Apparently elephants really DO have good memories

Photos now here - good old Google for mending the photo upload thingy

My shame is great. I have been tempted back into the ways of delicious cocktails, wine, nuts and crisps during luxury hols on safari and on Zanzibar with my lovely family. I thought I was a new, saintly person but no - I made sure I had more than my fair share of the drinks every night, I fear. I also haven't lost my slightly bolshie conviction that I Can Take It - hence occasionally having to look at the gorgeous little take-them-home-in-my-bag-if-I-could baby elephants through a bit of a headachey haze.

A proper full entry to follow, but my dear mama is still here and I only have an exeat for a short time before I have to go and have more free drinks by the pool, looking out on the Indian Ocean and watching the sun set.

Here is a picture of a picture of a lovely swimming pool where a bad, bad thing happened to me.

This was a beautiful, luxurious safari lodge (although there were insects like a proper biblical Plague, actually getting in my EYELASHES, v scary) with a lovely little pool looking out at the Rift Valley. I was the only person there, chatting to the manager, and showing off something shocking about being able to speak some Swahili. I dived in, thinking what a lovely scene. Me in my nice Boden bikini. The People's Management Consultant, doing good AND learning the language. And then realised that as I've lost some weight, my bikini bottoms were a little baggy and had fallen off. How are the mighty fallen. From Esther Williams to just being a bit of an idiot frantically pulling up her lost pants. And so much worse that it was only me in the pool. Bah.

Look! beautiful luxury pool. Beautiful elegant dive. Then big bottom looming from the depths, probably much like this one:

Our first night was in cabins on stilts. We had a huge cabin each. There were three beds in mine, so it was shame it was just little me really. I was really looking forward to being in touch with wildlife, but had not really appreciated how much noise animals make. Tsk! It was worse than my favourite example of Camberwell noise, when a recently-parted couple had a massive row about visiting rights right outside my window, ending with furious accusations of him going off her with her best friend. In the morning I did my yoga in the open air, looking down a beautiful valley. As you can see:

Now, here are some lovely giraffes and all that, and also our gorgeous safari driver! I tell you, there was always something to look at. Note I am firmly associating myself with him in this pic, and not with my lovely mother, who paid for my whole holiday as I am now a pauper volunteer. I am so badly behaved.

Back at school this week. Slightly less luxurious. No bar, no individual Maasai butler. Mum has come too, to help me with my English classes and also to help the pre-schoolers. Bless, she is such a trouper. Anyway, I found some of the children hovering by the loo, signing that there was a terrible problem and holding their noses. There are often problems with anything that could possibly cause a disgusting smell here, so I wasn't too surprised. I went to inspect and found out that actually the huge problem was simply a slightly misplaced poo that hadn't been washed down the hole (I hasten to add, not mine). I couldn't be bothered to try to summon the sign language for "don't be pathetic, just chuck some water down" so I did it. So I am now both officially a member of the Senior Management Team (as was announced yesterday, to my surprise) and also I am Senior Poo Remover.

But today I renounced that title and instead became Senior Announcer that Poo Needs Removing. The water supply to the school broke yesterday evening (thank God, thank GOD it is back now) and so there was no water to flush. I saw the same thing happening again and decided that teaching other people to solve problems is much more ethical than just doing it for them, so I summoned a nice minion to rinse the loo down while I had a cup of tea and a boiled egg. Much better!

Here is a lovely photo of the collapsed sewage pit that I mentioned in a previous posting. I think I did, anyway. I might have been in denial because of the horror of thousands of litres of vile filthy water and killer moskweets breeding noisily on the surface. This remained un-mended for three weeks and was very very stinky. However, the drainage truck came today. With pleasingly typical African directness, the slogan on the side was just "Dirty Water" rather "Sewage Solutions". They were all very jolly and didn't seem offended by my taking photos and my exaggerated comedy pantomime nose-holding.

So I have a day off tomorrow to say goodbye to my mother and then back to school on Friday. I hope there will be less sewage sloshing around by then. Gloriously, that evening I am meeting Cherie Blair! What a marvellous fawning and sucking up opportunity for a still-proud Blairite. But before then I have to make sure that my mother actually gets on the right plane...