Paying Month-End Accounts & Farm Wages ....

"Mama Lynda's Shop Account with Justin" is the title of the exercise book above. As Justin's biggest customer, I have the honour of having my own book, apparently !

Different denomination notes come in different colours and with different pictures on the front, too

Paying a monthly account here is not as simple as a quick online transaction, or a monthly debit order off your bank account - but more likely the ‘old fashioned’ way of having to stand in a queue with cash in hand, and wait your turn. Paying farm wages each month, is not that much different, either.

On our farm, monthly hand written records are kept in a grubby ‘Muster Roll’ book by the farm foreman (known as the ‘Bwana Shamba’) and paying month-end farm wages requires first ordering the cash (& correct change) from the city, and then collecting it and bringing it back to the farm. It is collected on different days of the month, in different vehicles and by different people so that we follow no set routine (as hubby has been shot at by ‘bandits’ which came across the Kenyan border when he was on his way back to the farm a couple of years ago – I kid you not !).

After the very busy harvesting season when we have several hundred casual labourers to pay aswell as our own permanent staff, the cash is flown in to our farm airstrip by light aircraft. (You can see a photo of our company ‘plane and read about/see our farm airstrip in my blog post over here).

The farm staff then line up outside the main workshop area, where the farm admin office is, and they sign for their wages which are placed in to small brown envelopes and given to them. For security reasons we also pay wages on different dates each month – this past Saturday happened to be the day we paid July wages, so there was a hive of activity on the farm that day ……

I have written before about Justin’s shop (you can read that blog post over here). Justin (or his girlfriend, Anna) waits at the workshop area when wages are being paid, to ensure that people settle their shop account debts with him immediately ! At the same time each month, he presents me with my account. All the items I’ve bought for the month are written up in a grubby exercise book with “Mama Lynda’s Shop Account with Justin” written on the front (see the photo above). Not everyone has their account written up in their own exercise book, but as his biggest customer, I have the honour of my very own book !

So, on Saturday I also set about paying Justin what I owed him …. which turned out to be quite a tidy sum - since my absence from the farm at the beginning of May (hubby had not bothered with paying the account whilst I was away ‘Wait for Mama to return’ he’d apparently told Justin ‘Mama is the only one who can check & pay it !’)

I thought that I’d also post a photo of what our local currency - the Tanzanian Shilling - looks like. Our highest denomination note is 10 000/= shillings, so you can imagine how ‘fat’ your wallet can get, when you are carrying a relatively small amount of money – our notes also come in 5000/=, 2000/=, 1000/= and 500/= and then our coins come in 200/=, 100/=, 50/=, 20/= and 10/=. To give you an idea, at the moment 1000/= Tanzanian shillings are equivalent to around .75c (US) and .45p (UK).

It also doesn’t take much to become a millionaire here (!!) as 1, 000 000/= Tanzanian shillings in your bank account, is equivalent to U$755 ! A millionaire ? A Billionaire ? Why ..... anything is possible in Africa !

Preparing To Leave The Farm & Pets ..... Until June !

Maxie (who's just been spayed) is almost 8 months old & will be a lot bigger when we return to the farm in June

Dibble is going to miss having my daughter around to play with - he is never far from her side & loves her to bits !

There’s been rather a lot going on these past few weeks, in preparation for our upcoming trip to South Africa. Living as remotely as we do, whenever we go away - especially for long periods at a time - it takes some extra planning to ensure that everything runs smoothly in our absence.

My husband takes care of the farm side of things, and I take care of all the house and pet stuff ! Justin is an absolute star and we could not leave the house without him, as he comes in daily during our absence to feed and care for all the pets. He has just returned from 3 weeks of his annual leave (his sister always works for us when he is away) and tells me that he is refreshed and revitalised now, and will not be leaving the farm until we return.

Maxie and Jenny have also just been spayed, something that I wanted to have taken care of before we left (By the way - I had suspected for sometime that ‘Jenny’ was actually a ‘Benny‘, and this has now been confirmed !)

Including our own pets here at the house, we are currently feeding a total of 8 dogs and 11 cats. You can imagine how much food this is for 6 weeks ! I have ordered it all in bulk from a local supplier, and then I place all the dry food and tins on separate shelves in the pantry, each one labelled with a sticker showing which date/s it must last from and to. This is because sometimes in the past we’ve had a few mistakes & run out a few days before our return (i.e. Justin thinking there’s more than enough food to last, and dishing up large/extra portions for the pets !)

Food is labelled for specific pets too, as they all eat varying amounts and types. The trickiest thing is the meat for the cats. This is packaged into 1 kg bags and labelled and placed in the freezer (around 30 kg‘s/66 lb's for this period alone !) Justin has to keep a very careful eye on things such as if the freezer’s are running and that the batteries feeding power to the house stay charged, etc - it would be a bit of a disaster if we lost all that meat !

