All of God's little creatures paying me a visit!

I mentioned the damage done to the local school in my blog last week - and in this I was referring to Hillcrest School - not the little school on the property. The damage is substantial, and there is a large drive on to raise funds to effectively re-roof the entire school.

La Rochelle was at the peripheral of the hailstorm - but the school was pretty much at the centre of it all. The hailstones smashed through the asbestos roof sheets, and the kids had to hide beneath their desks to avoid the falling ice and roofing...

Quite aside from the freak hailstorm, there are other indications that the weather is not quite right, and the most obvious signs are all the animals that have flown, crawled or hopped into the hotel over the past week or so since the storm. Right now we have a plague of sausage beetles, but look what else has paid us an unexpected visit:

First was a kingfisher who flew into the hotel a couple of nights ago - about three hours after sundown. Most unusual.. I managed to catch and release him before Shupa the cat ate him for supper. I only took one photo of him as he was getting pretty stressed. Note the photo in the background between the umbrella and the snooker cue - that is Sir Stephen Courtauld, the original owner of La Rochelle.

Then there are the 'bugs' - as our American friends call them. Again, the camera let me down a little, but this fellow was found wandering around in the bar four mornings ago. Commonly called a 'baboon spider' - they are also called 'rain spiders' because this time of year - at the onset of our summer rains, is when they first appear...

I took him outside so that I could get a better photo:

Then we had a visit from a rather determined little fellow a couple of nights ago. He was first spotted climbing the steps into the hotel from the garden....

He was a brown house snake, and despite the fact that he is a constrictor and not a poisoner, David the waiter was taking no chances whatsoever when he made his way to the Reception Desk...

I took him outside and released him - much to everyone's consternation!

Of course the other consequence of all the weird weather is that plants are growing like mad. Again I am not sure if this is a consequence of the hailstorm, but the daisies in the garden have grown extremely large this year.

In fact, my daughter was lucky not to injure herself when she fell off one last week....

Have a great day one and all!