October 26

The electricity is on the entire day. Until fifteen minutes before our guests arrive.

Rolo stands and looks at the car outside the gate, totally unperturbed.  This is when I believe in all that stuff about energy fields.  Other people can arrive, also not get out the car, and he goes nuts, jumping up and down and barking his head off.  These people he knows will love him. They are French.  Rolo likes French people and French people like Rolo.  Two years ago, a lady stayed with us who spoke to him entirely in French.  Rolo was the most obedient I have ever seen him and finally it dawned on me that we had been talking to him in the wrong language.  Rolo is French.  Of course.

Our guests are a couple and their daughter.  They live in Morrocco where they teach at a private school, attended largely by government ministers' children who wish to go on to study in France later on.  It seems there is not much difference between Morrocco and Zimbabwe in that regard.

They take an instant shine to Rolo, pronounced Ggolo, and Ggolo is delighted to at last be surrounded by people who speak his language.  They don't mind that there is no electricity and spend the rest of the evening sitting outside on their veranda, Ggolo at their feet.

October 25

At about the same time as yesterday, a silver car draws up outside the gate and hoots impatiently.  I wish people would realise just how long it takes to walk from the house down to the gate.  They expect you to materialise in front of their eyes within seconds of their arrival.

'Tell them to bugger off,' says John.  'If it's that woman from yesterday, tell her there's no electricity, no water, no internet, no television and it's double what we quoted her.'

John is not usually so unappreciative of drop-in customers. 

The problem is that if people stay tonight, we will obviously need to change the sheets and clean the cottage by the time other guests, who are booked, arrive tomorrow.  The unpredictability of the electricity may mean that this is not possible.  Already, there is a huge pile of ironing that is not done. We are running out of sheets.

There is a woman driving and a man in the passenger seat.  Throughout the whole conversation, he doesn't look up from his phone.

'Is this Limerick Lodge?' she asks.

'Yes.'

'How much is it for a couple for one night?'

I tell her.

'What are your rooms like?  Are they nice?'  

You'll be surprised at how many people ask us this question.  I'm tempted, as I always am, to say something like: 'Pretty awful.  Wouldn't stay here if I were you. Save yourself while you still can.'

Instead, I say: 'Very nice.' I try smiling, but it does not feel successful.

'Are your rooms . . . ' she hesitates.  Her voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper. 'Are your rooms carpeted?'

'No.' I try what is best described as a sad wince.

'And that price, does it include breakfast?'

'No,' I say with another sad wince.  Inside, I feel triumphant. They will not stay.

'I see.  Thank you,' she says and puts her car into reverse.  

I am glad we do not have carpets. Their absence saved us a lot of washing.

October 24

Just after lunch, a couple turns up in a silver car.  The woman who gets out looks very glamorous.  She greets me like an old friend and says that she stayed with us two years ago.  Her name is Monika, with a 'k', and she is from Ireland.  I do actually remember the name, although she does not look familiar.  She would like to stay for three nights.  However, we have people booked to stay on Saturday so this is not possible.  I go back inside the house to get her my friend's phone number.  

'It's Monika,' I say to John.  'With a 'k'. She's from Ireland.  Do you remember her?'

'No.'
'She came to visit her father two years ago?'
'No.'

Back at the gate, Monika says she would like to stay two nights.  Could she have a discount for being a faithful customer?  I'm not good with deals so I call John.

'Monika,' says John.  'Good to see you again! How's your dad?'
'You remember me?'
'Of course.'

We offer Monika a discount, but remind her we do have power cuts and, when that happens, the internet will only be available in the house.

Monika's face changes.  She talks to someone in the car.  She comes back to us and asks for our number.

'I'll phone you.  Definitely by the end of today, I will phone you.'

That is the last we see or hear of Monika, with a 'k' from Ireland.

October 23

I try and extend our McAfee subscription to cover another laptop, but have a problem as I receive a message that our subscription expired 1008 days ago which conflicts with the fact that it is installed and working well on my laptop.  I contact the McAfee helpdesk where I am given a whole lot of options to choose from, but none of them fit the question I need to ask.  I try their chatline where I am reliably informed that I am not talking to a human being.  I type my question and, again, because it does not fit a formula, I cannot be helped.  Eventually, I am put through to a real person.

Armina: Hey there!  How are ya?  

Me: Fine, thank you. (I hesitate.  Should I ask Armina how he/she is or get to the crux of the matter right away?)  How are you?

Armina:  I'm good.  How can I help?

I explain the matter.

Armina: OK, I'm just going to look up your subscription.  In the meantime, how has the rest of your day been?

I pause. I think.  Armina, you really do not want to know about the rest of my day.  You have a script in front of you.  You are following what you were told to do in your training seminar.  There is a chance this chat is being recorded so you want it down in black and white that you were quite courteous and nice to your customer.  You do not want to know that when I woke up there was no electricity and when I go home there will be no electricity.  You do not want to know that I have about half a litre of petrol left in my tank and I don't know where to get any more from.

Me: Great, thanks.

The water cuts have been extended by an extra day.

Everyone is feeling very depressed and the weather doesn't help.  Ellie plays Christmas songs she has downloaded on my laptop.

In the evening, it rains again for about ten minutes, accompanied by a great display of thunder and lightning.  

The frogs are back.

October 22

My alarm rings at 5am and I almost fall out of bed I am in such a hurry to grab a bar of soap and my towel and run down to the cottage and have a shower before the electricity goes off. As it is Tuesday, the municipal water is off so unless there is electricity, the tank won't work.

There is a beautiful sunrise.  The moon is still up and the sky is the most delicate of pinks.

There is talk of a public holiday on Friday.  This is so we can all go and protest against the supposed sanctions placed on Zimbabwe by the West which are apparently crippling it.  As far as we all know, the only sanctions are those imposed on government ministers, their wives and families who enjoy travelling to London and New York at the average Zimbabwean's expense and splashing out in Harrods and Bloomingdale's.

At midday, John messages me to say that he managed to buy electricity, but it is now off.  A few weeks ago, our bank changed everyone's bank numbers but didn't tell anyone what the new one was.  Everyone is expected to go in, fill in a form, wait in a queue and be grateful if, after at least two hours, they are given the new information.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a look at our page on booking.com from the perspective of a visitor looking to stay. Ever since, I get a daily message from Booking.com, saying 'Bryony, Bulawayo is waiting for you! It's the exclamation mark that really gets to me; there is no need for that kind of exuberance.
I receive a message.  Do we do weddings?  Absolutely not.  Not unless you want Rolo in all your pictures.  I tell them that we do not have a lodge, we have a two-bedroomed cottage. Later, the same person messages again.  Can we accommodate 25 people? Sigh.  Some people just don't get it.

