lisbonchick

Four weeks on today…

By lisbonchick on August 28, 2014

Feels like I have been here a long time!  Our stuff arrived and it has been unpacked; the house is so big it has made no dent in all the space we have though.  It is not easy to find “stuff” for the home and we have searched high and low, maybe it is time to go pay a visit to the next big city where apparently there are more shops and more choice.  Moshi is small; I drove the tank into town to get used to the car and managed to drive pretty much around most of the town.  It went well until I drove the wrong way up a street and found myself surrounded by men banging on the car, asking for money and some putting their hands through my open window.  I have not been back into town on my own since then on my own!!  Walking about was ok but got harassed by men rather a lot, not used to this attention back in the UK!

One weekend we explored with the tank and got a puppy dog from an English guy who is here rescuing dogs.  All his dogs were puppies and black bar two who came as a pair.  So, we took a black puppy and she is great fun although loves eating our shoes.  I know little about dogs but it compares to having a toddler; she wants attention, damages things and is always hungry.

We woke up to find the dog had gathered our shoes and chewed some…  She loves shoes and runs off with them at any opportunity!

The countryside we saw was beautiful.  Someone asked if I had had the chance to go off road yet – well, most roads are off road here apart from the odd main road, it is more the degree of off road I would say rather than off road per se.  Still, good to have a tank we can throw around and drive through roads which would be completely impassable in our little Ford Focus.

  

Geoff trying to work out if a chicken house will suit the dog!

The school is great too.  I have run two cookery clubs now and it was good fun.  The kids love it and so far the cakes/cookies have been edible.  I am planning on helping out the SENCOs at the school too and help with Brownies which fills me with dread but not as much dread as being stuck in the house!  So all in all I am busy in a nice chilled out way.  The garden gets much enjoyment from the kids and I am trying to explain to the gardener how to make a pond, so far this is not going so well.  He thought I wanted a swimming pool…  Maybe we should go for that…  My gardening skills are proving to be as crap as in the UK.  All the herbs I have tried to grow showed promise but have now died – I know, it is my fault, forgot to water them!!

It was also suggested that we visit Melinda’s place which we duly did.  Nice road!  On arrival we were greeted by an enormous house with a huge garden all built to very much look like a colonial estate!  We had tea and cake on the lawns (at ridiculous prices), served by staff and surrounded by plenty of expats and we left not in a hurry to return.  Melinda is a very pleasant (and very rich) Dutch woman who imports all sort of food so expats can dine in style at high prices.  I guess I am not yet ready to enter this world….

Last weekend we went to Lake Chala, a crater lake in a caldera on the borders of Tanzania and Kenya.  Beautiful scenery, tranquil and peaceful; African vastness all around.  The lake is good for swimming and there is a debate on whether or not there are crocodiles but we did not see any and are all in one piece so if there are any they were not hungry when we visited!

We recently went to the vet for the dog and found all these creatures roaming about…  A wild cat, a monkey, a jackal, a marabou stork and a massive tortoise!

And Kili put in a rare appearance!