Andorra

Jeez, it's not like they were expected to win, but they could at least try to play football. If I was Andorran I'd be thoroughly ashamed of they way my football team played tonight. All they wanted to do was roll on the floor, wind up England players and frustrate the game. Even when they were losing 2-0 they brought on a defender. Maybe Eriksson is in charge behind the scenes.

Mind the Rat

Did a pointless trip to Wales this weekend. Some would say all trips to Wales are pointless, and I would agree. I guess this trip was doubly pointless then, but more of that later. Have you ever been to the cess pit that is South Wales? If you drive there on the M4 you have the delights of a toll bridge (didn’t bother trying to remember the name) to cross. It’s a nice bridge, just a shame about the destination. Also wryly amusing is that it’s only a toll bridge one way; to leave Wales is free. They are surely missing a trick there; I can’t believe that I actually have to PAY to get into Wales. Surely they’d make more money if it was free to get in, but you had to pay to get out. Wales has an image of being deprived, so what's the first thing that happens on your arrival in the country? “Give me some money.” The toll booths are actually at the far (Welsh) end of the bridge. And they only take cash. And they have no cashpoint, so if you need cash, they stop all the traffic and send you back over the bridge to find a cashpoint, the nearest one being 9 miles away. Breathtaking. Oh, and the first car I saw once over the border had a bumper sticker saying, “I (heart) my rat.” Dear God, please save me from this hellhole.

I went for an ‘International’ conference, with the hope of meeting some international national team members (not sure that makes sense – the people that run the organisation in each country i.e. the national team), in order to talk to them about governance and transparency. It turns out that none of the members there were in any positions of authority at all – they were just a bunch of 18 year olds, albeit 18 year olds from all over Europe. I arrived on Saturday about 6pm, the meal was supposed to start at 8, but eventually got going at 930. You ever been to a ‘formal’ meal? You know the kind; where the chaps dress up in their tuxedos and the ladies wear their best frocks? Whilst I don’t expect a bunch of 18 year olds to be wearing Armani and I would be very surprised if they all possessed dinner suits, but is it unreasonable of me to expect them to make some effort? Since when have jeans been formal? Leather jacket anyone? T-shirt? To be fair, on the whole the girls had made an effort, some of them looking very glamorous, but the guys were just... embarrassing. Some thought that wearing a shirt was enough to be ‘formal’. The more progressive amongst them even ironed theirs. One chap, wearing jeans round his thighs and a grotty leather jacket decided that wearing a trilby would be his nod in the direction of formality. It was quite entertaining seeing him try to keep it at the same jaunty angle all evening.

So, I had a couple of glasses of wine with my meal then went to bed, as there was absolutely no point whatever in wasting any more of my time on this lot. I was in bed by 1130 and up at 9. Then I left. I didn’t make any excuses. Utterly, utterly pointless trip.

I may at some point in the future write something upbeat or amusing but right now I’m kind of bored so you can suffer my rantings.

Moody

I ought to be writing something interesting rather than just whingeing, but well, I’m in the mood for a whinge. Why do people talk bollocks? Why do people say, “I don’t understand; I’m confused dot com” or “I got in last minute dot com”? Perhaps they just want to make sure I don’t invite them to parties.

I’m not sure what to do with my life, professionally at least. Actually, that’s quite reassuring. I only added ‘professionally at least’ to make clear that I’m not contemplating suicide or anything like that, but adding that phrase made me realise that it was just my professional life that I’m unsure about, not my whole life. It’s funny how you get inspiration and insights from the weirdest of places. So, professionally, I’m not sure where to take my life. I’m so bored at my current place, or to be precise, I’m not inspired by my current task list. Spreadsheets about colostomy products can never be that enthralling, but isn’t every job dull? There is a certain altruistic bent to colostomy products; uncool and slightly gross as they are, they make a huge difference in the quality of life for thousands and thousands of people around the globe. It’s nice that I’m helping people, but… well ‘nice’ is the most apt word I can find, and if you have to say ‘nice’ it’s generally better to say nothing. I’d like an exciting job, but am I being unreasonable? Every job is meaningless to us, unless we’re on a labour of love like creating music, or writing a book, or in the case of the aforementioned spreadsheets, one is an ostomate (for such is the term for any one with an ostomy). And an ostomy is somewhat different to an ‘ology’. Don’t confuse the two. You could end up with an unpleasant surprise.

I broke my computer. Or at least, it stopped working. I claim no responsibility for its demise. Salvation is at hand however, as I’ve sent the errant parts back to the supplier and am awaiting their response. The hope is that they will send me replacements, or at the very least tell me how to fix them. It’s quite a pain, especially as I got 2 new games for my birthday (or to be precise 1 for my birthday and one for Christmas – long story) and I’d really like to try them out.

Ever been in one of those moods? You know when people try to cheer you up? Well I’m in one. And people keep trying to cheer me up, buggers. Well I’m not having it. Especially when their idea of cheering me up is to talk about how their central heating doesn’t work. This defiance is good, I can use it. But I’m in one of those moods where… and so it goes on. Humbug.