I also have to make sure that I have enough other supplies in the house for Justin whilst we’re away - cleaning materials, light bulbs, milk, tea, coffee, sugar and basic medicines in case he gets sick. I leave him cash in case of an emergency and details on how to contact our neighbours in case one of the animals gets sick and has to get to a vet. My car will stay here, locked away but accessible if there is an emergency and Justin needs one of the tractor drivers to drive him off the farm. The driver has permission to use my car in times like this, so we also have to make sure that his driving licence etc is up-to-date incase he needs to drive on city roads, that there is a full tank of diesel in the car etc.

My husband will be alone on the farm for 2 weeks until he joins us. I am busy this week cooking and freezing enough meals to last him while I’m gone. I will be making a ’Freezer Stock List’ so that he can choose what to take out for himself each day, and will also be including a few things which he can cook fresh for himself at night if he feels like a change - things like pork sausages, steaks and a whole chicken which he can roast. I will be getting in enough vegetables to last him for these 2 weeks, mostly unripe things which will slowly ripen and not go off. Justin will then have a list of which veggies he needs to peel and chop each day. (I don’t bother with fruit, as my husband doesn’t eat it !)

I then have to finish packing all our clothing & personal items for the trip, leaving lists of things that my husband mustn’t forget to bring when he comes, hiding money for house staff wages so that they can pay themselves whilst we’re away, catching up on final month-end farm figures needed by our head office, filing that needs doing in our office here …. and …. and …. and ….. the list goes on !

I can’t wait to get on that ’plane on Saturday, knowing that all the planning & organising is behind me and that I can now just focus on relaxing and looking forward to our baby’s birth …. at this stage, I feel like sleeping for 3 days straight after we arrive !

Keeping Busy Around The Farm As The Days Fly By ......

This time next week - God willing - (says she who is terrified of flying, especially with the very same African airline which recently had an horrific crash in the Cameroon - and no survivors) I'll be safely on South African soil with my daughter.

When yet another adventure begins ... another chapter in my life. But more about that later in the week, when I'll fill you in on exactly what I'll be doing, and when !

In the meantime, I've been busy sorting through the boxes of babies clothes which I kept when my daughter grew out of them a few years ago. As we can get so little here, you tend to hang on to what you have - and if you don't need it one day, you pass it on.

I'm actually embarrassed at how much stuff I have (here's just some of it, piled onto the bed in our guestroom). So much excess, so much extravagance ... when people around me have so little. So, I've kept the bare minimum and given boxes of stuff away to people who need it more than I do ..... young mothers, old mothers, first time mothers or those who already have more children than can be counted on one hand. It gives me so much joy - always has - to give to people who have less than I do. Who need it more than me.

My husband is madly busy with his planting at the moment. Which is why he will only join us in South Africa two weeks after we arrive.

Took a drive down to where he was doing some planting this week, and watched the guys loading fertilizer into the planter (pictured above). Crisp blue Tanzanian skies stretched out above me ... and made me think of the smoggy, hazy Johannesburg sky I will soon be living under for almost 2 months. It'll be great to be in the city for a while, but I know how much I'm going to miss these endless blue skies.

And the stars ! You can't even see the stars in Johannesburg, for all the smog and bright lights that burn all night long .....

My husband was planting wheat the day I took these photo's. (As you can see, our new tractor is already earning it's keep !)

My daughter had a friend out at the farm this day, and they had great fun playing in the tractor cab for a while, afterwards running barefoot along the rough farm fields, the wind in their hair & the sun on their faces, teasingly shouting to one another 'Watch out for snakes !' as they smiled and waved at workers in the nearby fields, giggling in that carefree way that only children can !

I smiled to myself as I thought about how different her life is going to be over the coming months .... new adventures, new people, new places and a new (temporary) home. Will she miss the farm, I wonder ? I know that she'll miss the staff, her pets, the wide open spaces .... will talk in Kiswahili to all the African people we encounter in South Africa, and ask me, as always 'Mama, why are they ignoring me ?' as I have to explain to her that they don't speak or understand Kiswahili in this part of Africa .... will have children she encounters in local play parks asking her things in Afrikaans, and will stare blankly at them and say 'Excuse me ? What did you say ?' as this new, strange language puzzles her ....

Here's a field of beans which were planted (using the Zero Tillage method which you can read more about here) at the beginning of this month. They're coming along nicely, and are destined for the European market (seed beans).

I'm already missing the farm, and I haven't even left yet (!!) ..... but I'll be back later on this week to tell you all I have planned ..... and I'll be spending the rest of the weekend sorting, packing, organizing and making final 'To Do' lists ..... as I restlessly await this weekend, and the next few weeks ahead until the day I can finally hold my newborn daughter in my arms for the very first time !

