We’d had a week in Cape Town , and I drove back to the farm on the Thursday. By this stage taking two cars was essential, as not having my own transport in Cape Town was fast becoming a pain in the arse….Driving final few hundred metres to the main house, I came upon Henry, lying in a gully. I hit the brakes hard sending my groceries crashing to the floor and cursing at my stupidity. I wound down my window, and called him over and all but passed out from sheer shock. I was not prepared for what I saw…Henry had removed the frigging stitches, and there was a gaping hole covered in gentian violet. It was a ghastly sight! He had removed the stitches after 2 days, and now at almost 3 weeks there was a nasty cavernous cut. I swore up and down, mostly at him and a bit at myself for not having followed up. Henry raised his eyebrows in defiance, and walked off. I continued onto the house wondering why the heck I had taken the time to take the silly little bugger to the doctor. It was not going to look good later on. My efforts had all been in vain.

March 25th was holiday pay and bonus time for the “volk”…..which only meant one thing…a direct run to the ‘smokkelwa’, the mobile shebeen. Two women, Lientjie and Raaitjie both serious alcohol abusers were garbling about the ‘blue bakkie men’ who were on their way to beat up the staff who owed monies from previous weeks. These two were convinced that they were in their firing lines and Stephen had also made it clear he was walking around the ‘koppie’ tonight, to avoid getting ‘sorted out’. Fear and trepidation was rampant and I could sense serious uneasiness amongst the staff. Apparently Stephen’s debt was sizeable and his wasn’t the only debt and the ‘blue bakkie men’ were coming to the farm to settle the scores. By now Stephen had decided that he was sleeping in the mountains tonight!

Perhaps it was Vince’s driving around to check on the staff, I’m not sure but whatever the reason quiet prevailed for the evening ent the henchmen didn’t show up.

The following Sat, 26th…was Vincent’s Birthday. It was the beginning of the Easter weekend and Lynn, my sister, and her husband Cecil, and their son Reece were coming for the long weekend.

The previous Sunday afternoon Celie a labourer’s common law brought me some apples she had purchased in Cape Town to thank me for being good to her and her family. I thanked her and took a few telling her that I would be leaving for Cape Town the following morning and asking her to give the rest of the apples to the local children.

On the Easter Saturday morning, a week later, five men appeared at the office door to tell me that Celie had died. She and Frans, her common law husband had been in an argument, and he hit her on the head with a large boulder. That had happened the previous Sunday evening and she had stayed at home, not feeling well, but failing to alert the police or an ambulance during the course of the week we were in Cape Town . Frans had panicked and let her be. She became seriously ill on the Saturday morning, and had taken the early bus into town to attend the clinic but she never made it there. My heart ached. Life can be harsh here sometimes

Vince chatted to Frans and he agreed to be taken to the police for questioning. He acknowledged that they had both been drinking and could not actually recall exactly what had taken place. Celie’s entire family arrived on Saturday afternoon to see if we had the monies for the funeral. We obviously had not encountered this before, and were truly out of our depth. We promised to look into the matter on the Tuesday, as her burial would only take place the following Saturday, so all could be sorted in time. I was extremely heart sore over her death. Alcohol abuse was certainly rearing its ugly head. The following Friday, the men folk of Celie’s family left work early. Vince took them to Happy Valley, a coloured area just outside of Bonnievale centre, to dig her grave. A sombre moment for me, but all in a days work for them….how absurd this all is sometimes!

The rest of the weekend was relaxed, but sombre and my thoughts kept drifting to Celie. The family left on the Monday and I decided to stay on the farm for the following week as it was school holidays and Dayle had offered to spend some ‘mom and daughter time’ at the farm.

With death comes birth…and on the Tuesday 29 March, Enigma delivered 5 kittens under the stairs at the front door. Two…white like her along with a tabby, like Nuts and a gorgeous ginger kitty. I sat and stroked her gently and she allowed me to pick up the kittens.

