Of Sandy Bay, Robert Mugabe and meerkats

My beach life started at the age of three when my father took me to Stanger on the Natal North Coast. I believed that the earth was flat and wanted to wave to the people sitting on the beach in England. Overseas always meant England and I was very disappointed to only see water and sky.

I was less disappointed when I grew up and moved to Capetown. There were many beaches and lots of people from overseas. It was not long before I heard whispered tales of a beach called Sandy Bay. During the apartheid regime nudity was illegal and there were rumours of police raids and people being thrown in squad cars wearing nothing but their birthday suits. All this sounded terribly exciting and it wasn't difficult to convince a few of my friends to visit the beach to study the behavior patterns of the homo sapiens in its most natural form.

One Sunday morning, like a delegation of United Nation observers, we set off on our mission. Picnic baskets were filled with biltong, Simba's Salt and Vinegar Chips, Flakes, Swartland Blanc de Noir, ice and coconut flavoured suntan lotion. Bottled water had not been invented yet.

Everybody knew that we would have to blend in with the crowds. Although I was no neophyte on tanning topless, I realized that true scientific observation called for more drastic measures. We had to shed our bikini bottoms.

It was a long hot walk over rocks, thorns and kleinbos before the Bay opened up in front of us in all its glory. On a universal scale everything seemed innocent. There were families and couples and singles not unlike Durban beach on New Years Day (before 1994). A group of muscular men were playing rugby and we decided that the perfect spot of observation would be next to them.

After a few hours and many glasses of wine we had successfully placed the sun worshipers into two categories. The perverts and the non-perverts. We were the non-perverts. The perverts were those who skulked up and down the beach like meerkats and then hide behind the rocks with only their sunglasses visible. Their most notable feature was their ability to rotate their eyes 360 degrees without moving their heads.

To categorize as precisely as possible we were forced to go there on more than one Sunday. We had to make sure that what we saw was real and not just a mirage or a hallucination induced by sunstroke or white wine. Admittedly I also grew fond of the fact that that my tan lines were disappearing.

There was however more to it than what the eye could see. In the bushes behind the beach was an area where even angels feared to tread. Luckily I had a Swiss friend who did tread there but on the back of a horse. He had the same inclination towards boy-on-boy sex as Robert Mugabe. From the safe distance of the saddle, he used his horse whip to separate sweating bodies from their entwined positions. It was rather a harsh method for coitus interruptus but in that sub-culture it probably added spice to the scenario.

I have now realized that there are many Sandy Bays in this world and that there are perverts everywhere. Sometimes they even wear clothes. Mostly they are into politics. I have also learned that crocodiles are great judges of perverts and non-perverts. There is a story about a beach gathering in Botswana where a whole village was partying on the shores of the Okavango River. Suddenly a crocodile appeared and crawled past everyone, heading straight for the Mayor, pulling him into the muddy waters never to be seen again.

If ever the desire arises to visit a nudist beach do it as far from home as possible. Perhaps not in Botswana but wherever you mercifully can't understand the language. You definitely do not want to comprehend the offers which you are refusing. Not speaking German is an advantage as they seem to be well represented in these circles. If you are multilingual, you are probably better off taking pottery classes or practicing bird watching.

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Of Scope Magazine, folk dancing and anacondas

Before I moved to Europe, an enthusiastic traveler promised me: “In Sweden anything goes”.

This rumour probably originated when Hollywood directors started to use stunning blond Swedish film actresses in femme fatale roles. They were favoured above stunning blond German film actresses because they shaved their armpits.

“Anything goes” doesn't apply to South Africa. Especially not during the years when Nelson Mandela was still in jail. In those days nobody really knew what nipples looked like. If you were married you probably had seen one pair, unless your wife preferred to have the lights switched off on Saturday nights. If desperate, you could travel to KwaZulu-Natal, where the ladies walked around topless and will likely continue to do so until the next ice age reaches subtropical Africa. These ladies had nipples in various shades of black. If black was not your favourite colour, you would have to resort to a farm with suckling pigs. There you would encounter plenty of pink ones.