Flat tyres and a head of Steam

It's Tuesday evening and I still haven't tidied up. My inactivity isn't getting to me just yet, as I have done useful things today, not the least of which was getting two new tyres for the car, one because I had a puncture, and one because there was only 2mm of tread left. Must be all those emergency starts. Been trying to sort my phone out too. I had to give them the exact time and circumstances when it bust. It was like filling in a bloody police report. "So where were you when you noticed that it was broken?" "In the back of a truck" "Was it moving?" "Yes" "And were you sitting on the bed of the truck?" "No, I was sitting on a seat" "What kind of seat was it?" And so it goes on. Can you just please send me a new phone without asking my fucking inside leg measurements? And get this, I get a new phone, just a new phone. Not a new battery or charger. Just the phone. How bloody tedious. And when the guy drops it off tomorrow I have to give him my old fucked one. Can't I have it so I can get all the data off it? No. Aargh. Fucking officious idiots.

One thing that I have sorted out is my media player thingy. Basically I bought a DVD player with a few extras - as well as the DVD tray, it has an SD card slot for photo viewing and most importantly I can hook it up to my PC, so I can listen to all the tunes I have on my hard drive and watch all the films I have on it too. But as is usual with these kind of things, it only works properly intermittently, although I thought I'd sorted it by downloading new software... but now it can't find my PC at all. Grr.

Guess I'm not in the mood to be funny today. There are some interesting looking girls on the dating site, but I'm not in the mood to contact them either. What I'd really like to do is watch My Name is Earl on my media player thing. Bugger.

Where there's pizza there's cake

It's Saturday evening and I've been back since Friday morning. To be honest, I haven't got a whole lot done, other than washing and unpacking. When I say unpacking, I have to make it clear that all I have done is take stuff out of my bags and kind of spread it around a bit. The putting it away part is tricky. It involves making decisions about where things should go. Well, putting stuff somewhere, anywhere is kinda easy, coming up with a reason for it to be in that place is where I come unstuck. So I have a nice sea of travelling crap spread over my bed, bedroom floor, office and other rooms variously hanging, flopped, screwed up, piled and shoved.

Having a dicky foot has given me the perfect excuse for idleness; I can't go shopping, I can't go to the gym and I certainly can't tidy up. I had tried to do some shopping online, but have been screaming at Tesco and Ocado, so bravely gave up and ordered pizza. Now I have ordered pizza before, and I have occasionally received a freebie, maybe an extra topping or some cold garlic bread, but this time I received some cake. Kind of threw me that one. I mean, how did they know about my relationship with cake? It was kind of a cheesecake thing with like toffee stuff and nuts. Very pleasant, but with pizza? Things have changed since I've been away.

Things like me wanting to go to the gym. I actually do want to go, honest. Not because it's January, not because I'm fat and unhealthy and not because I know I just plain ought to. These are incidentals. The reason I want to go is so I can play football. I loved playing football in Malawi (for those reading this sentence in puzzlement, I have to make clear that football is the important bit, not Malawi), in a way that I never thought I would; it's been so long since I got genuinely, heart-pumpingly excited about anything and football did it. I'm not sure what was more surprising, me being excited, or me being actually pretty good. There's a real difference between kicking a ball about and playing a proper match, in a defined position, against moderately good players. I really want to play it again, but seeing as I was completely fucked before I'd jogged from kick off to my forward position, I think I need to get myself a bit of stamina. Hence the trip to the gym. Need to get my foot sorted first though. GP on Monday I fear.

How do I feel about being back? I'm genuinely looking forward to sorting my life out if I'm honest. I'm almost excited. I think impatient would be a much more appropriate word. Gotta go, things to do...

And here we are, at the end of all things...

Or the start of new things. So I'm back. And I did get upgraded, to cattle class plus AND I didn't get woken up. As a matter of fact, I fell asleep an hour or so after take off and woke up about three quarters of an hour before landing. Quite a feat on a twelve hour flight in my unhumble opinion. I'm now feeling unexpectedly refreshed. The difference between regular Zoo class and Zoo class+ is subtle, but marked and makes a HUGE difference to comfort. The seats are just that little bit wider, the leg room just that little bit leggier, all just enough to make you comfortable, certainly compared to the standard 'World Traveller' class, which I shall now rechristen 'Veal Class'

My plan, as you know, was to post drunken ramblings, but half way through the day I was moved into the BA lounge, rather than the 'every other airline' lounge. The BA lounge was really lovely, having reopened two days previously after being burnt down by, incredibly, fire. Unfortunately they had no computers to play with, so I was forced to play with the champagne bottle instead, something I would recommend to anyone contemplating doing any work. So, the afternoon flew by with me making brief reconnaissance trips to the shops, although all I bought was three packs of Haribo Konfekt - a legacy of my days in Germany. You can't get Konfekt over here, and this was the first time I'd seen it outside of Deutschland, so I really had no choice: essentially licorice allsorts, these are less brightly coloured, less squishy and less sweet, the raspberry ones being particularly fuggin ace. What this does mean is you can eat more of them, which I would recommend to anyone suffering from post gastroenteritis sickness, as it appears to have cured me. Fingers crossed.

