Go on. Indulge me, It is a long time since I started a Cape Crawl with a reference to a song.

Pink Floyd recorded the song: Another Brick in the Wall. The song was released in 1980.  And at the time, the South African government, felt that our sensitive natures could be offended by the lyrics. The actual reason, when not sugar coated in a “this is for your own good” way, was that the government feared that it may have been immortalized as an anthem for the disaffected school children who would eventually see the system of Apartheid dismantled. I am not sure when it was unbanned, but you will understand that my relationship with the song was a bit of a late bloomer. The song in fact, had little to do with the goings on in South Africa during the 1980’s, and was actually written as a protest song against the cruelty of teachers in Britain. Pink Floyd were not alone. Frankie goes to Hollywood found their way to the censorship apocalypse, along with the two Bobs: Dylan and Marley.

The saying: hitting a brick wall, refers to being unable to continue or make progress because of a hindrance, to come to a point beyond which there is no progress. We hit a brick wall with Domino this past week. After his cross-country adventure last week, he was captured. Not by me, who crawled around alleys and climbed up embankments like some demented woman to catch him. Oh, no. All it took in the end was Colin calling him, and mister came crawling out of his hidey-hole and hopped into the car. We brought him home, and for the next two days, all he did was sleep and eat. On his adventure, he picked up quite a few hitchhiking ticks. Over the week end he got doused in a potent (which translates into expensive) treatment which euthanized anything with more than 4 legs. They did indeed drop like dead fleas. All good, then, you say? No. Dommies has the memory of a dead flea, and once again we collected him from Botrivier Village this afternoon. I am reaching the point of no sympathy with him. Where last time, everyone tried to feed him and keep him safe, this time the request was: do not allow him to get comfortable. Once we got home with him, he spent an extra hour in the box of shame (aka his travel box) while I told him off in my best “cat” that next time he can become a statistic on the food chain, or a scrawny railway cat with a broken tail and torn ear.

But, back to walls. Our building is progressing very well. Some of the superstructure (that is above ground walls) are 2.5 meters tall now. This of course comes with some risk. The winds here can be quite strong, and at one point last week, Colin and Builder were having discussions on how to keep the walls up. It was on a very windy day. In the end, it was decided that the dry packed stone work, which is already happening in places, should reinforce the walls. At this point, I had to ask Colin: what do you call that type of stone work? You see, not all stonewalls are equal. Stonewalls are a type of masonry construction that has been utilized for thousands of years. For those who cheat, you can go to any fancy tiles place and buy ornamental stone exterior. You could also just pretend that stones are bricks and jam them together with cement. Or you can be a Colin, and source yourself a stonemason who is now using most of the rock we (the “royal” we) took out of the ground and after cutting it to size, pack it in a way that is called: dry pack. A dry stonewall, is fundamentally held up by friction and gravity. Which goes to show. Friction and gravity can beat any wind, most days…..

A challenge I am trying to get around, is getting used to the “Cape Coloured” accent. It does not matter whether the conversation is in English or Afrikaans, either way, it is hard to understand. These locals do have a way to pronounce some words that they sound like neither of the aforementioned languages, and it is done very fast. I was having a conversation with one such person the other day. The accent was quite rough, and after the third time of begging her pardon, said lady must have thought that I was hard of hearing, and resorted to doing what we all do when speaking to Granny when she has once again left her hearing aid at home: you shout keys words.  No, no! I said. I am not deaf, I am just having difficulty understanding your accent. Well, that went down like a ton of bricks. Forth time round, she resorted to sign language. I still have no idea what she was trying to say to me, but she seemed quite pleased when all I could do was nod my head and agree with her. I once saw a cartoon of a man loading rocks into a machine and Afrikaans words dropped out the other end. Back then, I did not appreciate the humour, as I found it derogatory, but I think I get it now. And that is how our conversation concluded. Just a pile of rocks. And I agreed to all of it.

But on a more serious note, We are at the end of our tether with Domino. Cats are nocturnal, and it is near impossible to keep our three legged Houdini indoors. Even as I write, he is scouting for places to escape. Maybe I should take him to the vet. That won’t help my mother said. You will have to keep him in, Pat volunteered. Here we are, on a lovely cool summer evening, living on the most beautiful piece of farm you could possibly imagine, and we are holed up with Domino, peeping through the shuttered windows. It is not fair. I want to be out there, doing things, that does not involve giving an ungrateful cat dirty looks. One would imagine that he would be sorry enough to appreciate his humans. Not our Domino. Sticks and stones (and ticks and fleas) may hurt his bones, but my words (spoken and unspoken) will not have any affect on our wayward cat.