Until then ................

Weekend Catch-Up

I'll be staying put on the farm for the next few weeks, & enjoying the views .......

An oasis of green in the surrounding dry African landscape, our garden is always a haven for birds & insects at this time of the year

I'll miss my little corner of paradise when I leave for South Africa soon, only returning to the farm (& my beloved pets !) in June ......

My daughter’s school broke up for the Easter holidays last week Friday, and goes back in 3 weeks time so until then I am going to be making the most of the fact that there will be no twice weekly school runs and staying pretty much ‘farm bound’ during this time !

As my pregnancy progresses and I get bigger (& bigger !) I am finding it increasingly difficult to travel long distances on bumpy, corrugated, un tarred roads & some recent (much needed but since vanished) rains have left even some of our usually well maintained farm roads in a complete mess !

So, I will be settled in on the farm doing some Easter crafts with my daughter, catching up on blog related things, emails and perhaps experimenting with a few new recipes, or ones which I’ve not featured on the blog before. I also have lots of baby clothes, toys and equipment which I stored away after my daughter was born which I’ll now be hauling out and going through as I attempt to make some sort of a nursery in anticipation of our new baby daughter’s arrival !

So many people have been emailing me lately and asking me how the pregnancy is going and when I am due etc – thanks so much for all the emails, I will get around to replying to all of them soon but in the meantime I just wanted to let you all know that things are going really well with the pregnancy & I only have a little over 7 weeks to go now, and will actually be leaving Tanzania for South Africa (where the baby will be born in Johannesburg) exactly 4 weeks today !

Closer to the time I’ll fill you all in on what my plans are re. the blog whilst I’m away, where I’ll be living in South Africa for the time that I'm there (hint: I'm going to be changing my status from 'farm girl' to 'city girl' for a while !), and some of the things I have planned during my stay (aside from shopping, shopping & more shopping - of course !) but in the meantime, I thought that I’d just give you all a quick update ….

Have a wonderful weekend, wherever you are in the world as you read this !

My Monthly Meat Order - & How I Prepare For It

Part of my monthly meat order (above) unpacked on the kitchen counter before I put it into the fridge & freezer - here I have imported yogurts (including fat free yogurt which is like GOLD here !), berries, grapes, whole chickens, chicken pieces, cold meats and sausages, dried meat & sausages, beef & pork mince, bacon and pork cuts. (Please excuse the dull photo's as it was rather late in the day when I took them !)

The photo above shows the meat cuts which I've portioned into individual re-sealable freezer bags, & labelled. These include chicken pieces, pork schnitzels, pork chops & kassler chops

Once a month I place a large order (via email) with the butchery in the city 2 hours away from us. I specify which items I'd like frozen (e.g. whole chicken as I'll use those 'as is' for roasting; smoked salmon and fish as it defrosts quite quickly, even in a coolerbox) and which items I'd prefer just chilled (e.g. pork chops, chicken pieces, steaks - so that I can portion them out into smaller bags once I get home as it's tricky to separate, say, a whole kilogram of frozen pork chops & I don't like to defrost & then re-freeze uncooked meat).

I also have specific requests such as .... 'please supply me with any flavour yogurt except the"Tropical Mix" one' (which contains pineapple pieces & goes off quicker than the others) and flavoured milk (a special treat for my daughter) 'must not be Bubblegum flavour' - ewwwww !

The butchery (which is owned & run by an expat Zambian lady) has been supplying me for 11 years now, and is the same butchery I used for all our camp supplies when we ran luxury tented safari camps, hotels and restaurants here many years ago. So we go back a long way !

The butchery is a small shop situated on a busy road in the centre of the city - and it supplies the best quality meat and products that you can get here, and many of the products (cheese, yogurt, certain cuts of meat and cold meats) are imported from countries like New Zealand, South Africa, Kenya and Brazil. They also have a nice selection of homemade biscuits, rusks, pastas, jams & preserves, pasta sauces, dried fruits, nuts, eggs, bread & fruit.

Some people refuse to pay the prices asked for the imported items, but my philosophy is that we do without so much here, living in a 3rd world country, and have to settle for poor quality items quite a bit, so why should we have to settle for cheaper food items, too ? It's a treat for us to be able to eat good quality cheddar cheese for example, imported grapes or a decent cut of meat - we enjoy our food and I'm not going to lower our food standards by paying cheaper prices for tough cuts of meat and locally manufactured yogurt that's been thickened with cornflour & has horrible neon pink bits in it !