Having a non-functioning right foot does have its advantages, particularly when travelling by plane or rail. Arriving at any airport (in this case Heathrow at 9 this morning) you have to wait for everyone else to get off first, which surprisingly is a very relaxing way to leave a plane; none of this 'seatbelt race' that everyone seems to indulge in. Children are a great barometer of feelings. They can tell when parents have been arguing, when daddy's had a bad day or when mummy and daddy have just being trying to create a little sister for them. In short, they can tell when something is afoot. You can tell something is up because kids all go quiet, sensing the tension in the air as the plane taxis agonisingly slowly to the terminal, reaching a peak as it slows, then slows... And the seatbelt light is... off! Cue stressed passengers leaping over each other, elbows and expletives flying, to haul bags out of the overhead lockers, the even fouler languge as they discover that their bags have (inevitably in my mind) spilled their contents open, kids screaming, husbands screaming 'Go! Go! Go!' to stunned and bemused spouses, the husbands getting more irate as they fail to convey any sense of urgency whatever to their family. All this I missed out on this morning. Wheelchairs come last in society generally, and on planes specifically.

I then get wheeled through immigration, right to the front of the queue, past the aforementioned husbands arguing with their wives that if they had just gone when ordered, they might be two or even maybe three spaces further ahead in the queue of four hundred. The queue which I have just bypassed, holding my crutches ready to defend myself against thrown passports, sun hats and duty free perfume. Of course, once through immigration you then have to collect your bags (another half hour bottleneck), which is interestingly roughly the same time it takes to get through immigration and down to baggage reclaim. I felt it best not to point this out to the seatbelt racers at this juncture. So, got bags, got wheeled to the train, got bags portered onto the train, portered off at Paddington, buggied around Paddington station, past the queues of commuters (ha!) to a cash point, past the queues of commuters (ha!) to a taxi. Home in half an hour. Bostin.

I just picked up an email from Jacqui who was on the trip and... they've found my camera, in the bottom of one of the lockers, which one I've no idea, but this does mean I have about 10 days and 2GB of pics/vids and best of all audio diaries which I can keep, sort and maybe post. I think the lion orgasm definitely has to go up on youtube at least. Now I'm back I guess I can get on with things; perhaps it's time to make a list. Maybe tomorrow will be when I reflect on how I feel about the experience, but here's a summary: Glad I went, glad I'm back.

The First Rule of Flying

Catch your flight. Having characteristically failed at the first hurdle, due to circumstances beyond my control, namely a hangover, I threw myself at the mercy of BA's ticket people. I mean, I wasn't that late. I think it's perfectly reasonable to turn up at the airport within, say, 30 minutes of your departure time and expect to get on. Apparently not, even though I'd checked in online the day before. Roy, my BA man, tried to get me on, but the hold had been sealed and I was stuck. He apologised and said that the best he could do was put me on tonight's flight, something with which I was extremely happy, as when I was last here there was only one direct flight a week. So, I'm now on tonight's flight, which means that I can climb aboard, crash out and wake up in grimy London. The reality I'm sure will be different, probably involving being woken up to be prodded variously with food, drinks and duty free. "Would you like a drink, Sir?" "Why yes, thank you, that is precisely what I was thinking about IN MY FUCKING SLEEP!"

Anyway, back to the present. This being BA I didn't get charged for the flight home; take note SAA. I think Roy felt sorry for me as he also has manged to get me into the executive lounge, seeing as I'm going to be around all day. He will certainly be mentioned in dispatches. Now what's the chance of me getting an upgrade do you think? On the one occasion before that I've been in an exec lounge I thought to myself, "This is great, free food, free booze, free soft drinks, I could stay here all day." And now I have the chance. So exciting. I'll be posting later on with lots of spelling mistakes and poor punctuation. Probably be a few drunken rants too.

And so, to the past and the reason for my tardiness. Well, the reason is because I didn't leave myself enough time, but I think I'll blame the alcohol if that's alright with you. It being my last (sic) night here, I thought I would visit the Mount Nelson Hotel, as it would be frightfully impolite of me not to. The 'Nellie' is Cape Town's oldest hotel and dates from colonial times when the British army only fought fuzzie wuzzies armed with spears, and has beautiful gardens and grounds. Rooms cost from 600 pounds per night, so whilst staying there wasn't an option for me and my sanity, drinking heavily certainly was. To be fair, I didn't drink heavily, but on arrival I ordered a bottle of South African sparkling wine which was basically Louis Roederer Kristall without the price tag or loss of social credibility. Thirty quid and it was fucking lovely. Can't remember what it was called, but it was damned spiffing sitting there, drinking fizz amongst all this opulence, playing golf on my mobile phone, because I am a social pariah and have no friends. My waitress was dead nice though and kept bringing me snacks as an apology; at one stage I actually had to pour a glass myself as I couldn't find her. Once I'd finished the bottle she suggested a cocktail. Let there be cocktails, I have faith in you, bring me the finest cocktail known to man, the name I need not know. And Lo, there appeared in front of me a... thing. Looked like chocolate ripple ice cream in a glass with straws. And I moved upon the cocktail and fuck me was it good - tasted of chocolate, sweetness and ice cream. I know someone who would catch a flight from London to get her hands on one of those babies. Anyway, once I picked myself up off the floor, I decided to beat a tactical retreat and head home.

