beach

Back last night from a lovely trip to the beach! Thank you very much S and family for letting us stay with you at your 'beach house'. As usual, the drive (7 hours in an old landrover that has no air-con but plenty of holes for dust to swirl up through) was something of an ordeal for all concerned. But it was definitely worth it.

Here is the 'beach house' where we cooked, ate, played and the rest of the group slept

and here are our sleeping quarters a few metres away

We were about 15 metres from the beach, if that. Here is the view from the dining table.

Of course, with no walls, you do get plenty of visitors wandering in uninvited

Lots of fun was had by all...

Sandcastle number one

a mere hovel compared to sand castle number two, which, it was decreed, had to be taller than Kitty...

There were coconut shells to find

and use to create battlements around the moat, which was great fun to jump over

and there were other things to find too, Hippo? Whale??

And when the sheer joy of being at the beach got overwhelming, one could always jump and dance and twirl while shouting "Fantastic Daisy Artichoke!" at the top of your voice

On one day we all took a trip on a sailing ship (well, a leaky wooden boat with an outboard motor anyway) to Maziwe sand island where snorkelling, playing and burning in the sun were enjoyed (mostly) by all. No photos though - too busy, sandy and exhausting!

But as if all that were not enough, we just happened to be staying about 1km from a turtle nest that was being monitored and starting to hatch. The eggs are laid a good way down in the sand (these had actually been rescued from certain death on a regularly submerged sand island and lovingly transplanted to a carefully monitored plot on the beach) and the babies take a few days to crawl up to the surface after hatching. We were summonsed, along with about 30 other people staying nearby (a good many of whom we knew from Arusha!) to witness the happy event. It was wonderful!!!

Back home last night, exhausted, slightly sore (me - legs from snorkelling), rather spotty and coughing (the Mancub who seems to have a mild virus of sorts according to a texted consultation with the paediatrician), very brown (Kitty especially, but all of us) and ready for the restful break of normal life! So, today involved unpacking, washing, shopping, ludo, baking chocolate chip shortbread and general lounging around. Forgive us all those who have experienced radio silence from us recently - the last 3 weeks have been lovely but manic. Normal service will resume again soon.