About a week before I am due to collect my big butchery order, I start freezing ice packs in my deep freezer's. This can take some time as we run on battery/generator electricity which is only on for part of the day. The morning I leave to collect my order, Justin gets around 3 to 5 coolerboxes ready for me, we load the ice packs into them and off we go ! The butchery is always the last stop of the day, and the coolerboxes are the first things I unpack when I return to the farm.

No matter how exhausted I am after a day in the city, I have to put all the perishable items like the berries, yogurts and cheeses into the fridge & portion and freeze all the meat items within hours of arriving home, else it will start to defrost and/or go off. I label all the bags and write out a rough stock list of what I've put in them. The next day I'll type out a proper stock list which gets stuck up in the kitchen so that I can 'see' what items are in there, & mark them off as I use them.

Because we don't have electricity 24/7 it also takes several days for the items to freeze solid, & we usually run the generator for a couple of extra hours a day after a big order comes in, to help speed the process up a little - depending on what our diesel stocks are like on the farm at the time ! (I would hate for my husband to have to stop running one of his tractors simply because I needed the diesel to run my freezer for a few extra hours !)

It's always a huge novelty for me (and a source of amusement !) when we are on holiday in the UK for example, & my mother-in-law will say "What shall we have for supper tonight - chicken ? Ahhhh .... we'll just have to quickly pop down to 'Sainsbury's' then to get some !" and off we go to buy a packet of chicken (and not dilly dally on the way home as we don't want it to go off !) - when at home in Tanzania if we want chicken on a certain night for supper, I have to plan for it well in advance - several weeks ahead of the time, infact !

So, if you ever see someone in your local supermarket, excitedly grinning at the till as she pays for a single packet of chicken, exclaiming to the (rather bored looking) cashier about the sheer novelty of it all & clutching the packet to her chest with a smug look on her face - it's probably not some crazy person, but just a woman who lives on a remote farm somewhere unpronounceable. Someone who only gets out once in a while, talks to the trees and sings to her cats. No, she's not crazy at all !

From Holland To Kilimanjaro By Sea - Our New Farm Tractor !

In October last year, my husband ordered a new tractor for the farm, all the way from Holland. It was put onto a container in December & sent via ship across the ocean to the Tanzanian coastal town/port of Tanga. It arrived, and was cleared by customs, just last week - not too bad as it made it here in less than 6 months. It was then transported by truck from Tanga to the farm, and arrived last Saturday amidst great excitement ! Here's a photo above, of the container being opened. (There were actually 2 identical tractors 'on board' but one was for another farmer). We had to bring in all the spares and spare tyres too, as these are hard to get here !

The staff look on and help where they can, as the new tractor is slowly unloaded - it actually took us most of the day on Saturday to offload them both !



The tractor is a brand new 2008 model, voted "Tractor of The Year" and is a New Holland T7050 model. It has aircon in the cab, GPS, sound system and is beautifully carpeted & finished. The body is made of a thick, durable plastic which I have never seen before. Equipment like this, whilst quite common in Europe, is just not found here and as far as we know these are the first 2 tractors of their kind in Tanzania, and possibly in East Africa ?



Mikka, our most experienced & trusted driver, is being trained by hubby on how to drive and care for the tractor. (He's driving it above with our zero till planter behind it, planting maize).

Our farm staff are very proud of the fact that our farm is the first to have such a smart tractor, and news has quickly spread around our region to both the nearby villages and large & small subsistence farmers. Local cattle & goat herders stop in their tracks & gawk when they see it from afar as they pass by the farm and we had visitors on Sunday who came out to see the tractor, and more coming out today and tomorrow, too. We've all been for a ride in it and everyone has been posing and having their photo's taken with it - it's actually quite funny to think what a sensation it has caused !

My husband of course, is like a little boy at Christmas time and this tractor is like his new 'toy' ! So .... excuse me if you will, I have lunch to prepare for the next lot of visitors due to arrive any minute to see the new tractor, have their photo taken with/in/on/next to it and go for a quick ride.

The things we do in Tanzania for weekend entertainment, 'eh ?!

Justin's Shop

Justin's Shop, which is situated near the farm workshop area in an old storeroom

Justin & his girlfriend, Anna, standing inside the shop. Justin is very proud of what he has achieved as he's wanted to start his own business for a long time now.

Last year, Justin came to my husband & I to ask if he could turn one of our empty store buildings which is situated up near our main farm workshops, into a small shop selling basic foodstuffs and supplies to both our permanent & casual staff (which can number in the 100’s during our busy planting & harvesting seasons).

We discussed it thoroughly with him, and decided to let him use it – rent free – providing that he kept the area surrounding it neat & tidy (no customers throwing litter on the ground !), stuck to set shop hours and did not encourage loiters to hang around outside the shop.