Late afternoon, it rains for about a minute.  We all get incredibly excited.  The smell of rain on dust is one of the most beautiful smells in the world.  I think that if we left Africa, that is what I would miss the most.

October 21

Another roasting hot day but we need the heat to build up for rain.  I hope it is not winter again on Wednesday.

We go for an early morning swim.

The power is on, but then goes off as we have run out of electricity.  John has just pressed the button that will give us an emergency allocation of electricity - it usually lasts a few hours - when there is a power cut.

Somebody phones me about accommodation.  They sound as though they have just woken up, or perhaps they are just talking in their sleep.  At one point, I stop talking and ask if they are still there.  I get a yawn/grunt in response and feel sorry to have troubled them. 

John tries to get electricity at a number of places, but everyone is offline.  At one place, there are fifteen people waiting to buy their tokens and it's taking at least ten minutes to process each one.  John comes back empty-handed. The power comes on at 10pm, but only in the cottages as they are on a different circuit to the main house. I try to buy electricity online through a website called Magetsi, but the page cannot be reached.  I try to buy through their Facebook page which proclaims that it is a fast and easy way to buy electricity.  It doesn't work.  I send them a message which consists entirely of twenty seven rows of question marks.

We take all the things out the freezer and some of the things from the fridge down to the cottage and put them in the fridge there.  The fridge does not appear to be working.  This is not good news as we have just had it repaired.  Finally, after much fiddling around, we get it to work.

I know in my heart of hearts that I should be grateful that we have not just one fridge, but two, even if we do not have the electricity to run them.  I know I must be grateful for the fact that we have not run out of electricity because we do not have the money.  I know there are people with nothing; people who would gladly swap their lives with mine. I know.  I know all the benefits of staying positive and not letting the situation get to me and all that. I know. But sometimes, just sometimes, I'd like to SCREAM! 

October 20

John takes Helen to get the 8.30 bus to Victoria Falls.  Twenty minutes later, they are back.  The 8.30 bus has been cancelled, as has the 9.30 bus, due to a lack of passengers.  She has bought a ticket for the 10.30.

Wales is playing France today.  By the time we leave to go to the gardening club meeting, Wales is trailing.  My mother was a huge fan of Welsh rugby.  She would be on the phone to the manager by now, telling him who to send off and who to bring on.  Seriously.

Bulawayo, like Zimbabwe, is an eclectic mix of different things and different people.  The gardening club, the classical music concerts and the yearly pantomimes are part of that mix.  Unfortunately, things like these tend to appeal to a certain audience which is very much in decline: elderly white people.

The lady pouring tea says that anyone wanting to see the end of the Welsh game is welcome to go inside and watch it.  The most important match, however, she stresses, is at 12pm - the Springboks vs Japan. 'Oh no,' I respond with such vehemence that a number of people turn to look at me. I am certain I felt a sharp dig in the ribs from my mother just then. 'The main match is on now.  Wales is playing.' An elderly lady asks me what my connection with Wales is and it turns out her mother was also Welsh.  She offers to sing Bread of Heaven with me.

One of the oddities of white Zimbabweans (just one of the many) is that they take umbrage to being described as South African and yet when it comes to supporting a team, they don their Springbok jerseys and sway to the sound of the South African national anthem.  All these people of British descent identifying with players with names such as Lood de Jager and Faf de Klerk.

I have often thought of writing about my Welsh connections. They are quite tenuous really.  My mum always said she was Welsh, although her father was Scottish. She was born in Swansea but lived in India until she was five.  When she was fifteen, my grandparents moved the family to Rhodesia. When I first went to Wales, I felt a really deep connection with everything.  I really did feel that I had somehow returned home.  England was different; England was recognisable.  Everything was like I imagined it to be from books and films.  In Wales, I connected through my bones.  Interestingly, Sian, who has never been there, has decided she will live there as an adult and has even started teaching herself Welsh through a language app on her phone.

The talk today is on garden birds.  We are in one of the most beautiful gardens I have seen in Bulawayo. The grass is so green and lush that I sit on it rather than on a chair.  There is a captive audience of 'twitterers'.  I am completely out of my league.  When it comes to gardening, I can identify some of the more obvious flowers (like petunias!) but I am not one of these people who can reel off Latin names.  I am considerably less knowledgeable when it comes to identifying indigenous trees (unless it's a mopane) and, when it comes to birds, I am absolutely useless: Yellow Bird, Fat Yellow Bird, Blue Bird, Bird With Long Beak.  Do not use terms such as the Crimson Breasted Warbler or Violet-backed Starling with me.  Even worse are names such as Jameson's Firefinch.  

There are people who take their birds very seriously.  One must never make throw away remarks when it comes to identifying birds.  Did it have a small white stripe just above its left eyebrow or not? You cannot say things like 'maybe' or 'it might have been yellow'.  Not only do these people discuss the size of the bird, its mating habits and where it nests, but also, horror of all horrors, what sound it makes.  If you are like me, you will struggle to replicate the sound of a bird you have just heard.  

'It goes woo-oo, woo-oo, woo-oo.' 

'Do you mean woo-ou, woo-ou, woo-ou or wooo, wooo, wooo?'

'It's more woo-oo, woo-oo, woo-oo.'

Look of consternation. 'You see if it's woo-ou, it's the female Emerald Eyebrowed Shrike. If it's wooo, it's the European Long-necked Swallow.'

'And if it it's woo-oo?'

Slow shake of the head.  'Well, it sounds like a Stevenson's Lapwing, but it's unlikely, highly unlikely.'

'Why?'

'It's only found in the Eastern Cape. In April.  And it hasn't been spotted since 1972.'

At the end of the talk, a lady in the audience clears her throat and asks if anyone else has had the red-eyed bulbul visit their garden this year.  There is a gasp, followed by a deathly hush.  Like a bird herself, the lady plumes her feathers with pride. Not the red-eyed bulbul.

I am interested to hear about the Indian Myna bird.  Indian labourers who went to work in Durban are thought to have brought the bird to South Africa over a hundred years ago. Homesick for India, they wanted something to remind them of where they came from.  The Song of the Myna Bird sounds like a good title for a story.

October 19

I wake up early.

