Are you a member of the ever-growing ‘View From My Window’ Facebook group? It has now got over 2 million members and people are posting daily pictures from their home, looking out of the window, and over what they can see from there. With posts being added from Iceland, Spain, Ghana, Thailand and more, it is encouraging to feel part of a community of people across the world who are all in the same position as us. I added a picture from our camp which got added - it wasn’t the best picture but it shows exactly what we can see here through the window of our mess tent.

Talking of the mess tent - oh boy, we had a real disaster with our poor mess tent. The rain here has been unbelievable - heavy downpours throughout the whole afternoon every day for two weeks now. On the first real rainstorm we had, I was alone in the camp as Ed had gone into town to do a food shop with the staff. So just myself and Romilly enjoying watching the rain come down…. Suddenly the rain really picked up and got a lot heavier and I had to set about making sure the rain didn’t pool anywhere in the canvas and cause issues. Which obviously it did, because next thing I know, reinforced steel pipes held no issue for the deluge and the whole tent came crashing down! Ed’s return from shopping was less than joyous. Luckily, we managed to fix the steel pipes within a couple of hours and had the tent back up again in only a couple of days. We learnt our lesson though and have been extra careful about the rainstorms now.

Here you can see how the tent had fallen in on itself - I had no idea water could do this!

In my last post I wrote about how Ed was worried that the lake at the bottom of the camp was getting dangerously low in water and how he was so worried it would take months to refill. Turns out, all you need is one really good rainstorm! It was full again in only a couple of days and now we even have a little waterfall where the water is overflowing out of the lake. Amazing. Since the rains have come back we have had a massive amount of wildlife in the camp. They are taking advantage of the quiet camp with no guests here. Pretty much every night we are hearing (or on one scary occasion, seeing) lions, elephants, hyena, zebra, giraffe and leopards around and about. Our kitchen tent is getting many nightly visitors, including a hyena who has found out that our 5 litre bottle of cooking oil makes for a delicious treat. Again, lessons learnt and the kitchen is now more of a fort against nightly intruders.

An amazing photo taken by Shaun Mousley of Mount Kenya, covered in snow, after a night of heavy rain

On a game drive the other day we had an exciting moment when we found a very large puff adder. This excitement turned to sadness when we realised it was dead. Across Africa, rural communities fear snakes - and with good reason. A puff adder could easily kill four grown men with the venom of just one bite so an interaction with a snake is really a ‘kill or be killed’ moment. Lolldaiga Hills is well known as having huge puff adders. I added the photo we took to East Africa’s Snakes Facebook group and got a number of comments explaining that the largest ever puff adder ever seen in Kenya was on Lolldaiga.

A large puff adder that had been killed, likely by herders protecting their cattle and sheep

Romilly will be turning six months next week, which is CRAZY! I cannot believe she is getting so big. She has started to eat solid food, is standing up while holding onto things and is almost crawling. We better actually start keeping more of an eye on her otherwise she will have disappeared off into the bush without us even noticing.

The lockdown in Kenya has been extended by another three weeks, until 19th May, so we continue to stay here until at least then. We are looking forward to it being over and going to Nairobi to see friends, pick up more clothes, eat some good food and generally talk to people who aren’t each other! I fear it will be a while before international guests return however… Do you think you will be traveling soon? Where will be your first destination? Let me know in the comments below.

Keep sane,

Moon xx