared to Miss Cara in hers.

“No matter how much the cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens. ” ― Abraham Lincoln

The cat Beds: I’m not sure to whom the importance of beds lay: us or the cat. At first makeshift beds were made out of old jerseys on the couch, and then treasured old baby blankets in boxes. Then one day I was minding my own business like a good husband waddling around Mr. Price Home Store admiring the completely useless, superfluous, unnecessary items on the shelves that appeal deeply to some people. My wife and daughters were ferreting through this mound of must-have cushions and swooning over throws and surplus bric-a-brac when they discover much to their delight a cat bed. Now we aren’t just talking some beige basket containing a colourful cushion with paws motif. Oh no this was a square, stuffed bed covered in two-toned pink silk. The bed was festooned with silk pink ribbons and was as gaudy and camp as a drag-queens hand bag. Worst of all since my wife decided to rush off with the girls to do some or other errand I was instructed to wait clutching my high camp paraphernalia in the very long Saturday morning queue. I haven’t grown hair on my chest since that day.

“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.” ― Robert A. Heinlein

But back to Miss Cara. The best thing about her presence in our lives was the incredible joy she brought to us all. She was certainly doted upon though never spoiled with non-cat food except for little morsels of cheese. Oh yes if we were eating tuna she would polish off the leftovers in the tin. But I digress, Miss Cara was not a cat that you could cuddle, she didn’t like sitting on your lap and had to be trained to enjoy being cradled like a baby which she tolerated whilst rubbing your chin with her paw. Miss Cara, like all cats, loved to sleep and beds were made from old out-door chairs in the sun and shade alternately, with a cushion folded in a square so she could climb inside.

“Ignorant people think it is the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it is the sickening grammar that they use.” ― Mark Twain

We will always remember Miss Cara as a friendly and spritely cat full of little chirps and very much in charge of her life, who could touch her and who her friends were. Alas in May this year she was killed. There is something devastating about losing a young beloved pet in the prime of its life. Evidently someone went speeding around the corning near our home and wiped her out without a thought. We try and encourage people to drive below the speed limit in roads like ours where old people take walks and children ride bikes and pets roam freely. But it’s all about ‘me and my rights’ and so there are casualties. Regardless it’s done now and we still have our memories of a little comforter to my family who brought joy into the room whenever she sauntered in. Adopt a cat today they’ll change your life for the better.

Mahatma Gandhi is quoted as saying: “The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”

For more articles by Matthew Campaigne-Scott Click Here

The Butcher: the high priest of meat

2014-07-01T17:21:00.001+02:00

A man and his butcher are not easily parted.

There’s something very masculine about meat, isn’t there? The immediate image that comes to mind is the braai. Generally and mostly it’s men standing around advising other men about how often to turn the meat, what adjustments the fire needs for different meat and so on. That’s why male vegetarians aren’t really complete men- kind of like missing a testicle.

This is not to ignore the fact that it is actually mostly women that prepare and cook meat but without the fanfare and drama that male meat interaction seems to involve.

An example is the poitjie. Men who wouldn’t know how to boil an egg for dinner and practically strain themselves to find the cereal or burn themselves making toast become experts on all matters culinary when preparing meat for the potjie, its tenderisation, the slow cooking of, flavouring, what spices and herbs to apply, the works.

In fact rarely does one see the high level of sophistication men embrace when it comes to meat outdoors. Wives who try to solicit an ounce of assistance with the evening meal preparation during the week are met with nonplussed expressions and glazed eyes when asked to: “just toss the salad while I:- go to the loo, shift grandpa, change this nappy, move the house to the left.”

Then there’s biltong – do women and children eat it, sure. But who’s the expert on what biltong is the best, most flavoursome and assuming the correct shape – the man. If a woman offers an opinion on biltong, men assume embarrassed looks or bow their heads, and that’s the polite response. What could a woman possibly know about biltong? And let’s not get started on the intricate equipment that men have invented to cut, shave, slice and dry biltong in the luxury of their own home.

