Namibia

How can I describe Namibia to you? As I thought beforehand, the experience of it was a little outside my comfort zone. As I am increasingly suffering from claustrophobia I was hopeless in the tent having to extrapolate myself from it the first night at 4am, in a panic, out from numerous blankets and fully dressed inside my sleeping bag (because at night it was initially sub zero), out into this vast, starry desert expanse, no phone contact – to have a huge panic attack about the vastness and remoteness of it all. You could drive 100s of kilometres between settlements. I had to give myself a very stiff talking to and managed to get these emotions under control for the rest of the time.

The other people on the tour were 4 young women between the ages of 20-25 which was great for J2 as they were lovely to him and included him in everything and quite good for me because they had zero expectations that I was going to make a massive contribution to the group experience and I could just chill and cogitate which I did. However, by the end of 2 weeks I was desperate to talk to an old person. It was like being on holiday with 4 of A* and I now realise that most young women are OBSESSED about the calorific content of what they eat. The guide was an uptight male white South African of 37 who was uptight about not having gone to university, about not having a live-in girlfriend, about not having children, about having to do 2 years military service which black South African men and NO women have to do and UPTIGHT ABOUT PACKING THE TRAILER EXACTLY SO EVERY DAY. He could make you a nervous wreck. J2 and I were obviously hopeless at packing our tent just so in its little cover. J2 annoyed him because he got to go off with the young women all the time and I probably annoyed him just for being old and not potential flirt material. He ignored me and J2 as far as possible. However, a bonus was he was a brilliant driver and very very knowledgeable about animals and birds, if a bit nerdy with his GIANT TELESCOPIC LENSE which added to the holiday a lot.

In spite of the overwhelming bits of it I had a great time and so did J2 and I am so glad I had the guts to pull it all together and go. J2 and I got on brilliantly apart from him being a bit Nazi like putting up the tent. I loved the landscapes, the sunsets, the undeveloped nature of it all, seeing so many fantastic wild animals up close and in their natural environment and I came home utterly chilled having lost the wheezes, sore throat and boggy eyes I went away with. We also spent 3 days in Cape Town and went to Robben Island and visited the museums to apartheid. I’d like to go to Botswana next, but not next year – I won’t be able to afford it!

Since I got back FP and I have been working on decorating his house to rent. This meant I spent Bank Holiday week-end last doing his garden front and back and decorating 2 rooms while he changed 2 light fittings and put up 3 bits of coving. I jest not, but I was quite impressed with his placid application in the light of NOTHING GOING RIGHT which I tried to support by holding VERY HEAVY light fittings at excruciating angles for excruciating periods of time. While I was doing this I remembered how much I hated DIY and liked gardening. On the way back home I put lead free petrol in my diesel tank and managed to drive the car for 40 miles. My excuse is that I lent the car to J1 for so long over the summer that I had forgotten about it being diesel. Luckily the RAC man was lovely and towed us to an equally lovely garage mechanic on some obscure industrial estate in Chertsey who makes a living emptying tanks for people who do this on a regular basis (I was the third that day within a 10 mile radius) and putting wheels back on boat pulling trailers – ingeniously specialist. Thus went any little Autumn clothing spend nest egg, but it could have been a lot worse if I had ended up at a dealer.

No other news. Home has been awash with adolescents over the summer. J2 brings all his mates back daily now we have a resident cook. A* was back at the week-end with the mates of a friend who lives in a smaller house, my brother R has been staying with wife between the American RV and some huge mill house he is buying in southern France and J1 and Bear conspire between them for maximum usage of bathroom, towels, hairdryers and strategic placement of designer bags. It’s rather lovely and most of the time I can cope with the disarray.