Most people in the country thought nipples came in the shape of black squares. I saw plenty of them from paging through my father's Scope Magazines. There you could see delectable ladies with black squares pasted over their regions of interest. According to the then reigning morality act the exposure of nipples could lead to unspeakable sins. You could still see the naked lady minus the nipples and therefore Scope was the best sold magazine except for Huisgenoot and Farmers Weekly. Playboy was completely forbidden and was just a twinkle in the eye.

Once, the censors of Scope Magazine forgot about the law of reflection. A busty model sat in front of her golden framed mirror. One could see her honey coloured back, and in the mirror, a glimpse of her one erect nipple. All hell broke loose and the readers of that month's copy were doomed to a certain death and an eternity spent in hell.

Some people were lucky and had contacts in the underworld. When a friend of mine moved to London, he asked me to store his collection of two hundred blue movies. He kept them in strict alphabetical order, starting with “Animal Farm” and ending with “Zululand does Debbie”. It was an offer that I couldn't refuse.

Oscar Wilde said “Try everything once except incest and folk dancing”, so armed with a big packet of salt and vinegar chips and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc I started to work my way through the collection. The first thing I noticed was that unlike popular belief, George Orwell didn't write the screenplay of “Animal Farm”. I worked my way through "The Empire Strikes from the Back", “Lawrence of a Labia” and “One came over a Cuckoos Nest”. The wine was finished by then and I didn't quite make it to Z. I fell asleep somewhere after S with “Sperms of Endearment” starring Wild Oscar.

When night fell in Croatia at the clothing optional holiday resort, it was time to look around for some night life. On the premises were a few clubs. One with the name of “Anaconda” seemed like the safest option. I always thought that anacondas were only native to tropical South America, but it seemed like they were found in Croatia as well and not all of the reptile family.

On entering I paid the fee which included access to a fully stocked self service bar. The proprietor showed me around until we ended up in an indoor garden where he pointed towards a large cage. “Do you like animals” he asked. In the semi darkness I saw a curled up snake. It was lying still, minding it's own business. However, the night was just a puppy and by midnight I knew that Sweden was not the only country where anything goes.

Of Croatia, forbidden flesh and Woody Allen

Somebody once said that by now there must be only one person in the darkest of Africa who doesn’t know how to put on a safety belt. But still they insist on forcing the information on a yawning audience before every single flight.

Why don’t they rather teach the world population how to board a plane efficiently. It takes nerves of steel to watch some person methodically folding and unfolding their jacket and fitting and refitting their hand luggage in the overhead compartment. Inevitably this person always has the biggest bum on the aeroplane so that not even a mosquito could squeeze past. These instructions could be classified as safety procedures, because sooner or later this person is going to get killed by the angry queue.

While on the subject of big bums, I recently found myself on holiday in Croatia. Upon arrival at a holiday resort I couldn’t fail to notice that they had a clothing optional policy. I  had brought lots of books on this holiday but now afterwards I must admit that I didn’t read a word. It so happened so that there were better things to do.

The correct behaviour when you are confronted with forbidden flesh is not to stare. But the demure averting of eyes has never been part of my behaviour pattern. At times I think I even forgot to blink.

Unfortunately the demography of the resort was 50+ and XXL. The only six packs were behind the refrigerator door. Jamie Uys once made a film ’Beautiful people’. He did not shoot the film in a clothing optional holiday resort in Croatia.

Breasts and nipples came in all shapes and sizes. In my own bathroom mirror I can only see raspberries and pears. But now I realise the whole fruit basket is represented. Even bananas, water melons and dragon fruit.

The lack of clothes didn’t necessarily imply lack of body jewellery. Gold teeth, toe rings and everything in between. Nipple rings, bellybutton studs, butt plugs and genital piercings. Luckily these were mostly hidden behind folds of shaven fat, but some things were definitely not hidden. I could never visualise what they meant in the bible by passing a camel through the eye of a needle. By seeing the older gentlemen walking around with cock rings, I now have the picture clearly in my mind. Not a pretty sight. So much glitter, I’m sure you can see Croatia from the moon.

It was a big resort so lots of the inhabitants used bicycles to move about. I saw a woman from behind that looked like a pregnant hippopotamuses on wheels. Where the saddle was, nobody wants to know.