'Morning, Margaret,' Sian greets me as we pass in the corridor.  I attribute this rather obscure remark to the fact that the electricity is on: it affects different people in different ways.

Helen, our guest, has gone out to Matopos to see the rhino.  Yesterday, she told us she is a professional 'couch surfer'.  This is the basic idea:  if you want to go to London and want to save money on accommodation, you can go onto the Couch Surfing website and look for a suitable host.  These hosts offer their couches as places to stay free of charge.  In return, you get to meet people from all over the world.  Ideally, there should be some interaction between the hosts and the surfers(?) and if the hosts should later on find themselves in the surfers' part of the world, some reciprocal arrangement is encouraged. 

I wonder what this is like and whether I could do it.  I doubt it. I am too OCD about too many things: clean toilets, clean sheets, other people's coffee mugs.  If I stay in a hotel, I rinse out the cups on the tray before using them. The thought of a backpackers fills me with horror.  There is some appeal, though, in the idea of travelling light.  Sometimes I wouldn't mind just setting off into the sunset with only 'my knapsack on my back'.

This is not the first time I have heard of couch surfing.  Two years ago, a Russian lady booked to stay with us.  She had couch-surfed into Bulawayo, where her hosts offered to take her out to Matopos for the day.  What they didn't tell her was that they were bringing eight members of the family with and she was going to pay for them all to get in and for the hire of a minibus to take them out there. The next day it was a trip out to Khami Ruins.  Eventually, she had enough and booked with us for three nights.

  

It is a sweltering hot day.  The electricity goes off at about 2.30pm and comes back on when we are having dinner with our friend, Anne.  Helen arrives back much later than anticipated.  Her tour group consisted of two vehicles.  The guide in charge of the leading vehicle took a wrong turn and, although the guide in Helen's vehicle claimed he had not been down this particular road for many a year, he still followed.  At one point, they had to jack the Land Cruiser up as it struggled to get over some rocks.  They only had lunch at 5.30pm.  

October 18

John leaves the house at 4.45 am to fetch our guest.  The electricity is already off.  

When he arrives at the 'bus station' (large, empty car park into which bus arrives), the bus is already there.  I have come for the murungu (white person), he says to the bus driver who points at a sleeping mass on a back seat.  The bus is full of sleeping people.  In an hour, it will leave for Harare.

Helen is an unlikely looking tourist.  She does not wear the uniform long skirt or khaki cargo pants or a tie-dye T-shirt.  Nor does she wear sandals or a bum bag.  Instead, she appears in a red sundress, pink sparkly shoes and a black jacket.  She also wears a green 1920s inspired headband that gives her quite a quirky, interesting look. This is her first time in Zimbabwe and so we try and watch our words: it is easy to be negative and the last thing we want to do is put her off.  She loves dogs and Rolo and Tallulah fight for the privilege of sitting on her feet. This is their way of showing love; if you cannot move at all, this is a sure sign of adoration.

In the morning, John takes her to Hillside Dams to walk the dogs;

in the afternoon, he takes her to the Art Gallery.  There she sees a picture she would like to buy and asks if they will take her international credit card, which they can't because that means accepting US$ which is now illegal.  So John takes her to change her dollars into Ecocash, which is a method of payment through your phone (unique to Zimbabwe, by the way - and what would we do without it?). They then go back and buy the picture.  Here's my question, if she didn't have John there to advise her where to change money and take her backwards and forwards, would she have bought the picture? Perhaps she might, but to me this is an example of the ridiculousness of this situation.  Someone is willing to buy something and they have the money ready but cannot use it.  The artist loses out on a sale that could have been his only one for the week, or month, as does the gallery and so does the government who cannot take their generous slice of the pie.  How does this situation help anyone?

I meet John and Helen at the Bulawayo Club where she orders English Breakfast tea, which has to be translated as Tanganda.  As usual, half of the menu is 'not on offer' and the swipe machine is not working.

In the evening, we have our monthly film night.  We have been running this for about the last three years. We took over hosting it from a German couple who lived here for many years before retiring back home.  Our numbers have dwindled this year with two couples having left the country.  Although there are a number of names on the mailing list, we probably have about 8-10 people who regularly come, including us. We sit outside and chat for a bit before watching the film.  People bring their own drinks and a plate of snacks to share and we always have a very enjoyable time catching up on each other's news. I have sometimes thought of writing one of those novels with titles such as 'The Jane Austen Book Club'.  The Bulawayo Film Club doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

The electricity, which has been off the entire day, comes on around 8pm, amid cheers.  We were all sorted with candles and solar lights and extension leads running here, there and everywhere, but electricity is much easier.

At 11pm, when everyone has gone.  I put the washing machine on.  One has to make hay while the sun shines.

October 17

The electricity is off the whole day until 7pm.

We are expecting a friend of a friend whom we knew when we were in Zambia, but who has since moved back to the UK.  She is flying into Victoria Falls at lunchtime and then hopes to get a bus down to Bulawayo.  I have been trying to find out some information for her, such as how much a taxi is from the airport into town.  It is US$30.  I momentarily consider giving up my job as a teacher and moving to Victoria Falls to work as a taxi driver.

In the afternoon, I receive a message from her that she has landed safely, but the next bus to Bulawayo is the Extra City at 11pm.  It will arrive tomorrow at 5am.  She assures us that she does not need to be picked up at that time and is quite happy to wait in a cafe or waiting room.  Knowing where the bus stops, we are doubtful there will be either.  At most, it is a car park.  John generously agrees to meet her at 5am.

I have my last lesson with a boy who comes for  extra tuition.  He tells me that he plans to study and work at the same time next year.  He is adamant that he is never coming back to live in Zimbabwe.  His grandparents - his grandfather has passed away - are Italian and moved here as refugees after the Second World War.  It is so very sad that what was once seen as a haven, a place of new beginnings for so many people, is now a place to run from.  The problem with being a teacher in a private school is that essentially you educate young people to leave and enrich the economy of another country. I am not sure what I will do with my afternoons anymore.  Rolo will miss him and his shoes.

As it is the beginning of half term, we splash out and buy a bottle of red wine.  We don't really drink very much anymore; if we do, it's cheapo Gilby's gin and mango juice. Tonic water has become something of a luxury.

October 16

The water is back and the electricity is on.

We get a message from the people booked next week.  They would like to extend their stay by two days.  This is good news, although I wonder why anyone would like to extend their stay in Bulawayo.

