98) Six Degrees of Separation

A few months after we moved into our house in Inchanga our friends Wendy and Stuart Hall came to visit us. They brought Robin, Alex and Andrew, by then Ian was away at university. They came during Wimbledon week and we watched quite a bit of the tennis together. To people in England Wimbledon must make them think of sunshine, strawberries and cream and lovely warm weather. In the southern hemisphere of course Wimbledon conjures up images of cold weather watching the tennis on television with the heater on and with mugs of hot coffee at hand. Wendy and I would have been happy just to sit and chat but the boys were on holiday and wanted to see something of Durban. It was hardly beach weather but they were keen to go see all that they could.

Our other friends Sonny and Isobel Mathieson had written to me a little while before and asked if they could come for a visit and it turned out to be the same time that the Halls were supposed to be there. I knew there was not enough room for all of us in our house so I suggested to Isobel that instead of coming on the way to Durban it would be much better if they had their holiday in Durban first and then came and stayed a fortnight later when they were on their way home again and so this was arranged. I had given them a map of how to find our house and as they were driving on the highway Isobel saw the turn off to our house and decided to see if the house was easy to find and to pop in for a quick cup of tea. When they arrived at the house it was a bit like the local asylum. Wendy trying to find some warm cloths for the boys who wanted to go skating, the boys looking for the things that they want to take with them and Muffin barking franticly at the two strangers that had just driven up. I am surprised that they did not just get back into the car and reverse out.

Both Sonny and Isobel and Stuart and Wendy were friends of ours from our Salisbury days but they had never met there. Amongst all the noise and activity we introduced our friends to each other and when the Halls had piled into their car and rushed off to town for their ice staking we sat and had a cup of tea together. We swapped our latest news and then Sonny and Isobel went on their way making arrangements to see them again in about two weeks when we would have a bed for them to sleep in.

The next day the boys wanted to go to the aquarium and the snake park so they all went into town again. Wendy said that they would have lunch in town and not to wait for them to eat. When they got back they told us that they had gone into a beachfront hamburger bar for lunch and found that they were sitting at the very next table to Sonny and Isobel. If Sonny and Isobel had not dropped in for that cup of tea the day before they could have sat at the next table and never known that they were sitting next to people who were also good friends of ours. I wonder how many times does that happen, how often do we sit next to someone who knows someone that we know? Often in a crowded room I want to ask all the strangers if they know anyone that I know and I am a believer in the theory of the Six Decrees of Separation

A visit from the Hall family

In our garden we had a number of large Blue Gum Trees. Every morning I would collect the branches that dropped off the trees. There was always enough there for us to have a braai each week. I would pile it up in one corner of the garden out of the way. When we had a braai with the Halls Jonny asked the boys to get some wood for the fire. They ran all around the garden picking up twigs and branches for him to use. While they were busy with that Jonny would go to our stockpile and get some of our store. They could not understand how he always managed to get more than they did and much quicker. They started running faster, getting together in a group, looking in different places, everything they could think of to collect as much as Jonny but still he beat them. When they were completely worn out Jonny confessed that he had a nice big woodpile hidden in the corner. They rolled around on the floor laughing at that.

After our small garden in Witbank it really was a pleasure to have the use of such a lovely large garden and we often had braais and sat outside at night. One evening we had a couple of young men for braai. One of them was a builder that Jonny had met through work and he had brought a friend with him. When they were leaving we said that we would walk down to the gate to close it after them but they said not to bother they would do it. Jonny and I sat talking around the dying fire for quite a while after they had gone. Muffin was a bit edgy, up and down and crying a bit. I listened to see if I could make out what was bothering her and I could hear rustling and movement. I said, “Jonny there is someone in the yard”. He said, “Get me the torch and the pick handle and go inside” I said “I’m coming with you” and armed with a pick handle we went to discover who was in our yard. I called Muffin to heel and she walked beside me whimpering softly. We heard the noise again and Jonny shone his torch on the intruder. It was a large cow, contentedly eating our lawn. Now that Muffin could see what was there she started to bark and Jonny shone his torch right around the yard to discover that there were about five or six other cows in the yard. It was rather a surprise to find these bovine intruders but a relief that they were nothing more sinister. Obviously our friends had forgotten to close the gate after themselves and this passing heard had decided to pay us a nocturnal visit. We had no idea what to do with them so we just had to leave them there quietly munching away on our lawn. We left the gate open so that they could leave if they wanted to and just went off to bed. In the morning they had left but they had left us some natural fertiliser for our garden.
Meanwhile things were not going too well at work for Jonny. The fencing business was very quiet and also Buddy had decided to come back from England to take up his place in the business once again. There was just not enough work to keep Jonny busy so he had to start looking around for something else to do.