And that, your honour, is why I missed my flight.

Feeling Better

This morning, maybe I just needed to get the resentment out, but whatever the reason, I'm not feeling sick. Yet. I discovered what looked to be a roof terrace that I could have been using all this time, but hey ho, I'll check it in more detail when I get back from Cape Point Tonight.

Laters

Just Fucking tired

I'm tired of being ill, I'm tired of feeling sick CONSTANTLY, I'm tired of having cold sweats, I'm tired of crutches, I'm tired of the painful hands that come from crutches, I'm tired of having no energy and I'm just plain tired. I slept from 1130 until 230 last night and then couldn't get any sleep at all. I tried all the usual stuff; listening to audiobooks (Old Man and the Sea - very good), I tried dreaming of being a footballer, I tried thinking up new ways to bring down German bombers without harming the crew, yet capturing them. I tried watchin TV (just fuzz). Nothing seemed to work, until about 830 when I fell asleep for half an hour or so. I do hope this isn't the start of something new.


Last night I met up with Simon and his wife Liz; it was like old times, only better as we're both more grown up and loads of things have happened in both our lives. He'll be over in London some time soon so I'll hook up with him then. We met at the Waterfront Radisson, which isn't in the main waterfront bit, but down the side toward Mouille Point, right on the sea. Crackin' buffet, top champers and laughs all round.


Today was supposed to be my day of action - once up I breakfasted then went to book myself a car for today and tomorrow. By the time it was all sorted out, including the obligatory 'African mix up', it was 230, but I was feeling so sick that I just came home and lay down for a couple of hours. Then turned on the radio and they said that Camps Bay was great for sundowners tonight, so I headed over there in my mean machine at about half five and had sushi and a fruit latte - kind of like a McDonalds milkshake would be if they made it with real fruit and decent ice cream.
I'm still feeling queasy. It's really frustrating as it pervades every thought and feeling. I just wish it would stop soon. I've finished my antibiotics, but am still on the doxycycline for malaria prevention, but if it's still there when I've finished them, I'm going to camp out at the GP's. If I eat, I'm queasy, If I don't eat, I'm queasy, If I drink... etc ad nauseam (great pun I think).


Tomorrow, stomach permitting, I plan on going either to Cape Point or Rondebosch to my old flat, or both. In the meantime, here are some pics of my R300 per night room and the view, for it is, indeed, a room with a view:

Tables

Just a quickie this. I wanted to buy this table:

The price was R900. (Divide by 13 for Sterling). Then I saw that the first 9 was only printed faintly. So R9900. Maybe not then.

Gastro pubs and Gastroenteritis

Well I was feeling a little queasy when I was writing my last post, but everyone feels queasy from time to time so I didn't worry too much about it. Went to the Afro cafe to meet Marlon (for t'was his name), but still feeling queasy told him that I'd probably be going straight home after supper, which I did. No sooner was I back at my room than the gates of hell opened and stayed open all night. (D&V for those in the know). By mid morning on Saturday I was dehydrated and in agony. I eventually managed to find my phone and the number for reception - they came over and called a doctor and ambulance for me.

The doc eventually arrived and gave me two injections, one in each buttock; the first one hurt, but the second one had me screaming for about a minute, right up to the point where I threw up on the bed all over my arm. Kind of annoying as I'd managed to keep everything in the loo all night, even when - you get the idea. I was severely dehydrated so they put me on a drip and carted me back off to the Christiaan Barnard Memorial hospital, where I stayed over night. Lovely view of Lion's Head, but to be honest I couldn't really have cared less. It was quite entertaining actually getting me IN to the ambulance as my place is on about a forty degree slope and I couldn't walk, even if I wasn't completely dehydrated. The injections worked though - no more pain and no more sickness.

So, I spent Friday night in agony, Saturday night in hospital and Sunday night in an exhausted heap on my bed - which had been cleaned, but not made. I found out this morning that they were going to move me to a nicer room, hence the lack of bed making, but that can wait until tonight. The doc came by this morning again and gave me some painkillers for my foot and a nice bill for the insurance company. I'm sure I'm going to get a black mark after this - a stolen camera, missing airline tickets, a nearly broken foot and an admission for gastroenteritis.

Well, I'm up and about again, the foot is getting better and I should be back on solids sometime before Easter. Oh yeah, and if you read this, please do leave a comment as I can't tell if I'm talking to just to myself, or to others as well.

Old friends, new friends and pictures

This'll be a quick post, I think, as I'm meeting up with a guy I met last night who lives here; he's going to show me round a bit and introduce me to his friends. This may or may not be a good thing, but I have to try. Yeaterday I wandered into town and had a look at my old office on Long Street, which is conveniently where it all 'happens' - where we're going tonight. I wound up in a really nice cafe called Afro which had really friendly staff who looked after me all night. I talked to the owner Marinda who was telling me about the pros and cons of working and living here.

