I NEVER KNEW CHICKENS USED SO MUCH CROCKERY

Joseph and Catherine Nicolette feeding a rescued bird

Luky:
Of my children, I believe Joseph has the kindest heart. He reminds me of the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."
When some of us are quarrelling, Joe intervenes:
"Love ditch other", he admonishes, "God says you must."

Most of his knowledge of catechism was taught him by the Sisters of St Elmo's where he made his first Communion before he returned to us.
Shortly afterwards, coming from Mass, he approached our parish priest who was standing talking to some parishioners.
"Father!" he called out joyfully, "thank you for giving me the Body of Christ!"
The people laughed delightedly; that is the effect Joe has on most of us.

Animal-lovers
The nuns taught him to be gentle towards animals.
"Never be cruel to God's creatures", he informs us. "We should look after them nicely."
He is living at the right place. Apart from me, everyone in this family possesses an animal-loving streak that can only remind one of St Francis.

I always smile when I recall walking down the street beside my eldest son. 
Those fierce dogs which usually scare the daylights out of me became as meek as lambs. 
He knew their names and histories, and they came to say hullo to him, wagging their tails.
"Don't bark at that lady", he told one diehard who was prepared to accept him but not his hangers-on. "That's my mother. I want you to be nice to her." I felt ten feet tall that day.

Joseph also likes dogs, but he prefers chickens. Years ago his father went to the pet shop to buy a dozen chicks and ducks.
The first inkling I had of this was when he returned from the shop and I heard my husband telling the children: "You're not to say a thing to the ou girl. Leave her to me, I can handle her ... Oh hello, Ma, I didn't see you there."
"Cut the blarney", I replied, "What have you been up to?"
When he produced the livestock, I pretended to burst into tears - and my dismay was only partly feigned.

Joseph haunted me until bedtime.
"Do you love the chicks and the ducks?" he demanded. "Say you do. You've got to love God's creatures."
"I don't", I said bitterly, "Give them away."

My husband told me later that Joseph came up to him and said: "I'm going to wait until Mommy  has said her prayers. Then I'll ask her if she loves God's creatures, and she'll say yes."
However, it took him a week of pleading before I became too numb to dissent.

I got used to the ducks, and only wished my children were as united as they were. 
They kept together all the time. I dreaded thinking what I was going to do with them when they grew big. 
As it was, the garage smelled like a pet shop and my few remaining dishes served as swimming pools, food receptacles and other essentials. 
I never knew ducks and chicks used so much crockery.

Can talk
Years ago Joe was angry and gossiping about Peter, a neighbour's child. 
I had him there and told him to stop skindering about God's creatures.
"He's not God's creature - he can talk", he objected.
"We're all God's creatures", I informed him, and dashed out - fearful of becoming involved in a theological discussion.

Next day I was talking to a neighbour at the fence when Joe came up to us with Peter in tow. "Mommy and Tannie, say hullo to Peter - God's creature", he said.

My son is mentally disabled. 
To me he is like the verse in the Bible:
"Consider the lilies of the field, and how they grow... I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not as one of these."

*

Children's letters are marvellous years later

Outside beautiful Welkom

Luky;
I regret very much that I destroyed or lost so many of my children's letters to me. One Sunday my youngest was labouring away in the bedroom, making me spell out words for her. In the end she showed me the masterpiece that had taken the best part of an hour to complete, a picture of two little girls having a picnic, captioned by the words: "This was my momy when sh was smol."
How easy it would have been to have kept a scrapbook of all their literary and artistic efforts, I reflected, a box file would have done the trick.

The love letters might have served as a good form of blackmail when rebellious teenagers got out of hand, come to think of it. Until they were twelve, all my children thought the sun shone out of their father and me.

Two hearts as one
Still, I did keep some of my favourites. How do you like this one from one of mine in standard three (I forget which one);
"To Mom: People need to be reminded that they are loved. And I'd like to tell you that you're loved by ME!" followed by a picture of two hearts, captioned "Your heart" and "my heart".