I then spoke to him about basic things like stock control & rotation, keeping a float, a basic account keeping system and cleanliness and hygiene in the shop. I helped him to set up his initial stock lists, and gave my input on what I thought he should stock. He asked us for a cash advance so that he could have some capital to start it up, which we loaned him (interest free!) He also managed to get 30 day credit facilities from a dry goods supplier in a nearby town. He also asked if my husband would mind, the next time he was passing through the town which he buys his supplies from in his pick-up truck, to collect them for him & bring them to the farm.

It is true that the more staff you employ, the more headaches they give you, and the more things they want (!!) but Justin has been such a loyal and dedicated staff member for so long now, that we really wanted to give him this chance to get his own little business off the ground.

I am a firm believer in providing opportunities for local people & in helping them to see a way out of the poverty which so many of them live in. Justin supports his own ailing mother, his sister, her 2 children and a child of his own from a relationship he had with someone on our old farm (who doesn’t live with him anymore) as well as his new girlfriend. So having this shop does make a difference as it is providing him with an additional source of income and independence.

Most people live hand-to-mouth here and do not budget for their salaries to last them throughout the month (I would say that probably 95% of our staff do not have bank accounts as they do not believe in them and feel that it is far safer to keep their money hidden in their own homes than to put it into a bank). Justin allows people to have 30 day accounts in his shop, which means that they are able to buy food throughout the month to feed their family.

So, what does Justin’s shop stock ? Well, he stocks sugar, rice, beans, flour, maize meal, cooking oil, salt, candles, matches, margarine, yeast, tea leaves, washing soap, soap powder, toothbrushes, toothpaste, batteries, cool drink mixes, sodas (these are consumed warm as he has no fridge/electricity in the shop), bottled water, glucose powder, sweet biscuits and loose sweets (candies).

Justin’s girlfriend of 4 years, Anna, runs the shop for him. Justin is hoping to marry Anna one day but in order to do so he has to pay her family for her in cattle first. So he is saving up enough money to buy the cattle. I tease him and say that maybe if he spent less money on smart clothes, appliances (his recent purchases include a TV, hi-fi & video machine) and a fancy mobile ‘phone, he would be able to buy the cattle sooner, but he just laughs !

I have stopped buying my sugar, flour, soap powder and basic supplies in town now & get them from Justin’s shop instead – mainly to support him and help him to turnover his stock & keep his cash flow flowing smoothly ! He tells me that I’m his biggest and best paying customer (!!) & it’s quite handy if I suddenly run out of something like sugar in the middle of the day – Justin dashes out the kitchen door and is back within minutes – a huge smile on his face and a bag of sugar under his arm – who needs a 24 hour convenience store when there’s Justin’s shop just over the back fence, ‘eh ?!

A Rainy Weekend .... The Dogs Weren't Too Happy About It !

This past weekend was a wet, rainy weekend - with 25 mm's of rain falling in just a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon alone - which gave the garden a good soaking !

My husband wasn't lucky enough to get much rain elsewhere on the farm (some parts remained completely dry !) this is because at 3500 acres in size, different parts of the farm sometimes seem to have different weather patterns !

The dogs were not too happy with all that rain - as you can imagine ! Maxie is looking at me in the photo above, asking me "Come on Mum, please can you just stop the rain so that I can go out into the garden and play ?!"

Dibble, on the other hand, decided that if he sat upright with his front paws close together & his eyes closed, the rain might have gone away by the time he opened them again. (Infact, I'm sure I caught him dozing for a few minutes in this position !)

So, Sunday (typically our 'family day' when my husband is at home with us) was an 'inside day' for us ..... which started off with a nice hot breakfast & steaming coffee, and ended off with snuggly blankets and family movies ..... I hope that wherever you are in the world, that your Sunday was snug and cozy, too !

A Busy Week ... Roll On The Weekend !

It's been a busy week - I haven't even had time to relax on our veranda (above) and enjoy the view !

We have a small herd of elephant causing havoc on the farm (eating the sorghum crop) at the moment - you can just make a few of them out in the photo below. They have a young elephant AND a baby with them - the baby must have just been born, he is soooo tiny still !

I don't think they're causing havoc, I think it's great to have them around & so what if they eat hubby's sorghum, anyway ?! I stopped on the road (our extended entrance 'driveway') to take a close-up of their droppings (seeing as I couldn't get a close-up of the actual elephants themselves !) ... hubby remarked "That photo's not going to go down on your blog too well, is it ? I mean, who wants to really look at THAT ?!" to which I replied "Well actually, I think that some of my readers will find it quite interesting !" ha ha ... hope I'm right !

Then we had the usual twice weekly school runs, shopping in the city, going to the bank, the post office, paying accounts - you know the drill !

And .... some rain on the farm. A few overcast, (as pictured below) slightly chilly days with drizzle here and there. Which I love ! (Along with one of our farm views below).

