Leaving school - what a ball!

This blog is a bit of a break from the creatures of Pamuzinda because last weekend I was in Harare, attending my daughter's Leavers Ball. So this week is a bit of a family post . . .

The school year in Zimbabwe ends in December, and my eldest daughter has completed her secondary education; next year she will attend the University of Cape Town in South Africa. At the end of her school career there were many farewells and ceremonies to be attended - not least of all the Final Prize-giving, where she was awarded the Leadership Cup - an award presented as adjudged by her peers. This will probably be the last time she will wear a uniform, unless she joins an airline or goes to prison.

Both, obviously, a possibility.

So here is photographic evidence of her last day of school . . . . evah:

As an interesting note - the chapel in the background is the same one pictured in an earlier blog in May this year . . . .

What a change that was?

And the change among my daughter and he classmates - from schoolgirls to young debutantes, was no less amazing - like butterflies emerging from their chrysalises, all the girls looked stunning. This is the transformation that took place over 4 days - from schoolgirl . . . . to really really scary! Speaking as a father.

And the reason for the sprucing up was the Leavers Ball - the official end to her school career. The last time that a group of girls who have been together for the past 6 years will be together.

Her date for the evening even managed to co-ordinate colors - how cool is that?

Even my daughter's parents managed to dig out their 'glad rags' - and though her mother always looks impeccably turned out, her father managed to clean up a little too . . .

Not too shabby, hey?

The venue for the Leavers Ball was the Wild Geese Lodge, and it turned out to be a typically balmy African evening, with warm breezes, dust-scented air, and a moon lazily climbing into a star-spangled sky:

The Banquet Room was prepared by the parents of the Leavers, and looked amazing. Folk who have never been to Africa and have only seen images of deprivation and squalor on television, may be a little surprised at the levels of sophistication reached . . .

Yup - this Africa!

So honor was satisfied, a fantastic evening was had by all, and kudos to the folk who spent so much time and effort getting everything ready. I think the smiles said it all . . . .

 Of course all the excitement, the late night and all the running around were all quite overwhelming (even for an old once-upon-a-time-party-dog like me), and so the Sunday was spent cradling 2 girls and watching replays of the rugby on tv as we tried to work out how on earth Wales beat South Africa. Everybody was, after the fun of the night before, a little deflated . . .

A fine evening, and a fitting end to a school career.

Have a great day!

More stuff that would like to bite me . . .

Continuing with my series on stuff here that seems to want to bite, sting or paralyze me, see if you can spot the potential danger lurking in the photo below. I had been about to walk through the gate of my house when an urgent shout stopped me in my tracks . . .  

It was a snake - his head at the same level as mine, and poking out in a 'ready-to-strike' posture, even though he turned out to be fairly harmless.

As an interesting note - can you see the Crucifix Spider on the gate? He builds a web with a distinctive cross weaved into it - I shall feature him in the next couple of days.

Maybe you will find the snake easier to spot against the sky?

How he was seen by the staff I am not sure - though I guess the local folk here have some sort of innate inbuilt antennae system!

This is a clearer picture of my door-ambushing visitor:

Would he have hurt me? Well, no not really - the spotted bush snake is not considered lethal, and so I helped him on his way with a few gentle prods with a stick.

Not the case, however, with the fellow pictured below. This is a black mamba, found hiding in the thatch roof above the buffet table . . .

Not an extremely large specimen - but they are lethal whatever size they are (you have around 20 minutes to get help), and this one was put permanently out of action by the gardener wearing green in the background. His catapult came in handy, as well as a spear that had been hanging on the wall as decoration. As some of you know - the black mamba is not actually black - the name comes from the colour of the inside of his mouth, which is black when open. Like the cottonmouth snake of North America - which has a white mouth.

This new home of mine has some biting stuff, for sure. I think I am going to hang spears on my wall at home for easy access. Maybe in the garden as well. In fact, I may take to carrying one around with me.

Have a great day.

Scorpionzilla!

Having promised that I would spend some time showcasing the animals of Pamuzinda, I was thinking of which animals to feature, and it occurred to me that an awful lot of stuff here can really hurt me - and would love to do so, given half the chance.

So the next few posts will feature those creatures I have met in the last 7 weeks that can really hurt me. And where better to start than with scorpions? Because. . . . we got scorpions here - and like most things in this part of the world, they sure grow big!

On Saturday (yesterday) we hosted a wedding in our permanent marquee. As I will show in later blogs, we host lots of weddings (3 in the 7 weeks I have been here so far) and we have managed to get everything looking pretty snappy, if i say so myself. Below is the dance-floor as it was last night:

However . . . . while the guests were gangum-styling and macarena-ing, the staff behind the bar were oblivious to everything as their attention was taken up by a somewhat unwelcome visitor:

We managed to coax him onto a piece of standard A4 paper, just to give some idea of his size, and I placed a standard ballpoint pen next to him. When I say 'placed', what I mean is I threw the pen next to him from about 5 feet away!

