In any good story there needs to be some background fodder to set a stable base of understanding, if one is talented enough one could evoke some stirring of an emotion from the reader.
If after reading this, I have managed to stir up some kind of physical or emotional response, I would consider my intentions a resounding success.
Fear not dear reader this is not another whinge about Covid, lock-down or some such, as I believe that these true to life events would probably have happened anyway.
It all started shortly after Wonder Woman had completed her multi-stage-self-improvement-project frenzy.
Our offspring, Trenticles and Spiderpig were doing their own thing, we, the happy couple, were basking in the afternoon sun (a mild 18 degree day) under wonder woman’s new gazebo.
The braai was on, the steak was ready to be tanned, and the beer was cold. We were discussing the different possible methods of trying to grow grass in a City that only sees sun for six weeks of the year.
This may seem like a trivial thing for the common man, but, I’m no common man and one needs to remember that in South Africa, you just gooi some grass down, water and mow.
Boom three weeks later you have a lawn.
Well here on the island it’s not like that. For the last several weeks I had been meticulously preparing the lawn, aerating it with spiked shoes I bought from Bunnings, removing weeds, scattering seeds and fertilizing.
If you perchance had happened to be passing by whilst I was aerating the lawn you may have been mistaken for thinking that I was toyi-toying on my lonesome.
Seeing a forty-plus, balding, pale, fatman attempting a silent dysfunctional impression of Jonny Clegg doing the Zulu war dance is not a pretty sight….. Trust me.
Aaaaaaaannnnnnyyyyyyyyyyyyyyhoooooooo our discussion moved on from grass to the fern trees that line our back yard, they are as unsightly and messy as a collection of shiny new Renaults lined up on a showroom floor.
Just like the Renaults suck the value from your pocket so do these trees block the morning sun, delivering its much needed nourishment onto my prison cell sized lawn.
The funny thing about basking in the sun, sipping ice cold beer and shooting the breeze is that, sometimes, one agrees to things quicker than one should.
Wonder Woman, cunningly said we should cut them down. And before I could stop myself, my head was nodding like one of those plastic toy dogs you see in the back window of a supa-tjuned holden commodore.
We needed to plan the way we were going to do it, as one does not just cut down eight trees and cart them away.
No pal.
We have one green dustbin that is collected every two weeks by the council. That green dustbin can hold about half a tree, if all the branches are cut small enough and the logs are trimmed to dry out for our fire pit (one of the WW projects). The primary plan evolved to an agreed one tree at a time and dispose of, over four weeks, what cannot be used, this will keep the garden neat and we will eventually have morning sun in our back garden, which will be larger by about another two meters.
And that when it started to go wide of the mark.
Imagine you are watching a school play go horribly wrong, the girl is about to kiss the guy, everyone is in position, the pianist is tinkling the ivories in a soft romantic melody, the crowd of bored parents are struggling to stay awake and it happens.
Enter stage left, Trenticles arrives, in his path of destruction he knocks over the stage props, trips over the microphone cord, slams into the leading actress delivering an accidental blue eye, rips her shirt showing some titty and in a final crescendo of havoc, vomits into the open grand piano that was on loan from the local museum.
You think I’m taking kak? Let me explain.
TBC
Topic: Australia.... The Island Saga (Read 49176 times)