Then - back on the farm with fresh supplies - I got cracking with my monthly big batch cooking - here's some of it, cooling down before I popped it into the freezer .....

So it's now the end of the week, and all I want to do is to have a nice, relaxing weekend - and a few cat naps as you see Tessa doing in the photo below. Never mind that she's fallen asleep on a pile of paperwork I still have to do *sigh* ............

It'll just have to wait until Monday .......

(Have a great weekend, everyone !)

My Coal Iron - Older Is Often Better !

Coal irons are easily available to purchase here and are still used in many homes today. My coal iron (pictured here on it's special stand - just visible) is made in India.

You're probably going to do a double-take when you read this but yes, we do still use coal irons here in Tanzania - and yes, I know that the year is 2009 !

The truth is that many people here still live without electricity. Especially in the remote villages. (Many live without running water, too - but that's another story). The Tanzanian people are a very proud people and are always impeccably turned out. You will rarely - if ever - find a person wearing dirty, wrinkled clothes here. I'm amazed, actually, at how they manage when many Europeans here (who have all the mod cons including washing machines, tumble driers and electric irons) don't. Laziness I suppose. Or perhaps a lack of pride in their appearance. But anyway, I'm going off track here ........

As all villages have cooking fires and access to charcoal as a result, you will still find coal irons in use all over the country. If you want neatly pressed, wrinkle-free clothes and have no electricity - it's the only way !

We also use a coal iron in our house from time to time. We don't have electricity on the farm, well it is not supplied to us - we generate our own and run the house off a bank of car batteries, charged up by a generator. (I have written all about this in an old post over here if you're interested to see how we do it.)

We cannot run an electric iron off batteries (it drains them too quickly) and if, for some reason, we cannot switch the generator on (due to repairs being carried out on it, or perhaps a shortage of diesel to run it with until our next delivery) - then we haul the old coal iron out. (You can buy them easily in most of the shops here).

Justin, who has become so used to using an electric iron now, is not too happy when he has to use the coal iron and I don't blame him ! It's very heavy to handle, and you have to get the charcoal at just the right temperature (not too hot, not too cold), and keep it filled so that it does the job properly. Justin had never seen an electric iron until he came to work for us as a teenager many years ago.

Coal irons are reliable, they never break, they cost much less than an electric iron to run and I've never known one to burn a hole in clothing or linen at all - sometimes older is better, and I love the fact that in the year 2009 I still have access to things as quaint - and useful - as an old coal iron !

(If you'd like to see where Justin does his ironing, just click here - I reckon he has one of the best ironing spots in the world !)

Crazy Week & An Action Packed Weekend !

Oh ! It's been a crazy, busy week here in Tanzania ! Last Sunday we had several friends over to the farm for the day for lunch - then on Monday it was my Mum's 60th birthday - I baked her a cake & that night my Dad cooked us all an authentic Chinese meal, served by candlelight in our 'posh' dining room (special occasions only !) ... then on Wednesday we drove into a town about 1 1/2 hours from the farm for lunch as a post-birthday celebration at one of our favourite restaurants, followed by a little shopping. Friday was the last day of the school term for my daughter, and as it was her birthday yesterday (she turned 4 !) I baked a cake (pictured above) for her to take to school with her that day.

Saturday was the day of her birthday party here on the farm, she had a few friends around & we set everything up under the ancient fig tree at the bottom of our garden .....

I spent Thursday, Friday afternoon & Saturday morning preparing all the party food with my Mum - as a result I'm all "cooked out" right now !

Saturday night we had friends stay over (I put them in our farm guest cottage as we are full up here at the farmhouse at the moment !) & had a wonderful evening ... we (actually, my Dad) cooked a barbecue out under the African skies, and the red wine flowed ..... Sunday morning (the day of my daughter's actual birthday) started off with pots of freshly brewed Tanzanian coffee after much present opening and then a huge Champagne brunch was enjoyed by all out on the veranda with sweeping views over Mt Meru, who was very clear at the time .....

My darling husband cooked the entire brunch for us (with a little help from my Mum) which included cereals, yogurt, eggs, bacon, sausages, tomatoes, bananas, onions, baked beans & toast with preserves.

I will admit that I'm feeling pretty exhausted at the moment, and am looking forward to our upcoming break - as this week I'm off on another Tanzanian adventure .... a really exciting one to a beautiful part of Tanzania I've not yet shown you .... but more about that on Wednesday ... as for the time being, I'm trying to catch up on a little sleep !

A Busy Day In The Kitchen .....

I had a busy day in the kitchen yesterday, preparing for my parent's visit. First thing this morning, I made a loaf of bread & some rolls. I love the therapeutic kneading of the dough, I love the fact that no 2 loaves are ever the same ....