This possibly explains something: men and butchers. Men may not be able to find the right deodorant, two-ply loo-rolls, a ripe avo or correct baby formula at the supermarket, but they can be found congregating around the butcher on a Saturday morning. Dozens of them standing around discussing the length of their boerewors, different flavours, contents and uses. (This is the same butcher that housewives have been consulting nonchalantly during the week.)

One may venture that in our society a truly masculine man knows his local butcher – this is the closest men get to hunting in the 21^st century. Butchers are the druids or medicine men of the modern western culture. Butchers are greeted with special reverence. Various cuts of meat are discussed, advice is sought and opinions are given. “Would it do better in the Weber, should I debone them before putting them in a potjie, is sixteen table spoons of salt too much, what percentage of fat is optimum in a good wors,” questions that any housewife would come up with a common sense answer for. But men respect the views of their butchers.

So meat is very important to men, it’s a reminder of those cavemen days when bringing home a carcass ensured hugs from small children respect from adolescents and long romantic evenings with Mrs Caveman. Today even bringing home the paycheque is obsolete never mind bringing home the bacon. It’s all done over the net. So ladies give your man a break, when you see him lurking about the butchery for that exciting moment when the butcher comes out, don’t nag, let him enjoy being as close to the kill as he’s ever going to get.

Eccentrics and Characters in Waterfall

2014-07-01T17:17:00.000+02:00

If something strikes me about Waterfall, it’s the characters. Every community has its fair share of oddballs but characters are more than that, they have substance and value. Characters give a community colour and flavour. I’m referring to individuals usually beyond the years of youth who have developed a certain style or manner expressed more for themselves than out of mere vanity.

In more outlying areas there seems to be a tolerance for characters, or eccentrics if you will, as part of the community not dissimilar to a more urban tolerance for youthful self-expression and experimentation. In more remote communities there is usually a smorgasbord of middle aged and beyond, self-expressive, self-styled characters who would ordinarily be shunned in an urban environment. In smaller communities such people are considered features of a whole. Eccentrics and eccentric behaviour thrives in societies that are detached from the greater boundaries of the big city.

Waterfall used to be very isolated from Durban going far enough back. But as roads and communications improved and the Outer West population grew, Waterfall became more accessible to conventional middle class families. But characters still remain, if you take a moment to spot them.

When my friends arrived in Waterfall from Johannesburg 10 years ago they were amused to see a man dressed like a cowboy, singing Country n' Western music, that was painful to the ears, from the back of his bakkie in the interest of promoting the weekly boerewors and biltong specials from the local butchery. Not only were my friends amazed that such appalling attempts at entertainment were being unleashed on the good folk of Waterfall but the said good folk were applauding and cheering with great enthusiasm for a performance that would have been lambasted elsewhere. The attitude seemed to be: “so what if he can’t sing, that’s just who he is, he’s doing his best.” Besides, they all seemed to be well acquainted with the man.

Our friends in their snobbishness used to refer to “Waterfall Types”. “Looks there’s one” they would say in amusement. But in a short while their sniggers changed to endearment as they fell in love with the suburb. They still may say: ”There’s one.” From time to time but their attitude has changed from snide to pleasant observation. In fact they’ve noticed that the amount of characters have dropped and feel quite concerned.

But the atmosphere prevails. In Waterfall if you are over a certain age you are allowed to wear your pants as high as you like and as colourful as you like and with as many outrageous patterns as you like. You may also wear dress shoes, short white socks and jeans shorts and even a skirt up round your solar plexus. You may dye your hair and then change colours as often as you want and there’s no shame in wearing any kind of hat either, decorated with small animals or fruit if you prefer. Your opinion on a wide variety of subjects is tolerated by all the staff at the Waterfall Spar, who tolerantly nod and smile, especially on a Tuesday. If you want to use two parking spaces for your 1977 Peugeot 404 –who cares? Creativity with facial hair is encouraged as is popping into the shops with bare feet. You’re also never too young or too old to wear live flowers in your hair. Nor should one be of a specified shape to wear sleeveless garments or tight shorts regardless of the sex.