In the afternoon, I am invigilating an exam at school and happen to look up at the Honours boards on the walls of the school hall. There I see the same name as the people who have booked.  It is an unusual name for it is French.  I wonder two things: one, if the reason the people are visiting is because they have some family connection with Bulawayo and, two, why is it that when you see something unusual like a name, you often see again soon after.

When I get home, the electricity is off and stays off until 10pm.

October 15

I get a message from my friend, Angie, to tell me she is back from the UK and do we have any visitors we could send her.  There are a number of us who run bed and breakfast accommodation in Bulawayo and we try and help each other out.  If we are full and someone wants to book, I usually pass them over to one of them.  However, business is not great at the moment. Zimbabwe must be one of the most difficult countries to travel through because of all the monetary restrictions and the shortage of fuel.  For foreign visitors, it can also be incredibly expensive as people here tend to think anyone from outside the country is fabulously wealthy and equally fabulously stupid.  The general thought is that they can charge exorbitant prices for the most basic of services and no one will blink an eyelid.

A lady called Wilma phones me from Harare to ask if we have a vacancy for two people for three nights next week.  Wilma represents a Chinese television company.  She first contacted me about two years ago when she was looking for accommodation for a film crew coming to Bulawayo to cover Mugabe's birthday celebrations near Matopos.  The day that they were due to arrive, she had to cancel as all television crews besides ZBC were suddenly banned.  Rumour was that it was because he looked so old and decrepit.  The ZBC version of the birthday bash managed to capture everything except the man himself. The last time Wilma contacted me, we were in South Africa and I referred her to Angie.

The boy who comes from extra lessons tells me Rolo managed to take his shoe off while he was getting into his car last week.

The electricity comes on 'early' at 8.30pm and we manage to have a hot shower.

October 14

The electricity is off and the water is off.  Since the transformer blew and was repaired about a week ago, we seem to have been put on a different grid.  Either that or it's chaos reigns at ZESA. The electricity comes on again mid-morning, but just as I arrive home in the afternoon, the sound of John swearing and cursing ZESA to hell and gone alerts me to the fact that it is off again.

This is our worst nightmare.  When the municipal water is off from Monday to Wednesday, we rely on our storage tank, but this only works if there is electricity.  My stomach tightens.  We have guests arriving to stay and there is neither water nor electricity.  We have lost a lot of business because of this over the last couple of months.  We are able to run an extension lead from our inverter to the cottage and this runs a large standard lamp.  We also have numerous solar lights and a gas stove.  But people generally want to have a shower and there is always the question of the dreaded internet.

I am hoping these people are going to be really late.  Any time after 10 o'clock would be great as that is when the electricity generally comes on again.  By nine o'clock, there is no sign of them and at 9.30pm, we go to bed.  I am surprised they have not arrived as they are Chinese, who are usually quite good at being punctual and not just not arriving.

Around midnight I wake to the sound of the inverter recharging and a couple of Whatsapp messages beep through.  Neither of them is from our guests.  The bathroom light is on and I get up to switch it off. I can't help feeling thoroughly disillusioned with everyone and everything.

October 13

The electricity is on!

We also have a booking for five days, starting tomorrow.  It's the same people who booked and cancelled last week.  I can't help hoping that they went somewhere else and were bitterly disappointed.

About two years ago, we had a Czech couple book for two nights. Unfortunately, they were delayed in Bulawayo with car trouble as the rental agency had given them a car with no spare wheel.  There was what is referred to as a 'biscuit' tyre, which, as its name suggests, is very thin and therefore only designed for emergency purposes.  These are banned in Zimbabwe, probably because people would use them all the time. Obviously, the couple did not know this - until they were stopped by the police.  Their English, although good, did not extend to the peculiarities of Zimbabwe so I ended up being a go-between them and the rental company in Harare and the tyre company here in Bulawayo.

The couple needed to stay longer than their initial two nights, but we booked for one night and so they looked for another place to stay.  They said they found somewhere in Ilanda and we said our goodbyes.  The next day, I got a call.  Could they come back?  The place was awful.  For the same amount of money that we were charging, they were squashed into a double room with broken floor tiles and bare sockets that was part of somebody's house.  The roof leaked - in fact, the roof sagged - and they had spent the night fearful that it would fall on them whilst they slept.

Especially around Trade Fair time, a lot of 'b&bs' spring up.  Some of these are very decent, clean and affordable; others are far more suspect.  Spare rooms, sheds and domestic quarters are suddenly viewed as lucrative sources of income.  It is absolutely amazing what people charge and how stupid they think people are that they would pay these amounts.

In the evening, we go to a classical music concert at the Academy of Music.  I close my eyes as I sit and listen to the beautiful music of Hayden and Schubert.  I am not a great classical music fan and I am no expert on composers or styles of composing.  I just enjoy the music for what it is. It is thoroughly relaxing.

October 12

It is scorching hot again.

In Zimbabwe, everyone is an expert on everything. If you were trying to get out of a crowded room, you'd trip over at least five experts on your way to the door. The majority of this expert advice, however, is largely based upon what someone's friend told them, what the fuel attendant muttered while filling up their tank, what the shop assistant declared true and what somebody's brother who knows somebody in the government said was going to happen - and what, accompanied by a long, knowing look, 'they' have hinted at. That ubiquitous 'they' is a fount of knowledge on all things, including the government, the currency, what the president plans to do on his birthday and, most importantly, the weather.

'They say there will be a drought this year.'
'They always say if there's rain in July, there's rain in November.'
'My father (and he was a farmer so he should know) always says that a cold winter means good rains.'
'My grandmother always used to swear that if we have rain in September, there will be a drought for the rest of the year.'
'They say this changeable weather is down to climate change.  It may snow next year.'
'Our gardener says that out in the rural areas, they believe that the cold weather is a good sign: rain is on its way.'
'I was speaking to a guy selling avocados today and he believes that this cold spell means that the rains will be late but good.'
'They are predicting heavy rain for February due to the unseasonably warm July.'
'In 1992, the year of the worst drought ever recorded, it was also overcast on October 3.' (Long, knowing look).

One thing is certain, Zimbabweans have never got used to being wrong.  Many of these predictions are quickly forgotten when the outcome is the opposite of what has been forcasted.  Y

ou would think we would have learnt by now.  I don't know how many times in the last twenty years the air buzzed with the certainty of Mugabe's demise; so many times in fact that, when he did finally fall off his perch, the occasion was remarkable only for being dishearteningly vapid.