Then my daugther called me out onto our veranda as she'd seen a spider there. Quite a large spider, as you can see - hanging upside down from the wooden ceiling .....

It was just as well I made my bread dough early, giving it time to rise in the sunshine, as later on the farm was hit by a storm - look at that angry sky viewed from our back fence & between the banana trees .....

I then carefully unwrapped my recently baked Christmas cake (recipe to follow soon !) and gave it the first of it's weekly brandy 'bath's' !

I finished the day off by making some cream cheese frosting to top a low fat carrot cake I'd made. It was the first time I'd experimented with this recipe & I must admit that it didn't work out very well - so you won't see it appearing on the blog (just yet - I'll try it again soon though) !

I hope that wherever you are in the world, you also had a wonderful weekend filled with lots of lovely food ! (And to all my British readers ... brrrrr ... hope that you kept warm and survived the arctic blast ... and also the fact that South Africa thrashed you at the rugby on Saturday, of course !)

Visitors From Japan ...

I set the tea table up on the veranda where it would have nice views out over our garden ...

Last week we had some clients from Japan come out to the farm. They are bean buyers, and after a tour of the farm they came back up to the farmhouse for afternoon tea. I was going to serve the tea on a table out under the fig tree, but the grass/lawn in that area is still dry and brown after our cold Winter season, so I opted to serve it on the veranda instead.

I thought I’d take a photo of the view they had from the tea table, for you to see. I served them Tanzanian tea and freshly brewed coffee accompanied by something sweet (Gingerbread) and something savoury (Cheese Puffs) – look out for the recipes for both of these on the blog soon !

They really enjoyed it, commented on the beautiful views out over the garden and beyond and remarked how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful spot !

When we have visitors I usually put Zonde and Dibble in a back area of the garden as they can get quite boisterous (jumping up on couches, licking people etc) This is the only time in their lives that they are ever ‘locked away’ from us, & they simply hate it ! They whine, bark and howl (Dibble) and try to jump up through the burglar bars across the windows at the back of the house (Dibble again) one of which is a window to the guest bathroom (so I always have to remind people when I show them to the toilet – “Just ignore the dogs howling through the bathroom window & sticking their heads through the burglar bars !”)

The amusing incident of the afternoon was when everyone was sitting drinking their tea & coffee (I moved the food onto a low coffee table where they were now all sitting, so that they could easily help themselves) and my daughter came along onto the veranda with 2 village strays in tow (Josie and Mbwenya), walked up to the coffee table, helped herself to a couple of slices of the Gingerbread and promptly fed them to the dogs ! (The guests all politely smiled and acted as if nothing had happened !)

Of course all the dogs usually get a little treat when we are eating out on the veranda, and how was a 3 ½ year child old to know that these were, infact, business clients and feeding their refreshments to stray dogs was not really the ‘done’ thing ?! I thought it was all quite funny and my husband asked her nicely to please take the dogs back into the garden, and off they trailed behind her, hoping for another slice of the Gingerbread !

When our guests left, they presented me with a beautiful piece of 100% silk cloth as a thank you, which was very kind of them. (Obviously the dogs weren’t as badly behaved as I’d thought !)

A Tour of My Kitchen .....

Seeing as most of what I write about on my blog originates from my kitchen (well, all the food stuff at least !) I thought that you might like to take a closer look at it. It's a real old farm kitchen with an open storeroom (pantry) attached to it. (Everyone has a “junk” room in their home where they store bits and pieces, don’t they ? Well, our room is this storeroom – so you won’t be seeing any photo’s of THAT – ha ha !) It is neat, just cluttered.

Oh and Tammy (above) ‘lives’ on top of a large, heavy cupboard in there which I use for storing spare sets of crockery, vases, glassware and baking tins. By “live” I mean that she likes to sleep up there (& you know how much cats sleep !) – curled up on top of a hand knitted angora rabbit jersey. (This is also the room where you will find my magical vegetable storage cupboard.)

So - this is my kitchen above. Well the main part of it – if you are standing in the storeroom and looking out, this is what you will see. I photographed this bit as the other parts were tricky to get good photo’s of. I have a wooden dining table & chairs in the one corner where we eat lunch everyday – you can just make the corner of this out in the bottom left of the photo. The wooden cupboard you see in this photo came with the house. It is beautiful, solid wood underneath but the previous Manager’s wife painted over it in this blue & green paint. (I can’t bear it when people paint over gorgeous old wood – especially in garish colours like this). Maybe one day I’ll get around to scraping it down. A carpenter friend examined the cupboard & said that it is very old and has been very well made (by hand).

On the “box” shelf (which I had ‘specially made) above this cupboard are some of my recipe books – well, the ones that I use the most. I have more that are stored in a bookshelf in our home office. I collect old food tins, a very small part of my collection is on the top of this shelf (I hide treats from my daughter - & husband ! - in some of these, and Justin keeps money in the smaller ones for buying eggs etc. Ssshhhh. It’s a secret !)