My youngest daughter and eldest son were my two best artists. When my son was three he drew a yacht that looked like a yacht, and when he was five, there wasn't a thing he couldn't draw.
I do a picture of a helicopter which draws much applause from children under five, but by the time he was five he could draw any vehicle from a wheelbarrow to a moon rocket, and you would have recognised it.
His vocabulary was not as good as it might have been, because he only spoke his first sentence at three and a half. When he was lost for a word he'd simply produce a pencil and paper and draw the item and you'd be on his wavelength.

Whole scene
My youngest was gifted in the drawing line, although her talent came to the fore at a later stage.
Travelling from Johannesburg to Welkom in the car, she doodled on a piece of typing paper, and when we were halfway she showed me the result. It was an American scene; Indians, campfires, wigwams, settlement, swinging doors of a saloon, cowboys, marshal complete with spurs and star, even the saloon girl with the big hairdo, the short crinoline skirt and the halfboots.

But what I liked best was the picture of the back of a horse, tied to a fence, but turning its head so that it was looking right at you. How I laughed over that horse. Alas, I lost the paper and the picture remains only a memory. 
My children have had much joy out of their drawings. Their paternal grandfather proudly claimed that they took after his brothers and their maternal grandmother proudly claimed that they take after her brothers and my father's sisters. All I can say is that their drawings have kept them quiet for many a long hour.

Some of them wanted to become authors and they ilustrated their own stories. 
Some of the stories were absolutely priceless to this fond mother's eyes.
I found one done by my second daughter:
"..Jane's muffeld sobs could be heard at the end of the street . . ."
My daughter's spelling was not of the best, and her handwriting was downright poor. She also had a disconcerting way of putting in capital letters midway through a sentence, but true genius is not hemmed in by mere syntax, punctuation and spelling.

Never at a loss
"Correction", I said to her; "if Jane muffled her sobs it meant she held her hand to her mouth, so how could they be heard at the end of the street?"
If my daughter was flummoxed, she gave no sign of it. Smiling sunnily, she replied:
"If her sobs could be heard at the end of the street when she muffled them, can you imagine how they would have sounded if she hadn't?"

One day I'm going to have the last word with my children, but that day hasn't arrived yet.

Catherine Nicolette;
How well I remember our literary efforts. My first book was written at the tender age of six. 
It was "The Totas and the Hair". 
I had been deeply inspired by Sr Juan's reading of the tortoise and the hare at school. 
I saw myself as the tortoise toiling along, trying to learn all I could and battling away. It might have had something to do with the fact that I often fell behind during lessons. 
This was because every now and then I used to leave the class while Sister was writing on the board. 
Sister would then collect me from dreamily going backward and forward on the swing, looking up at the Welkom clouds. "What are you doing?" she once asked me.
"Talking to God," I said. "Well, God is going to have to wait, "she said, "It's class now." 
And she firmly led the way into the Sub A class with me gloomily trailing behind her. 

Anyhow. I wrote the book, drew page after page laboriously with Mom's ballpoint pen and her paper. Once the book was completed, I was at a complete loss how to stick it together. 
So I raided Mom's sewing box and sewed the ends of the book together. 
I was very proud of it, and Mom kept it for many years afterwards.

When I was nine I wrote my first love story. 
The storyline ended with my heroine falling and breaking her leg. the hero carrying her home clasped against his chest. There he tenderly and respectfully placed her on the settee, knelt before her and declared his undying love for her. 
I considered the whole story a beautiful Masterpiece of True Love. 
I hid the manuscript in the piano stool because my brother had the annoying habit of reading anything I wrote. 
I came home from school one day to find Mom - who had been on one of her unannounced Dutch springcleans - with my book in her hand and tears rolling down her face in mirth. 
I was indignant as I asked her what she was doing.
"Reading your story," she said.
"Well," I said with asperity, "It's meant to be a romance, not a comedy."
And at that Mom, who had been trying to stifle her laughter, went into peals of mirth.
I could see that the work of a True Artist was lost on her, and lost no time in removing my work of literary genius from her unworthy hands.

