Two Bits: Satisfaction on a job well done

First day back at school in the new year, our English teacher would always get us to write an essay titled “What I did in the holidays”.

It was always a soft start to the year. The teacher probably hadn’t prepared a lesson anyway. Or maybe it gave him/her a chance to assess the students, something like that.

About six months back I went through to Durban to pick up a piece of furniture my wife had shipped down from Jo’burg. Rose wanted it for sentimental reasons and she wanted it restored.

It had belonged to her late sister, who had got it from an old friend of her family’s.

The Hochs lived in Kitchener Road in ‘Maritzburg, in a wattle and daub house that had been put up as the British officer’s mess during the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902.

The Hochs bought it and in a not-so-kind twist of fate, old man Hoch was then interned by the British during the First World War as he was German, and died in the camps.

One of his sons later found work on Rose’s grandfather’s farm in Donnybrook, and the two families became friends.

The table, which occupied pride of place in the family kitchen, was then passed on to their daughter, Frieda, a teacher at Epworth who had the distinction of having Springbok colours for hockey and who played in the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1938.

Anyhow, the table came with the house, so it is at least 120 years old, maybe a lot more.

When my father-in-law used to stay with the family, he remembered doing his homework on it. Freida gave the table to Rose’s sister, Nanette, as a wedding present.

It was in a sorry state when I picked it up – nicely turned legs but badly scuffed and when I removed the worn-out top, it simply fell apart. I just sat and looked at it for a long time, wondering
what on earth I was going to be able to do.

Rose’s aunt Babette suggested looking for some old Oregon pine floorboards, so I hit the demolishers in Durban and pretty soon found some that had been ripped out of an old house. They were ancient and worn, with nail holes and rust marks – perfect!

It’s amazing what a belt sander can do. Aren’t power tools just the thing!

I learned woodworking from my father – or at least he gave me the scut jobs like sanding while he did the classy stuff – and all of it was by hand. Sawing, planing, sanding and shaping without a power tool in sight. I remember him using a Northumbrian spokeshaver to get a rounded finish on some timber for a boat. It looked like a back-breaking job.

Today I have the luxury of a table saw, electric plane, belt and hand sanders, and can finish a job almost without breaking a sweat.

After the hard part of gluing and clamping the boards together and trimming them into the final shape, the cherry on top was using a router to get the nice, shaped edge. You’ve got to hand it to the old woodworkers, they achieved amazing results with a lot of sweat and patience.

A couple of coats of sealer and a final polish with fine steel wool and Danish oil, and ta da! One restored Oregon pine table! My wife thinks I’m the bee’s knees (which is basically the only reason
I get off the couch, to keep in her good books) and we now have, even if I say so myself, a pretty nice table.

The slight complication that has resulted from restoring Rose’s sister’s table is that I now have been given a long list of other pieces of furniture in the house in urgent need of care. Well, at least I
have a lot to look forward to.

So, that’s what I did with my holidays, teach.

The other thing I did was to contemplate my navel, sitting on a comfortable chair on my verandah with a cup of tea in one hand and a large slice of Gaby Lyle’s Christmas cake in the other. My
old ma, bless her heart, was very proud of her fruit cake, but she couldn’t hold a candle to Gaby’s piece de resistance, her special fruit cake.

On New Year’s Eve, when our group of friends each voiced their hopes and wishes for the coming year, one noted wisely that what we seemed to hold in common was a desire for more time to
do the things we really wanted, whether tending a garden, reading books or sailing around the world. Isn’t it so true that life sometimes gets in the way of our plans?

In fact, life is what happens while we’re busy planning the future.

So, my desire for 2017 is that we all find the time to enjoy what we are doing right then, to live our plans, and worry less about what we feel we haven’t achieved.

Happy New Year, everyone!

* * *

I saw a poster today, somebody was asking “Have you seen my cat?” So I called the number and said that I hadn’t. I like to help where I can.

>>> For more events this holiday check out our Events calender.

>>> Need some ideas for things to do? Check out Holiday Vibes.

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