May 27

I have an extra lesson today and feel so excited to have some money in my pocket!  Afterwards, I visit a friend of mine and we have a mutual moan about the coronavirus and online teaching.  In the afternoon, I take the girls to the stables and then go to Econet to see if I can get John a phone line for his new phone.  John lost his phone last week.  I thought he might take the opportunity to upgrade to a smartphone, but it was not to be.  John and technology do not go together.  If he could walk round with a bakelite phone, he would.

Apparently, I can't buy a phone line for someone else so John will have to come and do it himself.  Having about an hour to kill before I collect the girls, I buy beetroot seedlings.  I am so proud of our little vegetable garden, kept alive entirely by old bath water.

For supper, I make spinach and cream cheese pasties. I made the cream cheese myself by draining a packet of masi through a linen cloth.  It has come out really well.  I make shortcrust pastry using self-raising flour.  For some reason, you can't buy plain flour in the shops, but there is plenty of self-raising flour.  I would have thought it would have been the other way round.

There is definitely a greater sense of accomplishment when the meal you eat contains things grown in the garden or made yourself.  If there is one good thing about living in Zimbabwe, it's that you do learn to become far more self-sufficient than you would elsewhere.  If I lived 'elsewhere' I might just buy ready-made pastry - or ready-made pasties - and it just isn't the same.

May 26

I go to the pharmacy to get my dad's medication and a woman there asks the cashier if she can buy a mask.  This is a disposable mask that comes out of a huge box of them.  The cashier says they are US$1.50.  A couple of weeks ago, I remember someone on Facebook saying that before the advent of the coronavirus, these were being sold for the equivalent of US10c.  

One thing I have noticed of late is how people charge in US dollars.  There is a tendency to charge, for example, $2.50 rather than $2 or $3.  We don't have fifty-cent pieces here.  We used to have a fifty-cent bond coin, introduced because everyone was tired of getting their change in Eversharp pens and chewing gum, but I have not seen it for a while.  It is certainly not the real equivalent of US50 cents. If you are using US dollars to pay, you could pay the fifty cents in the bond equivalent or you could do what shops hope you will do - buy two so you end up with a nice rounded figure that doesn't require change.  The lady in the pharmacy buying two masks.

Outside the pharmacy, I approach her and tell her where she can buy a cloth mask for the same price.  She does not seem very happy with my suggestion even when I tell her that she just bought a mask that should only really be worn once.

'But I wash these,' she says, looking pained and completely forgetting that she has just bought two new masks because the one she has on is obviously on its last legs.

I give up.

May 25

It's Africa Day.  A very low key Africa Day.

Two women come and see the cottage on behalf of a young man looking for accommodation.  He needs somewhere to rent for a couple of months before he can go to the UK. We decide on a much reduced rent - he will bring all his own linen, including pillows and a duvet.  Internet is not provided and the cottage will be cleaned twice a week.

We get another enquiry on AirBnb, this time from someone called Jack.  Jack wants to book for exactly the same days as Jesus did.  Once again, Airbnb contacts us to warn us about dealing with him.

The water stays on all day.

May 24

Recently, we have had a few enquiries about the cottage.  We are not doing the quarantine thing so we will not accept visitors from outside the country.

We had one enquiry on Airbnb from someone called Jesus, which immediately made me suspicious.  Many people use Airbnb as a way of finding a place to stay, but don't want to actually book through them, so they will send a message, asking for our phone number or email address.  Airbnb is very wise to this and block anything that looks like a phone number, email or website address until a booking has been made and paid for.

Jesus looks like he is trying to bypass the system and shortly after he writes, we receive a message from Airbnb, telling us that he has not followed protocol and we should not reply to him.

We are considering letting out the cottage on a short term lease, just for a couple of months, so that we get some sort of income.

May 23

A couple of years ago, a Canadian woman and her Kiwi boyfriend stayed.  They were very friendly and chatty, but, to use John's words, 'shifty'.  They had not paid us when they arrived, citing a problem with having money sent to them.  On the day they were due to leave, I was sitting out on the veranda and saw them get in their hire car and go.  I quickly ran to the cottage and found a note that read something like this: 'Dear John and Bryony, thank you for a lovely stay.  Sorry we did not see you before we left, but we didn't know where to find you.'

Didn't know where to find us?  Try the great big house next to the cottage for starters!  I leapt in my car and zoomed off down the road, only to find them at Spar.  Of course there was the 'Oh dear, I can't believe we didn't pay!' stuff accompanied by big wide eyes of astonishment.  I made sure they drove ahead of me back to the house where they counted out all their money in very small change. 

In our first year, we also had two ballroom dancers from Harare stay for a weekend. They were very young, about eighteen or nineteen and obviously totally unskilled at being crafty. The cottage had been booked by one of their mothers who knew a friend of ours who often used to stay.  They came for some sort of ballroom dancing competition, and then had sneaked an extra friend into the cottage.

I often think that if you are going to do something illegal or deceitful, do it in the open because then no one will think what you are doing is wrong.  When you see people in films, looking in all directions before entering a room or quickly darting into a building, they look so obviously suspicious that you can't understand why they aren't nabbed at once.  People in dark sunglasses and long coats with the collars turned up may as well walk round with a board on them saying: "I am a criminal".

These people were equally unskilled.  I just happened to see them come out of the front door of the cottage, look quickly left and right and then, BENT OVER, scurry to their car and jump in!  How suspicious is that?  The extra guest even left her makeshift bed on the floor while they went out for breakfast.

John soon sorted the 'issue' out by phoning the mother and telling her what happened.  'Leave it with me' were her words and soon after, we received payment for the third guest.

The moral of both stories is this: if you are going to be a good criminal, you need to be clever.  It's much easier to be honest.

May 22

We have had numerous people who have tried to stay without paying, but only one group who succeeded.  They were South Africans who were going back home after attending a wedding in Harare.  We got the usual story that they thought we took credit cards, which we specifically say we don't.  Then they said they would have to look for cash and then finally did a bank transfer - which never came through.  