This did not stop me, however. At thirteen, I wrote a book about sparrows living in a hedgerow in England, and decorated the book with illustrations of birds in little caps and jackets among holly and the wheaten cornfields of Britain. This was when I was being inspired by Beatrix Potter's immortal works and the beauties of the books of Miss Read. 
I was convinced that this was the book that was going to make me a millionaire, allow me to live in comfort all my life, and buy my parents and each of my siblings their own house. 
I got the postal money together and quietly posted off the manuscript to a British publisher. I waited for the book offer to arrive. 
I received my manuscript and illustrations back some while later, with my first rejection slip. 
It was a courteously worded slip apprising that the book was not quite what the publishing house was looking for. Also, the slip pointed out that it might be best to practise my drawings while looking at nature in order to be authentic. 
I looked about me at the veld, the long dry grass and the solitary hill in our area - Koppie Alleen - (Alone Hill) and then back at my drawings of lush British countryside in the hedgerows as I imagined it. Hmmm. They might have had a point. The British countryside I had drawn existed in my imagination alone.

However I certainly was not daunted. At fourteen I wrote my next love story and sent it in to a magazine. I had worked out that a little pocket money would be most helpful, and was sure that I would be able to earn the same from articles to magazines. Alas, it was not to be. My second rejection slip arrived back, with a warm letter from the editor explaining to me that she saw some merit in my writing. She advised me however, to give myself time to gain some life experience. "Then I consider that it is possible if you continue writing, that one day you may well be able to write articles that will be accepted."

I sat sadly in the dry grass of our backyard holding the brown envelope which I had so lovingly encrypted with my neatest handwriting, and watched the bubbles of my dreams pop into nothingness over my head. No pocket money. No fame. No wealth. No houses for my parents and siblings. Then my dog came up and rubbed his head against my knee with absolute affection. I brightened as I patted his head. Oh well. There were different kinds of wealth. One day I would write my bestseller. But not just yet...

*Photograph taken by Catherine Nicolette

The confessions of a work-mommy

Luky;
It was my youngest daughter's birthday around the beginning of the first school term - her fourth - and smiles of contentment were radiating from her round, fair little face. Her father had taken her shopping for her own present the previous day, and to his great shame she had selected a walkie-talkie doll, bigger than herself. But he couldn't resist her pleas and bought it.

"Don't you think it is a sin? There are so many poor people in the world. How could I have bought her such an expensive present?" he kept asking.
"Bosh!" I answered decisively. "When I was a little girl I longed for such a gift and I never got one. Catherine Nicolette and our second daughter have always longed for such a doll and we couldn't afford it. 
Just think, that doll was made in a factory where people are employed. It was created by other workers, railed by others, sold in the local bazaar. A lot of people make their living out of dolls like that.
I bet you even now a new one has been ordered from the factory already creating further employment."

Really busy
He looked dubious, but relieved. I was always a great protagonist of poverty when we were making ends meet. Once I was working I encountered so many problems that I no longer felt the need to perform sacrifices; it was all I could do to keep my sanity in the crazy treadmill of activity I had landed in at that time.

I know people who begrudge anyone a profit. They make their own clothes, buy everything secondhand, line up for bargains and plead poverty; yet they could buy and sell the rest of us.

Doing without
When I was broke I did without. If my husband had died when everyone, including the specialist, expected him to, I would have remained behind penniless. When he was cured I decided to make the most of our remaining years together, and if that meant that my youngest got a doll bigger than herself for her fourth birthday, good for her. She was deprived in other ways.