I find the fact that his pinchers are hairy is a little disconcerting, don't you?

This is a side-on view which shows quite clearly the sting and poison sack:

I even played 'chicken' with him in order to get a bit of perspective . . . .

But the strangest thing of all is this: big as he was, his sting was just a fraction of the pain, suffering and agony that would have resulted from a sting from the little fellow pictured below . . .

Unfortunately I didn't manage to get something to show perspective, but this little fellow would have been not much more than the first 2 knuckles on my baby finger if his tail was stretched out. And his sting is much more painful that the sting of the big scorpionzilla pictured above.

And where was this little chap hiding?

In my bath!!!!

How scary is that? Imagine the result if I had come along and sat down in the bath in one of our power shortages, and got stung on my dangly bits? Hmmmmm? Well, I would have become instantly fluent in Swahili and Urdu, as well as suddenly being able to execute the most advanced karate moves and ballet jumps on the planet!

A really sore sting, as one of our staff can testify.

Soooooooooooo - if any of you ladies out there are getting injections in your lips to enhance your natural charms, and are looking for a cheaper solution . . . . give me a call.

This could be a whole new venture for us - 'Pamuzinda scorpion lips'. Has a certain ring to it, and lends itself to a great logo and marketing campaign! No?

Have a nice day!

Study this, then!

So by now most of you will know that I am with the Dunhuramambo Group, where I have taken up the position of Hospitality Manager. In our stable we have Pamuzinda Safari Lodge, Chengeta Safari Lodge, Shumba Guest Lodge, and then 5 luxury Houseboats on Lake Kariba among them Umbozha, Karabezi and Liberty Bell. If you have time, go and see our web page. Umbozha is a 5-star boat, with swimming pool, air conditioning, and superb furninshings.

At the moment I am based at Pamuzinda - where the iconic animal is the giraffe . . .

Pamuzinda is a thatched lodge, located in the Selous area of Zimbabwe. We are about an hour's drive from Harare, and perfect for folk to pop out for a day, just to escape the city. We have even had some people fly into Harare in the early morning, catch a transfer to Pamuzinda, and then back to Harare for their onward international  flights. Hopefully some of my old guests and friends from La Rochelle will manage to find their way out here - it would be great to see you.

The park here has elephant, impala, wildebeest, kudu, eland, lion, tsessebe, zebra, warthog and more. Generally folk come out for a meal and a game drive. The lodge is thatched throughout, and tastefully decorated.

This is my new home - and my eldest 2 daughters came and visited just after I moved in.(My youngest daughter was busy attending a swimming gala and developing measles, so she didn't come out). As the area is hot - with temperatures generally around 40 centigrade (104 farenheit), my home has a tiled floor, and thatch roof, keeping it cool on most days.

At the time the girls visited, they had important exams on the horizon - my eldest daughter was preparing for her 'A' Level exams, and so spent quite a bit of time working and studying.

Of course my other daughter Dayna was also preparing for exams - in her case 'O' Levels. She is writing 9 subjects, and so had a fairly extensive workload ahead of her.

As always, Dayna does things her own way, so it should come as no surprise that she has a slightly different approach to preparing for academic evaluation. This is Dayna in full study mode . . . .

Over the next few weeks I will spend some time showing you Pamuzinda and the animals here. Life in Zimbabwe, as always, will be a feature of the blog.

Have a great day!

A meal with a long-legged lady!

As most of you know, I have been working for the last 3 months at a Coffee Shop in Harare. This has led to a decrease in the number of blogs posted because, well, not much to report and no point in posting pictures of coffee-sipping ladies, is there? They look the same the world over, and not too much of interest for my international audience. I have now left the coffee shop, and have moved to a place which should provide much grist to my blogging mill. Here is my old haunt . . . . 

The days before I left were interesting because we had to build a wall and smash through existing structures to make a passage-way to the toilets. This was how the shop looked on the day I left.

So I have now left Freshly Ground and moved to a new job about an hour from Harare, where I have taken up the position of Hospitality Manager for a group of Lodges and Houseboats; right now I am based at the main lodge. This is where I shared a meal yesterday with an incredibly long-legged lady. This is the entrance to the dining room at my new place of work - we had 25 for dinner last night and set up a buffet.

This is the dining room by night - with the swimming pool in the background. The sound of frogs in the river that flows in front of the lodge, the night-jars in the bush, and the occasional crashing of a buffalo through the thorn scrub outside, make for an interesting dinner.

But it wasn't a dinner I had with the lady - it was a lunch. 

And it wasn't inside, it was outside. 

An alfresco affair, you might say.