There was a fair amount of tattoos mostly dated from when they were in vogue back in the sixties. I spotted a tattoo of Marilyn Monroe on an octogenarian’s behind. After forty years and gravity it now alarmingly looked like Boris Becker before his facelift.

Then there was the family of five. Because of my particular interest I looked at the father first. Something wasn’t really there. Hung like a pickled gherkin flashed through my mind. Not a big one but like those small ones that they serve on the sandwiches at Harrods. My eyes then darted to the three sons. The gherkin didn’t fall far from the tree.

I understand why God created clothes on the seventh day.

There was one thorn amongst the roses. A beautifully tanned blond girl with a successful silicon job. In each well formed erect nipple she had a perfectly horizontal stud. Downstairs she had a landing strip with two silver rings on each side and a diamond in the middle. When she turned around to tan her back her butt plug became clearly visible. Woody Allen shaped. I could even see his glasses.

When night fell and dinner was served, clothing appeared miraculously again. I suppose it was to facilitate digestion. After dinner something else happened. But that is another story.

Of frozen prawns, fake orgasms and the Dalai Lama

This week we celebrated the Swedish National Day which is also the Day of the Pickled Herring. After 500 years the Swedes have not really defined themselves as a nation and have not learned how to commemorate nationality. These things take time and can not be speeded up by anything except maybe a war or a mass murder. The last war was 200 years ago and the last mass murder happened recently but in the country next door. One can correctly assume that the Swedes are a peace loving nation, and so was my third husband.

We met on a skiing holiday in Switzerland and when I watched him through the bottom of a bottle of red wine I liked what I saw.

When it was time for my 40th birthday I decided to soften the blow by majestically sweeping down the aisle in a white dress. Writing about my third wedding reminded me of an old joke.What is the difference between a Jewish woman and and an Afrikaans woman? A Jewish woman wears real jewellery and has fake orgasms. The dress and a lot of fake silver jewellery was bought at an Indian shop in down town Pietermaritzburg.

After a while the birthday and the white dress was forgotten and the marriage and the silver jewellery began to tarnish. I was getting really bored. Husband number three never talked and never showed emotion. Being married to him was like seeing a movie without the sound track.

I would be met with the same response whether I asked him to pass the salt or whether I told him that the man next door had just killed his wife and that her blood was running into my gin and tonic.

His facial expressions would vary from that of a frozen prawn to that of a frozen prawn. Albeit an attractive frozen prawn.

I never felt special because he would treat everybody the same. No difference if you were to be the taxi driver, the cashier, the next door neighbour, his mother, the Dalai Lama, a beggar on the street, the cleaning lady, the pope or me. This would work excellently if you were Jesus or Mother Theresa but not in a marriage to an attention seeking creature like me.

I asked for a divorce and he said nothing.

Now I need something to soften the blow of my looming 50th birthday. I don't know what I will do yet but I do know that herrings are not happy on national day.

Of pigs, parasites and plastic bags

‘Men at a conference will fuck anything, even a pig’. This is not the famous words of Oscar Wilde, but a rather typical statement of my second ex-husband. That could be one of the reasons why he has that title.

Scientists tells us that philandering is wired into our genes. It is a natural force in all living species. Even pigs. There is only one monogamous species, which is a parasite in fish intestines called Diplozoon Paradoxum. The reason why they stay together is because the male and female fuse together during adolescence and have to stay like that until death do them part.

My second marriage started at the Perseverance Tavern in Cape Town, ten years and more than ten boyfriends after the first one. This time it was a 1.97cm sexy blonde Swede. It was not long before I walked down the aisle again. We didn’t have money for a church organist so my sister carried a musical wedding card with an electronic version of Wagner's wedding march behind us. The priest was not impressed but he realised that this wasn’t the royal wedding and a few minutes later the new bride was kissed.

Ten months later and heavily pregnant the alliance bought me to Sweden where the big adventure and big nightmare of life as an ex pat on a freezing sub-continent started. By now the 1.97m Swede had lost most of his sex appeal. Money issues were dire.

When the first birth pains started, the proud grandfather to be gave us 100 Swedish Kronor for a taxi fare home. A child was born. The 1.97cm Swede thought it was a much better idea to use the 100 Swedish Kronor for alcoholic beverages. It was in the middle of the summer and maybe he was thirsty. Prams were also not a part of his beliefs. Thus the baby was carried home by bus in a plastic Pep Stores bag (systembolagspåse). Needless to say, the new mother was not too impressed. Not long afterwards I found myself single again.

