June 3

If you have been following my blog, you may remember a German woman who stayed with us in early January.  She hardly ever left the cottage and used up our wi-fi three times.  When she left, she wrote a negative review, describing us as a 'rip-off'.  Well, it appears her stay was so bad that she would like to come and stay again.

I cannot believe it when I see she has booked to stay with us in December.  My hands tingle with anger and it is difficult not to reply at once.  What I think is that she probably discovered that most places do not provide unlimited internet and, if they do, the rooms are much more expensive.  As she hardly even stepped outside and is obviously something of a recluse, she realises that our cottage is quite a nice place for someone wishing to hide away.  

She obviously did not really have a problem with anything except the Internet, but I feel she should understand the damage that a negative review can give to a business.  An apology at least would be welcome.  

It still baffles me why she came all the way here to stay indoors and why she is prepared to come again and do the same thing.

June 2

I am very excited as I have decided to go to the Archives this afternoon and do some research.  I have not been there for a few months and have a long list of things I need to find out about.  I phone them at 8.30 to ask what time they close, but the phone just rings and rings.  An hour later, I phone again and a tired voice informs me they close at four o'clock.

'Great,' I say.  'I will see you later.'

'What is your name?'

'Bryony Rheam.'

'I see.  Unfortunately, we are not open to the public at the moment.'

This is very disappointing news.  I am quite happy to sit with my mask on while reading through old newspapers and books.  I will possibly be the only person there as I often am. People walk round town with no masks on at all and stand two inches apart in queues, yet I can't go and sit by myself in a room empty of people.

In the afternoon, we go out to collect a pawpaw tree I won a bid for on bidding wars and also buy a few more herbs and vegetable seedlings.  I drop the girls off at the stables and go and pick up some cheese I have ordered.  In fact, it's not just cheese, it's camembert made locally by someone. Like I said the other day, this is how you shop in Bulawayo.  Although driving around to all sorts of places can be a bit annoying at times, it is nice to support local people.

June 1

Today, I am annoyed with myself.  Ellie's teacher tells me that Ellie has not handed in around 16 pieces of work.  Ellie is usually quite a conscientious pupil, so I am a bit concerned as to why she hasn't done her work.  It turns out that some of the assignments, she has submitted, or at least thought she has, but they have not been sent through.  Others, she does not even know were there until the teacher suggests where we can find them.

I am annoyed because I must admit, I do not check Ellie's work.  She is a very independent girl and likes sending off her work when she is finished rather than have me check it.  Also, what she has submitted always comes back with a positive report.  Still, I cannot escape that feeling that I have been a lazy parent.

When I was at school, I always thought teachers' children had some private inroad to extra information.  They discussed exam papers at dinner or their parents coached them at the weekends.  When I started teaching, one of the first things I noticed was how many teachers' children were not top of the class or form; in fact, they were often C students, B at best.

Unless you are a teacher, you will not understand how much time we give to students, especially at the moment.  Many of us will willingly arrange times to help pupils, even if it means giving up break and lunchtimes and marking extra work.  However, we are ironically guilty of deserting our own children and their needs.

May 31

I have been promising the girls that we will try and make marmalade for some time now so today we look through some recipes and decide on one that looks quite easy.

Everything is going well until it comes to the point where I think the mixture should be thickening up.  Boil for 10-15 minutes says the recipe, but nearly an hour later, we have made little progress. Following instructions,  I put some saucers in the freezer and every now and again drop some mixture in, watching hopefully for it to wrinkle, but it just sloshes around.  It's time for some Facebook help.

Now, this is one of the things I do not understand.  Having received lots of messages from friends about how to rectify our runny marmalade, it is blazingly obvious that marmalade needs pectin in order to set and oranges don't have much.  Therefore, why doesn't the recipe say add lemon juice?

My mum said once that women are quite funny about exchanging recipes.  She claimed that some people deliberately changed the recipe so that it would not work out when someone else tried it. I always thought this was a bit of a conspiracy theory, but I do remember one friend of mine in the UK really taking umbrage to someone asking her for her recipe for coq au vin and writing the woman a long email explaining why she couldn't divulge this information and why it was rude of her to ask.  I do feel that if you are going to put a recipe on the internet, though, it's because you want people to use it, like it and think that you are wonderful for inventing it.

In the afternoon, I mark essays. On the Rheam side of my family, there is a history of Quakerism.  Rumour has it that my great-grandfather got into a lot of trouble for riding his bike on a Sunday.  Although I think this is a bit extreme, I really do wish I lived in an age when doing work on a Sunday was frowned upon.  How nice would it be for someone to say: 'Oh no, Bryony, you cannot possibly do any work today.  Doing so will only incur the wrath of God and lead to eternal damnation.'  Sigh.  Those were the days.

