ED’S LETTER
If it’s the Christmas holidays, it must be camping. Over the years it’s turned into a tradition for us – together with a bunch of family and friends (so close they’re basically indistinguishable from family), we always spend some time on the banks of a beautiful black river in the middle of an indigenous yellowwood forest, and it’s fantastic. But it’s also quite hard work. My husband, who is of the view that there is nothing more relaxing than heading out into the boondocks with a sleeping bag and his Venter trailer, of which he is very fond, has never been able to understand how I can think that.
And, until I read the illuminating interview with Jackie Burger on page 32, I never really understood how he could possibly not think it. But thanks to Jackie, this is my epiphany: If I weren’t with him, my husband would be perfectly happy to sleep outside, no tent or mattress or pillow, on top of a puff adder and in a cloud of mosquitoes. In the morning, feeling well rested, he’d lazily reach for a tin of something that he may or may not have already opened the previous day, possibly eating any ants that had managed to crawl in overnight. If he felt like it, he might make some instant coffee with long-life milk in a tin mug and drink it squatting next to the fire.
When I am with him, we have a tent you can stand up in (not something that is ever very hard for me, it is true, but he is tall), a stretcher, a double mattress with good quality white linen, duvet and pillows, and a little woven rug outside to stop any dirt being tracked in. When we wake up, we open the mosquito net and head to the ‘kitchen’ area, where we make excellent freshly ground espresso with warm real milk, and we dunk our artisanal rusks in it while sitting peacefully in sturdy camping chairs before heading down to the river to swim.
OK, even I am hating me at this point. But I’ve done plenty of my husband’s kind of camping in my long and happy life. And I am old enough now to accept the fact that, as Jackie says, ‘I’d rather not have coffee than have poor coffee.’
So the hard work is really all in my head. I am happy to accept that. As is my husband, I’d like to point out, whom I occasionally spot frothing the warmed milk for the espresso with a special camping frother before adding it to his coffee. But he leans on his Venter to do it, so that’s alright then.
Happy Christmas to you all, no matter how you spend it!
Be happy, be kind and be safe, and we’ll see you in the New Year.