The past week I spent at our annual Nordic MRI conference and as usual I looked around for telltales of extracurricular activities and pigs. Of the former there were plenty. But pigs? Only bacon on the breakfast buffet. The salami were hidden.

Of topless tanning, red dresses and penis desensitising cream

"A wedding is a funeral where you smell your own flowers."
-- Eddie Cantor

Not that I want a grave but if I had one the epitaph should be ‘Three weddings and one funeral’. There has been three weddings and no funeral so far. The first started and ended on Mauritius. He was a Boer from Bloemfontein and I was an impressionable 19 year old from Greytown.

I was not too impressed when he on the night of the honeymoon pulled out a tube of penis desensitising cream from his beauty box. It was still the early days of my sexual sophistication and it freaked me out a bit.

The next day it was time for him to freak out over me tanning topless on the white beaches of Club Med. A clash of the titans started. Then there was the incident of the red mini dress. He wouldn’t let me wear it and subsequently carried me to the bathroom where he threw me in the bathtub to wet the dress so that I could’t wear it. The dress was of course even more sexy after that. Water does that to dresses.The honeymoon went down the drain together with the bath water.

Back in South Africa I started to make plans to end the alliance. I hated his flat which was furnished in all the shades of brown known to mankind and I couldn’t wait to get out of there. When I fetched my lipstick, a shade of pink, and a few other last possessions, my sister stuck the penis cream on the outside of his front door.

The last time I saw husband number one was when he gave me and Valerie, a fellow student and my best friend from Addington Hospital, a lift to Greytown. He was moving to Bloemfontein where he was going to live happily ever after with his mother. We said goodbye and I cried crocodile tears. Finally we saw the tail lights of his Mazda 323 disappearing around the street corner and Valerie, my sister and I held hands and danced with joy. I was the happiest 19 year old divorcee on earth. Then I turned into the most embarrassed 19 year old on earth when we saw the front of his Mazda 323 appearing again. We froze like the proverbial deer in front of headlights. He had forgotten the wedding ring which he was going to give to his mother. I never saw him again. The engagement ring was sold to Valerie and I used the money to finance a philosophy course at UNISA. Blood money.

Still wearing red mini dresses

Of rattling bones, mice and golden drops

Tolstoy, in his book ‘A Confession’ tells a Russian fable about a man who jumps into a well because he is chased by a monster. Whilst jumping he happens to notice a furious dragon at the bottom. Luckily there is a branch sticking out of the wall and he grabs it, dangling out of reach from both the dragon and the monster. But now he sees another problem. Two mice are enjoying their evening supper and the main course is the branch. Soon they will eat through the branch, and the man will fall. Suddenly things get better, he notices something else. At the end of the branch he sees a few golden drops of honey. The man licks the honey. According to Tolstoy this is our predicament. We are the man hanging from the branch. Death threatens from all sides. We can not escape, but we can lick whatever honey we can reach.

As we know in life, all golden drops are not honey. Years ago I had the unfortunate urge to run the Comrades Marathon (90km) which I managed to complete by the skin of my teeth. Not many women were into that sort of recreation in those years and I found myself surrounded by thousands of men, which I liked and no ladies room, which I didn’t like. After the start of the race it became time for desperate measures. I the early morning mist I suddenly saw paradise. The Pietermaritzburg grave yard. I ran behind the biggest grave stone I could find and deposited something that was not honey. My co-runner, Neil Hinrichsen asked: “Was it a man’s grave? That would put some rattling in the old bones.” It was in the wee hours of the race and Neil could still talk.

I know of some more rattling bones, but not quite for the same reason. My father had a charismatic friend in Greytown who sadly lived and died as an alcoholic. Much to his joy his mother in law finally passed away. It was near the end of the month and money matters were in dire straits. When he received cash from his sister to buy flowers for the grave, he and my father did a beeline for the nearest pub. Hours later and broke again, they drove to her grave where he delivered the wreath in foamy liquid form. Those golden drops were neither honey nor tears.