Now that I was a fulltime working mother I couldn't give her the attention other luckier children took for granted. I didn't buy her presents to assuage my sense of guilt because I no longer had a sense of guilt about working. I was just so grateful to have a good job, though that was only since my husband became sickly. 

Mutual appreciation
My youngest said a funny thing on her birthday.
"You are such a good mommy to me."  She always talked like that: we lapped it up.
"You are such a good baby to me, too", I said.
"You are a work-mommy".
"What's a work-mommy?"
"A work-mommy is a mommy what goes to work every morning."
My heart bled.
"Shame, love", I said, "do you feel sad when I go to work in the morning?"
"No, I don't", she replied cheerfully and went back to her doll.
The phrase work-mommy haunted me ever since. I was afraid to ask what she would call a mommy who stays at home. Perhaps she would have said: "That's a real mommy."

You can tell
Every time I saw a mother waving goodbye to her children in the morning, as I drove to work, I now found myself thinking: "You can tell she's not a work-mommy."
Picture the real mommy. Her children have had a cooked breakfast, their shoes shine, their bicycles gleam and they wave goodbye in the secure feeling that mother is there and will be there again when they return.

If they had a confrontation with their teachers or a classmate, there will be a sympathetic ear to listen to their woes. I know - I was a real mommy for fifteen years. I looked a mess and I hadn't a dime, but my children could truly have sung: "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."

Proudest boy in school
Now picture the work-mommy. She doesn't bake cakes; she diets instead. Her hair is neat, her makeup is on; she's got plenty of clothes.
Her children don't look as well cared for as those of the real mommy, but she learns to shrug that off, along with the fact that she's simply too tired to help them with their homework at night.

One night my second son said to me: "I'd be the proudest boy in school if you'd work in the tuckshop the way the other boys' mothers do."
And a tearful second daughter informed me on another occasion:
"Our teacher says that if our parents are not interested in our homework, we can never expect to do well at the end of the year."
Which did not stop her from getting 72% average without my help.

The better part
Personally I feel that the real mommy has the better part. Her children have enough to eat, too, and their diet is probably healthier than that of the work-mommy's kids, who are often fed on quickie foods.
On the other hand, the work-mommy's children learn to stand on their own feet more quickly.

You can look on the pros and cons forever, but I find I cannot fool myself. I think the moms who are in the fortunate position to be able to stay at home have the better part which will not be taken away from them.

Catherine Nicolette;
I remember Mom asking me as a teenager if I would have liked a large doll. I said yes I remember, in order to make her happy as I understood that real girls liked to play with dolls. I didn't really want her to know that my soul had craved the gift of a rugby ball. The lads in the neighbourhood would never let me play rugby with them...

Africa and the Livestock Rustlers

Catherine Nicolette;
The story has been told in Africa of a Tale of Livestock Rustling. A farmer had recently bought a farm, and found the livestock seemed to be disappearing. All in the area were on the alert. Shortly thereafter a minibus was pulled over to the side of the road, as something seemed to be wrong. Upon closer inspection, a sheep - well known for their peaceable disposition - was seated placidly on each passenger's lap, wearing a cap on its head...

The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency

Catherine Nicolette
It was my first time reading one of the books about the charming Precious Ramotswe and her 97 percent secretary, Mma Makutsi.  I could almost hear the call of the African birds, smell the dust underneath the tyres of Mma Ramotswe's trusty little white van, and see the thorn trees silhouetted against the sky. There was no doubt to one who knows the area around Botswana well; the bestselling books of Alexander McCall Smith faithfully render in print the reality of the warmth and beauty that is the life of Africa. 

Why not do yourself a favour and read his lovely books?
And even more; why not enjoy the luminous acting talent of Jill Scott, Anika Noni Rose and Lucian Msamati as they bring McCall Smith's loveable characters to life in the TV series
 "The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency."