Entertainment takes on special meaning out here. I recall a line of towering blue gums running alongside the did Waterfall shopping centre. One week these were systematically cut down in zealous pursuit of all things indigenous, all done under the watchful eye of senior citizens in folding chairs on the pavement with thermos flasks and sandwiches bussed in from the Waterfall Garden Retirement home. For some it seemed that was all just in week’s entertainment.

Just one last example springs to mind: if you happen to travel down Niagara Drive you will notice a spritely lady going for her morning and afternoon walk, as so many safely do. However you would notice she carries with her a bag of litter that she has collected on her way. As a result Niagara Drive must be the neatest road in the suburb. Not the sort of one finds in cities where litter collection is left in the hands of municipal workers. It takes a special sort of character to commit to such a sense of the pristine.

Waterfall has an abundance of entrepreneurs running light industry factories, all manner of shops and small business with names like Clever Little Fish, Quirky Queens, Sham Pooch dog parlour, Crinkly Bottom- sadly missed as is the Thirsty Duck. All types of people build, labour and serve away in Waterfall, thriving in an atmosphere of acceptance and tolerance.

Off I go to the shops then, one glance in the mirror –gasp! It’s one of them!

Wither Are We Bound?

2013-01-28T15:57:00.000+02:00

Remember those old printer’s trays that young girls, mostly, now a little older, used to put on their bedroom walls filled with the most hideous useless junk. I think the trays then moved to more sumptuous parts of the home and became centre pieces for more ornate and tasteful knick-knacks as the girls grew up. If you have printers trays in the house you now know what to buy for Christmas this year and if you are the recipient of some irksome little trinkets this Christmas, you know where you can put them now.

Well, as a pre-Christmas chore I found myself chipping and scouring away the layers of paint, especially from the corners, from my daughter’s printers trays that she inherited from my wife, that she had as a teenager back in the, never-mind. Clearly instead of their beautiful virgin wood, paint was applied with whimsy and little skill to the trays as often as a new fashionable colour got their attention. Alas the burden of restoration is a heavy one. If you find yourself being asked if you think the current colour of the printer’s trays is suitable, whatever you do gush madly at its beauty in order to avoid hard labour.

This got me thinking about when I was a library prefect at King Edward VII School. I had an unorthodox and engaging library master called Mr Sandom. He encouraged us to read all manner of works from the classics to the then, recently in vogue, fantasy literature.

Just before the Christmas holidays Mr Sandom took us library geeks, as we would be called today I suspect, to the then arty-farty suburb of Melville where we visited a house with a ye-olde genuine printing press, cabinets with draws similar to the printer’s trays that people used to put up on their walls in the 80’s. They were full of letters, numbers, punctuation, and many other characters, as well as space blocks.

We all got into the spirit of the occasion and learned from the Mr Sandom how to create a page that we would print and place into our hardcover books that we had manufactured out of old maps as Christmas gifts the previous week. I distinctly remember that I had Iceland on the back and Nyasaland on the front. We didn’t just learn the rudimentaries of what it took to create a page of text the manual way we came away with a sense of achievement that a print out from our state-of-the art dot-matrix couldn’t do for us.

Which causes one to reflect, wither are we bound? Elsewhere in this magazine you will have read that inkjet technology exists that can produce droplets smaller than bacteria. Talk about sending the ‘flu a message. Then some Japanese guy had the bright idea while putting on his deodorant one morning: “if inkjet printing is just firing liquid at a surface why not spay stuff with perfume and other smells.” So maybe you’ll receive Christmas card smelling of roast turkey. And to think we got all excited in the 80’s about scratch-n-smell.