We had a Zimbabwean woman who had been living in the UK stay while, she claimed, she was waiting for her ancestry visa to come through.  Her daughter in the UK paid for her initial stay, but then she wanted to stay on longer.  Her name was Cathy and she claimed to have been a hairdresser in Bulawayo before going to the UK to live with her daughter. However, when I phoned one of the people she claimed to have worked for, they knew nothing about her.

After a week of no payment, I contacted the daughter and asked her if she could pay.  Rather strangely, I thought, she asked me if her mother was behaving.  I then began to notice that she had a habit of emptying her bin herself - at the side of the road!  She also appeared with a 'bomber' bottle of beer at various times of the day.

By far the strangest thing she did, however, was borrow flower pots from Elizabeth and put them on the wall outside the cottage.  Seeing this, I feared she was making herself just a little too comfortable and there was still no sign of payment.  Her daughter made all sorts of excuses - 'Haven't you received it yet?  I'll contact the bank immediately and see what the problem is.' - and I knew things were really not right when Cathy borrowed money from Elizabeth.  I was on to the daughter at once, saying that this was not acceptable and that the whole thing needed to be sorted out.

That day, I went out and when I got back, the man who was doing some gardening for us told me Cathy had left.  After numerous attempts at phoning her, she eventually phoned me and said she had to go to Harare urgently. She left some of her clothes behind which she asked me to keep until she returned.

Needless to say, she never returned.  Her daughter became more and more difficult to contact and eventually admitted that she had no money to pay the bill.  I briefly considered contacting the British Embassy to say that Cathy had a criminal record, but contented myself with taking her clothes to the SPCA shop instead.

May 21

Two men were booked to stay with us.  They had written us long messages via AirBnb, explaining that they were cousins who had been planning on doing a long road trip through Zimbabwe for some years and had decided to bite the bullet and go for it.  One of them had grown up in Bulawayo and now lived near Pietermaritzburg; the other was from Ireland and had never been to Africa before.

They arrived at a very bad time for me personally as my mother had died two days previously.  However, they were out most of the time, visiting the museum and Matopos and John dealt with them when they up to the house.  On their second night, they went out for dinner at a restaurant where you have to cross a little bridge that goes over a water feature.  The South African man could not see where he was going in the dark and walked off the bridge into the pond.  He ended up being taken to A&E by the restaurant owners.

A couple of days later, they left for Victoria Falls.  They had booked to return after a trip around the country - but only one of them came back.  Sadly, the man from Ireland had died in Mana Pools.  He wasn't attacked by a wild animal or anything like that.  His health had deteriorated on leaving Bulawayo.  He had seen a doctor in Victoria Falls, but his condition had not improved.  At Mana Pools, they had stayed in a chalet and the man had stayed in bed the whole time.  When he began to feel a bit better, they decided to drive to Harare to try and get him to a doctor, but he had died before they had even reached the main road.

The South African man had then had a very difficult time dealing with all the formalities.  The body was taken to Chinhoyi where the morgue was out of action.  It was then transferred to Harare and the Embassy had helped arrange for it to be flown back to Ireland.  The man's son had daughter had to be informed by telephone that their father had died on his dream holiday.  He had only recently lost his wife to cancer.

The remaining man then decided to complete the holiday that he and his cousin had planned.  He went on to the Eastern Highlands, down to Great Zimbabwe and back to Bulawayo.  It must have been quite a sad journey and I wonder if he imagined his cousin was there with him and that he was showing him the country of his birth, the thing he had wanted to do for so many years. He was a very nice man and even invited us to stay with him in South Africa.  I tried to write a story about the two cousins once, but I couldn't even find the first sentence.  It has remained on my to-write list though.

May 20

The Strange Case of the Paranoid Man

One man who came to stay was very on edge.  As soon as he entered the cottage, he closed all the curtains and looked both ways out of the door before locking himself inside.  When he left, we found he had even locked the doors between rooms.

The Odd Tale of the Undercover Policeman

Two years ago, a man booked to stay with us for two days over Trade Fair.  he phoned around about five in the evening and said he was just leaving Harare, which I wasn't very happy about because it meant he would be in Bulawayo late at night.  He messaged from either Kadoma or Gweru to say that he had stopped to get something to eat - and that was the last we heard of him that night.  In the morning, we were quite convinced he had been involved in a car accident as driving at night in Zimbabwe is pretty treacherous.  His phone was not reachable so we could not even try and contact him.

He arrived in the evening as though nothing was amiss.  He said he had been all day at Trade Fair as he was an undercover bodyguard for the president who had been in town for the opening day.  He never actually answered my question as to where he had stayed the night.

I have serious doubts that this man was who he said he was.  I think sometimes it is just quite fun and exciting to pretend you are someone else.  I got talking to someone on a long bus journey once and made up every single detail I told them.  It's great to have these Walter Mitty moments in one's life.  The trick is never to say you are a doctor. paramedic, dentist - anything that might mean you are called upon to deal with an emergency.  

May 19

One of our earliest bookings was a lady from Harare.  When she arrived, she recognised me, saying she had gone to a school I had taught at, although I hadn't actually taught her.  She looked around the cottage, oohing and ahhing at everything.  She even asked if she could take photos and advertise for us on social media.  Despite her apparent joy at everything - 'Oh, what a wonderful bathroom! Ah, the kitchen is fantastic and, oh look, the bed is just so inviting.  The floor ...' - there appeared to be an underlying 'but' and I was right - but did we not have a television?  When I said we didn't, she appeared to brush it off, but then said she was going to go into town to get money out of the cash machine and would be back later.  Needless to say, she did not come back.

A few weeks later, a man from Gwanda arrived to stay for a couple of days as he was writing UNISA exams.  It was night time and there was a woman with him who he said wasn't staying.   I showed him into the cottage and she came in, carrying one of his bags.  However, she had a scarf wrapped round her face so that only her eyes and hair could be seen.  She didn't seem to want to make eye contact with me and I found her furtive behaviour quite strange.

There was something nagging me about her.  I felt I had met her before as her voice sounded familiar.  It suddenly came to me that she was the woman who had booked a few weeks earlier and not stayed. She obviously didn't want me to recognise her so she had covered her face to come into the cottage.  The absence of a television suited the man who probably didn't want any distractions whilst he was studying.

