Into Africa

 

Africa is a truly huge and varied continent. We all know that it is enormous, but we are often fooled by the traditional maps of the world into thinking that other continents are as big. In truth, Africa is as big as all of Europe PLUS all of India PLUS all of the United States. 
That is big.
It is Africa's size and varied climate that has led to it being the cradle of evolution on land, most notably human evolution. That and the effects of tectonic plate movement.
Tectonic plate movement has ripped Africa appart, leaving the incredible Rift Valley as supreme evidence. This valley runs the entire length of Africa and smack in the middle of it is Tanzania.
In itself huge (four times the area of France) Tanzania hosts huge numbers of wildlife, varied in the extreme.
We were to spend 10 days there, heading first to the crazily huge volcanic crater on the edge of the Rift Valley called the Ngorongoro Crater, through the plains of the Serengeti, passing the Mara River, then finally traveling the entire width of the country to the extremely remote Mahale National Park on the banks of Lake Tanganyika.
Phew. What a trip. Way too large and varied a trip for one blog.
So I'll try starting at the beginning...

Getting to deepest darkest Africa is somewhat easier than it was a hundred years ago. A couple of years of travel has been squished into less than one day. We flew from Toulouse, via Amsterdam, straight into the heart of the continent near Kilimanjaro.

Slightly worryingly, there was no one there to meet us. 

In many African airports this would fill me with fear. Here in a small airport in the middle of everywhere, it was just a minor inconvenience. The locals were amazing and helped us organise a taxi to our overnight stop. The company organising our trip have since fallen over themselves to try to compensate us, including expensive champagne and bumping up the accommodation during our stay.
All forgiven, although I must admit to a few paranoid thoughts as an unknown taxi driver took us to a remote destination in the pitch black, over a road that should not have acquired the title 'road' but would have been better called 'off-road'.
Were we heading to to our certain doom? Had the hotel been better organised than our reception?
Thoughts of...

'Relax' said the night man
'We are programmed to receive
You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave!'

...ran through my head.

Instead, the accommodation sufficed...

 
However, there was only one bath... How we suffered...

We found ourselves in the Arusha Coffee Plantation Lodge

 

Thus refreshed after a night's sleep, we awoke to break fast and to meet our guide for the next few days, the incomparable Ian, a guide we had used on our previous trip to Tanzania.

Loading ourselves into his truck, we set off on our safari,

 

heading for the Ngorongoro Crater. 

Passing out of Arusha gave us chance to see the local colour

 

and the local transport system

 

As this was a few hours drive, we broke the trip with a stop at the Lake Manyara National Park to check out the local wildlife. 

Here's a link to the pictures I took there..

Tanzanian Safari - Day 1 (This link takes you to a photo album on the website Flickr. No membership required!)

Arriving late at the rim of the giant crater, we awaited the promised stunning views of the giant crater.

All will be described in the next exciting episode...

(Spoiler, the views were rubbish...)

Extreme Mountaineering

 

In an effort to penetrate ever further into the Pyrénées, we have taken to using ever more dangerous tactics. Our latest effort was to end in pain.
With us to witness my humiliation were friends Kim & Mike.
Our target, the Cirque de Garvarnie, deep in the French Pyrénées. After many hours of rugged travel, we arrived at base camp. Our trusty old camper van had made it in one piece. Well, three actually. Towed behind it was our secret weapon in attempting the giddy heights.
Our first attempt was by foot.

 

Some of us struggled...

 

Some of us triumphed...

- 

Whereas some just took it easy...

 

 

On our return, we took to our secret weapon, our scooter.

 

We followed signs of those who went before us...

 

We were not alone.

 

After a quick stop to check on the local marmots, disaster struck. On starting around a hairpin bend steeply downwards, my trusty scooter decided to conk out, casting both of us into the void.

Well, onto the ground with a couple of barrel rolls.
Thankfully we were both well protected. Except for one deeply personal area that the rear view mirror zeroed in on.
The susequent groin ache was a curt reminder of my fallibility. And incompetence.
We nevertheless saw the amazing sights. Here's one...

 

and here's another one...

 

The temperature had plummeted from the previous months 35 degrees to a chilling 1 degree. The resultant clouds hid our quarry until the final morning.

 

The chill did, however, cool my wounded ardour...

Next: Extreme Safari.... watch this space...

Sabotage!

