Chris Mullineux finds some interesting life in and around his sleepy farming village

I don’t know about you, but I am not usually happy at receiving flyers in the post. Especially as most are so bizarre, and surely such a waste of time. I mean, exactly how many customers do the bikini-waxers and pedicurists of this world expect to find in a sleepy town like Tulbagh?

Maybe I’m wrong – maybe they do a roaring trade. But before I digress onto the fascinating topic of the farming community’s cuticles, I should remember to mention that two flyers did spark my interest last week.

The first was for a new farmers’ market to be held on the last Saturday of each month in Tulbagh. The flyer instructed us to bring a basket to fill with ‘vegetables, fruit, meat, fish, cheeses, dried fruits, olives & oil, lavender and other herbs, smoked, organic & cured meats, farm crafts, honey, preserves, pickles, nuts, wines, home baking, quiches, oysters, antiques… and much more!’ Plus there is to be live entertainment, pony rides and a boulle/pétanque competition! Could it be that our sleepy valley is finally waking up?

Being someone who quite literally lives in the mountains during the week, it takes something important to keep me away from the bright city lights on weekends. The fermenting tanks in harvest manage to do so, but there is not much during the rest of the year! This new market sparked my interest though, so I decided to stay and investigate with an air of reserved enthusiasm.

What always frustrates me is that farming communities grow all these wonderful products, but the best of it disappears, never to be shared with the locals. It is depressing shopping for fresh goods here sometimes. In this case I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. The quality and freshness of goods on offer was a match for the variety! The only thing that slightly dampened spirits on the day was being trounced (repeatedly) by the Boland pétanque champions. Hopefully the spinach and carrots I bought will help me sharpen my ball skills for the next market day.

Finding bits of history

The second flyer had more of a wine related note, if in a rather roundabout way. It was for a farm auction to be held on a historic local farm, which has been bought by some (surprise surprise) wealthy foreigners. The auction was of antique furniture, meranti doors and windows, yellowwood beams, and various bits of farming equipment. There were also some quaint things, such as old steel milk jugs and watering cans, antique anvils and horse driven ploughs.

Everything went for a song, and it was great fun bidding for things I didn’t need, but didn’t want going to some rich foreigner. We were kind enough to leave them useful things for starting up a farm though, like the old irrigation pipes, spades and forks, dodgy pumps, etc.

After the auction I walked around to a nursery run at the front of a truly unique Cape Dutch house on the farm. This national monument is about 250 years old and enormously long - the longest of them all, I believe! I strolled nostalgically through the shade around the dwelling to the far end where the nursery is run from, and looking into a storeroom I noticed two very familiar shapes. Cement tanks! Very old cement tanks....