Return from holiday

We returned to Blantyre from a splendid holiday trip on Friday evening and have settled quickly back into life at Beehive and Mitsidi. I was going to write an account of our holiday, but having just read my sister's blog I feel that there is little I could add to her account and so I shall just post you a link and you can check it out for yourselves. www.malawizikomo.blogspot.com It was a week of blue skies, beautiful scenery, convivial company, good food and generally good places to stay. It is not always a successful venture to mix family with friends from different parts of one's life, but the four of us, two sisters, old friend from the UK and new friend from Malawi, all seemed to jog along comfortably together, at least for five days! I had a great break and managed to forget about teaching and my students for whole days together!

We put Lin on the plane at Chileka on Saturday morning and she is now safely back in Norwich, UK. It seems a little strange and quiet without her. On the way back we went to Blantyre and I finally managed to get my hair cut. I returned from the UK last May looking quite neat and tidy following a hair cut by my friend Doreen which was rounded off by an excellent fish supper in her kitchen, but since then I have struggled to find anyone who could cut azungu hair, my previous hairdresser, a talkative Zimbabwean, having returned to her homeland and left the salon with a vacancy. However finally they have acquired a young and competent male, Asian stylist who efficiently cropped my hair into the requested 'messy, easy-care' style in a very short time and for exactly half the price I was charged last time! I do not think that my hair has been this short since I was about six months old and it was rather a shock at first, but now I have had 48 hours to get used to it I think I like it! It's certainly cool!

Annie and I have had a fairly quiet weekend. Saturday afternoon was spent at Mitsidi doing the washing, reading, swimming, cooking cauliflower cheese and apple muffins for supper and generally pottering about. On Sunday I prepared a picnic and we went to Michuri Conservation area with Hugh and Chris, both engineers who have arrived in the last few weeks, for a walk. It was a hot day. Mindful of my newly exposed ears and neck I took Karl's hat off its hook on the sitting room wall and wore it on our expedition. Winter is definitely over and the temperature seems to be rising by the day. It seems that here in Malawi the dry and cold winter is followed by a period when the leaves fall off the trees, but the weather gets steadily warmer. Many trees have bare boughs and this means that it is easier to see the birds, so we spent a happy few hours picking out and identifying louries, flycatchers, hornbills, sunbirds etc etc. Hugh knows a lot more about African birds than I do, so I was able to learn quite a bit with minimal effort! The colour of Malawi has changed again. There is little green left. The grass is brown, there is much exposed earth of a warm shade of terracotta, the leaves that remain are yellow, brown or red. Many trees support flowering creepers in shades of red and pink. The Jacaranda trees are gradually coming into flower. A couple of weeks ago the first purple flower buds on just a few early-blossoming trees began to burst out of the buds. On the President's road just one or two of the trees of his stately avenue showed the odd mauve branch, but now more and more each day are becoming coloured that extraordinary, ethereal purple, becoming more intense each day as more blossoms open. Because the trees have no leaves at the moment the colour is undiluted by the green of leaves and the impression is almost, but not quite unnatural!

Today it was back to work. Annie's course on 'Staff Relationships, Team-building and Conflict Resolution' is scheduled for tomorrow and Thursday so we spent the day getting that planned and organized, and catching up on what David, Sarah and Marc have been up to while we have been away. I joined Annie at the lunch time rehearsal of the Construction Choir, which was a real highlight. They asked us to bring a song and we suggested 'Morning has Broken'. Martin the choir master was astonishing. He managed not only to make up, but also to sing himself, soprano, alto, tenor and base parts. We may have only practiced two lines in the 20 minutes or so we had before the bell rang for the choir to return to their construction work, but we certainly made a joyful noise!