Hi-de-hi

Tim and I have never been natural campers, both enjoying the comfort of our own bed, a good night's sleep and a warm shower too much to want to spend many nights out under canvas. We had been together for at least 8 years when we first camped together, for some great friends' hen/stag do - I was the "best man" and although I was let off any organising (or part in choosing what to do) it meant we had no choice but to go along. We borrowed a tent from my brother, an air mattress from friends and tested our ability to put it all up in the front room of our London flat so as not to embarrass ourselves in front of hardened campers.
How times have changed. We're still not natural campers but the mix of young kids (who love the idea of camping and the time spent outside with friends even if they struggle to sleep well) and the cost of staying in hotels as a family of five and the amount of room we occupy if staying with friends coupled with living somewhere with relatively predictable warm, dry weather and a great outdoors means camping is much more part of our lives now. We own 2 tents (which even I can put up without a need to practice), sleeping bags,mattresses - we still have the air bed we borrowed 10 years ago, gifted because our friend never wanted to camp again - camping stoves, cooking gear and of course head torches and lamps galore. And last weekend we bundled it all into the back of our car and set off to join friends in a field right by lake Naivasha.
The weekend was organised by a really lovely family who leave Nairobi next week after 4 years here. They will be very missed both in the school mums net and at work and about 20 or so families with kids between 6 months and 11 came along to mark their departure. Early anxiety from Matthew that it would be all girls and all under 7s were soon dispelled when he recognised a fellow 9 year old from sports fixtures at a rival school and they bonded over a football and Matthew's "tracks and signs" book, trying to work out which animal poo belonged to what - the only one they were absolutely confident about was the tortoise (?!) so I think they have some way to go. Jamie rekindled his early years passion for horses and spent hours riding, leading others on a pony and hanging out at the stables. And Katie disappeared with the afore mentioned u7 girls.
We had a great weekend, with huge games of kids' football, rugby and cricket organised by a few dads, horse riding, toasting marshmallows, bbqing, drinking beer, breakfasting with giraffe's and spending time with friends. Tim and I opted out of the midnight hippo hunt but went on a lazy Sunday morning boat trip on the lake instead and saw loads, along with fishermen and great bird life. We came back to Nairobi tired but reminded that the faff that is packing up is reduced a bit in the absence of howling gales and torrential rain, and when there is a small army of people around to help put it all away, clean out the car and wash out the icebox when you get home. Definitely more glamping than camping.

Naivasha album View photos    Download all You are invited to view anne's album. This album has 13 files.

Anne

How does the garden grow?

As anyone who buys fine green beans in Sainsburys knows, agriculture is a major source of exports here. The mix of equatorial sun, warmth and a good rainfall around Nairobi all make for great growing conditions. There is a saying that if you plant a stick it will grow. Its very lush on the coast too, with cashews and coconuts everywhere. We drove past miles and miles of pineapple fields on our way to Mombasa the other week - a new sight for us all. Green beans and asparagus are shipped abroad along with the best of the Kenyan tea and coffee crops, although there's a growing market for good coffee in Nairobi (if at a price beyond most Kenyans and honestly not entirely related to the various mums I hang out with). And there's a major flower industry around Lake Naivasha, about an hour from Nairobi. Huge bunches of roses can be bought at most roadside corners in Nairobi for the equivalent of a couple of pounds.


There are some less good aspects of this industry - lake Naivasha has been heavily polluted by nutrients running off the flower farms and is now massively over run by water hyacinths - the equivalent of Japanese knot weed. Katie and Matthew spent a happy hour clearing the Lodge's pond of this weed when we stayed near the lake with my mum but I'm sure a month later it will all be back. It's the same in lake Victoria and a real challenge for environmentalists - there are some projects trying to turn these plants into biomass as a source of energy and one guy we met who advises the PM here is very optimistic about one of these. The flower industry is also apparently cleaning up its act (or so I reassure myself when I can't resist the lovely blooms) so fingers crossed something works soon as some beautiful places are being rapidly damaged.

Back at home, and fertiliser free (if you ignore the manure from our driver/gardener's cow) we are enjoying the fruits of our garden - squash, beans, chillies, potatoes, spinach, salad, fennel and rhubarb with regular bunches of bananas. Katie happily crunches though sunflower seeds too, harvested and dried from her sunflowers in September - the next crop is doing well and she's looking forward to showing the cycle of seed to flower to seed in her science lessons this term as part of learning how things grow.


















The maize and avocados look like they will be ready soon too, and the Passion flower I planted on the back wall in July is about to fruit.

And with luck we will get to them before the monkeys who we spotted in our road the other week find them.

I would love to claim credit for any of this but I can't really. The hard work has all been done by Bernard who is clearly a farmer at heart who also drives, looks after the kids, does my shopping, advises me on life in Kenya and generally provides life support for our household. Tim has put his back into the garden too, building steps through the bananas and working out how to direct the torrents of water that rip through the garden when it rains away from the veg - the hours we have spent building waterways and damns with the kids on rainy UK beaches are paying off!

