Carol’s Column

Fun in the sun — or when holidays happily happen

SO YOU all enjoyed your holidays. Great.

Me too, also.

Of course they said I was mad going on holiday with eight children.

Mad is not the word. Crazy is more apt.

Taking a rough estimate — I worked out that in a space of four weeks I fed 462 mouths regularly.

Four hundred and sixty two? Well, there were my own four offspring accompanied by four friends, Volker, Wim, Graham and Alexia.

Not to mention two grandparents who’d hastily motored up from Cape Town to spend a quiet Christmas with their nearest and dearest, plus nine gerbils and Craig and Darryl.

The gerbils, cute, minute, multi-striped, perky-eared little creatures related to hamsters, rats and mice, so I’m told, moved into our shack round about the same time we did.

True, the start to the holiday was auspicious.

Armed with two ancient vehicles and two trailers weighed down by 11 sailboards, we set off jauntily at the crack of dawn one day about a month ago.

Waving noisy farewells to parents crying tears of joy that I was taking their kids off their hands for a few weeks.

And broke down at Zoo Lake a block away from home.

It will suffice to say that we virtually pushed ourselves to St Francis Bay, taking almost a full two days to do what others do in a mere 12 hours.

Each time we’d stop — which was often — we’d unpack the engine, fiddle with wires, pull tubes, bang batteries and, miraculously, start again, with a little help from 16 pushing arms.

When we finally made it, our shack was great.

A few seconds from the beach, it had 14 beds, three toilets, a diningroom table that doubled as a ping-pong table, two fridges and a cave-like deep-freeze for the fish we were meant to catch.

What more could we have wanted?

I’ll tell you.

A cook, chauffeur, valet, chamber maid, maid-of-all-works and a gardener for starters. In fact, a waiter wouldn’t have gone astray either.

So there we were on that first day, a neat little family of 11.

It was only on the second or third day, while dishing up half a sheep for supper, (sea air makes you hungry), and I realised we were two plates short, that I did a quick head count and discovered two extra heads.

Round and small, much smaller than the eight I’d brought down with me, they did not look familiar.

In fact, I’d never seen them before.

The larger head grinned. His large hazel eyes flashing.

“Hello,” he said engagingly, “I’m Craig and this is my little brother, Darryl.”

“Have a chop,” I muttered and duly fed the two extra mouths.

I mean, no mother with any heart could turn two hungry mouths away from her table.

So now we were 13.

Craig, whose family we discovered, was renting the cottage across the road, was a delightful young man.

Eight years old, he dropped in frequently. Very frequently.

For instance, he’d wake me early in the morning with a big smile and an endearing: “Good morning, sexy legs!”

Now no-one’s called me sexy legs since round about the turn of the century. I couldn’t fail to be charmed.

Or, “Ha, ha, so you’re making yourself smell nice for me,” he’d say as I covered myself with suntan lotion.

We were getting to know each other intimately, so I asked him his surname.

“Blake,” he answered.

“How do you spell it?” I asked.

“B—L—A—K—E,” he said a little hesitantly. Then: “I think there might be a ‘C’ in it too, and an T.

“B—L—A—I—C-K—E?” I repeated.

He nodded. “I’ll find out Carol, so you can write to me,” he said, running off to chat up my 10-year old daughter and her friend.

Ah, the older kids. What can one say about an army of children who have so many things in common. Sunburnt noses, huge smiles, even huger stomachs and energy. So much energy.

Always helpful, they evolved their own routine which went something like this.

“Volker and Ralph, it’s your turn to wash up.”

“No, we’re clearing the table. Tonight it’s Barry and Wim.”

“Rubbish, we did it yesterday. It’s Graham and Jamie.”

“No, it’s Nicky and Alexia.”

The washing they attacked in an equally unusual way.

Filling a bath with water, they’d soak garments overnight and the following morning walk over them much in the same way the peasants of France press grapes.

Nine gerbils, two families complete with baby gerbils, encouraged and fed by the kids, made themselves at home in sleeping bags, smelly takkies (of which there were many), smellier socks (of which there were even more), and wetsuits.

Like the children, they’d eat anything and everything.

So then we were 22.

There weren’t enough hours in the day for my extended family.

They sailed in the lagoon, offshore, all over the show and I turned white overnight.

Have you ever tried to keep your eye on six sailboards and two paddle skis all shooting off in different directions?

They’d stay in the water for hours at a time unperturbed by great waves and thoughts of hungry, man-eating sharks floating casually past them.

And I sat on the beach, glued to binoculars, the only mother at St Francis Bay to sunburn a binocular pattern on my face.

How could I return home and say: “Hello, Mrs Muenster, Volker’s sailed to Australia, he said he’d be back in a month or so,” or “Hello, Mrs Lagaay, Wim decided he’d try the round-the-world. He says he can read and write and no longer needs to go to school.”

I mean as a surrogate parent, one has responsibilities.

Which is why when Alexia got a splinter in her big toe and Graham developed a sun blister on his lip, my first instinct was to rush them to Humansdorp hospital to the intensive care ward.

We snorkled and Jamie speared a fish.

The excitement was great and I sent a silent prayer upstairs. Poor fish, but it could have been Volker, Wim, Graham or Alexia he’d speared, let alone my own offspring.

When I voiced my thoughts Jamie was philosophical.

“Ja, Ma,” he said casually, “it’s just as well I didn’t spear one of the others. They wouldn’t have tasted nearly as good.”

Even oupa took to the water with a vengeance.

Deciding he was missing out on a good thing he gave everything a try. Have you ever watched a 71-year-old beach boy boardsailing, paddleskiing or surfing? It’s a frightening sight.

A final word? Do you need to lose weight? Get fit? Find energy you thought you never had?

Forget spending thousands on a fat farm.

No, instead, come along with us on holiday next year. I promise you it’ll be an experience you’ll never forget.

Like your navel, it will remain with you for ever.

■