Saint du Barrys and the Big Tree

Perhaps the Tree deserves to be personalised, and have a name, but we've never done that. Once I thought I would try somethingWordsworthian and listen to the Tree, and I must say, that after thinking really hard about Tolkien, I did hear something quite profound, but I don't talk about it, because people would think that I had been drinking. Many guests remark on the Tree when they arrive, and truly, it's a magnificent wild fig. The most frequent question is about the Tree's age. We reckon it's about two hundred years, since it was mature when the house was built in 1904.

When we drove into Saint du Barrys for the very first time, it was a cold, clear July day. On the way from Cape Town we had seen bright flowers along the road, and this with the intense blue sky, clear snow-topped mountains and crisp air, gave us a taste of years to come.

When we arrived - I can hardly believe it - the only heating was the fireplace in the office. The rooms had those oil heaters with fins. How on earth had anyone kept warm for a hundred years before us?
Now we have nine of those reversible aircons which heat quickly and effectively. The seasons differ greatly: no talk of heating in the summer months, with temperatures ranging from mild thirty degrees Celsius to forty five on wicked days. The Tree is a blessing in these months, offering shade in which to hide from a stare which can be intimidating from such a sun.

I don't think Saint du Barrys would be Saint du Barrys without the Tree. Apart from functional values, its livingness can easily be taken for granted. It is forever trying to walk through the dining room, on the way to the Jan Dissels River which isn't many meters away. The aerial roots grow downwards quite quickly, and have to be cut regularly. Once they touch the ground, they'll grab and won't let go. The Tree must host a huge number of birds. We've come to know the difference between their morning and evening calls.

We prune back the large branches every three to four years. Our first tree-man had a very limited sense of the horizontal: he seemed to spend much of his life zapping up and down sliding ropes, and anywhere he put his feet was purchase, not of the buying kind, but of bringing down tough trees. In fact, our first meeting was when we glimpsed something landing on the scullery wall, lifting to come down on the dining room roof, then back to the scullery roof - not much sympathy for our humble structures, but what the hang - the thousand meter tree on our neighbour's land was required to come down, and down it would come, correctly cut into, angled, and then pulled by the tree-man and associates, with their feet tightly against our walls and roofs. His name was Luke: we called him Skywalker Luke.

In the later year the Tree drops millions of small balls of baby fig. They're hard or mushy depending on the kind of year and rain. Enough work for a team of gardeners and a company of carpet-cleaners. There's also the mulberry tree, but I won't even think about that one right now.

One poignant sound that will no doubt travel with us forever is the windchime that hangs from a lower branch. For many weeks it does very little, and then when north-west breezes begin to remind themselves of what it's like to be a full-blown wind, and we hear the sound of seasons rubbing hands, that high and mellow beat says things that completely bypass words. It's a sound, to me, of deep home.

Most guests would not experience a week of the Tree's company. Eleven years, so far, in the company of the Tree, is a significant part of our lives, and a very small part of its great growth. Time is relative and mystifying. The Tree has taught me at least that, as well as very much more.