Friday 16 March 2007

Sniffing Madly

Ok, so I know it has been a while but have been a busy bee.

I am typing this at home to save time tomorrow at the internet.

Paul-Simon's trip was great I can only hope HE enjoyed it! At the end of his first week I decided that I had had enough of the ‘fundis’ and their terrible work that I got rid of them and told them unless they corrected all their bad work they needn’t come back, I wanted a week of freedom from their loitering round the house making a mess. It was great, peace and quiet.

I have no idea where my last email left off other than I think I wrote it on my birthday. Had a great time, had ordered a cake 18” square from Sweet Mart my local ‘treat’ place that does cakes and deserts. We collected the cake in Nicks taxi, we couldn’t put it in the boot as in the morning we had been round Lake Nakuru and it had filled with red dust from the road. We tried to get it in the back of the car but couldn’t, in the end three of us levered it in whilst Paul-Simon guided in from the inside of the back seat. He ended up lying under the cake and holding it firm all the way to Scann.

The boys were all assembled and waiting eagerly to sing happy birthday to me and couldn’t wait to get their hands on the cake. Cutting it was a very messy and technical event trying to make sure that everyone got a slice, small as it maybe.

After Scann we left for a night of drinking and dancing at Travellers with two of the female teachers from Scann and Ruth and Ester friends from town. We danced and made merry and had a great time, I think we got in at about 2.30am considering I thought it would only be a few drinks we did well. Ruth appeared with another birthday cake which was soon eaten.

Paul-Simon and I decided to paint the lounge and even if I have to say so myself did a fantastic job, the huge fireplace is Tibet Yellow and the room is Tango orange (you have to see it to appreciate it). As we had no decorating clothes PS borrowed an old pair of my shorts and T-shirt – he looked really cute, (he will hate me for saying so but I have the pictures to blackmail him with).

There has been little rain so the shamba is struggling, especially as I have a lovely pipe and shamba tap connected out in the shamba but no water source connected to it, have to use a bucket. (Just as I am typing this the heavens have opened the first time in many days, God must be reading this as it is being typed). Don’t you just love the smell of rain after a dry spell?

Paul-Simon and I left for Naivasha on Saturday and being lazy we got Nick to give us a lift, unfortunately I left it too late to book at my usual Fishermans Camp and ended up at the one next door which was ‘different’. Unknown to us there was a charity fishing competition on the Sunday and everyone assembled in the bar on Saturday evening for pre-event drinks and merriment. It was crazy, all talking about, did you guess………… fish. They had a raffle which was for fishing boats which was amusing as the people who owned the boats had to give a little description of the boat and its past uses, made me laugh. One man was called Ashish he said it was Hashish without the ‘H’ he was funny, everyone wanted to be on his boat as it has Hashish on it!!

That night we didn’t hear any hippos and the next morning we set off to Hells Gate to hire bikes after a cooked breakfast and packing a small bag of supplies. Paul-Simon wasn’t sure about this trip as he kept asking how far it was. We got our bikes and set off, it seemed further than I remembered and other than zebra, baboons and gazelle there wasn’t a lot of wildlife that I could see, birds, but have no idea which ones, they had wings and feathers… (sorry John!) We eventually arrived at the gorge and had our lunch, were given a guide to escort us through the gorge, (he couldn’t speak a lot of English and wasn’t talkative so I tried to give Paul-Simon the low down myself). It was a lovely but exhausting day. When we finished in the gorge we then started the long and painful cycle ride back, Paul-Simon wasn’t too happy by this stage.

We got a matatu on the main road and got off at Fisherman's Camp where we chilled and had a good steak dinner. We didn’t realise how the time had gone and it was now pitch dark and we had to make our way back to our camp down the road. We walked up the hill and managed to grab a matatu heading in our direction, unfortunately, he ignored what I said and went speeding past our campsite, when he eventually stopped was probably the same distance as it would have taken us to walk from Fisherman's camp.

We would have slept well that night had it not been for Paul-Simon having an allergic reaction to the blanket that he used that night. He woke up at about 3.30am in a very congested state and very uncomfortable, after a while I decided to clear his nose we should go for a walk to see the hippos as I could hear some of them calling. We didn’t see any and think they must have been at Fisherman's camp instead. We got back to bed and he fitfully slept till morning when we left for Nairobi.

We had two days in Nairobi doing all the shopping things and looking for fabric for curtains, I think at this point Paul-Simon OD’d on curtains. I found some interesting designs and carried samples back with me.

Jenga (my Nairobi friendly cabbie) took us to the airport for the drop off - always a difficult time – but I was glad we had had two good weeks together, something that we hadn’t had since Paul-Simon left home. Afterwards Jenga wanted to take me for a Tuska beer (to make me happy). We went to the same place he took me to last time where they had local music and dancing and we stayed until 430am……… I was to put it mildly – happy and exhausted having danced the night away. It was good though almost a ritual departure event.

I have been to Scann twice since I am back from Nairobi and spent most of my time there shaving hair, I can see that I will be doing more this week too.

Anyway it is now getting darker and I need to think about cooking some food…….

Oh forgot to mention what happened when the foreman of the work at my house came round this week to ‘talk’. I was ready with a list of things that I have asked him and his men to put right on their time and money before I think about them starting any further work.

On Friday he appeared with another worker and together they started filling and sanding walls that had already been painted badly without any preparation and scraping paint off the floor, it took them hours. While they were doing this I sanded down the walls of the dining room and painted them using the roller and not one drop of paint appeared on the floor. I asked them if they wanted me to show their painters how to paint with a roller, as their guy had refused to use the roller as ‘it made too much mess’. He then continued to paint with a brush leaving paint all over the floor which has been a job and a half for them to clean off……. I am not sure they were happy with my suggestion but I think my point reached its goal.

Ok am now going, really.

Lots of love to you all,

Susannah (sniffling with a heavy cold!)

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