Author: Philda Benkenstein

I write from the heart, the way I speak and, as my mother tongue is Afrikaans, my grammar is not always perfect. I am constantly intrigued by the number of guests who mentions that they read my blog posts - I would love to hear from you if you enjoyed a particular post.

When one is two and two is one and when things go wrong, they go wrong

Last Saturday evening we went to bed early as we only had one couple staying – only to be cruelly awoken at 11.45 by the gate bell being rung – repeatedly…  As I have a slight hearing impairment the bell is set to ring very loudly and to discourage people from ringing it repeatedly it is also set to ring loudly at the gate. Desmond went down to open the gate as we could see that these people were not taking ‘no’  for an answer.

To my surprise I could hear that he was actually booking them in – we normally, as a security measure, do not take off-street  bookings after hours. It transpired that they had made an online booking earlier and for some reason the text message notification never came through on my mobile phone, so I did not know about their arrival as I  never checked my computer between returning from a late afternoon movie, making dinner and retiring early. That they did not think it unacceptable to book in nearly midnight without prior arrangement just added to the chain of events of how things go very wrong when they start going wrong.

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Remembrance – a poem by Maria Stander-Retief

In March 2008 we had as guest the granddaughter of one of the Stander daughters. She sent me a poem written by her grand-mother. On weekends the daughters would stroll down to the Kat River and obviously, the young Maria met a young man from the other side of the river whom her parents did not approve of.

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Jokes aside…right of admission reserved

Man comes to the front door of a guest house and says he’s Mr. Smith, booked in for two nights.
Proprietor: ‘Would you like me to carry your bag from the car, sir’.
Guest: ‘No, she can walk, but you can bring the luggage.’

Innkeeper: The room is R1000- a night. It’s R50- if you make your own bed.
Guest: I’ll make my own bed.
Innkeeper: Good. I’ll get you some nails and wood.

Paddy is booked into a guest house, and looking round,notices a sign on the wall. He says to the owner: “What time do you get in by?” The owner looks confused and says: “Well, I am the owner, I live here. Why do you ask?”
Says Paddy,”Well, on that sign there, it says guests have to be in before you!”
The owner replies,”No, it says: “Guests must be in before 1 am”!

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Background music

I have noticed that guest houses will often set the television to a news channel during breakfast.To me that is just one notch above listening to rap while having a meal – who wants to start his day with bad news, and let’s face it, ‘news’ will inevitably be bad news. For seventeen years my background music of choice at the breakfast table has been light classical music, but I also have quite a collection of ‘soothing’ background CD’s. I think one should be careful with vocals and I prefer to play soothing instrumental music if not light classical.

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Breakfast is served

We take pride in our unique fruit entrées- sometimes a plated fruit salad, other times a mini portion of Bircher Muesli garnished with apple shards, or a homemade smoothie with carrot, ginger, orange and apple… On the buffet we have an assortment of cereals: homemade muesli, ProNutro, bran flakes, Weetabix as well as yogurt, more fresh fruit and a baked fruit compote, which in season consists of rhubarb or quince from the garden, otherwise stewed prunes, guavas or peaches.

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Questions to Desmond the ‘head gardener’ at Fairview (read: only gardener!)

Questions to a man addicted to gardening
Where do you get your love for gardening from? From my parents. My mother always had a beautiful flower garden and my father was very serious about his vegetable garden.

Plant collector or landscape gardener? I am more of a plant collector.

Your favourite flower? Aquilegia

Favourite tree? Indigenous: Cape Chestnut. Exotic trees: Acer family

Your favourite garden in South Africa? Old Nectar in Jonkershoek. And Vergelegen in Somerset West.

Your favourite international garden? Monet’s Garden in Giverny, France.

Favourite shrub? Viburnum family

How would you describe the style of your garden? a Romantic garden with formal sections and mixed borders. A Complete garden in the sense that it has flowers, herbs, orchard and vegetable sections.

What advice do you have for new gardeners? Make your own compost. Keep at least three compost heaps going. Use organic fertilizer like ‘bounce-back’; plant self-seeding flowers. Propagate your own cuttings.

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Stander House/Fairview up for auction in 1978; 2 years after Mr Swallows bought the historic home from the estate of Blanche and Ethel Stander

In The Oudtshoorn Courant and Het Suid-Western on Wednesday, September 27, 1978, Brenda Hartdegen reported:

GEORGE: A magnificent leather-bound 260-year-old Bible was sold for R535 after brisk bidding at an auction of mostly antique furniture. The Bible was bought by a Cape Town dealer, Mr. H A Lammers, who flew to George especially to attend the sale. And he is confident that he will sell it immediately to one of several Dutch dealers who are out in South Africa from Holland to buy up all the Dutch antiques they can find.
Antiques in Holland have become very scarce and the dealers have now turned their attention to South Arica which is still regarded as a rich field for many Dutch antiques.

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It is grapefruit time

It is grapefruit time again and when my guest told me how much she enjoyed her grapefruit starter (a take on Bircher Muesli served with grapefruit) I remembered how my daughter loved her grapefruit. As she remembers: ‘ When I was a little girl my mother would give me half a grapefruit sprinkled with sugar, each segment delicately cut loose for me to eat it more easily. I still remember that bittersweet deliciousness, it’s such a fond memory, but thinking about it now I realize it was quite unusual for me to be eating, not to mention enjoying grapefruit at that age! Somewhere along the line, probably when I started doing my own shopping and choosing what to fill my fruit bowl with, grapefruit didn’t quite make the cut and many years passed without me giving them much notice.’

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Lost in translation – my B&B life

I have a few friends who also run B&B’s and whenever we get together, you can be sure that within minutes we’ll be sharing tips, recipes, a joke or a funny incident. Exactly a year ago my friend Liza encouraged me to write candidly about the joys (and frustrations) of running a guest house, categorized on my blog as “My B&B Life”. This week I want to tackle tricky issues around accents and cultural differences.

An Afrikaans speaking person will ask for breakfast at ‘half sewe’ (6h30), someone from England will talk about ‘half seven’ (7h30) and another person may talk about ‘half-past seven’ – three different meanings to similar-sounding request, fertile ground for misunderstandings! I’m sure fellow B&B owners will sympathize with my frustration (because it’s probably happened to them often!) when a guest who requested breakfast at 6.30 (which requires a wake-up time of 5.30 for the guest house owner) then casually waltzes in at 7.30. The problem is that you’ve been robbed of an hour of sleep with only yourself to blame as, chances are, you were the one who made the mistake with the half-past six / half six story.

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Van Kervel School metal work learners

We are situated opposite Van Kervel School- a double medium school that caters for learners with special educational needs, but also offer normal academic subjects. To quote their school website:

‘These learners benefit more from concrete learning programs where they learn by doing.  In most cases they will eventually find employment in practically orientated professions;  therefore more emphasis is placed on the skills or vocational learning programs in our school where learners can acquire skills such as panel beating, spray painting, motor vehicle repairing, woodworking, welding, building and maintenance, hospitality studies, educare, office administration and hairdressing. ‘

Our beautiful screens and arches that transform our rose garden into the spectacular, bears testimony to Mr. Myburgh and his metal work learners. Because we are situated close to the school, Mr. Myburgh could walk across with his pupils and they could take ownership of the project – from taking the initial measurements to the final product.

We are as proud as they are of their craftsmanship.