An early Rhodesian book bears the title Next Year Will Be Better.  It is one that has become a
maxim in Zimbabwe.  We are told prices will come down in April, the economy will improve by November, Zimbabwe will become Africa's success story (no dates given on this one).  April and November approach and pass and so does the next April and the next November.  But, next year will be better.  The guy at the dry cleaner's told me and he should know: his second cousin's wife is the member of parliament for Gokwe East where 'they' know all about it.

October 11

The electricity is off. It is a grey and gloomy day. Heathcliff rushes past the window again: 'Catherine!  Catherine!'

I get a whatsapp message from a number I don't recognise:

Hie.

That's it.  Nothing else.  Just Hie. Sometimes I feel like running a course in Whatsapp etiquette.  Instead of getting to the point right away, the message plods on:

Hw r u?

Big sigh on my part.  A quick prayer to God to grant me patience with complete imbeciles.

Hw is Byo?

I'm glad they can't hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth their message is met with.

Hw mch for 2 ppl 4 one nyt?

I consider pressing delete and pretending these people do not exist. I cannot abide people who cannot write proper messages. This might sound like pure snobbery, but whatever happened to 'Good afternoon, I am looking for a room for two people for this weekend. Do you have a vacancy?' I don't expect guests to float in quoting Shakespeare, but some sense of formality would be appreciated.

The request itself is not unusual on a Friday. The weekend brings out many a couple looking for a rendezvous.

Wat bout discount?

I lie and says that includes the discount (not sure what this discount would be for).

Whe r u?

I tell them we are in Hillside.

Wat number?

I tell them I will give directions when they have actually booked.

U tyk Ecocash?

Yes, we take Ecocash with charges.

How mch yr chrgs?

This time I leave it about four hours before I reply.  At the end of the message, I remind them that we do not have television.

I don't hear from them again.

October 10

The good news is that the people who booked over Christmas have cancelled; the bad news is that the person who has booked over New Year, assures us she is looking forward to her stay.  Well, at least we know when we can go away and for how long.

Many Zimbabweans who live abroad come home at Christmas time to visit relatives.  Despite the fact that they could stay with their relatives, they often like to have their own space. Relatives, a guest once told us, can be quite a burden.  He hadn't been back to Zimbabwe for six years, preferring to just send money home.  Everyone expected him to have a very high paying job and be able to fund the lives of various relatives.  He complained that they didn't know how hard life was for him in the UK and how hard he had to work to send money home.

This afternoon we had a little rain shower in town, but only a few drops fell in Hillside. A beautiful cool wind blows across the garden and I feel inexplicably happy. There is some assurance to be drawn from the fact that however hot it gets, rain is on its way.

In the evening, the electricity goes off for the second time today.

October 9

I am just leaving for work when someone phones.  They would like to stay over the weekend.  I promise to message them our rates as soon as possible.  We cannot quote in US$ any more and, with Zimbabwe's inflation rate at close on 1000%, I have no idea what we charge in Zim dollars.  I'll have to ask John and get back to her.

Later in the morning, I get a call from the same lady.  I ask if she received my message and she says she has.  There is a pause. 

'The thing is that I don't think I can afford it,' she says. 

'Oh dear,' I reply.  'Well, I hope you find somewhere else.' I know exactly where this conversation is going.

'I was wondering if you could give me a discount?' I knew it.

Zimbabweans are not the best of customers.  We are so used to looking for a deal that we forget that qualifying for a discount usually means there is a reason: the booking is for a week or more; five people would like to stay; I have stayed three times before.  I imagine taking my trolley to the till at the supermarket and asking if I can have 25% off because I can't afford it.  

A popular strategy of Zimbabweans is downplaying what you have to offer in order to qualify for a discount:

'But you are actually quite far from where I want to go so it's going to cost me quite a lot in terms of taxi fares.'  Again, there is that pause.  What am I supposed to say: 'OK, we'll move closer to save you money'?

Another strategy is to compare you to somewhere else.

'Brilliant Sun Lodge is charging half of what you are.'  Yet again, the pause.
'Well, perhaps you should stay there.'
'I don't want to stay there.'
'Well, if you want to stay here, this is what it costs.'
'But Briliant Sun Lodge has full DSTV.'
(Big sigh) 'And we don't.  Thank you for calling.'

I am always telling the cashiers at PicknPay that whatever I am buying costs less in Botswana.  To date, it has always proved fruitless.  At most, I get a shrug of the shoulders and a bored smile.

I offer the caller a discount if she stays for three nights.  She says she will think about it.  I ask if she has enquired at any other places.  She says no.  I begin to think she has stayed here before which is why she wants to stay again.  I have a strong feeling she is the girlfriend of a man who stayed about two months ago.  He was constantly looking for a discount, despite the fact that they arrived in a Mercedes Benz (and quite a recent model at that). When they left, we found a receipt in the bin for KFC. They had spent more on a takeaway meal than their accommodation had cost - unless, of course, KFC had given them a discount.

In the afternoon, she phones back.  Is there wi-fi?  Yes, I say.  Is there a desk at which she can sit and study?  No, I say, but we can put one in the room for her.  Thank you, she says, she'll be in touch.

She doesn't call back.

October 8

The water is off and so is the electricity.

I decide to message the people who have booked to stay over Christmas.  I'd like them to cancel so we can go away. I draw their attention to the fact that we do not have television, although we do provide Internet. I end by saying that we and our two dogs, Rolo and Tallulah, look forward to seeing them in December. I consider inserting the word 'large' in front of dogs, but decide against it. Then I say a prayer, cross my fingers and press send.

Until we started the B&B, I had no idea that so many people are absolutely terrified of dogs. Our Ridgeback/Boerbull cross, Rolo, is a big dog and I do understand that, when he's running at you at 100km/hr, he can be quite a formidable sight. However, the worst thing to do is scream, run or climb a tree. Rolo can sense fear from a mile off and how people react to him determines how he reacts in return.

We were just finished lunch on Boxing Day last year when we heard a great shout. We rushed outside to find a man up the frangipani tree and Rolo at the bottom wondering what all the fuss was about. Two ladies came to enquire about the cottage one morning. While John was standing talking to them, Rolo bounded up. Both women screamed loudly and threw themselves at John who, totally unprepared for the onslaught, fell over, the women falling on top of him. Rolo, by this time, had found something much more interesting to investigate and had run off. John suggested the women find another place to stay.

You see, people who are afraid of dogs are hard work. One man phoned us every time he wanted to go out the door and every time he arrived back at the gate. It was exhausting having to make sure that Rolo was kept inside. We even had one lady who refused to sit on the veranda of the cottage in case Rolo walked by.

