LATER in the day I had difficulty in convincing this happy band that their vertical poles were not vertical.
Apparently they belonged to the new school of builders who are not acquainted with the old-fashioned practice of using a plumb-line, while I was well-versed in the art of hanging a tin opener on the end of a piece of string.
They eventually located a spirit level, but by then it was too late – the concrete had set.
On Saturday they came and took the concrete mixer away. There was still a square metre or so of concrete to be laid, to say nothing of two hundred bricks, but they insisted that the job was finished and told me to take my complaints to the office.
I couldn’t face another fight with the foreman, so I went straight to the engineer-in-charge. Results were instantaneous. They sent a bricklayer the following Thursday week.
Eventually the ground level work was completed, and the foreman came round to admire it.
How, he asked, did I propose to put the cross-beams on top of the pergola? I told him that it was his problem and wished the electrician could have been there to see his face.
And what, I enquired, about painting it? On this he was adamant. He couldn’t spare a painter for at least two months. He did, however, give me a tin of paint and a four-inch brush.
Just as I was applying the last brush of paint and looking forward to a long cold drink on my newly-completed patio, the phone rang.
It was the engineer. He had received a complaint from the mine manager’s office that we had built an unauthorised extension to our house, that the construction was sub-standard and that it was an eyesore. It would have to come down.
I pointed out that he had been the one to authorise the plans and that it had been built by his department. I heard no more. I didn’t even get a bill!
And before anyone could get round to knocking it down, it was completely covered with Capensis grandiflora and no longer an eyesore.
The patio became the focal point of our home, particularly at sundowner time. Corrie would sit with his beer, producing thin slivers of biltong with his hunting knife – one for himself, one for me, one for Karen, one for the dog and one for the frog that had taken to hopping in for an early evening snack.
Until, one day, Corrie got the pecking order wrong and fed the frog ahead of the dog. That was just too much for canine tolerance. The dog ate the frog and that was the end of that!
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