SOS – Steve On Sunday

SOS Sunday 27 September 2020

Steve on Sunday

Good day all you happy and smiling faces,

Spring is here! Or rather it was until winter returned to the platteland (hinterland) with a vengeance. Here I was, minding my own business and getting ready yesterday morning for my Saturday morning book selling stint at the market, when, whistling merrily away, I dashed outside to load some more goodies.

Good Grief. I dashed back inside so fast my neighbours had no time to peep through their curtains and check out what I was doing. (They do you know! Amazing what exciting lives some people live).

From 34 degrees celcius to 5 degrees within 14 hours. No wonder we oldies get ill. So off came the leopard print under rods and on came the thermal ones which were then covered up by ample warm woolly winter clothes packed away a mere two days back. And this dose of winter should last until Wednesday or so the experts (hah!) comment.

Sadly for my neighbours, the covering up of a magnifique physique will no doubt unsettle them for a time. Won’t stop them commenting on how sick they are though.

There are two things elderly people just love talking about – the weather and their own illnesses. And their own illnesses are always nine thousand times worse than you have got or have ever had. And, no matter that you are currently suffering from cholera, malaria, corona, have just had a massive stroke and are attached to myriad tubes and machines keeping you from fading away, there are some who will merely snort and tell you to get over it. They have had worse than that, much worse, and over the next 15 to 20 minutes will proceed to tell you their pathetic story about what really amounts to mere sniffles.

There are two residents who reside in this settlement where I sleep at night who are like that. They actually wait in ambush for you to wander past and open up as you enter the killing ground. Not happy with a few claymores, an RPG 7 or two and a smattering of AK47 and 12.7mm rounds, they will also explode ordnance in your direction like you have never seen.

And while rattling off at you for 15 minutes non-stop, you are clutching your chest and struggling to breathe.

They’re good, very good, and they do ask how you are incidentally, but do not give you a chance to reply. Ever. It goes like this:

MorningStevelovelyweatheryesterdayverycoldtodayHowareyou?goodbutanywaywherewasI?

Yes,verycoldbutthatsenoughabouttheweatherletmetellyouhowInearlydiedlastnight

thereIwasmindingmyownbusinessinthekitchenwhenIsneezed

IreallythoughIhadnowcaughtthisvirusfrommycousinsnephew

Itellyouheissofatitisunbelievable

butthissneezecamefromnowhereithurtmythroatandnosesomuchIhadtogetmedication….

And so it carries on for some time. Your legs get cramp while waiting for them to finish and when they do and you’re preparing to hit back at them with 15 minutes of your health problems they’re off. Very busy you know, no time for idle chit chat. And off they waddle. Serious.

They’re the sort who, as you are being loaded into an ambulance having survived a vicious knife attack, and suffered a heart attack at the same time, blood pumping out, will snort in derision saying to all and sundry what a wimp you are compared to him/her, who suffered worse than what you’ve just gone through on more than ten occasions and lost a leg and an arm on each occasion. You are pathetic, Steve.

From these two neighbours I have learnt to do some heavy duty reconnaissance before going to check on my post box. Not that there is any post but sometimes there is a freebie newspaper or someone advertising on a slip of paper that they clean carpets and things. If I see them hiding) in cammo clothes) behind a bush or in a tree I am gone like a flash. Bugger the post and all.

I am well aware that some of my 12 readers dislike rugby, so I am only going to write about it for a few paragraphs and then, just for them, will chat about jukskei and polo crosse. They have to either enjoy or have heard of one of those two sports, surely?

Anyway, rugby.

A few of you are aware that yesterday the Stormers overcame the Lions and also that the Blue Bulls steamrollered the Sharks late yesterday. It’s the Blue Bulls game that I must comment on. It’s the only one I watched as I nodded off when the second game started. Something that has happened regularly during lockdown with no live sport.

Anyway. Whatever happened to the Blue Bulls and the Sharks that we all last saw in February (or March) before government enforced lockdown? Then the Bulls were pathetic and the Sharks were absolutely brilliant.

It was a complete reversal yesterday. The Bulls, running up a 35-7 lead by half time, looked like the team that won the Super series several times about 15 odd years back while the Sharks looked like a schoolboy team. Then came wholesale team changes at half time and both teams looked like schoolboy sides.

The difference can only be because of Jeppe High old boy Jake White and the so many new faces he introduced to the game and to the public. They actually looked like they wanted to play and not act like a prima donnas. I could hear the All Blacks and Wallaby TV spectators asking who that player is and who is that number 11 and so on and so forth. No to worry cobbers, kiwis, etc, I was asking the same questions.

The Bulls were stunning.

Of course it may be the fact that Jake is married to an Umtali girl. Well, I think he is still married to her. I better do some googling. Us Umtali folk do pop up in the most unusual of circumstances, but I am only going to chat about the good things Umtali people are doing or have done. We will not go down the other road. Not yet anyway. Buy the book when it comes out…

Did I say that I was going to write about jukskei and polo crosse? I lied. Sorry. Perhaps a sentence or two about polo crosse, though.

My old province in that colonial country Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) is still called Manicaland. In the 1970s they boasted an extremely powerful polo crosse side that included the Keith brothers, Anthony and Alastair. I wonder what happened to them, and if polo crosse is still played in Manicaland. Just a passing thought.

I notice that the last two nights illegal drag racing has started once again in Kimberley after Chines* viru* restrictions have lifted since the implementing of Level 1. Methinks however, that these drag racers have misread the rules and regulations.

While many of us are aware of the curfew between midnight and 04h00, these guys only start their street racing at about 00h15, and continue to about 02h00. What do they know that we do not? Are the men (and women) in blue not so active during curfew hours? It certainly looks that, well, in Kimberley anyway.

I do hope you have a lovely day and a good week too.

I thank you.