We have now come to the conclusion that people who are not dog people are not worth the trouble and so it is that I write to each guest and tell them that we had two dogs. Ultimately, we feel, people have to fit in with us. We are not going to lock the dogs up to suit others. Rolo rules and that's a fact.

October 7

On Mondays, our part-time maid, Eunice, comes in to clean the cottage and do the ironing. We should have electricity the whole day, although the water is off.  Eunice is our saviour; without her, we would be totally lost.

When we took on the house, we were more or less forced to take on an ancient retainer, Elizabeth.  Elizabeth is not quite sure, but she thinks she is about 78 years old.  I'd put her closer to 110. She is a lovely lady; she is the most honest person I have ever met.  If you were to leave a hundred million dollars in $5 notes on the table for weeks on end, Elizabeth would not touch them. I have never known her to take the smallest scrap of food or tell the tiniest of lies.  

However, Elizabeth is a hazard.  She has been known to clean the floor with a dishcloth and sometimes puts plates away without cleaning them.  For the past four years, we have struggled to inculcate in her the idea that dishes should be washed in hot water and that toilets need to be cleaned more than once a month - and with toilet cleaner.  Invariably, we get home to find brooms and mops littered around the house or tins of polish on the dining room table and bottles of bleach on the dressing table.  Many Saturdays are spent cleaning up after Elizabeth.

Do not get on the wrong side of Elizabeth.  She has quite a tongue when she gets going and will berate you in a volley of English and isiNdebele, clicking her tongue wildly and making sure you understand every second word. She also has a bit of a warped sense of humour.  Once when we came back from a short holiday, she joked that she and her husband had eaten the guinea pigs.  Laughing wildly, and completely unaware of the look of consternation on the girls' faces, she told them how she had roasted them in the oven and that they were quite delicious.  She also very candidly told me that my older sister looks much younger than me and I should do something about it.

Elizabeth has had a hard life.  Originally from Zambia, she came here with her mother as a child and has only once gone back.  Her husband, Jelison, is from Malawi.  He came to Rhodesia in the 1950s, getting a job as a cook for Italian contractors working on the building of Kariba Dam wall. Elizabeth and Jelison had eight children, only three of whom are still alive.  She is a woman of quite remarkable strength, a woman who has managed to carry on despite huge loss in her life and for that alone, she has my complete admiration.

Every so often we say that Elizabeth needs to retire, but it is impossible.  She has no pension and none of her children could look after her. Besi
des, she'd be bored.  It was once suggested that we

give her the cottage to clean and get someone else to work in the house, but the thought filled us with complete horror.  Guests would inevitably find toilet cleaner in the fridge and dusters tucked into their pillowcases. I fear she would also order them to empty their own bins, especially if they contained bottles, for Elizabeth does not approve of drinking alcohol and would probably haul them off to church. And so we struggle on, glad of Eunice on Mondays and busy the rest of the week, righting all Elizabeth's mistakes, but, as I tell myself often, we will miss her when she's gone.

October 6

Early in the morning, John and I go for a long walk round Hillside Dams.  We decide we need a holiday - doesn't everyone here?  We would like to go away for Christmas but the problem is that someone has booked to stay.

We have a new booking for the end of October. The person mentions that they have heard there is a problem with 'gazoline'.  If we say 'no', we'd be lying, but if we say 'yes', we know what the next questions will be - can you help us?  When we went to South Africa earlier in the year, we made a couple of bookings through Airbnb, but never met our hosts.  The key was left somewhere for us to collect and drop off at the end of our stay.  I can't imagine what the reaction would have been had we asked them to arrange fuel for us or do any of the other things we do. We regularly arrange tours and trips for people and have even collected people from the airport or taken them to restaurants to save them a taxi fare.  A friend of ours took a guest out to Matopos for the day and John arranged for train enthusiasts (them again!) to meet a local fount of knowledge.  I did draw the line at one request though: a guest phoned me while I was at a school swimming gala and asked if I could pick up a takeaway meal from him and his family of four.

In the late afternoon, I try and buy electricity online, but the page is still 'not reachable'.  I go to the supermarket, but am told they are 'offline'.  Around 8pm, the electricity runs out.

October 5

The people who had booked for tomorrow have cancelled.  It is hard not to be disappointed, but disappointment is something we have had to learn how to deal with.  Because of various restrictions, we cannot insist that a deposit is paid on booking.  Some people don't turn up and, even if they do, there is no guarantee that they will stay.  Although we are quite clear about the fact that we have dogs and that the cottage does not have a television, you would be surprised how much weight these two factors carry.  

On our Airbnb blurb, we advertise the cottage as a place to relax and be cut off from the world:

Are you the sort of person who likes writing letters instead of emails? Do you like your tea in a teacup rather than a mug? We offer quiet, peaceful accommodation set on three acres of indigenous garden with fantastic birdlife. 

A paved pathway runs through the garden which is quite extensive, but in the four years since we have been here, perhaps about five guests have ever walked round it.  Even fewer people have used the teapot and nobody has ever asked for blotting paper. However, quite a few people have suggested that we install satellite television.

October 4

I take Sian to get the bus to Harare at 5am.  I get home as the sun begins to rise and consider sitting and watching it longer.  Then I change my mind and go back to bed.  I take Ellie to school today as John is doing an early breakfast for our guests.

Because of the problems they have endured with electricity, John offers them a complementary breakfast, but they are adamant that they will pay for it.  The lack of electricity is not our fault, they say and they insist it did not disturb their stay.  I like people like this.

There is an episode of Fawlty Towers entitled The Waldorf Salad. An American visitor requests the salad as a starter but Basil Fawlty, who is manning the kitchen alone, has no idea what it is and offers various alternatives, such as a Ritz Salad which contains all the usual salad ingredients such as lettuce and cheese.  As usual, his behaviour descends into the absurd as he continually gets everything wrong and, in an attempt to put the blame on someone else, he pretends that it is the chef who is making the mess up.  Shouting loudly so that the American visitors can hear him, he reprimands the non-existant chef, even going to the extent of threatening to beat him up. 

I have often thought of doing a similar thing when preparing breakfast for guests.  Two years ago, John was away working in the UK and I was running the show by myself.  The thing I dreaded doing most was making breakfast.  It's ridiculous really as breakfast is one of the easiest meals to make.  However, there are so many things to take into consideration. For one, not everyone understands what an English breakfast actually is. This is an example of a conversation:

Me: You would like a full English Breakfast?