Earlier on in the day I'd wandered into an estate agent's and chatted to Veronica who's going to show me a couple of places tomorrow. I'd like to live and work here, but I don't know how feasible it is, but somewhere to live is part of the equation, so I'll go and have a looksee.

I slept in today as I had rather a lot of beer last night, but all is well. I had lunch at a Thai place just over the road from my pad (white building on the right). Nice, but for Cape Town, very expensive. It cost me nearly eight pounds for Pad Thai and a coke.

Finally got hold of Simon who I worked with in 1989 - we're meeting on Monday evening for drinks at the Waterfront. I'm really looking forward to seeing him, finding out what he's been up to and what his take is on living here. The view of the mountain from the waterfront; rubbish isn't it?

There are things afoot at the Circle K

Things have changed in South Africa since I was here last. Obviously Apartheid is gone, but I was curious as to how things would be different. What's most noticeable are the things that I didn't appreciate as unusual when I was here last. TV for instance, in 1989 it was just normal TV as far as I was concerned, pretty unremarkable, but now on SABC1 (BBC1 equivalent) most of the programming is in Xhosa rather than English or Afrikaans and nearly all the presenters are coloured, Indian or black now. The head of South African Airways is a black man. In restaurants the non white people are no longer confined to the kitchen. They are serving, welcoming and most remarkably, eating. All sorts of people are out on the streets. With this new racial tolerance comes other kinds of tolerance. There are now openly gay bars and clubs, whereas before it was something spoken about in hushed tones.

Today the weather has again been spectacular. A little cooler than yesterday with a few little fluffy clouds, but the best bit is the 'tablecloth' of cloud on top of Table Mountain. It's not static either, it continually rolls off the edge and dissipates as it slides down the front of the mountain. I set my alarm for 8 this morning; me? Setting my alarm for 8am when I have nothing planned? What is the world coming to? It's not that I'm so excited to be here I'm like a child on Christmas morning, more that I knew I'd castigate myself if I slept in late. So I put on the radio (on my phone - woo hoo!) and showered & shaved. My foot is getting much better, so I might even be able to do a little walking by the weekend, but I won't push it. I got back to the Tourist Information place too late last night, so I couldn't pick up my crutches which I'd swapped for a wheelchair earlier and I therefore had to go back to the Waterfront today to pick them up: it's a hard life. Obviously I didn't get them straight away, but got another wheelchair and rolled about round the shops for most of the day. It's odd being in a wheelchair. The lazy bastard in me loves that I can get around without getting off my fat arse, and going down slopes is pretty cool. I also like that my upper body gets a little exercise. There are drawbacks though. All those slopes in place of steps are useful, but it's still hard work getting up them and some are so steep! Additionally people tend not to hear you coming or see you out of the corner of their eye, and this, combined with an inability to squeeze past people means that I have to keep asking people to get out of the fucking way. Politely of course. Those who have driven with me on a motorway will have experienced similar. On the whole though people are really friendly and helpful, happy to help me up steep slopes, especially seeing as the wheelchair I had today had completely bare tyres. I never realised that wheelchairs have so much character, just like cars and bikes or, in the case of the one I had yesterday, shopping trolleys. Bloody thing kept veering to the left, which meant I had to push more with my left arm, which is of course the weaker one.

I called a friend (Simon) from my last visit this morning and left a message for him, but he has yet to call back. Guess I'll be hanging out in the bars near my crash pad tonight then. The city beckons...

Of tickets, planes and broken bones

Scroll down to 'Many rivers to cross' and read upwards. Might make a bit more sense to you...

Right then. Still can't walk, this could be serious. Well, I can't put any weight on my right foot at all. This is an issue when you have to cart your luggage around an airport. And when you're hoping to spend 10 days walking/driving at your destination, having a serviceable right foot is a distinct advantage. Putting this aside for one moment, there are more pressing issues as it turns out that I'm supposed to have a paper ticket for my two flights (via Jo'burg to Cape Town). They can see that the tickets have been paid for. They can see that I have paid the departure tax. They can see my whole itinerary, and for good measure I have the original that they sent me. They know I am who I say I am, because they have seen my passport. So what extra information does a paper ticket have, I ask? You need a ticket, they say. But why, I ask? Because you need a paper ticket, they say. This continues for some time. The upshot is I have to buy another ticket, for US$201; I'm just grateful I didn't have to pay in Zim dollars at the official exchange rate, that would have really hurt. I just hope I can claim on my insurance.

All this pain was countered by being plonked in a wheelchair and wheeled past all the queues right onto the plane, where they organised a P.A.U. to be ready for me in Jo'burg. A what? A passenger assistance unit; essentially a truck with an enclosed platform and a lift that carts cripples between plane and terminal. Bloody genius. I ought to hurt my foot more often. Whizzed past more immigration queues to the SAA desk to try and sort out my ticket issue. A very familiar conversation ensued, but I was too darned weary to argue. This time the flight was only 75 quid rather than 100. Curiously, this is less than the original total of 220 that I paid when I booked the flights. Ho hum.