Click the following links for more information
DVD's available from
http://www.blahdvd.com/search.htm?type=GRP100000&search=the+no+1+ladies+detective+agency
Books available from 
http://www.amazon.com/Alexander-McCall-Smith/e/B001BOPZXG

*Photograph taken by Catherine Nicolette. Please feel free to use copyright free for any worthy purpose

Home at last - three cheers for the boss!

Sean lived life with originality and flair

Luky;
The morning I went to fetch my husband home after his four-week hospital ordeal was a festive one. 
Earlier on I had brought his clothes and he had been dressed since 7 o'clock, waiting for the heart specialist to discharge him. We were off by 10 o'clock. 
The nurses wanted to take him down in a wheelchair, but he wasn't having any and walked down the stairs with me.

My sister-in-law had brought him a pot of rooted yellow asters, and on the way down my husband said in a voice that brooked no argument: "You can hold the flowers while I drive the car."

The Florence Nightingales
As we drove off, a wolf whistle caused us to look up at the window of the surgical ward. The entire nursing staff stood there, laughing and waving at my husband.
"It's high time you were coming home", I said severely.

Chief keeper of the purse
Town had never looked so good to us. We stopped at the bank to cash a loan levy cheque the taxman had sent us. That cheque saved me from having to do a lot of explaining. Having been appointed chief keeper of the purse during my husband's illness, I had taken my duties somewhat too seriously and spent rather freely. The cheque restored our financial equilibrium.

Driving slowly to the suburb where we lived, we passed some parks. Whence this glorious Technicolour, I asked myself. I had forgotten grass was so green and that flowers could be so vibrantly colourful.
"Everything looks so big", my husband kept repeating, "And so lovely."

The children's garden
Even the garden did not look bad - the children had spent two days preparing it for their father's return.
"How pretty the house looks", he said, "I'd forgotten how much I love our furniture."

Our youngest daughter walked quietly behind her father wherever he went. She had been stammering terribly since he'd gone to hospital. No doubt Freud could have made a lot out of that. I got the impression that she was making very sure he couldn't escape again in a hurry.

The dogs ran around for joy. Even the cat, sitting on the garden wall, looked as if she was thinking;
"Thank goodness the old fellow is back. Now we'll have some organisation around the place again."
All in all, it was a joyous occasion. Things were so peaceful once again on the homefront that, like Rose Franken's Claudia, I thought I would be able to start having that nervous breakdown I had promised myself.

Catherine Nicolette;
We very nearly lost Dad on that occasion. The joy to have him back home was immense - we had so nearly become a one parent family. Dad was a firm favourite at the local hospital, and a legend in his time there.
His incorrigible Irish charm, twinkling brown eyes, Tramore accent and deep respect for women earned him the title of  'that lovely Irish gentleman - little Whittle's father'. I was forgiven many an accidentally broken thermometer on account of the deep affection the Matrons and Nursing Sisters had for my dad.

However, there was another side to it all. Dad enjoyed his little bit of Irish Holy Water as he called a wee drop of whisky.
He did not fancy going into the unknown of the hospital wards without a little refreshment to strengthen him and his mining colleagues who were also recuperating there. 
So Dad emptied out five or six Colgate shampoo bottles and rinsed them out thoroughly.
He then decanted emergency rations; the blue Colgate bottle held the whisky. The yellow lemon shampoo bottle held gin, the green apple shampoo container held rum. I can't remember which colour of the rainbow shampoo bottle held the soda, or what was in the others. 

Family legend has it that when Dad was admitted to the ward, the Ward Sister exclaimed,
"My, Mr Whittle. You are so clean. So many bottles of shampoo!" 
Dad, virtuously replied something to the effect of, "We do our best, Sister, we do our best", with his charming Irish smile. 
The Sister hastened to personally pack his shampoo bottles in his bedside locker, not trusting the probationer nurses with this task. 
And so Dad settled comfortably in, king of his domain in the hospital bed.