It is quite funny to watch the actions of people like this who think they have fooled you.  I just go along with it as I think life would be quite dull otherwise.

May 18

Case 1: The Mysterious Affair of the Man who Booked But Never Stayed.

For the purposes of this story, I will call our visitor Brandon.  (I can't remember his real name.)

Brandon phoned me one day, asking if we had a vacancy for him that night.  He said he was coming to Bulawayo from Zvishivane and was visiting a relative.  When he arrived, he took a perfunctory look at the cottage, handed over payment and said he was going out to see his uncle and would then be going out to dinner with friends.   He then said to me that he might not actually stay in the cottage as he might just stay with his friends.  However, he said he would not ask for a refund if he did not stay.

Around 10pm, I looked into his room and noticed that he had not left anything there and nothing had been used.  The room was exactly the same the next day.  Easy money.

A few weeks later, he phoned again.  More or less the same story: coming into town to meet friends.  He arrived wearing blue overalls with luminous strips on them so I assumed he had just come from work.  Again, he handed over the money right away (not many people are this eager) and this time asked if I minded him having a friend visit.  I said that was fine as long as it wasn't overnight and as long as his friend was OK with Rolo.

Ten minutes later, there was a car in the drive - I remember it was the new type of Mini - and I just assumed his friend had arrived. When I walked past the cottage, I couldn't hear any voices and all the curtains were drawn.  As it was about two o'clock in the afternoon, this was quite unusual.  I jumped to the obvious conclusion that this was some sort of illicit rendezvous, but another ten minutes later the car was gone.  Brandon appeared at the door in his overalls and said that he was going out, but would leave the key with me in case he did not come back.

When he left I questioned my initial rendezvous assumption.  It was very quick for one, Brandon was still wearing his overalls (not that I expected him to be wearing a tuxedo and holding a rose between his teeth, but it did seem logical that he might have changed his clothes after his ten minutes of passion), and thirdly, yet again nothing in the room had been used.  The bed was perfectly made; there were no signs of anyone having even sat on it.  I'd question whether they had even sat on a chair.  Once again, he did not stay the night.

The last time I saw Brandon I was going into PicknPay and he was coming out.  I asked him how Zvishivane was and he said he had left; he was off to Canada within the next couple of days.  I wished him well and have never seen him again. Since then, I have come to the conclusion that he was an illegal gold dealer and whatever exchange took place in the cottage enabled him to make a quick exit out.  Either that, or he had to leave ...

Soon after his last stay with us, I noticed a car parked on the opposite side of the road to us with two men siting in it. They stayed there most of the day and I felt they were watching the house. Perhaps they were his colleagues that he had left in the lurch; perhaps they were police.  I don't know. had Brandon even gone to Canada? Maybe he was just covering his tracks. Illegal gold mining is not at all uncommon in Zimbabwe.  There was a time when all gold found had to be sold to the Reserve Bank, but I don't think many people go that route nowadays.  We once found a huge shining gold nugget on our driveway in Zambia.  However, it was just a bit too shiny and too light as real gold is very heavy.  It is also very unlikely that you would find an actual nugget; most gold has to be taken out of the stone.

I suppose our cottage was perfect for a quick gold deal.  Secluded house; ditzy blonde running the show; no one to ask too many questions.  He just never bargained for my Agatha Christie brain.

May 17

It's a slow day.  I wake up later than usual and do some yoga.  After working on my proofreading course, I mark essays.  What did I say last week about not working on Sundays?

In the afternoon, John and I clear a new vegetable bed and transplant tomato, broccoli and spinach seedlings.  The water situation in Bulawayo is getting critical.  We only have water on Sunday and Thursday nights.  It comes on at 5pm and goes off at 8am the next day.  All our vegetables are watered with recycled water, which is not ideal, but we have no choice.  The worst thing is lugging buckets around rather than just switching on the hose.

I feel my blogs may be getting a bit mundane so have decided that next week will be the Mystery and Suspense week: a catalogue of all the strange people we have had stay. The illegal gold dealer, the paranoid man, the president's bodyguard.  Read about the guest who tried to smuggle a man in and the ballroom dancers who left without paying.  Just who was the woman behind the scarf?

Find out tomorrow . .  .

May 16

I manage to go shopping and come back without feeling completely deflated.  This is because I managed to buy marmalade, something that I haven't seen for a while.  We are more or less confined to Zimbabwean made goods now so there is a very limited amount of stuff available.

I notice that the hand sanitizer/temperature taker man at the door to PicknPay is looking rather bored. I wonder what would happen if I came in with a temperature of 40C?  Is there some sort of cubicle that they would whisk me off into?  Would people in hazmat suits suddenly materialise and shove me in a van with Thorngrove (the COVID-19 centre in Bulawayo) emblazoned down the side? Or would they just tell me to go home?

The government announces we will stick to Lockdown Level 2 'indefinitely'.  This seems very suspicious to me, but I will refrain from commenting. Schools will have a phased re-opening, beginning with exam years - so that's me back - but when?  No details given.  And what about my children?  Who will be at home with them whilst I go out to work?  John has just agreed to do a big painting job so if he stays at home, we forfeit that money.

In other countries, the government would consider childcare.  Children of key workers in the UK are still allowed to attend school, for example.  But in Zimbabwe, as in many countries in Africa, it is not uncommon for even very young children to be left on their own at home.  I am not happy with that, though, and I don't think it is very fair on anyone.

For supper, we have cauliflower cheese with potatoes.  Last night we had chicken and mushroom pie.  I bought the mushrooms from the gardener next door (at the aid agency).  I am enjoying these big hearty winter meals.  I read recently that Americans don't know what pies are.  How terrible is that?  No pies, no Christmas pudding.  And Donald Trump. I certainly won't be applying for a Green card soon.

It is time to retreat into a period drama (my escape from the world) so in the evening we watch Call The Midwife. I love it, although I wish there weren't so many labour scenes!  It's quite exhausting by the end.