So, I gets to Cape Town and am sitting on the right side of the plane so get a glorious view of the city and Table Mountain as we come in to land. It's 1pm, 27 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. I feel very emotional coming back here, and not a little frustrated that I'm going to have difficulty getting about. Get whizzed past all the queues again and out in to the taxi rank. The taxi takes me to my hotel (after much fucking about I must say - why am I paying for this bloke to drive around lost), who confirm that they have no record of my booking and no space. So, I go walkabout to try and and find somewhere to stay. Oh no I don't, because I can't bloody walk. The lady who runs the place is lovely though; she goes up and down the street trying to find somewhere for me and eventually comes up trumps. Then, just as I'm about to go off, they get a cancellation and I've got myself a nice little crash pad, for half the price of the room I 'booked'. Now that's sorted out I can finally get myself to a hospital to get my foot X-rayed. I was going to go to Groote Schuur, where Christiaan Barnard performed the first heart transplant, but my helpful lady suggests the Christiaan Barnard Memorial hospital which is nearer and a lot less busy. So... one taxi ride and four hours later, it's confirmed that I haven't broken my foot (hard cast and six week recovery), but I've bruised it badly which is merely a crepe bandage and 2 weeks recovery. And some hardcore anti inflammatory drugs. Most importantly though, I get some crutches so I can get about.

When I broke my left knee aged 11 I had wooden crutches that you stick under your arm pits and hold onto, ie, you can spread the load between your armpits and your wrists. These new crutches are them metal ones where you have to take all the weight on your wrists, or more accurately, the palms of you hands and your wrists. I went out to get some food at about nine, but although the restaurant was about 400 yards away, it took me 20 minutes to get there because I was in agony. Clearly the people who design these things have never used them, and as for the people in healthcare who choose them for their patients, make them use them for a day, then we'd see a change I think. I'd like to take one of these crutches and shove one up their arse, which, I must say, would be considerably less painful than actually using one of the fucking things.

Sitting in the restaurant I got really down, as I had thought that whatever the outcome of the x-rays, at least I'd be able to get around on crutches. To spend so long looking for somewhere within walking distance of the centre of town, only to find I can barely hobble ten yards is depressing, made even worse by the steep hill I'm on. Maybe I was just tired and hungry; airline food is not the best for filling you up and I'd risen at 5, so I stuffed in my burger and chips then hailed a cab to take me the 400 yards back home to bed. Maybe things would look better in the morning.

And so they did. Already I can feel the improvement in my foot. If I could get a taxi to the V&A Waterfront shopping centre/attraction/hangout place, maybe they would have wheelchairs for use by crutch victims. And so, here I am, sitting in a web cafe, with a wheelchair at my side, having bought myself a new phone and camera; last time I was here I had no camera and I'm buggered if that's going to happen this time. Just for the record, Cape Town is stunningly beautiful. I keep having to pinch myself when I look about; the weather is fine and I'm just thrilled to be here. If my foot keeps improving then I'll be able to walk, or at least drive, by the end of the week.

Life is good.

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Well well. It's New Year's in Harare, and what an odd country Zimbabwe is. For the record, Mozambique was uneventful, although at the Malawi/Mozambique border Iain and Hayley had a haggling competition to see who could get the best woodcarving for the least money. Iain got a small rhino for 395 Kwacha (Malawi currency: 250 = one pound Sterling), 2 US dollars and ten cigarettes. Hayley got a nicely carved bowl with a lid for 350 Kwacha. We voted that Hayley won. I then decided to see what I could do, as guys were coming up to the truck selling stuff. I got a carved rhino, twice the size of Iain's for 230 Kwacha. I am clearly a haggling god. Much amusement (and amazement) all round.

Mozambique was uneventful, although whilst we were pitching our tents a couple of the girls found some scorpions. Cue much squealing, swearing and flapping. Very tedious. And it rained all night. Er, that's it.

In keeping with the rule I mentioned last post, the border post into Zimbabwe was... interesting. Normally Kate can collect our passports, go get them stamped, then bring them back to us. And that's it. In Zimbabwe we all have to queue up to get (obviously very large and ornate) visas in our passports, then we HAVE to buy $20 in Zim Dollars and get a receipt. Then we have to cart all our bags off the truck to go with them through customs. And just for good measure, they search the truck too. And then they check to make sure we all have yellow fever vaccination certificates.

For a bit of background on Zimbabwe, have a look here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/country_profiles/1064589.stm

Before getting to the campsite, the cook group had to go shopping. I'd read that the inflation rate was about 1000%, so I was curious as to what we would find. At the official exchange rate US$1 = Zim$250. Looking round the supermarket I realised that all I could afford to buy with my Zim$500 was a few sweets. A can of ham cost twenty pounds, a one litre carton of juice cost 14. How on Earth can people afford to eat? The cook group eventually emerged from the store in a daze sporting 2 loaves of bread and two cans of peaches.

Anyway we got to the campsite, giving our tour leaders the opportunity to go and change some cash on the black market. The rate they got? US$1 = Zim$2200. Nearly ten times the official rate. The government knocked three noughts off the back of the notes in the summer and printed a whole load of new ones. You know that an economy is in trouble when the notes they print have an expiry date. I kid you not. Printed this summer, they run out next summer. Talking to the lady that runs the camp site, it turns out that inflation is nearer 1200%. About 10 years ago a beer would have cost maybe 5 dollars. Now (if we keep those three noughts they dropped from the currency) the same beer costs two million. This is only good news if you have a) a mortgage, b)foreign currency with which to pay it and c) hope for the future. How anyone can get through this without developing mild insanity is beyond me.

