A fish and fowl affair

Maybe it is happening at last: two days ago, I watched a thick smudge of frenzied activity slide past in the sea. The gannets – must be thousands of them – were crazy, and the sea was foaming.

One of the dikkops in the aloe garden

It had to be the sardine run, this “greatest shoal on Earth” that passes our south-eastern shores in winter as the fish make their way north. This usually happens between May and July, but it has skipped years when the sea has failed to cool to below 21C. Some of us started thinking this was one of those years (See Strange days indeed). 

Last year’s eggs ... so well camouflaged in the nest in the grass

This year’s showing – well, what we’ve seen – has been far less of a spectacle than in previous years, when the sea has positively boiled. And it was also a lot further out – close to the horizon, in fact. The shoal is never close to shore in these parts – that happens when it reaches Durban – but I’ve never seen it this far out at sea.

But it’s still hugely exciting to watch. It has turned out to be the first of several shoals that you can identify by the great flocks of gannets settling on the water. And I’ve noticed an increase in whale and dolphin activity. In fact, I can see one spewing water out there right now.

Are the dikkops back?

Cape gannets on the sea, as seen from my office

Just as exciting, for me at least, is that the dikkops are scouting the aloe garden. I am hoping that they will nest here again. These are the strangest and most delightful birds. They form monogamous pairings, and they “play dead” to protect their nests.

Dikkop is an Afrikaans word that translates directly into “thick head”. When South Africans say “thick”, they mean “stupid”; I must admit that I wondered if they earned their name from their habit of laying eggs in nests in the middle of lawns and walkways where they are so well camouflaged that they are really hard to see. They’re also known as the spotted thick-knee.

Last year, a female laid two eggs in the grass next to aloe garden. The male was always around, and sometimes they swopped the job of sitting on the eggs. I steered Alex and the lawnmower away from the area, and we were generally very careful not to disturb them. Of course, I had to chase the darn monkeys away again and again; the male would spread out his wings and hiss, and looked pretty formidable.

We awaited the hatching of the eggs, and even started thinking of them as “our dikkops”. But, one morning, I found that one egg had disappeared and the other had been broken. The adults were nowhere to be seen. We thought that perhaps a snake had feasted here. And I felt really heart sore. Nature can be so cruel, I pined to myself. 

Later, I did see a dikkop pair flapping around their baby. I like to think these are “our dikkops”. You just never know.

Strange days indeed

We know it’s winter because this is when the sardines “run” past our village on their way to KwaZulu-Natal. We know it’s winter because this is when the snakes hibernate and I can really get into parts of the garden I otherwise won’t fiddle with. And we know it’s winter because things get quite dry in this summer-rainfall area. Right? Well, no.

The small fireplace has been working hard

I’ve had two snake experiences in the past couple of weeks. First, we watched a nightadder lolling on Hanlie’s lawn in the village. Then, a friend stepped right over a long brown snake next to the strelitzia clump where I’d been cutting flowers just hours earlier: this was a harmless grass snake, we think. Still, I leaped away so fast that I almost collided with a tree. “Go back to sleep,” I yelled.

Sardine no-show

As for the sardine run, if it’s happened, I have missed it completely. I’ve noticed small clumps of activity in the sea, with gannets diving, and there are schools of dolphins most days. But it is nothing like the spectacular frenzy of previous years. 

A friend who keeps an eye out for the sardines from her beachfront home in Durban says she hasn’t seen them either. The sardines did make an appearance in Durban on July 4, according to this report, but it did not seem much to write home about. 

The road turns to slosh in non-stop winter rain

Maybe it will still happen – July is not over yet. Or maybe it won’t. It’s rare but apparently becoming more common for the sardines not to run, and the reason is that the sea water has to cool below 21C for the migration to take place. 

Wild weather

And the rain, oh the rain … it seems it will never stop. In fact, this is the third year in a row that I recall heavy falls in winter. We are fairly close to the winter rainfall area – it starts just south of Port Elizabeth – so small amounts of rain are not entirely unusual here in winter. But not deluge after deluge.

Then again, wild weather is creating havoc all over the world right now. And there are plenty of reports pointing the finger at global warming. (Try here and here.) 

So there are few certainties, it seems. One of them is our winter fires, which we make most nights in the small fireplace in our lounge. In a junk shop, I found an ancient metal grate that fits (we’d actually been using a baking tray!) into the smaller than usual space. And I covered the boring old surround with a mosaic. It’s made staying warm quite a pleasant affair.

Fresh and simple life

As much as I enjoy going on an amble, one of the most pleasant things about it is coming home. So we’ve had a lovely week of overdosing on all kinds of art in Grahamstown, but that also meant overdosing on wine and eating out.

An earlier version of the salad, including avocado wedges

It means, too, that I deeply appreciate being able to stroll into the vegetable garden and pick a fresh and simple supper: fat cherry tomatoes, a handful of spinach, and a couple of small heads of broccoli. I note that the sweet peppers are starting to form healthy little fruits.

I like to make a warm salad with these ingredients, based roughly on a recipe from Kathy, so roughly that I can’t clearly remember the original.

