Cyclone Idai

We were warned that there was big weather coming - that is not entirely unusual in Zomba - after all, Zomba is infamous for it's wet weather and chiperoni, the mist that clings to the mountain, - or Pepperoni has a friend of ours calls it. It is not unusual for it to rain - it is the rainy season after all! But when it rains, and rains, and rains, and then rains some more, it is less normal. Cyclone Idai was at work in the south of Malawi with the Shire valley and the areas round Thyolo and Mulanje being the worse hit.

At Zomba Forest Lodge, we got 340+mm in just over 3 days which sounds like a lot. Blantyre got over 500mm and Thyolo got 700mm!! I am not sure how much the Shire Valley received but it was enough to wash away roads, parts of bridges and flood vast swathes of land. More importantly Idai casued untold devastation with hundreds of thousands of homes that have either totally or partially collapsed, latrines that have caved in and thousands of people with no access to clean water.

This sounds bad enough.

But then Idai turned around, went back to see, gathered some umph and off she went, back in land leaving a trail of destruction wherever she was. Beira and more than 500,000 people are stranded in the floods, and on Idai went, into Zimbabwe where she caused more destruction and hardship.

The people affected are already some of the poorest in the world and now they have even less. They have lost family, friends, homes and their meager possessions and now they are facing hunger and disease.

Please spare a thought to those who have lost so much and reconsider the times you have been annoyed by the internet not working, or frustrated at the time it took in the bank. Some of us may not think so, but we have it pretty easy compared to many.

A year well started :)

I thought that Tom and I would be get some rest/R&R before the festive holidays - I thought wrong!

No rest for the wicked but lots of lovely guests to make up for it.

The rains finally came - and then before we knew it we were already rueing our rain dances. It rained, and it rained, and it rained and we had fog, and mist and more rain. We thought the sun had moved to another continent, that the blue skies had been turned dirty and all we got was grey - different shades of grey.

We all got wet: the dogs, Tom, myself, all our various guests. It didn't help that we went looking for orchids in the marshes and it rained as soon as we got out of the car but we were nothing if not determined :) Shoes took turns to be dried under the Dover stove but somehow despite everything i have just said, we must have had some breaks as we did get some washing done and dried. I guess when I think about the 2 weeks leading up to Christmas Day I think of grey wetness.

And then on Christmas Day, things started to clear. Wispy tendrils of blue apperead in the sky and we all turned to look at it. And since then, the colours of the rainy season have been magical: the hundreds of shades of green - greens so intense it hurts a bit to look at it. The golds as the sun brushes the still dripping tree tops. The silver of the insects as the sun lands on their damp wings. The bronze of the damp soil and the fierce blue skies piercing the clouds. And we got some broody skies, and some pretty big storms :/

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On the 1st I took the hounds on one of my favourite walks: towards the big rocks, and the views and skies were simply amazing and the sunset at the end of New Year's Day was spectacular.

And then today on my run, I started in the rain but it stopped after a kilometer or so. The sun came out and the light was perfect. I was so blown away by the beauty of it that I had to stop and admire what was being offered. A perfect semi-circle of a rainbow rose from the valley below me and tipped into the valley ahead of me. The pot of gold was mine for the taking but I couldn't be rushed from the sight of it. I kept telling the dogs: "Look at that", "LOOK AT THAT!!!" and they were running around headless wondering what on earth they were supposed to look for, and then it disappeared.

An amazing start to the New Year :)

We wish you all an amazing New Year, full of love, fun and adventure :)