In our personal lives, trust is all important. When that trust breaks down, everything else tumbles after it, making life miserable. I believe that trust is also important in business although not everyone agrees with me. I found running a business without trust nearly impossible.
I have learned the hard way what happens when trust is lost because of deception in both my personal and my business lives.
Just as I thought that I had left all this behind me by retiring, I find myself right in that murky world again.
What has brought on this bout of philosophising? Are there secret messages aimed at someone in my diatribe? If you read it backwards does it invoke the devil?
No.
Our swimming pool has been sabotaged.
Ok, I know, this is not the end of the world right? North Korea are not going to give up their nuclear weapons in sympathy right? Trump is not going to develop empathy and Catholics won't realise that condoms would have saved millions of lives in Africa just because of my pool, correct? (Sorry, off at a tangent there.)
All the same, this whole affair is a little bizarre and disconcerting.
So here is the story:
Our pool, the last building project at the farmhouse, was on course for completion in August.

On the 10th August the liner was finished and the water started to flow.

As the temperature rose, we took the plunge. Chilly but full of promise.

But, not full of water...

It did not take long to realise that the water level was going down. Rapidly.
Checking all around, we found a leak in a skimmer. Repaired. Water still disappeared at the same discomforting rate.
We finally discovered that the water was disappearing from one of the two drains. The partly separate basin where the pool cover was to live, was haemorrhaging its life-blood.
After much kerfuffle, the fault was localised to a pipe leading from that drain, and buried in over 1.5 meters of concrete.
Bums.
At this point, all work stopped for the tradition French summer break. We were left with a lame excuse for a pool. A damp squib. We lived in sweltering heat whilst being gently mocked by a disabled pool.
On their return, a camera was shoved down the drain, not to find a leaky joint as suspected, but to find holes punched through the pipes!
Concrete was cut and a hole big enough to be a baby swimming pool was made.

The pipe thus finally exposed showed to have four holes drilled through it at one meter intervals.
This could have been no accident. Someone had sabotaged our pool.
<Pause for melodramatic music>
Repairs have been made and tests are ongoing to uncover any further attempts of deliberate damage. All seems well.
So who did this and why? Was this a terrorist attack for which France is becoming infamous? Was it personal vendetta against us or the builders? Was it God trying to strike me down and missing?
Until we know, trust has been lost. Will we find further such acts possibly even more heinous?
We live in fear.
We are turning the newly dug hole into a bunker.

What's in a name?

Choosing names can be a mite tricky. What were we to call the farmhouse? It needed to have meaning, yet be pronounceable in French. Thus 'Le Farmhouse' just didn't work, whilst 'La Ferme' is a term of abuse.
Even worse, we decided that we needed names for each building.
The snooker room was first.

The obvious choice was 'Le Snook'. Easily pronounceable in seventeen languages, a 'snook' is an ancient French farming implement used for grimping mole droppings. Undeniably a useful thing to do, especially after an exhausting day flailing pastures, as farmers are wont to do.
The next to be named was the apartment.

As these are the guest rooms, it seemed logical to name it after an old English term for that little room in a pub that couples go to snuggle in. Smooching was also allowed.
The main house took more time to decide on. After proposing many different names such as 'the money pit', 'the retirement home', 'vet's end', 'the quarry' etc, we heard that the new owners of our old home in Caerphilly had turned our garden into a housing estate and done away with it's old name; Parc-y-lan. As it was also one of Papa's last wishes, this seemed like a no-brainer.

Parc-y-lan is Welsh for something like 'on the edge of the park'. It meant 'home' to us, and so it still does.
This left one final name. The old barn that we are renovating deserves it's own name. I bet you can't guess what we called it...

'Le Barn'.
Genius.

Unmasking Ironman

I have long suspected that my good friend Paul Bennett, a mild-mannered wizened professor of psychobabble, working deep in the dark and dusty catacombs of the almost Unseen University in deepest dusty South Wales (Swansea) was other than he seemed.
There had long been reports of his connection to the Ironman. He would often rush off around the world to swim, run, bike and rescue young maidens. This was no ordinary professor.
He and his long suffering wife Gill stayed with us last week. I watched for signs of his superpowers. They were well hidden. Allowing me to hammer him at snooker was clearly meant to misdirect me. His hobbling gait whilst using a walking stick; likewise. Their camouflage as local musicians was surprisingly good.

To be fair, he had not long undergone major surgery upon his knee, having had part of it replaced.
Would this stop him rescuing young maidens? I thought not.
He soon became restless of this charade, and zoomed off to the Pyrénées to take part in a local pushbike ride, a formidable 100 miles long ride going over 5 mountains. This would surely force him to show his true alter ego.
We followed cautiously at a safe distance (of about 6 hours) and hid ourselves upon a remote mountain.

To get there, we had passed through the clouds themselves, to gain a breathtaking view.
The first riders appeared...

...barely beating the clouds rising behind them. Would we recognise our quarry? Was this him?

Disguised as a mere human? I think not. Anyway, after manipulating his knee I found it decidedly in-bionic.
Time dragged on, the clouds crept upwards...