Visitor: Yes, full English.

Me: Great.  

Visitor: But no bacon.

Me: OK.

Visitor: Or sausage.

Me: OK.

Visitor: And please, no tomato.

Me: Right, so just eggs and toast?

Visitor: Yes.  And mushrooms.

Me: I'm sorry, we don't have mushrooms.

Visitor (evidently disappointed): Oh?  All right, I'll have two hash browns.

Me: (slight cough) I'm sorry, we don't offer hash browns - it being an ENGLISH breakfast.

Visitor: But at the last place I stayed at, they had hash browns.

Me: And where was that?  America?

Second scenario:

Me: Would you like the Full English breakfast?

Visitor: Just a continental breakfast, thank you.

Me: Sorry, we don't offer a continental breakfast.

Visitor: Oh.  Well, just bring some ham and cheese and lots of coffee.

Me: (through gritted teeth) That's a continental breakfast.  We don't offer it.

And poached eggs?  Don't even get me started on poached eggs.  No one knows what a poached egg is and now I tend to treat it like some rare whisky.  If a person asks for it, I'll produce it, but if not, I shall keep very quiet and leave them in scrambled egg ignorance. There are other problems such as how long you cook the eggs for and should the bacon be crispy or not?  Overall, I am glad John is now back as he handles the breakfast with far more confidence and aplomb.  I have been relegated the duty of manning the toaster and for this I am eternally grateful.

October 3

Luckily, our guests are quite unperturbed by the lack of electricity. They spent yesterday at the Railway Museum and are off to Matopos today.  Hopefully, the electricity will be back on by the time they return.

The weather is still grim, but it is supposed to clear by eleven o'clock.  A heatwave is expected this weekend.  Looking at everyone in jumpers, jackets, coats and thick Arctic boots, this seems a very unlikely scenario.  

By lunchtime, the sky has cleared and it is a beautiful day.  The electricity is still off at home. In Zimbabwe, I have found that phone calls fall into the following categories according to the message you receive on dialing:

1. This phone number is unreachable - This is the worst.  You may as well have phoned some random number or used a toy telephone.  The person you are dialing is not interested in talking to you but would like to make it appear that they are in a remote part of the world engaged in some mysterious activity rather than tell you to your face.

2. User Busy - Do not get too excited if you receive either an engaged signal or a message that the user is busy.  They can be busy for hours, days and weeks on end.  However, the sense of disappointment is not as brutally final as 'this phone is not reachable'.  There is hope.

3. Ringing tone - Again, don't your hopes up.  Many numbers can just ring and ring.  One imagines large, empty rooms with only the sound of a ringing phone breaking the silence.  This is how I imagine ZESA Faults on many an occasion. Ultimately, there is nothing quite like those words: 'Hello, can I help you?'

When I finally do get through to ZESA, the man I speak to, promises to find out what is going on and get back to me.  Again, he takes my number.  I mark books all afternoon.  Sometimes, I think I was born to mark books. It is my reason to be.  An hour and a half later, I get hold of ZESA again.  The man I initially spoke to has gone home (without phoning me back) and the new guy is skeptical.  He doubts that the electricity will be restored today but promises that they will 'try' for tomorrow. This is not good news, especially as the inverter is now completely dead.

At 5pm, I go and fetch Sian from school and on the way back we stop at the new Pick n Pay at Ascot.  It has recently been refurbished and is now a sea of shiny surfaces, large fridges and signs demarcating the Deli, the Bakery and the Winery.  We are unimpressed; we liked the old TM. Sian is going to Harare for swimming and waterpolo tomorrow so I need to buy her some food to take with.  I usually buy her snacks and give her some money to buy larger meals,  However, we have been told that a simple egg roll costs $50 in Harare (that's our week's cash allocation from the ATM).  As we do not have cash, and as she does not have Ecocash on her phone, I have to buy her a weekend's worth of food to take with.

On the way home, the traffic lights on Cecil Avenue flick on and off and eventually stay on.  Sian gets excited: perhaps this is a sign that the electricity is back. She's right, it's back on  - except in the cottages where it is still off. Thinking the cottages must have run out of electricity (they are on a separate cicuit to us), I try to buy ZESA online but am told that 'this page cannot be reached'.  I shout to Sian that I am going down to the shops to try and get electricity, grab my bag and am just about to jump in the car when I realise that the electricity is back in the cottages. Mind games, that's all it is.  Mind games.

John comes home.  He tells me he has a part in the pantomime.  I tell him he already has a part in a pantomime - Zimbabwe, The Musical.  At least in this one, he is a king, he replies.  Even if he does die at the end of Act two.

October 2

We wake to the sound of the wind howling round the house. The weather outside resembles a scene from Wuthering Heights.  All we need is for Heathcliffe to come rushing past, calling 'Cathy! Cathy! Where are you?' Yesterday, it was 32C.  Winter happens regularly on a Wednesday these days. 

Sian is up early.  'It's cold,' she says. I agree.

The power is off. This is not unusual and nor is it a problem. However, it always seems to happen when we have guests.

I go to work.  The guard at the gate greets me with a nod. 'It's cold today.' I nod in agreement. At 9.20, John messages me to say the power is still off, but breakfast went well.  He has given our guests $8 bond to get into the Railway Museum as they have no Zimbabwean money and changing money at the bank is likely to be long and fruitless.  $8 bond is nothing.  It's worth about US60c.  I don't mind giving them the money, it's just that finding cash is always so difficult.  The bank allows us to take $50 out a week.  This is the equivalent of US$3.33.

I go home at lunchtime.  The power is still off.  Thinking it is load shedding, we expect it back at 2pm.  Both my extra lessons are cancelled due to illness. 'It's the weather,' says one of the mothers.  'It's so cold.'

At 3pm, Ellie goes to the nextdoor neighbours and asks if they have electricity.  Yes, they do.  This is strange.  I phone ZESA.  It takes at least 26 attempts before someone answers the phone.  They haven't heard of a problem, but they will investigate and get back to me.  I thank them and give them my phone number.

I take my dad out for coffee.  Today would have been my parents' 48th wedding anniversary. For the first time since my mother's death last year, my dad admits that life has been difficult without her.  He doesn't know what to do, he says.  If only he knew what to do.

