New Year On The Farm

Our farm drive took us on some roads which have not been used in a while !

We set the dinner table out on the veranda, where we saw the New Year in (don't you love the giraffe inspired Christmas crackers ? They are made by our local Leprosy Centre, & I buy them every year - much better than anything you'll find in the shops with such great handmade gifts inside, too !)

Well, I can hardly believe that it's 2009 already. These past 2 months have been a very busy time for me - what with my daughter's birthday party, Christmas concert, my parent's arrival and visit with us for 6 weeks, our holiday on the Tanzanian coast and then another holiday in Nairobi, plus visitors for the weekend, horseback safari clients staying in the farm guest house, people coming out to the farm for lunches etc plus Christmas and New Year and all the catering that went with that - I feel like I've squeezed a year's socializing into just 2 months, & I must admit that I am looking forward to a quiet(er) January !

My daughter starts school again on Tuesday. I just cannot get my head around the way the school terms work here for our school. Crazy, if you ask me as they actually start the school year in November, and the school Christmas holiday's are short and sweet. Which limits you a lot if you are travelling overseas for a long period, as many expats here do over the festive season (lots of kids will be starting school much later this year as a result of this). Our school year - when I was a child - used to start in January & end in December, with a good 6 week holiday over Christmas. Oh well ! (Can you tell I'm not looking forward to the return of the weekly school runs ?!)

My parents left back for South Africa yesterday, after having them here for 6 weeks & being so much a part of our lives & routines for those 6 weeks, I am feeling really sad and empty without them around ! My daughter, husband & even all our animals (my parents are both animal lovers, which is where I think I get it from !) are at a loss. Anyway, I console myself by thinking that we will all be together again in almost exactly 4 month's time, when my daughter and I fly to South Africa for a long stint to have the baby (hubby will join me a week before the birth).

Our last day of 2008 was spent relaxing and going for a nice drive around the farm. We took my parents to show them the old German Homestead and Country Club, as they had not seen either before. That night, we set the table on the veranda and saw midnight in with a gorgeous meal of honey mustard roasted gammon ham (with pinapple & cherries - yum !), cauliflower & broccoli in a cheese sauce, sweet peppered carrots, green beans and roast potatoes and we finished it all off with a delicious imported Christmas pudding and homemade brandy sauce.

The local people around our farm welcome the New Year in by beating all their cooking pots outside their homes (like drums) at midnight to chase away the evil spirits from the previous year, and clear the way for the good spirits to enter for the coming year. This is accompanied by much singing, chanting and rejoicing aswell as dancing. We could hear all the villages around the farm, aswell as our own staff quarters, trying to outdo one another with their singing, and at around 1 am a large group of women went singing from village to village, home to home and they also walked all the way over to our farm and sang outside our garden fence - it was really lovely (but of course very dark outside so I could not get any decent photos). They were singing a song like a blessing, singing in the local Kiswahili language about blessing the children in the new year, blessing the elderly, blessing all the people etc and it was really lovely.

(These people have so little yet they are still happy and joyous to see a new year in, and celebrating life and the future - yet we who have so much, are always quick to complain. Just listen to me above, complaining about the school terms when I should be grateful that we can even send out daughter to school, and give her an education !)

On New Years day we drove to one of the neighbouring towns and had lunch out at one of the Indian restaurants there, stopped for ice creams on the way home and got back to the farm just before nightfall. My parents had to pack for their 3 am start the following morning, so an early night was had by all after eating some of the cold leftover ham and watching "Fawlty Towers" on the BBC satellite station we get here.

So, that was our New Year on the farm and I look forward to visiting everyone's blogs to see what you all got up to, and how you all celebrated. Sorry I have not been around or commenting much on other blogs lately but I am slowly getting back into my normal routine and will have more time on my hands again in the coming weeks.

I hope that everyone has had a great start to 2009 so far !