more mundane

I am feeling that Billys Story is a tough one to follow. So in the eternal balance of things I am going to write about mundane, day to day stuff.

Yesterday I painted the office. What a relief. I didn’t really mean to get into an epic, but had the paint in waiting, and started to dab at the worst bits, thinking I could progress slowly moving around the room – shifting mountains of paper and computer parts as I went.

However Rayson appeared at the door, caught me red handed and the whole thing turned professional from then on. Good thing really. Rayson is our life support system. He runs this place. He knows how everything works and if we want to make structural changes, at this stage we ask him first. He is a Shangaan from this area, and a man of few words – except when he is on his own…. He talks to himself. I have heard him many times, and assumed he had visitors – but not so. He is one of those rare people that seems content with his own company. When he gets tired of that, which is not too often, he goes visiting next door, or home to Guyani.

He stepped into the room and rolled his eyes. I blustered about saying ‘no its ok, if we start here we can move this stuff over there and then back again as we go around’. As usual he ignored me and decided it was better to move EVERYTHING. Its not a big room – about five meters square? But there is a LOT of stuff in there… paper, files, books, gadgets, CDs, cameras blah blah more and more stuff. I started bagging everything and soon the rest of the house was full and the office was empty -
except for the big table and a mountain in the middle.

There was the familiar crash on the roof and thundering footsteps as the monkeys paid us a visit. Most of the troop are off feeding in the new summer green, but there is one male who thinks we should still be on the circuit. Now and again I hear K shouting as the monkey had found his way into the house. Then a female with a new baby came with a troop of youngsters. She sat outside patiently feeding her baby – its little grey face peeping out of her fur, watching the older ones play grandmothers footsteps with me at the door. No guys – this is not a game – don’t come in here ok.

It was a hot hot day and the monkeys made themselves comfortable on the cushions on the stoep. Some underneath on the cool cement, some languishing in comfort on pillows. Whilst Rayson and I sweated away in the tiny office slapping paint on tired walls.

The warthogs have completely dispersed too. There is one very pregnant female who now looks more like a pot bellied pig than a warthog. Her babies must be due soon then she will have a train of little chipolatas following her around. Leopard bait – so she will have to be uber-vigilant.

Our lawn is trying to recover. Bright needles of green are springing up, though it is taking longer than the surrounding veld. In the evening there is a herd of impala that sleep near the house. We see their white tails fluttering like bunting in the grey light. The males have started rutting already and race around chasing each other making that weird noise like tearing cardboard.

The office is now finished. The colour came out much whiter than intended – more a soft ivory than a stone/suede colour but its fine and fresh and light. The big old table is painted blue and several crate loads of rubbish have been carted out. It’s a great feeling.