On the way back, I try and buy electricity.  The first shop has it, but only for cash. I have no cash.  I go to TelOne where there is thankfully no queue. 'It's cold,' says the lady at the counter as I hand over my bank card.  I agree. She shakes her head when I ask if I can buy $100 worth of electrcity.  Apparently, the system can only handle amounts under $50.  She tries for $50, then $40, then $20 but the response is always 'meter number unknown'.  I try at a shop near Spar, but they, too, are offline.  'It's cold,' says the woman running the shop as though this accounts for the system being down. I go home. The power is still off. No one has been to investigate and no one has phoned back.

I try phoning ZESA.  It takes me another eleven attempts to get an answer.  The transformer has blown on Cecil Avenue.  They will look at it tomorrow. We put the inverter on.  It runs for about an hour before it starts beeping.  Unfortunately, we have not charged it for a while.  We unplug everything except the lead that runs to the cottage and powers one of the lamps.  We have a few small solar lights that we use to navigate the house. At 8.30, the beeping starts again.  We switch off the inverter and go to bed.

It's cold.

October 1

I wake up with an ominous feeling: the water did not go off yesterday.  Why not?  I cannot deal with this inconsistency.  There is nothing quite like being ready for disaster and it not happening. Both Bulawayo City Council (water) and ZESA (electricity - I have never got used to calling it ZETDC) issue timetables for their cuts, but neither are particularly good at following them.

When the power crisis first started, we used to run around frantically getting everything ready.  When the power was on, we cooked, baked, blended, mixed, liquidised, hoovered, polished and mowed in a hectic frenzy.  There was nothing better than watching the clock hands approach the cut-off time, knowing we were ready: meals cooked, washing done and ironed, everyone showered and everything that needed charging charged.  The sense of readiness induced a warm, smug feeling. C'mon, ZESA, hit me.  I'm ready  for you. Now, the schedule tends to be far more erratic and there is nothing worse than half killing yourself to get ready for a power cut and then finding yourself sitting there, lights blazing away, because they decided they won't switch you off this time.  You would be wrong to rejoice when a power cut does not happen and view this as ZESA being generous.  They'll choose some time when you can't possibly be prepared and hit you with an18 hour cut. Your cries of 'but it's not the right time for a cut' will be drowned by the gathering whirr of generators.

Some good news is that the Germans are on their way and should be here between 2-3.  We have a booking for Sunday - this is exciting.  We don't often have more than one booking a week anymore.

The Germans arrive at 2.30 exactly.  As I suspected, they are German South Africans - or South African Germans?  They are very jolly and take to Rolo right away (always a good sign).  However, the hair on the back of my neck stands up when I hear that their first port of call will be the Railway Museum.

I have nothing against railway enthusiasts per se, but they can be a little bit strange.  About two years ago, we had a man come to stay who was completely obsessed with trains.  On his first night, he came up to the house and proceeded to show us over 400 pictures of various engines, carriages and goods trucks. I didn't know that there were different classes of goods trucks, but believe me there are! The next day he returned from the station quite put out that an engine he wanted to photograph was missing its number.  He then went to the extreme measure (well, I thought it was extreme) of finding a photo of the number online, printing the picture out in colour at a print shop in town, taking it to the station and sticking it on the engine so that he could then take the photo.

From us he went to Hwange where he was looking forward to taking photos of the coal trucks.  On the way back he was involved in what could have been a very serious accident.  He got out of his car at a police roadblock to show the policeman his spare wheel, fire extinguisher and all the rest one is legally required to carry in a vehicle in Zimbabwe.  When getting back into his car, he was hit by a bus that had swerved to the wrong side of the road in order to bypass the roadblock. He was taken to hospital in Bulawayo and it was from here that we received a phone call.  Not knowing anyone else in Zimbabwe, he had put us down as his next of kin.  John went to see him at Mater Dei and he ended up coming to stay a couple of days with us until he could arrange a ticket to fly back to South Africa. We had a bit of a scare one day when he did not emerge from the cottage until lunchtime.  John and I kept looking at each other anxiously, hoping that he had not died in the night. Thankfully, he had just been in need of a good sleep.

September 30

Early in the morning, I receive a missed call from Cliff Garden.  There are two things to note about this: one that it has nothing to do with a garden on a cliff and, two, that missed calls are a common occurrence.  A missed call in Zimbabwean code means: phone me back at your expense. I have no problem doing this for people who cannot afford to use the phone; I do have a problem doing this for people who can well afford it.  I have even had potential guests do it.  They phone once and then sit waiting for the return call.  'Sorry, I missed your call.  Can I help you? Oh, yes?  Let's spend the next ten minutes on the phone discussing your holiday.  Don't worry, it won't cost you a thing.' It doesn't work anymore.  If I don't recognise the number, the caller can phone me back.

I have a particular way of recording people in my phone's address book.  If I don't know them very well and am likely to forget who they are, I include a little reminder next to their name.  I have, for example, Tapiwa Fridge, Michael Gravel and Keith Spare Wheel.  There are more fleeting contacts simply referred to as Weekend, Possibility and Easter Break. This has caused some confusion when I have gone out without my phone and come back to messages such as: 'Shoes phoned' or 'Saturday Night asked if Sunday is free.' Cliff Garden refers to our very part-time gardener, Cliff.  Cliff spends most of his day outside Greenvale shops asking people for money and a job.  At this point in the year, we don't need a gardener.  The garden is very dry and we manage to water the few pot plants we have by ourselves.  However, there is always very basic work available such as sweeping up leaves or washing the car.  In fact, this type of work is best suited to Cliff whose knowledge of gardening is extremely limited and potentially dangerous. Unfortunately, I cannot give him work at the moment as I am never at home long enough to supervise him.

Cliff claims to have a mother at Ingutsheni, a psychiatric hospital, whom he supports. I always try and help people like Cliff.  There are so many unemployed people in Zimbabwe.  So many people with no hope at all.

We have a German couple arriving tomorrow, but we have yet to receive confirmation from them.  This is unusual for Germans.  They usually book months ahead and, if they say they are arriving at four o'clock, they arrive at four o'clock.  Not one minute past.  What worries me about this booking is that they initially cancelled it and then rebooked. Also unusual for Germans.  Perhaps they are not really German after all.

So far, in less than two days, my new blog has had 276 views.  The blog site gives me a breakdown of where my audience is in the world.  The majority of viewers are in the UK, Zimbabwe and, surprisingly, Ukraine.  There is also one viewer in an 'unknown location'.  This is very mysterious.  Is it the FBI, MI5 or Google?  Perhaps it is an alien, logging into my blog posts as he circumnavigates the world in his UFO.  Odd.