Carol’s Column

The Great Trek strikes again

I KNOW how the Trekboers felt 147 years ago.

Like me. Exhausted.

Because once again, it’s holiday time and the great Transvaal exodus to the coast is about to begin.

OK — so it’s the Great Trek in reverse, but it’s the thought that counts.

Mind you, holiday agitation in this family starts early. Sometime in January or February, the Lazar family parliament goes into session.

Informally, casually, and usually at dinner while eating delicious, budget suppers created out of momma’s head.

Interspersed between the usual comments such as “Yeuch, what is this? Dog food?” comes the inevitable question: “So where shall we go on holiday this Christmas?”

Discussion is bountiful, and, as in all major democratic parliaments throughout the world, six months later, a decision has still not been made.

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The Seychelles, Mauritius and the Commores are always hot-shot favourites. As is skiing in the Alps, Argentinia or America.

Cruising around the Greek Islands, up the Amazon or in the Antarctica are also popular.

Well, talk’s cheap anyway.

Reality is different. “Marry a goodlooking millionaire,” my late grandmother always said, “because it’s intelligent.”

Who ever listens to grandmothers anyway?

Which gets us back to camping in Durbs (too hot), Cape Town (too big), Port Elizabeth (too windy), or Plett (too expensive).

However, there comes a time in everyone’s life when they have to make a decision.

And, as I looked at my large, unwieldy, untidy, garrulous family, Christmases long past flashed before my eyes.

There was the Christmas at Coffee Bay when the river came down in flood, the tent was washed away and our Land-Rover radiator cunningly holed itself in five places.

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I spent Christmas Eve soldering the radiator in the torrential rain while my spouse wheezed his way through pneumonia.

Then there was the Christmas at Ponto D’oro in the days when Mozambique was accessible and I was attacked by a cracked toilet seat while using the communal ablution block in the camp site.

The seat — like a crab — attached itself to my rear [TEXT LOST IN PHOTOCOPY] pincer-like grip. It took [TEXT LOST IN PHOTOCOPY] of Christmas Eve to [TEXT LOST IN PHOTOCOPY] as I refused to go to [TEXT LOST IN PHOTOCOPY] beach party dressed in a toilet seat.

It didn’t look so good.

There was the Christmas at the Vaal Dam where we arrived early (to get a frontline campsite you understand), set up the frame text cut off in photograph tent was still back home.

“So what, we’ll sleep under the stars,” my husband had said [TEXT LOST IN PHOTOCOPY].

So we [TEXT LOST IN PHOTOCOPY] and were washed across to Denysville when the heavens burst and the Christmas rains came.

Yes, Christmases long past floated before me — all spent in sopping, soaking, mouldy-smelling tents.

So I made a decision.

I phoned a mate of mine at St Francis Bay, a delightful little seaside pimple slightly south of Port Elizabeth (St Francis Bay, not my friend).

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“Hey, Jenny. I’m looking for a cottage at Christmas!” I asked. “Have you any ideas?”

She sensed the hysteria in my voice.

“Carol, you’re in luck, I’ve got just the thing for you. It’s a shack right on the beach. You can tumble into the sea.”

“I’ll take it,” I said, not waiting for her to finish.

“It’s big — six bedrooms.”

“I’ll still take it,” I said, and so I did.

My husband, normally a man of restraint, choked into his cornflakes. His eyebrows lifted to his hairline which made him look as if he wasn’t going bald and he said the two succinct things he always says.

One: “Are you crazy?”

Two: “Can we afford it?”

The answer to both was no.

I sent the children and dogs out to work. Sold my Jane Fonda exercise bike, acrylic drip-dry wig, mortgaged my husband, mother-in-law and car and rented the shack.

“What do we need such a large cottage for?” asked my husband. “What’s wrong with our one-roomed tent?”

My vocal chords went into spasm. Briefly. Then I reacted: “I’m sick and tired of a one-room tent. I want a holiday. I’m tired of camping on mud patches, sliding off sleeping bags because the floor slopes, baking bread in a hole in the ground and boiling water for 20 minutes before drinking it.”

“OK, OK, I get the message,” he said, and retreated to America.

Mind you he had a point, I thought to myself later. It is a large shack — it seems silly to waste all that space.

Which is why I know exactly how the Trekboers felt.

Nine of us, eight kids and I about to set off to St Francis Bay. Each Lazar child has invited a friend, my folks are popping in from Cape Town for a week or three and my spouse — he’s decided he’s too busy to leave Johannesburg right now so he thought he’d fly down just before Christmas for a few days.

And, as I look out on to our shrivelled garden I see the kombi and trailer laden with six sailboards and my little red chariot and trailer laden with four sailboards.

Did I forget to mention we are a sporting family?

Actually, you can barely see the vehicles because of fishing rods, masts and sails.

The shock absorbers of both cars have died, as have the springs. And we haven’t yet packed the suitcases, padkos, camping fridge (“Ma, you’ve just got to have cold beers on the beach”), umbrellas, linen, sleeping bags and braai forks.

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My oldest, unmarried son, the proud owner of a licence for two weeks, will be driving the kombi — and I, the proud owner of a licence for 87 years or so, will be following anxiously behind.

Why, only this morning, I jokingly remarked that all we needed was the kitchen stove to make our holiday complete.

When I went into the kitchen to cook breakfast, I noticed a camping gas cooker in place of the stove.

“Where’s my stove?” I shrieked.

“Ma, it’s on your roof rack,” said Jamie. “We want that you should be happy.”

You just can’t win.

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