May 15

There is a common misconception that all white people in Africa are very rich and entitled and that this is the way it has always been.  The way the land issue is presented often suggests that white people were just given land or were able to buy it very cheaply.  This is not the case at all and many white Rhodesians were, in actual fact, very poor.

It is this section of society that interests me in my research.  An elderly man I spoke to when researching This September Sun told me that in the 1930s, there were many white people who could neither read nor write and had very menial jobs, often on the railways.  Not only was life very hard for many people, but there was a type of class system within white society.  At the top were those who were British or of British descent; those who were Greek, Portuguese, Italian and/or Jewish were somewhere in the middle and the Afrikaner, generally, was at the bottom.

'Poor whites' held an uncomfortable place in white society.  When I was a child, there were a number of white men, ex-Rhodesian soldiers, who used to sleep rough. They may have suffered from PTSD or developed addictions to various substances in their struggle to return to civilian life. Many white people refused to help them, regarding them as 'a disgrace'.  People who will give generously to charities and poor black people will hold poor white people in suspicion: they must be alcoholics or have mental problems.

The average white Rhodesian led quite a down to earth lifestyle. Not many people had their own swimming pool, for instance, and most children went to government schools.  However, after Independence, the white population retreated inward and tried to cling to their own little enclaves. So many white people have left Zimbabwe in the last forty years, that the ones left here tend to be the ones who can maintain a certain lifestyle.  According to a friend of mine, a very cynical friend, we are now left with the dregs of the gene pool!  Besides those who either can't go because they do not have the right to a passport from a different country, or those who are too old or have family reasons why they can't leave, the ones left are the ones making money in unorthodox ways.

These are the ones who were not academics at school - they are wheeler-dealers, buyers and sellers, entrepreneurs, to use a word in current favour. They are the nouveau riche with their wrap-around sunglasses, hulking great 4x4s and designer wives.  They send their children to private schools and, whilst supportive of the sporting side, do not take well to their children being disciplined - mainly because it reminds them of when they were in trouble at school in an era in which the teacher reigned supreme. 

Few have a particular job.  If asked, they are into a bit of this and bit of that. Some of them have sold their souls and bankroll the government.  The old Rhodies with their long socks and veldskoens are more or less a thing of the past. The new Rhodie does not smoke; they are gym addicts and fad diet followers.  They don't go to the club anymore and drink at the bar, but they socialise at home around the braai with selected friends of the same ilk

I think I may have digressed a bit here, but at this point I am going to open it up to the floor. I am sorry if I have offended anyone of the wrap-around sunglass class, but you're welcome to fight back. I would appreciate any thoughts on the matter.

May 14

John has a very good way of dealing with cooking failures. If, for example, you were making a souffle and it didn't rise, the trick is not to call it a souffle.  If you do, everyone will know it didn't quite work out as planned. Instead, you refer to as a Middle-Eastern dish, known as Hlomah.  Hlomah is a delicacy in Iran and only eaten on the third Tuesday of every month.

Sian and Ellie decided to rearrange the kitchen yesterday and they emptied a bag of cheapo Arenel coconut biscuits into a tin that says Romany Creams.  They are hard and dry, but work quite well as a type of rusk, especially dunked in tea.  We decide to rename them Schlonken Hoonsker.  Schlonken Hoonsker, in case you are wondering, is a biscuit popular in the North of Sweden. It is eaten five weeks after the end of Lent to celebrate the bringing in of the harvest and is often accompanied with blackcurrant wine.  A party will be held with festivities carrying on into the small hours of the morning. We are lucky to have been sent Schlonken Hoonsker by our Swedish great-uncle.

There is a car that parks outside our neighbours' house every so often and just hoots. And hoots - and hoots.  I have been so tempted to go down there and shout: 'There's no one home!'. Really, are some people completely brain dead?

It's getting cold and already the predictions are in: 'If you have an early winter, it'll be very cold.' 'If you have a cold winter, you will have a good rainy season.' So much of our lives here revolve around the rainy season.

May 13

I am doing quite a bit of research for my third novel at the moment.  It is set in Bulawayo in the late 1930s and centres on happenings at a psychiatric hospital.  It is based loosely on Ingutsheni, Bulawayo's (in)famous mental health institution.

In Zimbabwe, the joke if you do or say something 'crazy' is that you are going to be sent to Ingutsheni, the 'nut house' but I find it a very sad place.  The history I have read about it is mixed.  It was set to be the showpiece of the Empire at one time.  Nowhere, not even Australia, had the sort of facilities and doctors that they had.  Nowadays, people collect food to take to the patients there and the facilities are extremely limited.  I really wonder what sort of medical advice and treatment is actually administered.

Trying to find information about the past is difficult.  Not many people want to talk about their time there.  Someone knows someone who spent some time there or worked there, but details are not forthcoming.

Three years ago, we had an American professor come to stay.  He and his son and daughter-in-law arrived very late one wet, windy night.  There was a definite tension between him and his son whose mouth was set in a firm, determined line.  The daughter-in-law didn't say a word and walked around with her arms wrapped around herself, as though at any moment a lion was likely to jump through the window.

He told me that he used to live in Zimbabwe in the 1970s.  His daughter was born with various mental and physical disabilities so he and his wife put her in a home.  When she was seven, they moved back to America and they left her here and occasionally visited.  Around the year 2000, the home contacted them and said that, due to lack of funds, they were going to close and the children would be rehomed in Ingutsheni.  They come out once to see if she was all right and three years later, she died.

He was very honest; he said he was impressed with both the children's home and Ingutsheni and that he and his wife felt they had done the best thing for her by leaving her here and not taking her to America.

I wonder what his wife would have said.

May 12

The Internet is not working when we wake up so we take the opportunity to go out for an early morning walk.  When we get back, it is still not working, so John and Ellie ride up to TelOne to find out what's going on. It's the usual case of having to switch off and restart.

I am managing to get through all my work when Ellie shouts that the snake is back.  This time, Rolo is springing round it and snapping at it.  I am convinced he will get bitten.  John manages to pin the snake's head down with a forked branch of a frangipani that had been trimmed off and I rather gingerly grab Rolo by the collar and get him inside the house.

