The most telling thing that summer is here is the way the grass decides to grow again — as fast and vigorously as it possibly can. If you listen at night, you can hear it, and after rain it starts shooting up joyfully right in front of your eyes.
Our Knysna garden needs to be mowed once a week to look neat, which makes me wonder why we have a property with lawn.
It’s not like we do anything with grass — like sit on it? I don’t have small children to kick a ball in the garden anymore.
It’s a very South African thing, this phenomenon that you have only arrived once you own a freehold house surrounded by turf.
There was a lot going for life in Hong Kong living in apartments with postcard-size gardens which were usually paved anyway, if you ask me.
But the real issue with this vegetation is the ongoing Knysna fight to get our verges trimmed.
I walked on our pavement very gingerly today because there must certainly be giant puffadders camouflaged in all that verdant pasture, but I wanted to take a photo to show my readers, lest you think I am exaggerating.
I am not joking when I say some of the weeds are almost waist-high and the grass over my ankles.
I found myself wondering if life in the tropics wasn’t better when the township cows used to roam the greater Knysna area and keep our grass in check.
A few months ago, the municipality brought in some rules that the cows weren’t allowed to cruise the town anymore and that owners could be fined.
So, the cows disappeared, but if you ask me, they should let them come back since they performed a valuable job the municipality clearly can’t manage.
For the first fight of the summer, I poured a big cup of strong coffee, checked that I had plenty of airtime to waste, and phoned our Knysna municipality.
True to form — they really don’t disappoint these municipal guys — the phones weren’t answered.
Then when I found a voice, the person was clueless. I was shunted from one department to the next and asked to leave a voicemail several times.
When I did find a human to talk to, they said they would transfer me and the line went dead. This happened several times.
My coffee was finished, my airtime seriously depleted, and the whole exercise was as bloody useless as it always is. Not to mention that it is maddening!
Then I had a brainwave. Some of our existing DA members got re-elected in our ward last week and thank God for that.
I phoned DA councillor Peter Bester, and bless his cotton socks, he always answers his phone.
I explained that I had tried the municipal route and that it had failed miserably.
He seemed to know where the mowing team were in town and he said he would look into it. And I know he will.
In the meantime, we really can’t invite friends to visit because the verge is actually that bad.
How can you invite people to your house and expect them to hike through a jungle of long grass and flowering weeds on steroids?
Another far more serious aspect to this unkempt verge is actually snakes.
Every year around this time, I find myself writing about serpents that live on the Garden Route, particularly the puffadders.
I shudder today to read in the George Herald about an elderly couple just doing their gardening in suburbia when the man was bitten on the finger by a puffie.
Now just imagine how many snakes could be lurking in all the thicket that is a pavement.
This year I’ve decided I’m not going to write about snakes because I don’t want to manifest them.
At this point, in case you are wondering why I don’t put a sock in my mouth and go and mow it myself or employ someone to do it, why should I!
Keeping verges tidy is the responsibility of the municipality and we pay our rates, so they must do it. Let’s see now what Mr Bester can do.
Moving on to more positive things that come with summer — it’s that wondrous time of the year on the Garden Route when the sun only sets way after 7pm, giving us those balmy evenings and days that just feel longer.
Now in November and early December is the best time of all because it’s warm, but not too hot.
The holidaymakers haven’t arrived yet and so we still have beaches to ourselves.
Up until the Christmas holidays, parking at the beach is a cinch, and there will invariably be an open braai spot at Buffalo Bay if you go early on the weekend or during the week.
Same with Plett, Mossel Bay and George beaches. Now’s that golden time to enjoy before we have to share with holidaymakers.
We are just waiting for the water temperature to hit anything above 20°C. Water here on the Garden Route isn’t as freezing cold as Camps Bay and some Cape Town beaches, but it’s not Durban-warm either, so when our water hits around 24°C it’s time to really splash out because this is pretty much as warm as it gets.
Maybe El Niño will play a warming role this year?
Over the years we have got used to cold water. It’s not the tropics, but there’s a trick to this — once you dive in and your head is wet, then your body gets used to it and you can stay in.
I can’t wait for our beach outings, old fogies with our boogie boards, snorkelling gear and umbrellas.
Summer has its own sounds like the cicada at night. The poinsettia starts to show off its Christmas flowers.
I always buy a Panettone cake and they have started stocking it in various supermarkets, albeit at almost twice the price they cost last year.
Now is the time to buy a gammon and stock up on those kinds of Christmas goodies before the crazy shopping season.
Don’t try to find Ina Paarman’s stuffing the night before you stuff your turkey or suddenly realise you need glacé cherries or cloves the day before you do the big Christmas meal.
Quite apart from mayhem in the shops, it is quite possible it will be sold out. I know this from past experience.
We are blessed to have an avocado tree which starts showering us, and friends, with giant avos from now until into January.
I always associate watermelons with this time of the year because suddenly they are here, in all the supermarkets. Nothing better than an icy slab of this fruit.
Then we have the Calitzdorp farmers who park their bakkie near the Red Bridge off the N2 and set up a tarpaulin and stall laden with peaches, grapes and watermelons they grow in the Klein Karoo.
These folk have been coming for years and we locals look forward to seeing them.
Summer, what a wonderful time of the year — and if we can only somehow get our verges mowed, I am even prepared to overlook the potholes in our street as second priority.
For that conversation, I will need a whole lot more than one cup of coffee.