I've got to say this, and that is that I had never seen such a calm household as that of Irene and Jim. it was all very interesting to me, as coming from a reasonable middle class family, I wasn't aware that certain people even existed, as in South Aftrica we have a kind of a group stay with group way of living, and you seldom or ever meet characters like the ones I now met coming in for drinks, or just out and about. I was absolutely mesmerized by all this strange and wonderful people who were just who they were, and to heck with the rest.
One thing that was to me very endearing, was that at about ten at night, the men would take their dogs out for their last leg lift, and they all invariably came in for a before bed snort. It was all kinds, and it was strange and new to me when I watched old mr. macWilliams, a retired brain surgeon, sitting sipping his drink, his dog at his feet, talking earnestly to John, who was a gardener for a few of the big estates. Or the mayor of the district, laughing with the guy who drove the garbage truck. But of course in South Africa we don't really have a pub culture like here, and chances that at home I could go and sit quietly in the pub lounge after work, having my dinner and watching all the goings on, was just about zero!
The youngsters working in the hotel were all very nice, except two of the girls who were always making things very difficult for poor Ken and Barbie when the week's roster came out. They would accuse him of being an unfeeling brute, as they always wanted week-end days off to go to parties, but to tell the truth, I thought both of them more in the way than doing much good.
Ken was getting really frustrated, as this two was kind of revving up the other's too, so one day he called them all for a conference, and there was a couple of very sour faces walking around. The problem was that this girls were not really needed during the week when the others living in could easily cope, but week-ends were absolutely hectic, and they were then needed desperately. They had other ideas, and as they were young, all they wanted to do was make some money to spend on going out.
But I was all out of this, and I just did my work and tried to stay out of the politics.
It was now high summer, and the weather was just beautiful, and I went swimming in my pond on most of my days off, and couldn't wait for Irma and the kids to arrive, as I was eager to show them why I loved Scotland so much.
Back at Irene's all was going well, and by now I was fully aquainted with their way of life. It was like this: They would have their dinner, finishing two bottles of white wine with it, then Jim fell promptly asleep. Irene would kind of crawl up to bed at about nine thirty, rock the house on it's foundations she was snoring so loud, but luckily this would decline a bit after a while, until it became a rhythmic and bearable noise. At about three Jim would wake up where he was sleeping in front of the television still, and woke both of us with the noise he made coming up the stairs. Then it was his time to make music, or saw down the rafters, and after Irene had given him a lot of stick every time he started, he fell asleep suddenly, and the house would go quiet.
The walls were so bally thin that every noise they made was known to me, but luckily they had no marital happenings during my stay, or at least when I was home,
as that would have been very embarrassing indeed!