Birds of a feather…

CHRIS BENNETT, holidaying in the North West, decides a few more semi-colons are needed in this world.

FISHERMEN, two, standing in a small boat at the water’s edge in front of the lawn that leads down to the lake at Hartbeespoort, present a tranquil sight in the early morning.

I am out at the table in the garden writing these lines for this week’s South Coast Herald; lines inspired, if that is the word, by the beauty of the place.

A thin strip of land a few meters wide marks the eastern limit of the small nature reserve and waterfowl sanctuary I have made my home for a week, and indeed shall for another week, through the kindness of an old friend who maintains a charming lodge at this solitary spot.

Last evening, while I was engrossed in South Africa’s rather splendid innings at Willowmore Park, I chanced to look up from the television and out of the French window into the golden light of the setting sun, reflected in the burnished, still surface of the water; a group of ostriches was walking close up against the fence, as if on eggs, with meticulous care and in complete, almost holy, silence.

The single elephant-like file of these gorgeous birds looked for all the world like some medieval pageant, the arrival of some splendid oriental queen, maybe. I had a glimpse of gilded panoplies, glittering banners and silver trumpets.

Summer has arrived in this painted, mountainous corner of the North West Province; the land, thirsty with drought, is smitten with the sun’s iron hand.

But the presence of the lake offers some respite from the heat, if only in the mind. And where else would there be, except in the mind?

Cattle egrets, necks folded neatly like paper clips, fly in a languid cloud, low over the water. There is a laziness to everything; it hangs in the air like a gentle mist, and reminds me that we on the South Coast do not have a monopoly of this dream-like state.

Like the drought-burnt plantations of home, the veld of this ancient, parched land is crackling brown, whorls of dust and splintered dry grass.

Nonetheless the place is, of course, a hive of activity. Hartbeespoort, unlike the South Coast I have come equally to love, does not rest; there is a season for all men, every weekend.

The bird calls are one of the piercing joys of the place. Supreme, of course, is the fish eagle, a fairly frequent visitor to my friend David Holt-Biddle’s column in this newspaper. Other voices are the Transvaal loerie (I cannot picture a Gauteng loerie); the ubiquitous glossy ibis in its shining finery (the la-de-da ha-de-da?), fukwe, the secretive rainbird sounding like an emptying wine bottle; and so the list goes on.

After my rather successful book sale last week some one asked me if I had read all my books. Of course not. The whole point about being a bibliophile is that a book has to be housed along with its custodian. The greatest pleasure I derived from selling the books was that they are going to very good homes, and so their future is assured; until the next gereration, that is.

I recently wrote in this column that I am involved in the planning of a very small library at my village near Munster. I shall try to keep the books interesting, but that which interests one mind, may bore another.

But I suppose I can always weed out the boring ones.