November 12

Our visitors leave for Botswana early in the morning. They seemed quite jolly

about not having water and electricity last night.  The man declared himself to be quite a keen philatelist at one point whilst talking to John, who gave him some Rhodesian stamps to add to his collection.

The chongololos are out in full force.  A chongololo (sometimes spelt shongololo) is a millipede with a hard black outer shell.  They are quite fascinating creatures who can, apparently, live for up to fifteen years, although I think the majority of them get run over before living to such an old age.  They appear with the rains and always seem to be on the way somewhere, coming into the house and ending up in some of the most unlikely places, like the bottom of the laundry basket or the back of a cupboard.  They are completely harmless; the worst they do is poo on you if you pick them up.  We had a Croatian lady stay once with her South African husband and her aunt.  They were from the Eastern Cape. I had just shown them into the cottage when she emitted a loud scream and quickly shut the door as there was a snake outside. I opened the door very slowly, expecting to see a cobra and saw instead a poor, hapless chongololo going happily on his way to the garden. Apparently, chongololos are not found in the Cape - or, I suspect, Croatia.

We hope that no one books to stay until Friday as we have no water and huge piles of washing again. Rather worryingly, our inverter has started playing up.  It only lasted for an hour and half last night before giving up.  The battery is only four months old so it shouldn’t be losing its charge so quickly.

In the evening, we have heavy rainfall that continues for a number of hours.  It is lovely to go to bed to the sound of rain.