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May 30

A few weeks ago, I managed to buy a packet of oats, but have not seen them for sale since.  We decide to live life on the edge and make oat, peanut butter and banana muffins. We follow one of those Facebook recipes - those videos that make everything look so easy: all the ingredients are neatly weighed out, everything mixes up as it should and, when it appears from the oven, is totally perfect.

Sian asks why our baking doesn't follow quite the same course: flour spills on the counter, egg yolk dribbles on the floor and some of the muffins cannot be extracted without the use of extreme force.  I tell her they are unlikely to put videos of all the failures on Facebook.  I am sure a lot of editing takes place.

If it is one thing that annoys me about many recipes, it's the measurements they use.  I just do not understand how you can measure flour in milliliters.  Isn't this something we learnt at school?  Place 310 milliliters of flour in a large bowl.  Why not use grams?  The Americans, in particular, drive me mad with their cups.  For goodness sake, have we not moved on?  How big is a cup?  Old recipes are not always much clearer though.  I have one book that just says: Add the milk and stir without saying how much milk this involves.  And quarts?  Who on earth measures things out in quarts?  Do you ever hear anybody go into a shop and ask for a quart of milk?

We also make pizza for supper and are halfway through when we realise we are very short of anything that may constitute a topping.  Mushrooms, bacon and pineapple are like saying caviar these days.  We are lucky enough to have cheese at this stage of the week. Fortunately, we find some olives and a green pepper and use a bit of chicken as well.

In the evening, we watch a film called Elizabeth is Missing.  It is really good - about a woman with dementia who is convinced her friend is missing, but no one takes her very seriously. I had an idea a while back for a similar idea. As usual, it has remained an idea.

May 29

Today is the second anniversary of my mum's death.  I think of a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay: Time does not bring relief; you all have lied.  Looking back on the last two years, life has been a struggle.  If you know that feeling of struggling awake in the morning and trying hard to get out of bed, you will know how I feel when I say that's what my whole life seems like.  Of course you go on after someone's death; you laugh, you have really good days; you plan for the future, but the pain is always there.

I have not been to my mum's grave since her funeral for a number of reasons.  One of them is that I do not believe she is dead.  I don't believe people just die and that's it.  I prefer to think of her in some beautiful place, most likely a garden or looking in to see what my sisters and my dad are doing.  A grave emphasises death, and I don't think many people would find a graveyard a happy place.

However, today I decide to visit her grave and I buy her favourite flowers, which are brown, gold and yellow chrysanthemums and carnations and John, Ellie and I go out to the cemetery.  We tidy the grave and leave the flowers.  Sian and Ellie also made up posies of their own from flowers in the garden.  The cemetery has filled up a fair bit, and, very sadly, looking at the gravestones, many of the people who have died are under sixty.

Before we leave, I have a few minutes of silence by myself and get the distinct feeling my mum is standing beside me and saying, 'I'm not there.  You do not know that, don't you?  I've got far too much to do.'

The cemetery is right on the edge of town, near State House.  This is the area in which King Lobengula had his Bulawayo which he burnt to the ground when he heard that he had been defeated by the whites.  Nearby is a place known as Dawson's store and we stop here to have a look.  Dawson was a trader, one of the few whites allowed into Lobengula's territory and he lived in an area known as White Man's Camp.  There were very few white men in the area at the time.  One was William Usher who had jumped ship at Cape Town and made his way up to Matabeleland where he was given permission to enter by King Lobengula and ended up marrying one of his daughters.  On the night that Bulawayo burned to the ground, Usher and a man called James Fairburn sat on the roof of Dawson's store, believing it was the safest place to be.

A hotel called The Grange was built at the same site and operated by Leander Starr Jameson for some time.  Parts of it are really run down and quite dangerous - rotten floorboards and caved-in ceilings.  Yet the garden is beautiful and well kept.  I wonder how many ghosts walk round it at night.

May 28

Today is a hard day.  None of us feel like working.  Ellie, in particular, finds homeschooling difficult because she wants to see her friends and she enjoys afternoon activities and playing sport.

As an emotional pick-up, we go second-hand clothes shopping in the afternoon.  One thing I do find a little frustrating at times is how you can't just go into a shop, or even two shops, and buy everything you need.  Due mainly to the dire economic situation here, many people sell things from home: jam, biscuits, cakes, shoes, cheese, plants - everything really.  If you want something, you can probably find it, but you will have to organise a time to come and see the goods - a time which is inevitably changed three or four times as one of you realises you have another commitment.  Then you have to find the house - this can take you deep into some unknown parts of town and then you barter over prices or offer what you can in US dollars, cash, or ecocash, all of which have their own rates.

In the evening, we hear the news that Zimbabwe's coronavirus cases have suddenly spiked.  A few weeks ago, this would have struck a note of terror in me, but at the moment I am really over the whole thing and just want life to return to as normal as it can be in this crazy country.