Snakes, camels, trampolines and friends

Mr B, very jammily, is spending most of this week birdwatching at a brand new safari ranch about an hour and a half from here, who apparently needed someone to compile a bird list for them..... he says he's also looking out for Rufous-tailed weavers, so it's really work.... yes, right!

So, since the children and I are not swanning around Hampshire and Oxfordshire taking in leaving dos, farm parks, swimming pools, legoland, duckponds, sweet shops, swingparks  etc etc we have been making the most of Arusha instead. Or, more specifically, I have been ruthlessly filling our days with activity to try to stave off the inter-sibling bickering and maternal frustration that seems to come from having a whole school holiday day with no fixed plans.

Monday, we had friends over - a new family in town, mission partners from Australia with three kids aged 1-4. Lovely family. We're off to see their place tomorrow. Amazingly, the kids played really nicely and the mums actually managed quite a lot of conversation uninterrupted by the constant need to interject "share nicely! Take turns! Stop snatching!" etc

Tuesday playgroup was cancelled due to illness on the part of this weeks host, so we quickly rustled up an alternative plan and invited lots of other mums/dads and kids to This n That for coffee, trampolining, swinging, tortoise persecuting etc.

Today we took in Granny's worst nightmare - the snake park! About 45 minutes drive away, we won't be going too frequently, but given that I paid 50p for me and the kids went free it was pretty good value! Snakews galore, mostly venemous ones (this is also the place to go for antivenin if you get bitten), crocs big and tiny, tortoises and a few rehabilitating owls and raptors for good measure. There was a Masaai museum with reconstructed bomas and scenes from Masaai life, thrown in for free (we whisked the kids fairly quickly past the circumscision bit, narrowly avoiding questions). And we had camel rides. Two is fact. The kids would have gone on repeatedly had I let them (but that bit wasn't included in the price!) Having watched the camels about their business for a few minutes before the ride, the Mancub then requested the "weeing, dribblin camel", which quickly became the weeing, dribblin, pooing camel. What more could you want from a morning out?