Unfortunately, Rolo has injured the snake quite badly.  I am very surprised.  This morning, on our walk, he chased a cat and completely missed the fact that the cat went up a tree.  He ran round and round in circles, looking wildly about.  Despite Rolo being a Ridgeback, he has never proved to be much of a hunter.  Tallulah regularly brings pigeons and squirrels to our feet as gifts, but not Rolo. However, I have heard that Ridgebacks are good at killing snakes.

Because it is injured, John kills the snake.  We all feel very badly about it - all of us besides Elizabeth who would have chopped its head off herself if she had been given the chance.

In the afternoon, John goes to see a man who has asked him to paint his house.  It's quite a big job and I don't think that John is too enthusiastic about it.  Sian and Ellie go to the stables to help muck out and groom the horses.  I am at home by myself and have that strange feeling of freedom that is bestowed on me from time to time and which I invariably waste.  Do I write, do I read, do I mark essays?

The Yorkshire puddings were so nice, I make them again.  I also make a bread and butter pudding with jam.  English food might be stodgy, but it's yummy and very filling on cold nights.

May 11

The last week of the lockdown?  I doubt it.

Homeschooling resumes with the usual barrage of questions from Sian and Ellie.  Today, I am answering questions on the Treaty of Versailles, maths and semi-colons.  I am not sure why primary teachers even bother with semi-colons.  I struggle to teach full stops to my A level class!

After talking about strange experiences the other day, I have a moment of clairvoyance when I imagine a snake outside on the veranda and Rolo going for it.  This feeling of a snake stays with me and when my dad goes out into the garden to sweep up piles of leaves, I am concerned that he might find a snake snuggled up in one so I prod all the piles with a stick before he moves them.

About an hour later, Sian shouts that there is a snake outside and that Rolo is trying to bite it.  It is about a metre from where I imagined it.  It is a cobra of some sort; it is standing upright and is displaying its hood.  I manage to get Rolo away and the snake slides off into a crack in some rocks - right near the bedroom windows!


We have very few snakes in our garden, despite all the rocks and all the wild, untamed bits, but as we are heading towards winter, it is likely that this snake is looking for somewhere to hibernate. I have certainly not seen a cobra in the garden before. As the Animal Communicator in our house, Sian says that she felt the snake was very scared, rather than aggressive and that is often the way.  Sian also says that the lady who ran the course she did, said that snakes often protect houses.

Elizabeth has no time for the mkiwa (white person) way of handling snakes. She cannot understand why we didn't kill it immediately and there is a lot of tongue clicking and head shaking on her part.

For supper, we have a really English meal of sausages, mash, gravy and Yorkshire puddings. It is the first time I have tried making them in a long time and they are a great success.  We also have peas, but not mushy peas.  Despite my English blood, I cannot abide mushy peas.

May 10

It's Mother's Day.  It's also cold and windy.

Sian and Ellie make me breakfast of pancakes, scrambled eggs and fried mushrooms. Very filling!  they also give me homemade cards and presents they have made - bath bombs and a facial scrub.  I am amazed at how industrious they both are.  I don't remember being like this as a child. We get a fire going in the lounge and spend the morning playing Cluedo and Time Flies.  For lunch, Ellie makes me her special toasted cheese, mint and tumeric sandwich.  It's actually very nice! After lunch, we watch Foyle's War.  

It's a lovely day and it reminds me, as always, not to spend the whole weekend working.  We all need days off.  Both my children are very loving and affectionate.  I wish my parents had been more affectionate, but unfortunately, both had grown up in homes where open displays of affection were not considered the done thing.  This is especially true of my dad. I feel that stiff upper lip Rule Britannia attitude did a lot of harm to a lot of people.

I feel much more positive than I did yesterday.  Yesterday, I just felt overwhelmed.  Part of my problem is, as John always tells me, I take on too much to do.  I have been writing the whole holiday, keeping up my blog and doing a proofreading course.  Now, I am doing all those things plus teaching and, unless you are a teacher, you will never understand how much preparation goes into the job. Recently, I saw something on Facebook about teaching.  What people see teaching as and what teaching really involves.  People will often comment on our nice long holidays but, as the poster said, in actual fact, nine months of salary is stretched over twelve months (in Zimbabwe, I think one month's salary is stretched over twelve months!)  Parents currently having to homeschool their children, don't have to do any preparation or marking - and they still find it difficult!

We have not had a booking for at least two months.  Today, we receive a cancellation from people booked to stay in August.  We didn't really expect them as they were coming from the UK, but the message is still a reminder of the fact that our business may take months to get going again.

May 9

Today is a difficult day.  May is the month my mum died and I feel as though I am going through the last few weeks of her life again.  It was a very hard time with us all feeling helpless and, at the same time, not really realising that the end was nearing.  We all thought she had more time. I feel very tearful and struggle to connect with anything at first.  There does not appear to be much point in doing anything.  

I end up reading a book on Kharma that belonged to my mother.  She had a strong interest in spiritual things, especially things that did not quite fit the narrow scope of church teachings. My great-grandmother and her sister were clairvoyant and could read tea leaves and could also look into a fire and see pictures. 

During the Second World War,  the ship my grandfather was hit by a torpedo and sunk.  My grandmother received a telegram to say he was missing in action, but her aunt reassured her that he was OK and would be returning home.  Three days later, she received word he had been picked up by another ship and was fine. Coincidence?  Perhaps, although it is more likely that he could have drowned.

If the lights flickered, my mum would always stop and look upwards.  'Someone's trying to tell us something,' she would say.  She also believed a lot in signs.  If something happened, it could be a sign to wait or a sign to go ahead with an idea.

I am not much good at reading tea leaves, but I have had some inexplicable things happen to me in my life which have prompted me to think there is more to life than just our physical bodies.  One of the strangest was when I went to Mozambique in 2003.  I had never, ever been there before, but as the bus drove through Maputo, I had a very strong sense that I knew it.  I thought I must have dreamt of a similar place.  I then went to the Polana Hotel, a beautiful old hotel with a lot of history.  As soon as I walked through the door, I just knew I had been there before.  It was very like a dream I had had of being in an old hotel and trying to find my way out.