Dayle arrived for the week…. Tuesday was going to be a busy day. Vince had finally decided to employ a farm manager for the time we were in Cape Town . We could not expect our neighbouring farmer to manage two farms simultaneously. The house had to be readied for the farm manager. That included having the roof scraped and repainted. Klonkies and his partner Christina were noisily making headway on the sun baked metal sheeting. Always willing to make some extra money, the staff had pitched in. We also contacted Vodacom. With no signal at the farm, cell phone usage was a pain in the proverbial butt. If you needed to use your phone, you had to stand dead still in a corner in our bedroom, and even then there was no guarantee. Bad news. Vodacom told us there was nothing they could do to improve the situation unless we erected a personal mast at a cost of R30 000.00. Uh …no!

Dayle and I took a stroll to Vincent who was painting the pole for our new signage which was due to be collected the following day. The dogs enjoyed the freedom and the long walk. We chatted for a while and then strolled back home. It was almost a kilometre to the turnoff to our farm so the walk was enjoyable. As we neared the house Kai alerted us to action ahead in the road. Three adult cows and a calf were making their way along the road, towards our lucerne field. Grabbing the keys to the bakkie, we rushed off to the cow herder’s home and apprised him of the situation. He hopped onto the bakkie, and then off as we reached the offending animals, cornering them and ushering them back to their rightful place.

By this time it was 5.20 p.m. and the staff were waiting for their provisions. We have a small ‘shop’, with the basics for the staff. They selected their food for the night, nodded their appreciation and made their way home. Dayle and I decided to extend our walk around the Long Dam. She was enjoying the fresh air, she and her growing belly! The thought of new life was refreshing in a place where life is not respected or even appreciated. It was scary to catch myself thinking those thoughts after having been here for only three months.

The week went by far too fast and Jason arrived on Friday to fetch Dayle, and spend the weekend with us. Robyn also arrived. So nice to have my girls with me! On Wednesday Jenny, Bruce and Les arrived for a few days. A full house! I had a blast sharing my new life!

The following week required another Cape visit. On Friday, Vince and I left the flat, and started out for the farm. I am always preoccupied with doing the wages on my lap, and gearing up to see the dogs, and come home to the peace and quiet of the farm.

I’d had a last minute errand to run on Friday at lunchtime, and had placed all my personal bags on my bed for quick collection and placing in the Jeep when Vince came to fetch me. We packed the car, settled into our seats for the two-hour road trip, chatting away about the week’s happenings.

About an hour outside of Cape Town, I mentioned to Vince that I had seen a gold bangle on the ground and had picked it up, and put it on my wrist. I extended my wrist to show him. A 9ct gold round bangle! Then it hit me! I had gathered up Robyn’s jewellery to bring it to the farm, for safekeeping because it certainly wasn’t safe at the flat. I scrambled for my handbag, grabbed the container and yanked it open. To my horror, most of her jewellery was missing! My heart sank, and I could feel the blood draining from my face as I realized that the gardener must have used a rake to help himself to my handbag on the bed! He had hit the stuffing jackpot! I couldn’t believe my carelessness!
My cell phone had been taken too. Vince offered me his mobile shaking his head at my lack of common sense. This was just not a place to leave things lying around and I knew that. I immediately called our head honcho, and they informed me he was just a casual labourer, and that he’d left for the day, and was not coming back as he had proven to be useless!! So of Robyn’s rings were worth quite a bit, but worst of all my grand mother’s wedding ring had gone missing too. The feeling of total helplessness merged with intense anger was overwhelming.

We’d been invited to Jurie and Helen’s place for dinner on Saturday evening. We met Pieter and Lesley Russouw farmers from the area. Pieter it turns out was the brother of my snake killer Van Zyl…so I took to him right away. With superb food, and great company, I felt very much a part of the ‘valley’, and certainly feel the welcome from our fellow neighbours.