Whether it was yesterday, today or tomorrow, in the printing world higher and higher resolution seems to be that holy grail or fleeting horizon, reaching ever further, to working harder to produce clearer and better images and text, faster and faster, with less and less, in narrower and smaller spaces, cheaper and cheaper, with fewer and fewer people, using the fewer calories and lower wages, during reduced hours and…okay I’ll stops now.

So I asked my 85 year old dad...

2013-01-28T15:52:00.003+02:00

So I asked my 85 year old dad: “what do you think of when I say ‘Green’ dad”. There was a brief crackle on the phone and then came: “mould.” The generation gap on matters Green is clear.

I have to admit that as a 43 year I too didn’t think of the practice of making modern day sacrifices in order to conserve the rapidly depleting fossil fuels, when the word Green came up. Rather I would think of someone new on the job, who parks in the bosses bay on the first day, a ‘Green-horn’ if you will, it’s best not to mix those two words up.

Or perhaps “Green Fingers”. I used to have “Green Fingers” when I was more involved in our garden or is that having a Green Thumb? It means the difference between getting anything to grow and creating a micro-desert.

But the search for a Green definition remains elusive: The movement to green has been nearly a thirty year process beginning in the 1970’s with the solar-energy craze. Early in the 1990’s for example, the green building movement began to take hold. Expanding our thinking and consideration for the larger picture of the total environmental impact, thus driving demands for materials, commercial and home designs offering reduced long term costs, healthier living, greater efficiency and sustainability.

But for me Green is for gunge: Gangrene from war stories, brave soldier who fought in the trenches and got the Dreaded Lurgy. Then there’s the sludge down on Zoo Lake before the big clean-up of whenever-it-was. Then there’s beautiful, wonderful mucous. Oh yes, oh quivering parent – there were those nappies that….never mind. Green gunge is every little boys early fascination until puberty hits then green becomes just another colour.

One mini Green definition I heard somewhere, went something like is this: “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” A little whimsical with a touch of daisy and shoo-wah, but pleasantly unimposing. I rather like it.

Depending on where you are applying the term Green, ‘sustainable design’ may be a good substitute. True sustainability embraces a commitment to see the world as interconnected, to understand the impact our actions have on others and our environment, and to nurture the offspring of all species that will inherit the planet. To become truly sustainable, it is vital to equally address social sustainability, economic sustainability, and environmental sustainability like three legs holding up a stool. Okay, a little preachy.

The truth is, the Green movement is now orthodoxy, mainstream, convention if you like. It’s no longer the fringe realm of hippies and New Ages or people with pony-tails in general. For example, Green construction is huge in South Africa now and Green Stars are a coveted reward. It reminds me of my children when they were of the age when a gold star on the forehead for good behaviour was the most coveted award in preschool. Now we have pinstriped executives scurrying around fulfilling the requirements of the Green Buildings Council so as to acquire more Green Stars for their buildings.

As if Green building isn’t enough we have green nappies, green fuels and green political parties. But a new interesting one I discovered is “green-hypocrisy”. Green campaigners argue that cheap short-haul flights have fuelled a massive hike in carbon emissions over the past few years. Celebrities in particular are criticised for struggling to reconcile their well-meaning efforts to develop green credentials and the demands of the modern world. Sienna Miller and Chris Martin preach the importance of being 'green'. They recycle obsessively, insist on green nappies and compost every scrap of organic vegetable peeling and they're not slow to tell you about it. Yet they jet set the world over producing a carbon foot-print bigger than the rest of us.

It’s tough at the top. Looks like you can’t get away with anything these days. Did I say Carbon Footprint, let me tell you what my 85 year old dad said when I asked him what he thought of when I said Carbon Footprint….

Colours

2012-04-19T11:35:00.002+02:00

The Joy of Poppies - by Matt

Colouring Confusion

Perusing show-houses on a Sunday afternoon I came across an exquisitely restored Orange Grove house in Johannesburg’s North Eastern suburbs: Steel pressed ceilings, Oregon Pine floors and trims pedantically purged of paint and blemishes, with doors varnished to perfection.

