On Being on the Heal from the Flu

 

Inside and Outside History of Tafelkop

The advantages of being on the heal from the flu: One moves slower. 

It’s been a week since that first scratchy feeling that signaled something’s up. Since, we’ve both had bad days and better days and then bad days again. Today is one of the better ones. It seems the flu viruses these days are not easily conquered.

What seems even stranger is that a symptom seems to be a feeling of hopelessness, downright bone deep depression.

So, this morning I decided to counter that by taking a slow walk to the old farmstead that we are starting to renovate. Skhumbozo and Zakhele are currently stripping walls of their numerous previous coats of paint.

Everything is so beautiful right now. We’ve had some Spring rain and the new life budding from trees are almost too much for my watery eyes!

The crabapple has shed the last of her blossom petals and has become a lush abundance of green with the most deliciously cool shade underneath. “It needs a bench,” I say. “Or no, one of those swing seats where one can swing gently as you gaze up into the green”. I touch her trunk, lean against it a little and recite Hafiz to her: “Do you know how beautiful you are. I think not, my dear.”

We photograph some new leaves on trees that we don’t know, excited that at last it will reveal its identity after a winter of obscurity.

There are marvelous discoveries: two Horse Chestnut trees whose seeds came from America after a visit there. Something that may be a Black Birch or a Chinese Elm. Some beeches, we think. And magnolias that I didn’t even know existed!

From what we gather, Bets Pringle, three generations ago, was an avid gardener and collector of beautiful plants. This garden at Tafelkop, originally belonging to the Pringle family, is her legacy and I would love to pay homage to her somehow. All thi;, the flowering cherries, the Rhododendrons, Azalias, Camelias and English Hollies remind me of the Spring gardens at Cheerio Halt, Haenertsburg, where my teenage heart would break at trying to hold all the beauty it beheld.

Inside the house, the history of one of the bedrooms is revealed through the layers, right down to the stone wall where it is badly cracked. This too, I find heartbreakingly beautiful and we will renovate it so it shows. It deserves our respect.

We walk back to our cottage, make tea and sit and watch the hundreds of young heifers lazing in the field just metres from our window. A slow movement starts to happen; a couple get up and start walking in a direction. They are followed by another few and soon, one by one, they get their stout bodies up and turn to follow the lead. It becomes a ripple of legs and rich brown backs. We try to guess which one will get up next. They seem to be oblivious to the flow around them, and yet, they soon join in until only the feeding troughs and a half-licked lick are left.  

This has been happening all along: this greening and flowing and reminding. But we were healthy, so we didn’t notice.

Matilda Angus