Carol’s Column

Army surplus store proved to be accommodating

When kids grow up they move out of home. It's a natural progression. So, when ours left the familial nest we downscaled and moved into a matchbox. Tiny but manageable.

Instead of five bedrooms, we have one. Instead of plentiful reception rooms in which we did various things to improve our minds like lounge around and watch TV, we now have an open-plan lounge cum diningroom cum kitchen.

To be honest, the thing I miss in our arrangement is Loda Mphela, our personal minister of agriculture who tended the garden for ever. He had the distinction of growing the stoutest mealies in Parkwood and was able to persuade the most recalcitrant seedling to grow into a 3m bush. We had the only 3m pansies in Africa. Often I wish I could replace my spouse with Loda. But that's life.

To get back to the matchbox. Like homing pigeons, the offspring are returning. Only for a visit, but en masse. In true African tradition, they're coming with good friends which means we'll have a full house. Literally.

“We have a problem,” I pointed out to my husband as he tilled the soil in an attempt to turn the balding grass into a thick luxuriant mat.

“Don't be silly,” he replied. “We won the cricket, what problem?”

“I'm talking space. Our house is barely large enough for you, me and your beard. Where on earth are we going to put seven large kids?”

He wiggled his eyebrows as he does in a stress situation. “You'll come up with something,” he said and returned to his tilling.

Converting the garage was not a proposition. The last minor building alterations we attempted took two years and much aggravation.

On several occasions I had to be forcibly restrained from assaulting the builder that is why, today, we own the only windowless house in the country plastered with a mixture which melts in the rain and a swimming pool with the protruding root of a tree as part of an underwater feature.

“Think laterally,” said my good friend Betty. So I poured myself a beer and lay down on the garden recliner to ponder the problem.

Like a flash of lightning, the solution leapt into my consciousness. Tents.

I phoned an army surplus store run by Johan van Tonder who mentioned he'd served in the armed forces for 47 years. “I suggest four bell tents,” he said. “And then one mess tent as a communal lounge and how about four portable conveniences which you can place to the rear of each tent?

“There's a surplus supply of portable conveniences on the market due to mismanagement of resources during the years of the former regime. I'll throw them in with the tents for free.”

“Will they leak?” I asked Van Tonder.

“No, they come complete with a self-contained chemical chamber which seeks and destroys invading material on contact,” he replied.

“I mean the tents.”

“Mrs Lazar, these tents were built to withstand the rigours of warfare. They survived shelling in Angola, torrential floods in Mozambique, bush warfare in Zimbabwe. These tents are the right stuff.”

Actually, the idea intrigued. A sort of “Out of Africa” scenario with all mod cons. I was sure the kids would be happy. And for authenticity, perhaps I could hire a warthog or two.

Pitched and ready for occupation, they give our garden an entirely different aspect which has caused much interest among our neighbours.

“What is it?” said Rea Borcherds.

“An informal settlement,” I replied.

I enjoy keeping up with current trends.

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