Tannie Anna and the wheat fields

I loved the window in our bedroom. It was tall and thin, like everybody in my family. Outside the window, which had shutters on the inside, was a white wall with the tendrils of a new, growing creeper peaking up and the branches of a big tree above in which birds tweeted.

That’s all we woke up to, the birds tweeting and the wind howling through the enormous eucalyptus trees in the garden. I could’ve sworn I heard Tannie Anna’s voice too, singing, carried on the wind, notes from her red guitar dancing like leaves on the wind’s breath.

We’d met Tannie Anna outside the Spaza shop when we drove into the town on Saturday. The golden wheat fields spat us out into a tiny town with a good feeling. It was like coming across a kindred spirit. There are fifty houses there, the Spaza shop, a bottle store (synonymous with Small Town South Africa) and a tiny restaurant. If you need petrol, you have to go 20km down the road to find it.

Tannie Anna and her husband are a tiny, wizened pair. They could be 40-years old, or 60. The cheap wine that they sell at the bottle store in a plastic bottle resembling those containing vinegar has turned their skin wrinkled and their eyes rheumy. She carries a red guitar that makes her look even smaller and comes up to the car as we stop. The pair launch into an old Afrikaans folk song, their voices thin, but her strumming beautiful.

That evening I watched dusk come over while I read my book with a glass of wine outside on the stoep and G watched rugby upstairs in the bar with some locals. After the match they joined me, pulling me from my book. Weekend visitors, but they own places there. Lucky fish.

What can be better than a Blue Sky Saturday trip on an open road that stretches as far as your eye can see?

Breathing

I am a small town girl, happiest when I can see more sky than land. I have lived in The City Beneath the Mountain for twelve years now, and I love it, and am eternally grateful for it’s beauty (and its vast sky), every day. But. I still miss small town. I miss being two minutes away from a mielie field, in any direction. I miss the vast open space of it. And every now and again I get so claustrophobic that I feel like I can’t breathe.

It happened last weekend so, on Saturday morning, the morning after the hoardes of people and the excitement of the World Cup opening, we packed a little bag and set off out of the city, allowing the car to choose which direction we’d go. I could feel my lungs expanding as we headed away from the city and the emerald winter landscape opened up ahead of us.

We drove through vineyards dressed in their red-and-gold Autumnal finery, past little farm stalls and into Small Town. We ambled through slowly, looking for a possible place to stay and a place to watch The Rugby (I know, I know… me? Rugby?) Almost as soon as we’d driven into town, we found ourselves on the outskirts again, just the way I like it.

We continued driving, up the mountain pass, and up, the view simultaneously breathtaking and lung-filling. At the top we turned and trundled back down… rugby time. It’s not hard to find a place to watch the Springboks play an international game in Small Town South Africa. We found a cosy litte pub and were soon happily ensconced near the fireplace with a beer each, me with my book, G staring fixedly at the TV. Ideal rugby-watching situation for me – I could read my book and still look up at the exciting bits (given away by squeals/roars/’yeses’ from G and our fellow pub inhabitants.)

I spent the time reading, finding a spot for us to stay (with thanks to the lovely guy who owned the pub) and listening to the conversations of the people around us. I'm a terrible voyeur that way, it fascinates me.

The rugby finished, we switched to football and made friends with a guy called Koos (I kid you not, I have his number in my phone, seriously), who I tried to convince to make up with his brother who he hasn’t spoken to for years, due to his horrible wife. I have a knack of eliciting full family histories from people I meet, almost instantly.

We ate, bid farewell to Koos and went off around the corner to the warm quiet of our little house where I slept, solidly, for almost 12 hours, waking only briefly to hear the rain falling on the roof, and the fabulous cries of the hadedas off to church or something in the morning. Bliss.

I wanted to stay there, where I could breathe.