My lemon pickle is a success!

Anyway, I wilt the spinach in olive oil in a frying pan, grind in a bit of salt and black pepper, and then lay the leaves onto a platter as a bed for the salad. I’ve also used a mix of rocket and fresh lettuce leaves in the past. No result is ever the same; see the pic I’ve given you on this page for an example.

I steam the broccoli florets, not for long because I want them to keep that beautiful green colour, and toss that onto the spinach. Then I add the cherry tomatoes – I fry them lightly in olive oil this time because it seems to enhance the taste – some feta cheese, raisins that have swelled in orange juice (I've used cranberries before), and a bit of dry roasted seeds (pumpkin, sesame and sunflower). I sprinkle balsamic vinegar over the lot.

It’s delicious. We eat it with V’s leftover ciabatta, which tastes good toasted the next day.

Sweet taste of tartness

And we get to open the lemon pickle I attempted to make towards the end of May. It’s perfect! And this is a surprise, I admit, because I was a bit doubtful. 

The texture of the peel and flesh is soft, yet far from mushy; the lemon juice itself has turned into a kind of syrup; and the taste has just the right amount of salty tartness.

Our friend, Prof, can’t seem to get enough of the pickle, and goes home with a little bakkie (plastic container) crammed full of it. That is just the kind of encouragement I need to experiment some more.

Back where it began

Almost 30 years ago, V and I spotted each other for the first time. We were students at Rhodes University in Grahamstown at the time, both young and beautiful. It was an instant attraction across that uncrowded room, and we instantly bonded. For life, it seems.

Just too overwhelming ... on the Green. Pic: CHE

So this week, we are back where it began – in Grahamstown. We’re not students here (our son is, though), but we do tread the old paths, checking out the old haunts. Sometimes we even hold hands. It’s quite sweet.

Apart from a few new robots (traffic lights) and a great deal more student residence buildings, not that much has changed here. Physically, that is. Back then, the fledging and very small Grahamstown festival took place each winter when we all went home for a holiday. Now, it’s a must on the South African calendar.

We’ve joined a few thousand other people who have descended here for what is now known as the National Arts Festival. It has become a massive showcase for all kinds of art in South Africa. This year, there are some 3,000 events, so the choice is overwhelming.

My festival

You carve your own experience of this festival

This festival, I am learning, becomes what each person makes it for themselves. We should call it “my festival” because we each carve our own experience.

I’ve loved wandering the streets and the markets wrapped up in the warm clothes I never get to wear at home next to the sea. I especially love catching the marimba players – it’s a sound that touches me right in my soul. I’ve seen so much wonderful art in so many exhibitions that I really have lost count.

Over breakfast each day, V and I choose the shows we’d like to see. And there have been some unexpected delights. We were bowled over by the National Schools’ Big Band – the raw talent of the next generation of music stars, just beginning to be polished.

Hope and joy

I dragged V off to a dance show called “I am an African”, only to discover that it is set to a beautiful and uplifting poem written by my old friend, Wayne Visser. If he hasn’t seen this performance, I reckon he’d be mightily honoured by the way the choreographer and dancers have interpreted his words. My experience was one of hope and joy, and I know that would please Wayne. V, not a huge fan of dance, had lots of good things to say about it.

Two attempts to see some comedy were fruitless – once because the show was fully booked, and once due to incompetence. But that’s another story, and it’s not funny at all.

So we stumbled onto more music, and how lucky for us. The band called Take Note is a gem, and I love the fact that they’re home-grown Eastern Cape. This is happy, funky African jazz, delivered by the sharpest dressers, with instruments perfected and vocals just stunning. Watch them here. I want to hear them more and more.

The seagull and the cormorant

The cormorant and the seagull on the rocks this morning

This may well be as esoteric as you’ll get to see me, but the idea is just too intriguing – and comforting after the death of Max – to ignore.

Fiona comments that some Native American tribes believe that when a beloved animal dies, you should look for a bird “... something unusual, something rare, something that doesn’t belong where it is. That’s a sign that the animal is safe on the other side. It can be soon after the animal goes, or even a week later.”

She adds that she doesn’t usually believe in such things, “but somehow I've seen a special bird with all my departing dogs since I was told about this belief”.

When I read her comment this morning, I had just been for a long walk on the beach. It is a very beautiful winter day here: just the slightest breeze, and a clear and calm very blue sea. As I walked, I felt very sad: it was my first walk without Max, and he would have loved this, as usual.

Far up the beach, I stop to watch a group of cormorants. One is sunning his wings, a couple are swimming, and a few are clutched together on the rocks. Max loved to bark at these birds, and as he became more deaf, it would be quite a job to get him to stop.

And there is one cormorant that stands out: he stands calmly at the very top of the tallest rock. A seagull touches down next to him. They are watching the sea, it seems. And I watch them for a very long time. I take photographs because I think they are beautiful.

As I walk back along the beach, I meet my friend Lauren and her dogs. We chat and I tell her that I had a sense of Max being in turmoil, but that it feels that he has settled now. Maybe, I laugh, he’s with his Gypsy.

Just saying. It’s a nice pic, anyway.