On the (green – eeeeek - more green !) shelf below that are a collection of special objects … aside from the functional stuff like the jars of pasta, food scale and condiments are little things from my travels that mean something to me, & a framed photo of my beloved cat, Jessica, who died tragically 2 years ago. (Jessica is Tammy’s Mum and Ollie’s sister). She watches over me when I’m in the kitchen everyday. I also have a little silver dog there that holds my rings over his tail, as I always remove them when kneading dough etc.

To the far right is the microwave (only “usable” when the generator is on) & the front door (which leads out onto the veranda where I killed the snake that time).

Oh yes, and before I go I thought you’d like to see the view (above) which Justin & I have each day as we look out of the kitchen windows (which run the length of the main work surface area and sinks). You can just make out my daughter’s sandpit in the distance & my pots of herbs beyond it, too.

I love my kitchen and it certainly is the heart of our home - I hope you enjoyed seeing it through my eyes today. (You're welcome to stop by next time you're in the area & have a nice cuppa tea with me at my kitchen table, okay ?!)

Laid Back Lunch

Hello ! We have company on the farm for lunch today, and I wondered if you wanted to join us ? Here I am, standing at our front door to welcome you in …. come in, please & make yourselves at home – I hope you don’t mind all the dogs ? Good !

Shall I tell you what’s on the menu ? Well, it’s a casual, easy lunch & the weather is warming up nicely so I decided to serve it out on the veranda & make it a cold lunch - that pita bread recipe I told you about the other day, in fact. My husband asked me to “please not stuff the pita’s with salad-y stuff” so I’ve done some with ham, cheese & tomato and the others with chicken & mayonnaise. Will that be okay ? Oh, I’m so glad ! There’s pickles, a potatoe salad and a nice garden salad on the table too … yes, from my garden … Justin picked the red lettuce for me this morning and Simon gave me the tomatoes as a gift last night !

If you’re still here at sunset, we can watch it going down behind the ancient fig tree in the corner of the garden … it’s really beautiful and no two sunsets are ever quite the same.

Now, we’d better go and sit down and eat because I’m watching Dibble out of the corner of my eye and …. wooaaaahhhh …. hold on …. he’s just jumped up & snatched a pita off the table …….. DIBBLE !!!!!!!!!!!! (Oooops .... sorry about that - but how can you resist THAT face ?!)

An Impromptu Dinner Party on the Farm !

It was so cold that we ate inside, with the fire on. I took a quick snap of the table just as I heard the guests arriving - before adding wineglasses,flowers & candles .... but you get the idea ! (Our dining table - which we've had for years & has travelled across Africa with us- comes from the beautiful country of Malawi, & is hand carved mahogany & one of my favourite things in the whole world !)

Yes, you read that correctly – despite our remote location, last night we held an impromptu dinner party on the farm ….. exciting stuff !

Let me explain. As you know, the only neighbours we have here are a family who live on a farm about an hour away from us, and a new (British Expat) farmer who moved to the area recently. (I wrote about the time we met him & had him over to our farm for lunch here). Well, there is also a Dutch owned farm in our area which has not had people living on it permanently until just recently. They live on it semi-permanently and split their time between the farm and the city, and last night they happened to be on their farm for the night, and they invited us over for dinner.

I was a bit reluctant to take our daughter out at night, especially since we have just returned from holiday and she is settling back into her old routines again, and also because it is so cold at night at the moment. So I suggested that they come to us on Sunday for lunch instead. As they are not here on Sunday, we said okay then, well why don’t you come for a meal with us tonight, instead ?

Luckily my husband had been to the ‘big city’ earlier this week to get farm supplies & had collected food supplies for us too, so we are pretty well stocked with food and fresh produce at the moment.

The dinner guests consisted of a young Dutch guy and his girlfriend (who is a New Zealander who works here for the United Nations) and his brother-in-law. It was really nice to chat to them, and to have some female company for a change, too !

I made Butter Chicken (curry) with rice, sambals and poppadums (fiery ones with bits of chilli in them which I bought in Nairobi last year) and finished the meal off with Malva pudding and custard (the pudding was a real hit !) and some freshly brewed Tanzanian coffee. Oh, and the (good South African) red wine flowed during the meal and my husband brought out a bottle of whiskey for the coffee afterwards !

I only got to bed at 2 am this morning, and poor Justin was greeted with piles of dirty dishes this morning when he came to work …. so we’re all on a bit of a “go slow” at the moment, and I am settling in for a very lazy and relaxing Saturday afternoon (well, as lazy and relaxing as an afternoon with an active 3 year old can be !)