Part of our garden with our house just peeking out ...... this photo was taken on Sunday afternoon. (Kilimanjaro towers above the house, but was covered in cloud when I took the photo). 
View of the bottom portion of our front garden .....
Another view from the bottom of our garden, this time looking out onto farm fields. (I took this photo from underneath the ancient fig tree which sits in the corner of our garden.)I can’t believe how the time has flown, and that tomorrow is almost here - when a new adventure begins !
On Saturday morning at 4.30 am, my daughter & I will check in for our flight out of Tanzania to Nairobi, Kenya. We’ll land in Nairobi very early, catching a connecting flight to Johannesburg, South Africa - our home until mid June !
Because we have such an early start on Saturday morning, we’ll be spending tomorrow night at a lodge near the airport. My husband will then drop us off at the airport early on Saturday morning, before returning to the farm alone. He’ll be joining us in South Africa in 2 week’s time, after he‘s finished with the planting here, and in good time (I hope !) for the birth of our baby daughter, who should make her grand entrance into this world on 26th May. (The airlines are quite strict about how far into your pregnancy you're allowed to fly, which is why we have to go sooner rather than later - I've had to get all sorts of tedious medical clearance forms and Doctor's letters done to present to the airline's we're flying with !)
Johannesburg was a natural choice for us when it came to deciding where we would have our new baby daughter, as she will be born at the same private hospital as our first daughter was, delivered by the same Gynae and with the same team of dedicated staff who took such good care of us over 4 years ago. Medical services are very limited in Tanzania, which is why I would never give birth here - especially after experiencing them first hand when we lost our second baby here a couple of years ago.
As my parents have now retired and moved away from Johannesburg, we have (wait for it !) rented a fully furnished and serviced townhouse in a secure suburban complex for the duration of our stay ! I know, it’s going to take quite some getting used to, living the suburban lifestyle …. we have also hired a car, booked our daughter in for extra mural activities so that she can make new friends and learn new things and I will be home schooling her daily with the syllabus given to me by her school here in Tanzania, so that she is not behind once we return.
My parents will stay with my daughter and I until my husband arrives, and will be staying with friends for the rest of the time we are there waiting for our daughter’s birth, so it will be lovely to have them close to us during this special time. I’m really going to miss my sister though, who was there when our daughter was born and now lives in the UK. She was invaluable in those early days with all her advice on caring for a newborn … although she is younger than me, she already had 2 children of her own and was a wealth of knowledge !
City living is not all new to me - I was born and grew up in the bustling city of Harare, Zimbabwe and have also lived in the South African cities of Nelspruit, Durban, Pietermaritzburg and Johannesburg - but still …. I’m a country girl at heart ! I am, however, going to make full opportunity of living in a city and all that it has to offer …. I already have appointments booked with the hairdresser, dentist, doctor, gynae …. and lots of shopping trips planned, meals out, taking my daughter to the theatre, to see her first ever movie, trips to play parks and child friendly venues, manicures and pedicures for me … all those things we can’t do here in Tanzania.
You know what else I’m going to do ? Buy my bread and milk DAILY !!! Yes, that’s right - no more stockpiling the basics on once-a-month shopping trips for me. Oh no ! I’m going to make sure that I regularly run out of things so that I can pop down to the shops every day - what a novelty !!
After the birth of our daughter, we have to wait for her birth certificate and passport to be issued before we can return to Tanzania. All going well, we hope to return home in mid June.
Now …. I have to be really honest with you here, and let you know that I'm not going to be blogging daily for the entire time I'm away. I am going to aim to update the blog with my news from South Africa with a once weekly post though - more often if I can, but I’ll just have to see how it goes as I’m sure you can understand how busy I’ll be, plus those final weeks leading up to the birth of a baby can be pretty tiring - not to mention the weeks after the birth itself !
Of course I’ll miss my daily blogging and connecting with everyone out there in the blogging world (comment moderation may be a little slow, as will replying to emails and commenting on my fellow bloggers blogs !), but one thing I do promise you all, is that once I’m back in Tanzania (in mid June) and settled into life as a new Mum again, I will definitely resume blogging on a daily basis again, posting new recipes & stories on what I‘m getting up to here as I have been for the past year or so - and nothing about the blog is going to change !
Thanks so much for understanding, and thanks so much for being such a wonderful and supportive group of readers - I appreciate each one of you !
My next post (apart from a tasty recipe for Chocolate Wheels which will publish tomorrow) will be from South Africa (not sure when though ?), to let you know that I’ve made it safely onto the other side of the continent …. so wish me luck, I have a long journey ahead of me … but I’ll let you know once I finally get there !
