October 27

The French people have a problem.  They hired a normal sedan type car in Harare and then took the cross country route from Imire, near Marondera, to Featherstone and, in the process, completely and utterly destroyed one of their wheels.  Today, they would like to go out to the Matopos, but need to buy a new wheel first.  I make some enquiries and find a place that is open on Sundays and John goes with them to show them where it is and make sure they don't get ripped off on prices.

As a Welsh supporter, I am obviously very disappointed with their defeat against the Springboks. I

don't understand why everyone refers to the South African team as the underdogs as I can remember them winning at least two other world cups.  To my knowledge, Wales has never won it.  I really don't like the smug self-assertion of the South Africans.

As the water will go off tomorrow for four days, I try to do as much washing as possible. In the afternoon, we find ourselves low on electricity, but, once again. are unable to top up as the system is offline.