So who was this long-legged woman with legs that go all the way up to everywhere who had lunch with me? Well - I managed to snap a photo of her arriving for our date. Her name is Jasmine, and she has legs like you would not believe . . .

Here is a picture of my lunch date with Jasmine - though it was quite a limited menu and I didn't eat that much because the menu consisted of horse cubes!

The question is this - where am I working now?

And - will you come and visit Jasmine and me?

Have a great day!!

What goes 'book, book, book' - but is not a chicken?

Ok - so I am living proof that there is no such a thing as 'too many coffee mornings' - but I am getting used to it! Great to touch base with old friends through the Blog too - some via FB and some via Blog.

The answer to the question posed in the title of this Blog is quite simple . . . .

Simon Herring goes 'book, book, book!'

You see - I have now written 3 books - well, not so much books, as 1 book and 2 planners. Those folk still on my Christmas card list will know that I have written one full-length book titled Sorry for that! which is available on Amazon. I have re-packaged it and it now has a new photo on the front, but the content is the same. What do you think of the new look. . . . ?

The other 2 publications I have completed are not books, but planners. Here is the cover of The Zimbo Planner for Gentlemen - 2016 which carries as the cover photo a picture used in the blog posted on 12th September 2013 in which I advocated throwing your children off a high mountain as a sensible way of reducing school fees!

Remember?

Then there is the Zimbo Planner for Ladies - 2016 which uses as the title photo a picture of Fred featured in the blog posted on 22nd January 2013, which regular readers may recall.

So what is a 'Planner' then?

Well - simple really - what I have done is take selected blogs, shorten them and then print them on the left page, and then on the opposite page there is a small weekly planner. What a great Christmas present - no? And a fantastic book to leave in your toilet, because it takes about as long to read a page as it does to make a deposit!

For example - this is the page for August 10 to 16 of 2016. Regular Blog readers will remember as being the longest Blog ever posted. It was posted on the 6th December 2013 - and the question in that blog was: 'Who had the busiest week-end?". (The title of the blog was 'Spot the mistake')

So the prize for this week - which involves a Grande Cappuccino and a Bacon & Chive Muffin from the best Coffee House in Zimbabwe as first prize - goes to the first person who can correctly tell me what date this following Blog was posted? Or simply the title of the blog?

As you all know - every single blog ever written and posted can be found at the top of this page on the right hand side. And no cheating . . . . I have removed all the obvious search words like puncture, flat, tyre and girls from the search listings. Either you remember the title - or you you have to search for it!

Here is the blog in shortened format as it appears in my new Planner . . .

And if anyone knows a good Publisher who would publish and also distribute these Planners, I would love to hear from them. But I think we may be too late for 2015 - and may have to put them out in 2016.

So the regular readers and commentators such as Noreen C and Sally dB may well get one for Christmas this year. The rest of you will have to wait for 2016. And those folk who feature in the planners - like my kids and some of you who don't even know I have silly photographs of you, will also get one.

Whatever the case . . . have a great day!

Wanna get fresh with me?

I'm back - again!

Hopefully this time to stay. My life has been somewhat chaotic, hence lack of postings, but everything is settling down into a more ordered rhythm, and all is well. I hope to post at least once a week from here onward.

Having spent several months doing not very much, I have now taken up a 3-month contract running a small, but quality, Coffee Bar in Borrowdale Village. This is the sign above my new work-place (photo taken at 07.00 as we opened):

This is a different view of the shop taken an hour and a half later - showing our outside seating area.

Most days the covered veranda outside is full of folk having coffee, and seating is at a premium. We offer free internet access, and so the inside of the shop is normally full too, with customers on their laptops. I can assure you that there are a lot worse ways that you can spend an hour that sitting outside at Freshly Ground having a fine coffee with either a bacon & chive muffin or a pecan cinnabon, and an aimless chat!

In order to get to work, my trusty steed carries me in and out. As most of you know, it is winter in Zimbabwe, and more often than not I get to work with tears in my eyes from the cold!

This is our product board - many of the cold drinks will not be sold until our winter is gone for good, but it is the coffees made here which are the cornerstone of the business. We only grind the beans when a cup is ordered, and the size of the grind determines how long the water runs through. The grind-size is set according to the age since roasting (in days) of the beans, and . . . the weather. It takes 21 days to fully train a Barista, and I am completely clueless at coffee-making compared to the ladies working here.

Here is our range of drinks . . .

And the wizards who prepare the coffee? Here are 3 of the girls ready to weave their magic and make the best coffees in Harare. No kidding. They are GOOD!

We also sell our coffee - both beans or ground - and the packaging is something a little special! What would you call beans from Freshly Ground?

So - here is my new office - operation control, you might say.

And the interesting thing about the above picture is the file containing all documentation relating to the business prior to my arrival. The business administration was not so good - hence the name on the file.

Third from the left.

Have a nice day!!!!