When I got home, I told my mum about this and she said that the Polana was where my great-gran died.  In 1971, she went there on holiday with my gran's sister and her husband.  It was still Lourenco Marques then and a very popular place for Rhodesian holiday makers. My great-gran didn't want to go on holiday and kept saying there was something wrong about it all.  One night, after a dinner dance, she went back to her room and had a heart attack.  She was 66.

Although I did know that my great-gran had died in Mozambique, I knew nothing of the rest of it, like the fact that she had died in a hotel. My mum died on the same day my great-gran died.  A girl I teach told me that in the Shona culture, if you die on the day a relative died, they were sent to bring you home. I find comfort in this thought.

May 8

Today is the 75th anniversary of VE Day, but you wouldn't know it here. I remember my gran telling me how she danced in Trafalgar Square.  In the afternoon, I watch the celebrations in Britain on television with my dad.  Everyone the news presenter speaks to is asked if they can draw a parallel between the War and the coronavirus.  A couple of people make tentative connection, but only one man has the guts to say, 'No.'  I couldn't agree more.  How on earth could 6-7 weeks of staying at home, watching Netflix and awaiting home deliveries of food, in any way be compared to nearly six years of war and thousands dead, injured or displaced?

My sister sends us photos of her and her family having a picnic outside to mark VE Day.  I envy her the long evening and the fact that her village in England has a lovely sense of community.  I don't know our neighbours very well at all.  One one side, we have the people whose dog bit Ellie and another house in which live two teenage boys who rev motorbikes loudly and sometimes go screaming off down the road on them.  On the other side, we have an aid agency and at the back we have the people who chuck rubbish into the garden.  I don't think I would recognise any of them if I met them on the street.

In the evening, we watch Foyle's War.  We've watched the whole series before, but not for a few years.  I think it's a fantastic series as it brings in so many different aspects of the War, especially on the homefront.

May 7

The season of duffle coats is upon us. Duffle coats and knee-high boots and thick scarves and the like.  Since I lived in the UK, I have not really felt Zimbabwean winters are that cold.  Admittedly, early in the morning and at night, it can get very chilly, but during the day, I would find it impossible to wear a coat or boots.  In fact, I can't wear boots because my feet would feel claustrophobic.  I found Zambia even less cold: for my first winter there, I don't think I even wore a long-sleeved top.  It gets very warm in the sun and I would hate to be wearing a big, thick coat.

Today is very windy and there is that touch of a chill in the air.  Sian has shelved homeschooling for the morning in order to go and see her favourite horse.  Ellie and I plod through Shakespeare and long multiplication.  Ellie has a lot more work today and is busy until lunchtime.

We are surprised to hear a hoot at the gate mid-morning.  No one has been here for weeks.  In fact, we are so surprised, we think it must be for the neighbours and ignore it until we hear another hoot and a ring on the cowbell.  It is a lady from a house at the back of us, wanting to know if she can clear a small piece of land just outside our fence which is very overgrown.  We ask if she could just trim it back as we like the fact that all the cacti and thick hedges protect the back of the house. The garden is so big that we hardly ever go right to the back.  It is quite beautiful with lots of shady trees. Unfortunately, our neighbours on the right often throw rubbish over their wall which we throw back.  Not sure why they do this as the refuse truck does come past them.

Our rubbish is usually collected every Wednesday, but two weeks ago the council announced they would collect it every two weeks, due to lack of funds (for fuel, I suppose).  It was supposed to be collected yesterday, but the truck did not come.  Instead, they come today, when the dustbin has been taken inside.

Sian comes home smelling of horse manure, but she is very happy.  

May 6

Sian and Ellie are up early again and eager to get going with the homeschooling.  It's a rather slow morning and I can see Ellie's enthusiasm is starting to fade.  Ellie loves learning, but she gets easily bored.  She is not the sort of child who is content to write notes and so likes following the links to various youtube videos that her teacher has sent.

Some of them are of a Biblical nature and she plays them whilst Sian and I are concentrating on our own work (or trying to). I find them annoying as the characters have funny accents. I suppose it is quite hard to find an authentic accent, and I don't expect them all to talk with a plum in their mouths - 'I say, Abraham, it's jolly good of you to sacrifice your son to me.  Well done, old thing!' - but I wish they wouldn't go for these funny, screechy, high-pitched voices.  American accents are the worst because they come with a 'hey, buddy, how are ya?' tone. Everything in life, it appears, has to be dumbed-down to this 'buddy' level.  I am sure children aren't fooled.

In the afternoon, we go for a walk and bump into THREE sets of people we know.  It's so nice to stop and have a conversation with people, although everyone has had the same kind of life for the last six weeks.  It's so good to connect!

On the way home, we stop on the side of the road to buy tomatoes from a man who sells them out of his car.  Since the lockdown started, hawkers have more or less disappeared, but the amount of people selling vegetables out of their car boots have proliferated.  I'm not sure of the reasoning behind this, but nowadays, if you see a car pulled over on the side of the road, you immediately look for cabbages.

May 5

Both Sian and Ellie are up early.  Ellie set her alarm clock for 5.30am!  They are both very keen to start home-schooling and from seven o'clock, keep checking to see if they have been sent any work.  It comes through slowly, although there does seem to be a fair amount of wasted time.  Personally, I wish other teachers did what I do which is send out the work early and give everyone a fair amount of time to do it in.  But then, not everyone is perfect!

We set up camp at the dining room table, probably the coldest and darkest room in the house, but one where we all fit.  Teaching online and keeping an eye on Sian and Ellie is not an easy experience.  My A Level literature students are very verbose and love discussing the texts and, whilst I am reading their long missives, I am continually interrupted with questions about long multiplication, soil erosion and various computer glitches.  In fact, I spend a large part of the morning trying to sort out why Office 365 has stopped working on my laptop.

I find the constant beeps on my phone, emails and questions really overwhelming and difficult to deal with. At breaktime, we have coffee and a biscuit and sit outside in the sunshine.  I don't think break has ever been more welcome.  

I decide not to answer questions after a certain time of day: they can wait until tomorrow.  I make a big enough batch of biscuits to last us through a week of breaktimes (actually, there are never enough biscuits, however many I make).  I have spent far too much time indoors today - i need more sunshine!