Standing with Bernard earlier, harvesting beans in the mid morning sun with beautiful birds flying round us and then reading about snow and fog and minus temperatures in the UK really did make me feel on the other side of the world.


Anne

Happy birthday Matthew

As a mum I spend a fair of time saying "not now" and "no" to the kids (or "maybe, which they all know means no but I don't want the row now). And when I'm not directly denying them their wants I'm often busily trying indirectly to do so by encouraging them to stop doing things like fighting, or spending endless time in front of various screens, or eating like savages, or leaving their rooms in a state...... As our most physical child and as the one with the lowest boredom threshold at the moment Matthew is probably the main recipient of this mothering approach. So when he asked a couple of months ago if we could spend his birthday on the beach it was almost as much a treat for me as it was for him to be able to say yes. No need for any stalling "let me think about it" or "I'll need to check with dad". Just yes. And where?

Matthew wanted to return to the place we went to in October - for a child who has adapted fantastically well to his new life, new school and new friends here he really doesn't like too much change! So after a very nice Nairobi New Year's eve having friends to dinner, opening the fizz before midnight on the basis that in our international lives time zones are really irrelevant and at our age we should all be in bed soon after midnight anyway so there was no need to wait for the sake of waiting. And a very mellow New Year's day swimming and BBQing with more friends, we packed our shorts and snorkels and headed off to the coast to get the sand between our toes.



Its made for a lovely start to the year and a very nice end to a month of school holidays - we swam, snorkelled (including Katie who has only recently become a confident swimmer and declared her first proper look under the sea to be awsome), read, built sandcastles, went sea kayaking, made new friends, chased crabs on the beach, enjoyed watching the sun setting on the indian ocean, played uno, saw a few people we knew, and just had fun hanging out together. As I had done in October I occasionally looked up from a sun bed to suggest a trip out, for an ice cream or to East Africa's largest snake farm but I was always rejected in favour of more time in the pool. Jamie's record was a cool 9 hours one day, coming out only for a hasty lunch and an occasional fizzy drink with added sugar - a speciality of the pool bar and one of the attractions for the kids. With the kids very happy and occupied Tim and I were able to have a lovely dive each and Tim also decided to learn how to windsurf. But a lack of wind put paid to his final final lesson this morning and deferred it to our next visit - not that we need any excuse to come back.








For Matthew's birthday itself we thought we would start the day by going dolphin watching. The weather was ideal - the sea in the bay was flat as a pancake and it wasn't too sunny to risk frying the children on a boat trip. So we negotiated a deal (of sorts) with one of the guys on the beach and set of with a group of others to see what we could see. Matthew up front as Birthday boy.

We looked and looked, with the kids turning slowly greener as the ocean swell grew beyond the shelter of the reef. Absolutely nothing as far as the horizon. But presumably thinking their tip would be larger if they actually found dolphins, the boat crew seemed determined to press on, ignoring both Tim's suggestion that they turn back as the visibility was so good it was evident we weren't in the right place and the fact that two of the 4 kids on board were repeatedly throwing up. In the end they accepted what had been clear for some time and turned back. Just as they did a mobile phone rang to say dolphins had been seen on the other side of the bay. But by then the queasy feeling was spreading and even Matthew who prides himself on not getting travel sick had had enough so we jumped out on the beach and let the remaining adults set off for more hunting. 10 minutes later, after a restorative lemonade and swim in the pool Jamie was tucking into a second breakfast - poached eggs on toast with bacon, Katie was running off to play cards at kids club and Matthew was deep into a water polo game. 45 minutes later the boat and our former company spotted dolphins and jumped in for a swim with them. We were all really pleased they had found some and all really glad we hadn't had another 45 minutes on the sea.

After this slightly shaky start to his day Matthew had a great time. We had agreed he will get a few presents from family in the next couple of weeks rather than on his actual birthday but he was really touched when the main guy we deal with on the beach gave him a bracelet and a little girl who had become a firm friend with Katie presented him with a homemade card. He was also secretly pleased, if claiming to be mortified, that we had organised a surprise cake for him. This was presented to him after dinner by various kitchen staff processing out of the kitchen carrying a flower festooned chair for him to sit on whilst banging pans and spoons and signing to him (as appears to be the norm judging from similar displays we've witnessed). Jamie and Katie fled from the noise in embarrassment but were quickly back for the cake, which Matthew happily shared around the children in the restaurant before settling down to a card game with a group of the older children (now that he is 9).

And now its back to Nairobi and work and school and a busy couple of months for everyone before our next break. But despite an hour or so delay on our return flight (more playing of cards called for)

and rain clouds over Nairobi, I suspect it will take a few days for the sand to disappear from swimsuits, bags and between our toes and for Matthew's memories of turning 9 by the beach to fade.

Anne