I realised with a start the other day that Rose and I have spent slightly more than half our lives on the North Coast.
You wonder where the time went!
Not a lot of time was spent in traffic, because there wasn’t much until recently.
I thought about the first half of my life for a bit while sitting in the queue at the Sheffield turnoff, trying to get onto the Salt Rock road.
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been frantically doing the jobs I boasted I would be able to do easily in our new house at Sheffield – build a wooden staircase and countertops for the living room and bathrooms out of a consignment of American Redwood I got from my brother-in-law.
You know the expression ‘Engage brain before putting mouth in gear’?
Well, I know now that those kinds of jobs take at least three times as long and are much harder than imagined.
Anyhow, I’ve been driving around a lot, to and from the hardware store, and have noticed how much traffic there is these days, from when the biggest traffic jam used to be the drop-off at Umhlali Prep in the mornings. It’s unbelievable!
We left Joburg in 1985 because we wanted to start our own newspaper and to get out of Joburg.
I’d been working in national newspapers for 15 years and imagined that a local newspaper would be easy-peasy and kind of cute.
Wrong on both counts.
While it’s a lot of fun, starting any business is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration as they say in the classics and the style of journalism couldn’t be more different.
The local rag gets up close and personal with your audience in a way that the nationals never do.
When we got to the North Coast and defined Umdloti to Mandeni as our paper’s focus area, Ballito was a village that wanted to be a town.
All the main activity was in sleepy Stanger and life was a lot slower.
Action revolved around the mill towns and most people’s fortunes depended on the state of the sugar crop.
So, despite the struggle of hustling for money, life settled into a slower rhythm that was only disturbed by the bi-annual visits of Vaalies who scornfully referred to our ‘Natal Fever’.
We liked it that way.
There’s still a sign in the library saying ‘We’re locals: the hurrieder we go, the behinder we get.’
But that’s all changing, isn’t it! It’s hard to believe the sheer number of cars, delivery vans, taxis, construction vehicles, contractors’ vans and lots more, that hustle and bustle around the area now.
It wasn’t that long ago that we had dial-up internet – today Salt Rock is being ripped up for the third time to lay yet more fibre. The world is arriving, fast.
Our local government has been struggling manfully to keep up, not always (or even seldom) to residents’ satisfaction.
While potholes and streetlights are a source of constant irritation, to be fair it be hinder a Sisyphean task – the fellow in Greek mythology who was condemned for eternity to roll a huge rock up a long, steep hill, only to watch it roll back down.
The area is growing faster than most could keep up, not that it isn’t a reason for them to reprioritise and get the job done!
So where am I going with this?
Well, I am glad that we have spent the last 36 years on the North Coast of KZN.
Rose and I have met and befriended many, many wonderful people in this outstanding community. Warm, generous, easy-going: we’re a whole potpourri of cultures, foods, religions, villages and farms and so much more, that make up the weave of the local fabric but which just get lost in a city.
Living on the coast in this climate makes one so much more aware of the environment, of nature and all that our region has to offer.
So I say thank you to the North Coast, for being what you are.
May you never lose your community feel or the ability to reach out and touch one another in so many ways.
* * *
Soon after moving here, I was introduced to road running, which became an all-consuming passion.
That was followed soon after by Pilates to stretch and tone the parts of the body machine that the road didn’t reach.
We are very fortunate to have one of the top Pilates teachers in Tash Barnard, who has moved her studio to the Lifestyle Centre.
As small as she is, she can boss with the best.
And is the only person in town (apart from my wife) who I’m happy to allow to walk all over me, as the photo above shows.
This is her unique way of massaging my back after a workout!