May 4

The day starts with another early morning walk - even earlier than yesterday, but this time it is just Ellie and I.  When we get to the place where we are going to start our walk, there are four cars there.  We try to judge from the cars' appearances whether they are dog walkers or wailers.  Wailers are of the religious type who go into the rocks to implore God to deliver them from all sorts of evils. I remember seeing one man walking round and round in tortured circles, shouting, 'God, God, come to Bulawayo, God!  Come! Come!' Obviously, God steered clear of that one.

I have often thought that many Christians address God as though he isn't going to listen to them or as if he is a teacher facing a class of enthusiastic pupils, all waving their hands in the air when he asks a question, but he can only choose one.  Surely if you believe in something, you know it will deliver what you ask for.  All this wailing surely only points to a lack of belief.

Luckily, we come across neither dog walkers nor wailers.

John goes shopping and is stopped at a roadblock by a policeman with no face mask so John gives him a (rather large) piece of his mind and is swiftly waved through.  He comes back as disheartened as I was on Saturday.  As the council water tastes so disgusting, we now have to pay for drinking water which is unsustainable in the long term.

Confusion reigns as regards the government's directive that companies have to test their workers for the coronavirus before they can reopen.  A test that is worth US$1 is being sold by the government for US$25.  If you have a hundred workers, that's a rather large amount of money you will have to shell out.

It might be worth a wail in the rocks.

May 3

Sometime over the last few weeks, I mentioned how nice it would be to have a very early morning walk.  Nobody took me up on the offer - until today.  Ellie wakes me up when it is just getting light and informs me we are going for a walk.  It is chilly, but good to be out early.  I love the smell of the bush when it is still damp.  It reminds me of camping trips when you crawl out the tent into the cold of the morning, desperate for a cup of tea.

A number of years ago, I signed up to an employment website for teachers and every day I get an email alert which tells me what jobs are on offer.  I signed up as a secondary English teacher, but often the adverts will include jobs that I could not possibly do like be the head of the Physics department.  Today I get one for Teacher of Clarinet and Saxophone. I wonder if I could get away with knowing absolutely nothing about either. In Zambia, we came across many teachers - especially headmasters - who certainly weren't what they said they were. The expat teaching market is definitely a dodgy one and it is quite easy to turn up in a place like Ndola or Solwezi and profess to have an Oxford degree when really the nearest you got to Oxford was on a number 9 bus.

Most of the rest of the day is spent getting ready for school - writing notes and preparing lessons.  At 5pm, the water comes back so we are able to put the washing machine on. Next week looms ahead: homeschooling, lockdown, the compulsory wearing of masks, more price hikes. Perhaps, I think, I should apply for the clarinet and saxophone job anyway.  What have I to lose?

May 2

The power went off again last night and is still not back on this morning.  I manage to get through to ZESA who assure me that they know of the fault and that the electricity will be back later in the day.

I have not been to the shops for two weeks so I decide to venture out.  It is one of the most depressing experiences I have had in a long time.  The range of food is very limited and many things are just not available, even things that are made in Zimbabwe, like oats.  What is available is extremely, ridiculously expensive.  The girls asked me to buy a watermelon and I hesitate to put it in the trolley.  Eventually, I buy a quarter.  As the holidays are coming to an end, I buy a small bottle of tonic water as I am tired of drinking gin and orange juice.  I feel like I am being extremely decadent and put the bottle back three times before I actually say to hell with it and buy it.

When I get home, I feel so extremely depressed, I lie comatose on my bed.  I have not felt so hopeless in such a long time.  Since the just before the lockdown, we have had no income from our cottage and John has been unable to work which has meant we have had to rely entirely on my salary.  It is just impossible.  I have this overwhelming feeling of being trapped here, unable to leave because there isn't any way of actually getting out of the country besides ramming the car through the closed border post.  

I know life is hard for many people; I know it is much harder for many more people than it is for me and I know I should be grateful and I know I will survive.  That does not stop me from occasionally feeling complete despair. 

Late afternoon, I take Sian for a driving lesson.  It is a beautiful time of the day.  The sun turns everything a delicate gold. We get lost on dirt roads that haven't been driven on for months where the grass is long and the tracks can hardly be seen.  It's fun and we laugh a lot.  I feel much happier when we get home.

I have my gin and tonic.  The tonic tastes of lemon soap.  The electricity, however, is back and one must always be grateful for small mercies.

May 1

The electricity is still off when we wake up.  At 9 o'clock, John phones ZESA and is told that help is on its way; the team is 'just collecting their tools'.  The electricity comes back on around midday.

It is May Day, a public holiday that we had all completely forgotten about.  Yesterday evening, Elizabeth reminded us of it when she said good-bye.  

'Is it a public holiday?' I asked.  I couldn't even remember what the date was.  'Isn't that at the end of the month?'

'No.' said Elizabeth. 'It's Independence Day.'

'But we've had that, haven't we?  It was a couple of weeks ago.'

Elizabeth started laughing and shaking her head.  'I don't know.  It's one of them.'

In the afternoon, we hear that in the president's May Day address, he has extended the lockdown by a further two weeks, although we have been reduced to level two in the state of emergency.  This means that some businesses and industries may reopen.  He also makes it compulsory for everyone to wear a mask.

I know there are people who find me very cynical, which is not true - except where the government is concerned.  I do not believe that the Zimbabwean government do anything for the good of their people.  If they really had people's interests at heart, they would set about restoring the economy instead of squandering billions of dollars on international travel and extravagant lifestyles.

I cannot help but feel that the whole lockdown scenario is some sort of farce; something to be played out in order to receive money and aid.  How the government must delight in being given millions of US dollars to combat the coronavirus in CASH.  Imagine, you have been running out of money, there or businesses are not many more parastatals, minesleft to ransack and along comes the coronavirus. What a relief.  

And then there is this whole business of wearing masks.  You have to wear one if you are in your car and you only person in your car otherwise you can get arrested.  Why is everything in Zimbabwe always so extreme?  Other countries, where the virus has really taken hold, have allowed their citizens to do some form of exercise; in Zimbabwe, going for a run is not allowed.