On to matters celebratory. We did a kind of secret Santa fancy dress thing where you have to get the outfit for someone else on the truck. What did I get? Go on, guess. I got dressed up as a granny, complete with thick glasses and knitting. Damn I looked good. It was all going really well, right up to the point when I fell off the bar on which I was dancing barefoot (I must stop this dancing on bars thing, it's undignified for one of my age) and landed on the concrete floor. Luckily I put my right heel out to break my fall, which worked, but it may have broken my foot as well. So, an early night I think, seeing as a) I can no longer move unaided and b) I have to get up at 5 to catch my flight.

I've really enjoyed these last three weeks, but I'm so looking forward to Cape Town that any sadness I feel about leaving this marvellous bunch is more than countered by my excitement about going back to the Cape.

Blantyre Belly

(Ignore the posting date, this is from Friday the 29th, then Saturday the 28th)

Had a terrible night's sleep. Slapping mosquitoes from my body all night and I woke up with 23 bites evenly distributed about my body. Additionally, loads of the bed slats were missing, in particular the one under the pillow, which I didn't discover until this morning, so I have a cricked neck and spent most of the night choking/snoring/waking up due to the choking and snoring, but not enough to realise what was going on.

As I'm in tonight's cook group we had to shop from the supermarket for tonight's meal. I was feeling quite rough so I had to get water and find a loo half way through - I'd had little bit of
Blantyre Belly yesterday, but today it hit me really hard. When we got back to camp I couldn't even help cook, so I had to go to bed about 5pm and slept through until 9am. I didn't take my evening antihistamine, so the extra fifteen mosquito bites I picked up in the night were itching like wee bastids they were, but I felt an awful lot better in the belly.

The only reason we were going to Blantyre was to get our Mozambique visas: they take two days to get, but that's longer than we plan to spend in Mozambique - we're just passing through on our way to Zimbabwe. There is a rule (which I made up) about countries. You can judge how insignificant a country is on the world stage by how onerous its entry procedures are, and how ornate and huge its visa stamps are. Needless to say the Mozambique visas are HUGE and they take the aforementioned two days to get, kind of amusing really.

We're going to travel along the Tete corridor through Mozambique, which used to be a route for the weapons trucks, but it's safer now. Hopefully.

Many Rivers to Cross

And most of them have bridges. (Ignore the posting date above, all this was on Thursday the 28th)

We eventually left Kande Beach relatively early, with about a five hour drive to Blantyre ahead of us. Blantyre is the commercial capital of Malawi, Lilongwe being the seat of Government. As Malawi is so poor there are a lot of aid projects going on to boost the infrastructure. The current craze is for upgrading the bridges, so most of them that we crossed were either brand new or were temporary structures alongside a half built new one. We came to one such set of roadworks and stopped - in the back of the truck we can't see out the front and there is no intercom system, so we often don't know what's going on (half the fun). On this occasion the new bridge was still being built, so we were to cross the dry river bed. Jase had stopped to ponder HOW on Earth he was supposed to get the truck across. After a couple of minutes Kate came round the back to tell us to hang on tight - it was going to get a little bumpy. Needless to say, despite a sizeable run up, we got stuck in the soft sand. All on board the truck were laughing as I guess this is the kind of thing you hear about in Africa - for my part I guess it was one of the things to do on my trip; go on safari, get a tan, get food poisoning, get ripped off in a market, buy souvenirs, get stuck crossing a river. All part of the experience as far as I was concerned. So, we disembarked and surveyed the situation. It turns out that there WAS a temporary bridge, but it had been so shoddily put together that it had collapsed. The workers had then built a 'road' across the river bed which consisted of two lines of rocks for vehicles to negotiate. An articulated lorry had gone across and jackknifed on the way out, blocking the road to anything wider than a minibus, so Jase had tried to go around the outside and got stuck. Hey ho, you have to try.

Well, I've learnt from playing Dungeons and Dragons that when you're in a tight spot, look around if you can and see what materials, alternative routes etc are around. To cut a very long story short, we had to use the sandmats from the truck, chop away half the river bank and build a new 'road' from rocks that I found. All with the 'help' of the builders and several locals who'd shown up in their best football shirts to watch the party. Three hours later we were on our way. We'd had to pay US$100 to the guys for their help, which made me absolutely livid. Firstly, we could have probably done it without them. I found the rocks and us passengers formed a human chain to transport them. All our helpers did was dig a bit and shout and argue. Secondly, why should WE have to pay them? I can understand them getting a 'thank you' payment, but why should WE pay it? What about the incompetent person that built the temporary bridge? Why should he not take responsibility? And what about the jackknifed truck? It turned out that it had been there for four DAYS. I guess this sums up how I'm feeling about Africans at the moment - it seems perfectly acceptable to take no responsibility for your own life or actions, no matter how small or large, from sweeping in front of your house, to dropping litter, to providing good food or service, to governing a country. This irresponsibility seems to be all pervasive and I must admit, very dispiriting. Is this the result of European rule, or does it go further back than that? I'm not looking to apportion blame, just to try and find if not a solution, then just a little hope for the future of this continent.

