Wet weekend in the Valley

Yes,the rain is still pouring down into the valley . Several landslides off the mountain obstructed the road and graders and loaders had to clear rocks and gravel. Pickups are not allowed over the low-level bridge. I took photos from the higher, yellow bridge which shows how fast and high the river is.

Top and middle photos of the river were taken from the higher, yellow bridge. The bottom two photos depict the raging torrent across the concrete (low-level) bridge

When the weather lifted for an hour or two on Saturday morning, many insects hatched and appeared in large swarms. Waiting for Grant at the office, I managed to capture starlings hawking and eating the happless victims. Above tile shows the Greater Blue-eared starlings snacking on bright green grasshoppers

Back home on Saturday afternoon, Grant and I enjoyed a glut of quiz show television. We always watch The Weakest Link together at night. While I love quiz shows and we tend to know all the answers from the comfort of our lounge here in Africa, the Queen of Mean sticks in my gullet. I find her terribly abrasive and rude. She's also a Fat-a-phobe which I find discriminatory. (And again, rude!) Nevertheless, we continue to watch this show every evening.

This weekend, after three episodes of watching The Weakest Link, I was thrilled to see the show: Who Wants to be a Millionaire, UK was up next. I do watch this show periodically on weekday afternoons although I like to limit myself so that I don't vegetate in front of the box all week. Grant has never watched it but I convinced him it was another great way to keep your mind active! We watched three contestants reach £32,000.

By now it was 6.15 and we were going out to Borries for a BBQ. Still we watched. The next contestant, Ingram Wilcox reached the £32,000 mark, using all is three lifelines by the time he got there. He continued to answer all his questions correctly and eventually he was at a mind-boggling  £500,000 ! By now the audience was oohing and aahing. And of course, the two South Africans watching the show from East Africa, were sitting on the edge of their seats, thoughts of going out postponed for now!

Ingram's final question was "Which boxer was famous for striking the gong in the introduction to J. Arthur Rank films?" He correctly chose 'Bombardier Billy Wells' to win the prize of . I've never seen anyone win the million pounds and enjoyed it very much.

Of course, if you Google Ingram Wilcox's name and you'll see that he won this great prize in 2006. This is typical of our television programs: they're all normally years old before being aired on our DSTV!

A few clips of the fifth millionaire on Who wants to be a Millionaire UK, show

Grant and I arrived next door for the BBQ at 7pm. While enjoying the meal later that night, Borries suggested that the next day we all drive out to the next valley where there is a club which serves quite good meals.

The men pose in the lane just before we leave for the club on Sunday (Borries, second from right, shows his muscles while Grant, far left seems to be pulling in his tummy?)

Midday on Sunday, we did just that. We drove about ten kilometers to Sego Valley, and had lunch at Sego Club. (This was a real treat for me as I normally make Sunday lunch)

 A ride through the bush, past various villages takes us to Sego Valley

The men pose outside the Sego Club

The accommodation overlooks the valley below

Every valley for miles around is lush and green after the summer rains

It wasn't long and we heard the sound of meowing. looud meowing! The resident cat arrived to rub against us and call loudly while doing this

It had quite a few ticks on it, which I removed

I know the next time I visit this club,  I will have a vial of Advantage Tick-and-flea in my basket!

I photographed a pair of swifts building their nest above the Rock Bar

The dining room was very basic, but the dinner of roast chicken, potatoes, rice and greens (spinach) was delicious according to the men

Hope you all have a wonderful week.