Saturday 10 November 2007

It's official...

******************NEWS FLASH************************

Beware crazy woman returns to UK eta Friday 16th November at 4pm!!!! Will be around for about 2 weeks. Will try to see as many as I can......... Short and sweet (sounds like me!!!)

Susannah

Tuesday 6 November 2007

Coming together slowly

*******************NEWS FLASH***********************

I moved into MY bedroom last night and had a great nights sleep. The en suite sink still leaks and floor puddles but if I wait for this to be rectified I will be old!!! (er)

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm..... my house is starting to come together. Judith is a great help and good company. She turns her hand to anything, she is painting, scrubbing, cooking, cleaning, actually she never sits still, but then neither do I. We will have lessons later on how to use my new cooker I have a two electric, two gas ring, cooker with electric oven, it covers running out of gas in the bottle, or an electric power cut (last night had 4!!!) I have given the use of my outer (roadside) shamba to a project to cultivate and use to produce crops to sell. The land I have is just too big for me to manage and it is better cultivated than being a weed bed!

The Masai guard has gone. I woke one night at 1.30 am to find him out of the grounds and the gate wide open. I ventured out with flash light and dog in tow only to find no trace of him. I locked the gate and checked the compound and chicken house, I then sat in a chair facing the gate and waited an hour. He suddenly appeared from another direction - when questioned he said he was here......!!!!!!!! Needless to say he WASN'T. I explained that for me to venture outside on a full moon looking for my guard was NOT satisfactory, and if he was here he would have seen me. I am waiting to receive another guard, hopefully a better one.


News on the house........ if you are bored with it skip this bit and go to *****..........I decided to get myself another tiler as the one I had was so so so so slow. I think he was waiting for the cement to dry after each tile was set! My tiler came in and in two days he had removed the old tiles in the old shower room and fitted new ones........SO BADLY it almost made me cry.........I am learning that what you have maybe bad, but what you get to replace it may be even worse! I am going to have to 'tail between my legs' go and humbly ask my slow slow slow tiler to come back and redo the job. They put up cracked, chipped and even broken tiles, I have so many!! Instead of grouting they used the black cement between the tiles, and the chipped ones they filled the chip with cement.

Yesterday the foreman didn't show as he is 'unwell'.....!! His second in command, (Timo) couldn't continue the work as it needed Haron to be there to help. I asked if Timo had been redirected to another job, he said he hadn't and had nothing to do. I offered him a small wage to carry out various jobs for me like, helping move the bed, put in the loo roll holder, fix the latrine door, he gladly agreed. He is back today doing more of the same, I have asked him if he will come back when the gate, water tower and roof are completed and help with painting the outside of the house, (he gets a pittance for the work he is doing, if I go direct it works better for us both!)

*****The animals are fine, cats against dog..... she is about three times bigger than the cats but they keep her under control, its funny to watch. Invalid cat will never walk properly again, but is very quick on her feet, apparently she works better running than walking, she tried jumping the other day...... that doesn't work either! My crops are finally coming through, maybe it is due to me spending hours weeding the seed bed, I can now see the seedlings! I have fenced off the area with chicken wire as the dog, being so helpful wanted to aid me with the weeding, not quite how I would do it, manic digging!!!!!!!!

My rickety fence seems to be deterring her from running into the area although a slight wind will see it flattened! I did plan on going to Scann on Saturday to paint some more Xmas wrapping paper with the boys, however, there was such a long long long long Q of them waiting outside the door for me to cut hair I didn't get a chance. They are all happy, the exam boys are busy studying (or cramming!).

I look forward to the time when I can relax and maybe arrange to go out at the weekend as I have some energy. I sit outside on the veranda's steps in the early hours of the morning and think whether or not I have done the right thing with the house......... my answer is always YES, I feel so relaxed and at home here it is hard to describe..................................and then the fundis show up!!!!!!!!

Love to you all, hope everyone is well, Happy Birthday to the birthday people, Katie and Daniel.
Hope to see some of you soon.

Susannah xx

Nathalie... Please measure the size of Alfie's neck for a new collar. (just the neck around will make allowances for extra length for fastening!)

Jean please do the same for Max.