So we eventually arrived at the campsite in Blantyre - buggered if I'm going to pitch a tent in pouring rain in the dark - time for a dorm room upgrade methinks. We're all shattered from the day's exertions so after a couple of beers and food from the bar, it's bed time. No mosquito net; this could be an interesting night's sleep...

Futbol. We speekee.

Last night was an early one; I think most others went early too, so I didn't miss any action. Woke this morning to another hot day, but we had arranged to play football against the local woodcarving lads who have their stalls just outside the campsite. Well we met them at the gate and wandered down to their pitch, which was a fair size, and also had goalposts. Obviously no white lines (white paint doesn't stick to dust), but otherwise good. They were all quite skillful as we had seen them juggling balls and kicking about, but although we weren't necessarily talented, we had the aggression of the English game on our side.

I was playing right wing, but straight away I realised I was dehydrated before we'd even kicked off; I guess 2 days of booze does that to you. My legs felt so heavy but it was good to play a proper game; the last one I played was in Cape Town in 1989. To cut a long story short, I didn't get to see too much of the ball, but we were soon 2 nil up, but they got 2 quick goals before half time.

I was completely shattered and needed water badly. For the locals' half time refreshment a really big spliff seemed to work for them, until they got back on the pitch, when we knocked in another 3. So a 5-2 final score with our organisation beating their individual skill.

Obviously there were a few scrapes, so my wound care bag came out at the end.

I've spent the rest of the day negotiating for them to carve me a few bits 'n bobs so I will soon be the proud owner of a framed painting and a game box.

Got a bit sunburnt on my neck, but it was worth it. Tonight we're going for a meal in some village somewhere, then tomorrow we're off to Blantyre to get our Mozambique visas. I have to do shopping for food as it's my team's turn to cook and I have to go to the police to get a report about the theft of my camera. Everyone on the truck is uploading their pics to a common website, so I'll be able to get their shots instead of mine which is better than nothing.

Not sure when the next interweb portal thingy will be...

Sherry? Sherry.

Well, yesterday was fun. Did very little other than drinking sherry, watching Dolce and Gabbana, eating Dolce and Gabbana, drinking beer and chatting with the other guys and girls on the truck.

I haven't written much about them, but on the whole they're a good bunch, although there is one girl who after initially being very friendly, suddenly started treating me with contempt and little else. Takes issue with everything I say, takes a contrary position to me on every discussion, always sits as far away as possible, refuses to acknowledge my presence when there's no one else around, you get the idea. Initially I was puzzled and did the usual obsessive soul searching, but I've come to the conclusion that there's nowt I can do about it and moreover, if she wants to behave oddly, then that's her issue and I've got more interesting things to engage my brain with. Partly because of this, it was really good to sit down and talk nonsense over several beers with some of the others on the truck, with Mrs Odd nowhere in sight. One of the girls said she'd really like to hook up with me when we get back to London. I don't think she was thinking of a romantic liaison, just that I'm a good bloke basically. Well Mrs Odd has made me doubt a little, but I think I'm a good bloke, and it was good to hear someone else say so too.

Eventually went to bed a little calmer at about 1130, with requests to get up at 6 to watch the cricket ringing in my ears. We've been getting up very early all trip; I think the earliest was quarter to five, six being the norm, but I slept in until 930. What a rebel I am. When I sauntered over to the truck I was surprised to see people still having breakfast, so I got a lie in AND pancakes. What a most excellent way to start boxing day.

Then I heard the cricket score.

Merry Christmas, yer arse.

Well, it's Christmas although it doesn't really feel like it: given the year I've had, with the feeling of life passing me by I guess it's kind of appropriate. Nevertheless, it's a really lovely way to spend Christmas. We're right by the beach and the HUGE thunderstorm that hit us last night has left the air fresh and the sky blue, with just a few little fluffy clouds. It's very warm, so the factor 40 is going on before I get out into the sun proper, but before that I have to shave and do my ablutions.

We all had a secret Santa gift; mine was a Tusker beer T shirt and a jar of Nivea hand cream. We all got a stocking from the truck crew which had an African bangle, water pistol, sweeties, a firework and one of those blarting trumpet things. I got an ankle bracelet and a hippo necklace for Kate, my designated person, and she seemed quite pleased, especially as her boyfriend had sent her a gold and Zirconia bangle which she thought was hideous.

We have a buffet starting at 1pm (currently 1100), then Jase our driver is doing us a couple of pigs for dinner. They were called (at my suggestion) Dolce and Gabbana and were killed about 2 hours ago. They currently have apples in their mouths and their guts in the bin, are split down the middle and are slowly roasting over hot coals.

Guess I'll phone the UK later although my phone is still bust; I'll have to get a sim card and borrow a blower. Ho hum. Anyway, enjoy your cold, wet Christmases, and I'll enjoy my sunny warm one. Laters!