Hours passed. Still no sign of our superhero. Then I spotted an unusual bottom...

Surely that knee was artificial? Was this the Ironman himself?

As I approached him to finally unmask this saviour of young maidens, the clouds enveloped us...

I was undone.
After doing myself up, my phone started to vibrate. A small distant wizened voice escaped it wheezing "Help me, I cannot go on!"
We rushed to the bottom of the mountain to find Paul's bike slumped to one side, and Paul himself in an apparent state of extreme exhaustion. Another charade of course. I was now more sure than ever of the secret identity of Ironman.
But who was Paul Bennett?

This blog has been censored

It is with some regret that we, Les Gendarmes d'Internet, have had to remove many of the photos posted by the renegade named Fille Eede.
He has come under our scrutiny for two flagrant abuses of the law. Firstly the trafficking of photos, and secondly the posting of so-called portrait photography without permission. Often the two laws have been broken on the very same photo
Take this one for instance:

Not only was the photo taken without the permission of the young ladies concerned, but it was then mangled by an unknown electronic device to make it look like Lord knows what. Clearly the workings of a deranged mind.
Even worse than this, he has taken photos of young children, again without permission and again 'trafficked' beyond the realms of decency.

Photos like this are often targeted by perverts to be used in extremely naughty ways, such as crochet and grapple varnishing. This sort of thing has to be stopped.
This reprobate has previously stayed under the radar by concentrating on things like landscapes...

and wildlife...

We started to realise that all was not well when highly trafficked landscapes started to appear...

... including highly suspicious subjects such as grass...

He came to our notice partly because of his disgusting obsession of abusing photos of animals...

But finally, complaints from perfectly innocent members of the public who were horrified to hear that images of them or their children had been placed on web-sites such facepalm and spluttr without express permission.
Thankfully we have now brought this mastermind to book. He has admitted to multiple crimes such as trafficking babies, emulsifying fat and drinking under the influence.
He would like to apologise to all those that he has affected or manipulated out of all recognition, to all those that he has forcible removed facial blemishes, and to those permanently affected by his unforgivable use of vibrancy. He would like to apologise, but he isn't going to do so. In fact he's just said a very rude word and escaped with his portfolio intact.
Bottom.

Of Relaxation and Limericks

Just because I am now retired does not mean that I can easily relax. There is just so much to do, that I feel as if I'm being spread too thinly, like marmite on toast, as Bilbo might say in a different universe.
And there are still plenty of challenges, not all related to avoiding a pee in the middle of the night. Take as an example Ian's challenge of writing a limerick. For those of you whom are not Brits (European or otherwise), a limerick may confound you nearly as much as marmite.
I will post my response to this challenge at the end of this blog, thus building suspense in new and tortuous ways.
Back to relaxation. It is true that the stresses of running a business have now been lifted, but other problems persist.
If anyone says to me again that 'these are not problems; they are opportunities' I'll shove their stupid management speak up where the giant ball of fire never radiates.
So how do you deal with these bleedin' 'opportunities'? I normally like to shove them into an airtight compartment and seal it shut. Sadly, no matter how airtight, they do tend to leak every now and again.
I am by no means alone in this quandary. Our friends Lindsay & Nigel, are in a similar boat, and in search of Nirvana, came to us last week. As I am the very antithesis of a relaxation councillor, you may wonder at their sanity. My therapy for them was to take them to our retreat in the Pyrénées, cunningly called the 'Hydeaway'.
Initial training consisted of practicing walking the dogs near our farmstead...

where Lindsay proved her unequaled ability at finding equines in need of cuddles...

Once they were well versed in picking up dog poo, we headed for the hills....

Discarding the traditional incomprehensible method of hill climbing, that of riding a bloody bike, we decided that internal combustion was a mite easier...

Reaching the summit with this arduous method required the usual 'I've just climbed a mountain' photo...

Despite everything, this form of relaxation appeared to have worked a treat. As demonstrated by Nigel's efforts at gardening...

We did try a little randomised rambling, but Nigel's ankle injury, picked up in the Crimea he tells me, reduced these efforts to a stroll, much to everyone's relief.

Our achievements led us to celebrate in the usual fashion...

Well, it was an intense few days trying to relax. Did it work? May be time will tell. If they return for another session within the seven years it took to return this time, then maybe it will have been a success.
And so to that work of art that you have all been waiting for, the relaxation limerick....

Whilst attempting to find relaxation
And shun terminal income taxation
I decided "Retire!
To the mountains, aspire!"
And buggered my lung circulation.

"Editor's Note: Phil's lung problems, brought on by whooping cough a mere two years ago, have all but skittered away into another of those compartments that he was rabbiting on about. I'm sure that they too will leak out from time to time to produce another lame excuse for a blog."