Sunday a fortnight ago was our 45th wedding anniversary.
While it’s not a milestone like 50, it’s still a very long time to be married!
Like we say, she’s doing well as my first wife and I’m meeting up to her standards as her first husband. We’re stubborn that way.
So, with the general doom and gloom of beaches closed and everywhere full of holidaymakers, instead of the usual celebratory lunch out, we decided to spend the day communing with nature.
We headed north to the Harold Johnson nature reserve, which was open and had only 2 or 3 other families.
Time in the bush is always special. It touches all the senses – sight, hearing, feel, smell, everything! HJ is a fair-sized property, more than 100 hectares on the south bank of the Tugela River 6km upstream of the river mouth.
I’ve seen zebra there before (though not this time) and other species include bushbuck, impala, blue, red and grey duiker, vervet monkey, slender mongoose, white-tailed mongoose, banded mongoose, porcupine and bush pig.
These are all hard to see in the thick bush, but the real drawcard is the huge variety of birds – more than 200 species, I’m told.
On the 5km trail through the bush, we were lucky to watch a migrant Lesser Spotted Eagle hunting from a perch in a tall tree, diving into the tall grass to catch a mouse. A first for us.
A lot of the trees have nameplates for identification, but we thought there could be many more.
But the wide variety of plants attracts a huge number of butterflies.
Of course, they don’t sit still long enough to be photographed, but the experts say about 114 species have been sighted in the park.
It’s a lovely day out, safe and secluded, well-kept with picnic tables and a couple of walks through the bush.
If you’re ever inclined to go up, it’s on the R102 between Darnall and Mandeni, off the Tugela south bank road.
Next door is a fine military cemetery, if you’re into those things, on the site of the long-gone Fort Pearson (and Fort Tenedos on the north bank) were British forts built in 1879 at the start of the Anglo Zulu war.
Nearby is what remains of the Ultimatum Tree, the starting point of the war.
The British demanded that King Cetshwayo disband his army and take a knee to Queen Victoria, which he flatly refused to do.
The Brits invaded Zululand in early January and within a few weeks received a bloody nose at Rorke’s Drift and a thrashing at Isandlwana, a defeat the British still wince about.
* * *
A few years ago, I was given a self-published autobiography of a former classmate, a man who is a very successful computer boff today.
We’ve run into one another over the years and I like him.
In the book, however, he complained endlessly about our school, said he was bullied for being a nerd and positively hated some of the teachers.
It was sad to realise how much bitterness he had carried in his heart for more than 50 years.
I remember him as a child, a little different from the average schoolboy but not outstandingly so.
I do remember the teacher he hated.
We all hated him.
A sadistic, sarcastic twit who should not have been allowed near children.
What intrigues me is this: If you were singled out, mocked, even bullied, as a child for being different, how long do you carry that bitterness in your heart?
Children can be horrid to anyone who does not ‘fit in’ and that is not going to change soon.
But if you were the subject of a bully, for how long do you carry that burden into adulthood?
The enormously successful entrepreneur Magda Wierzycka has complained that she had been bullied at school in Pretoria because, as an immigrant from Poland, she had struggled with English.
Well, just look at her now, one of the richest people in SA.
Did the experience harm her, or make her stronger?
I remember a few schoolmates who battled with English, mostly French-speakers from further north, Mauritius and Reunion, and more unusually, some kids arrived at primary school straight off the farm who only spoke Zulu.
I don’t remember that they were bullied.
More regarded as curiosities for a while, then they soon fitted in.
What I do remember was the numerous canings I received for my bad mathematics homework.
It might have hurt at the time but caning was part of school, so no big deal, and I don’t carry that around with me today as emotional baggage.
The people who bullied you don’t remember you, so there is no reason why you should remember them.
Move on. It does no good to carry a shrine to self-pity in your heart for the rest of your days.
Those wiser than me say the way to lift the burden is to forgive your tormentors, along the lines of “They know not what they do”.
If you’re a young person just setting out on the path of life, with rivers to cross and mountains to climb, try to leave unnecessary baggage where it belongs – in the Lost Luggage department.
