Don’t you just love this time of the year?
Teachers suddenly slow down on the homework and mathematically challenged dads can heave a sigh of relief as they pack away their calculators and dictionaries which they keep on standby to tackle Grade 3 maths and English.
Your Afrikaans mate also relaxes. He is the one who gets the frantic evening WhatsApps as dads fumble with translations as per requirements of said Education Department. Homework seems to be tougher these days. Which makes a change. Normally, parents beguile their offspring with amazing tales as to how they crossed crocodile infested waters at 5am on a frosty morning just to get to school with only a black banana for lunch.
Teachers would cane them black and blue for the slightest misdemeanours and the whole school experience was made to look like a bleak Charles Dickens novel.
No, we can safely say that homework was not too bad back in the day.
Despite the fact that we were not allowed to use calculators and we got ‘cuts’ (we were also not hot with political correctness and euphemisms in those days) just for wearing the wrong shoes and/socks. Hang on, now that is Dickens again…
Anyway, so homework becomes non-existent, the municipality puts up a real Christmas tree (you know the one with green leaves), people become friendlier and we wait for the police to answer the phone with bated breath.
And guess what? The water stays on for three days in a row without a cut. Even Umzinyathi has gone merry. On the downside, party animals start boozing in Coronation Park at 6am on Saturdays, gospel concerts start at midnight on Saturday and end at 6am on Sunday and there were suddenly a whole new herd of car guards who are all going to Richards Bay to look for jobs, out to eke some money out of you. Roll on!