As I admiringly examined the paintwork’s faultless lines and perfect finish I couldn’t help imagining what an annoyingly fussy and fastidious person must have been responsible for this. Yet the choice of paint colour suggested otherwise. I was told by the eager estate agent: “he did all the restoration himself you know.” I didn’t.

The children’s room was delightfully colourful. Not in that proverbial chameleon-on-a- Smarty-box way. The light of the room was wonderfully swept up into the four colours that made up the walls and splashed out a joy that kitsch can’t produce. Funny how too much colour or ‘wrong’ colour is like a fine perfume mixed with cigarette smoke.

But this use of colour was captivating. The children’s toys and bedding were convincingly persuasive of the presence of children, all thanks to four completely different coloured walls. I was converted at once and decided that I too would embrace the pedantic little man that perhaps, resided somewhere deep within me and apply the same vivid and extravagant formula.

I voiced my plan to my ever-tolerant wife about how I was to apply my new conversion to the world of colour to my two daughters rooms. I have seldom seen my wife’s eyebrow raised so close to her hairline. All credit to her forbearance as I was unleashed. Alas, unlike Mister Perfection-Restoration of Orange Grove, I found that painting four walls different colours, plus the ceiling, infuriatingly, maddeningly and unbearably finicky.

Some say it was my actual choice of colours that was causing the nausea, others that it was the peculiar meshing of colours between the walls, but the effect when walking into the room of the four colours was not unlike entering a cabin on board a ship on a rough sea, where the portholes are just hovering above surface level.

Although my girls’ dreams of rainbows, clowns and female members of parliaments’ hats subsided, they never did quite get over their early years subjection to Joseph's Technicolor Dreamcoat on their walls. When we eventually moved home and they reached their teens, I was tentatively offered the task of painting their rooms. This time there was a very firm condition: “Daddy, please, only white, paint only white!”

Whether it’s painting or printing, colour is probably having more of an influence on your life than you think. Whether you call it ambience, atmosphere, mood or vibe you can’t live without colour. But you’d better get the best advice on how to use it. - Written for Consumables Magazine April 2012

Weeding in Waterfall

2011-07-21T10:30:00.000+02:00

Having lived in Johannesburg for 30 years, moving to the thriving metropolis of Waterfall was quite a change of scenery. I loved the fact that I lived in an area named after physical features that actually existed in the area, (Apparently there are 7 waterfalls in Waterfall.) as opposed to Parkhurst where there are no parks and certainly no hurst.
Our garden borders a little gorge created by the Nkutu River. There are three waterfalls at the bottom of our garden. My two small daughters and decided we wanted to find the source of that beautiful sound of rushing water. Thus began the required process of clearing the vegetation between us and river. At my previous residence in Johannesburg I had been used to extracting weeds with a small polished fork (with a quaintly mounded orange handle for comfort) and depositing the said weeds with gentle rhythm and small sighs into a black bag which was inoffensively sent out with the garbage each week. Imagine my horror when I opened my back door on a fateful Saturday morning to the roar of half an acre of Waterfall’s six foot high Lantana, Triffid and Mexican Sunflowers. My small fork fell from my hand with a whimper, prongs disfigured like lukewarm spaghetti as I examined my bleeding hands, this after my first failed attempt at removing a spikey Lantana stem.

I have learnt many things about weeding in Waterfall since those virginal days, I became equipped with a most formidable device which became a faithful companion as I cleared my way to the Waterfalls over those many adventurous months: a mighty Cane Cutter. So I tell you all this oh gentle reader for one reason. Alas my cane cutter has expired after years of good service. But do you think I can find a single cane cutter in a hardware store in the Upper Highway area. No, only those bendy long blades for veld or tiny little pangas. If anyone can tell me where to find a decent size cane cutter I’ll gladly send you my old weeding fork with the quaintly moulded handle.