Things went a little pear-shaped however, when Dad and his colleagues were found, slightly cheerful and happy one hospital Saturday night, imbibing sundowners from the tooth glasses each had thoughtfully brought in with them. 
Dad was dispensing the whisky and soda with great cheer when the illicit potcheen bar was discovered by the Night Sister.
The shampoo bottles were confiscated with great dignity by the Night Matron. 

I believe from the stories that circled the hospital for years afterwards and which were retailed to me from time to time with gales of laughter, that Dad hung his head in shame as the Matron lectured him, her lace frill on the starched caps we used to wear nodding on her cap;
"Now, Mr. Whittle, I am most surprised at you. "
"I'm sorry, Matron, I must apologise, " Dad replied.
"And now, Mr. Whittle, I must remove these bottles, and lock them up in the safe."
"Oh, must you, Matron? Could we not keep at least one?" Dad plaintively requested.
"Certainly not, Mr Whittle. However, they will be returned to you upon your discharge from the Hospital."
"Thank you, Matron. Thank you. And once again, my humble apologies."

Upon Dad's discharge, the bottles were delivered into Mom's custody by the Matron, whose keys jangled officially from her starched apron bib as she courteously signed them over. 
We did not envy Dad. Mom ran a tight ship.

And the Night Matron? 
She absolutely adored Dad. 

As welcome as the flowers in May

Luky;
Much to the delight of my family I found myself expecting another baby at the age of thirty-six. 
It was quite an exciting feeling to be once again knitting bootees, coping with morning sickness and selecting patterns for maternity clothes. 
The thought of holding a tiny, precious little bundle of my own in my arms made me feel young all over again.
"I hope I'll have two still, so that they can be friends", I remarked to a friend.
Her vehement reaction astonished me:
"To bring up children costs money, don't you realise that?" she asked.
Well, I ought to, since I paid out a lot of money in school fees and books alone for the children at school. But, as always, God tempered the wind to the shorn lamb, and with my husband's job at the time we always managed to break even in the end.

I never went along with the theory of being unable to afford children. 
When I think of my two eldest children, I realise that if ever there were two babies whose parents couldn't afford them, these were they. 
However, their dad and I rode bikes instead of a car, we wore old clothes, and I served mealie-meal porridge for breakfast and soups and stews for lunch and supper and they flourished notwithstanding. It's nice to have children. They make you laugh.

One week during my pregnancy I had a terrific migraine, and my head felt as though an electric saw was parting it midway each time I raised it from the pillow. 
Four centuries ago the French essayist Montaigne wrote of migraine that one should treat it hospitably, since this affliction is more effectively coaxed by subservience than by impudence. 
So I stayed in bed, but the kids kept coming in to ask me things and tell me things and my head was getting worse all the time.

Looking in the mirror, I saw my face without makeup and puffy from pain, while my hair defied the laws of gravity as well as the strokes from my hairbrush, so I went back to bed, feeling not only sore but ugly, which is worse.
"This is nonsense!" my husband said angrily to my second daughter as she called in to see me for the umpteenth time. "Can't you see your mother is ill? Get out."
"I'm going to play in the garden", she retorted with dignity, "but first I'm going to kiss that pretty young girl in the bed."
My youngest son also made me laugh.
 "If you give me one of those shiny cents with a two and a nought on", he said one time, "I can get a bottle of cream soda at the tuck shop." 
Although I was as mean as Scrooge due to having to deal with the effects of inflation on the family finances, he got his twenty cents without any argument.

When I told my eldest to do her revision one day, she tore her eyes from the newspaper she was reading, and said: "Don't hassle, mom. It'll all be done in God's good time."
All right, I might have had more money if I had no children; but what would I do for laughs?
I can't deny that my children made a lot of work, were as noisy and untidy as some and noisier and untidier than most.
 All the same, our baby was as welcome as the flowers in May when she arrived, and we just took the noise and the pram in our stride.

*Photograph taken by Catherine Nicolette. Please feel free to use copyright free for any worthy purpose