One cannot help wondering if the mask thing is not another way to make money.  When Mnangagwa came to power at the end of 2017, he took the police off the roads immediately.  They were tyrants, exacting large fines from motorists for the smallest of offences.  If anything was going to push people towards revolution, it was them.  Now, slowly, they seem to be coming back.  Where is the fine money going to go?  Who is going to benefit?

Those who call me cynical should cast their minds back to the time when everyone had to change their number plates, at great expense, because someone related to someone in the government owned the company making them.  Remember the third number plate scenario?  Remember having to buy a fire extinguisher for your car and a reflective jacket?  This whole mask scenario smacks of the same thing. It may begin with the directive that even makshift masks are acceptable, but wait for it to start to change:  all masks must be white, all masks must be double-sided . . . all masks should have the Zimbabwean bird embroidered in gold on the left-hand side.  Oh, and there's only one factory that makes them: E.M. Enterprises, trading as Scarfman Industries.

Don't get me wrong.  It's not that I don't think that wearing a mask is a good idea; it's that I am trying to see why the government has made it a legal requirement.  It is using this period to crack down on its citizens and be heavy-handed with them whilst making it look as though they care and evading criticism from other countries.  To the international community, they make themselves look like a responsible government dealing swiftly with the coronavirus but behind the scenes there is far more to this than meets the eye.

April 30

I wake to the lovely sound of soft rain falling.  It is 5.15am and dark, but I get up and go outside to see if anything needs moving into the shelter of the veranda.  It is so nice to feel the rain, although it dries up by midmorning.  

In the afternoon, I make rock buns with Ellie.  We substitute the raisins with lemon rind which is very nice. The positive side to not having certain ingredients is that it does encourage you to use different ones.  

Lately, we have tried making heavy English puddings to fill us up at supper time.  My favourite is bread and butter pudding, although bread is not very cheap.  This was my favourite comfort food when I was at university.  In my second year, I shared a house with three other girls and we must have made it two or three times a week.  It was ideal to eat in front of the television on cold winter nights.  John sometimes makes a steamed pudding with jam which is lovely with custard.  Last week, he found a very ancient recipe for something called Hatted Kit.  It goes like this:

Warm slightly over the fire two pints of buttermilk.  Pour it into a dish and carry it to the side of a cow.  Milk into it about one pint of milk, having previously put into the dish sufficient rennet for the whole.

It ends with the words: This dish can quite well be made without milking the cow into it, although direct milking puts a better "hat" on the kit.

Tonight, however, in the absence of a ready cow, he makes rice pudding.  It is cooking away in the oven with the baked potatoes I am making when the electricity goes off.  It does not come on for the rest of the night so we have 'Mostly Baked Potatoes' for dinner and go to bed early.

April 29

Sian and Ellie decide to bath the dogs.  We haven't any dog shampoo so they use some of those little bottles of complimentary shampoo you get in hotels and never use.  Rolo now smells of Fleur de Paris and Tallulah of Affinity.

At midday, John decides to take Sian and Ellie for a ride.  I don't understand this logic as it is quite hot so I suggest they go out later, but John insists. Mad dogs and Englishmen.

I must admit to breaking the lockdown rules by taking the dogs for a walk.  There is no way we would have survived five weeks at home without them ever going out. We would have had some sort of insurrection, a kind of Animal Farm scenario.  We would have been overthrown and Rolo and Tallulah would currently be running the house, sleeping in our beds, eating spaghetti bolognaise and watching Downton Abbey.  No, we have just had to take them out. I don't see the problem at all and people and animals do need exercise. You will interact with far more people at the shops.

Here's the strange thing.  I don't think I have ever come across so many people out walking their dogs, riding their bikes or going out for family strolls. It's quite incredible what a lockdown can do to bring everyone out of the woodwork.

April 28

Two things happen today concerning masks.

First of all, our wi-fi runs out so I try to renew it online, paying with Ecocash.  It all goes fantastically well and I receive a message on my phone to say that payment has been made.  However, the internet does not work.  I try all the usual tricks like switching off the modem and restarting my laptop.  Then I move to stage two: I try shaking the modem and turning it upside down.  I try stage three: praying, doing a rain dance and leaving sacrifices at its feet, but nothing works so I get in the car and drive down to TelOne.

TelOne are taking social distancing so seriously, you cannot even park in the car park.  Instead, you have to park on the side of the road.  As it is on a bend, more people are likely to be killed crossing the road to get to the office than are likely to get COVID-19, but this has not stopped TelOne getting tough with the virus.  I am told I am not allowed in as I don't have a mask.

'Well, ' I say, 'I wouldn't be here at all if you had a system that worked.  I would be sitting at home, wouldn't I? Nice and safe, away from everyone, but, no, here I am, out on the frontline. I don't think I have ever managed to properly recharge the internet online.  There is always a problem.'

The guard looks nervously at me.

'Anyway,' says the TelOne man, 'we're closed.'

'Closed?'

'We close at 1pm.'

I realise it is time for negotiation a smile and a softened tone of voice.  Eventually, he tells the guard to write down my 'issue' in the back of his notebook. He then tears it out and takes it inside the office. A few minutes later he phones:

'Are you still there?' he asks.

'Yep. Sitting in my car,' I answer as chirpily as possible.

'I think I have sorted everything out.  Go home, switch off your modem and restart.'

'Are you sure sure?'  I envisage more rain dances.

'I am sure.'

And sure enough, it works when I get home.

Second scenario.  I need to go into a shop that won't let you in without a mask.  I don't have a mask, but I have a scarf so I wrap it round my mouth and nose and Ellie does the same with a scarf of hers.  We look like bank robbers from the days of the wild west so when we go inside the shop, I joke with the cashier that I have come to rob them.  She does not even look my way and carries on scanning items.  

I try again.  No response - and then she starts talking to me about schools reopening and how children are getting bored.  When we get back in the car, Ellie tells me she couldn't hear a word I was saying, only some sort of muffled noise.  I think I'll have to invest in a proper mask if I am to hold up the shop successfully.  I'll be back.