This is it!

Sitting waiting to leave somewhere is one of the worst things we ever have to do. You can't start something new, you're all packed up and you end up wasting a bit of time as you just .... wait.

We were lucky (and it was annoying) in that our container which was due to leave on the 16th - 3 days before us, kept getting delayed and delayed (should be leaving only on the 11th November now!), so it meant we didn't have to struggle with not having our things around us right until the end, and by things i mean crockery, cutlery, linen for the bed!

Serge was a super star as usual and said we could pack all our things up into one of the other bungalows, where we measured out the space for our half of the container and loaded it all in. Khoeun was also a super star and helped David with all the heavy lifting and carrying - and then also helped Serge take all our stuff to the port and load the container when the day finally came - as we were long gone in South Africa already. 

So I'm sitting typing this final entry from the comfort of our new home, looking out onto a gloomy Monday morning at our beautiful garden and flowers, typing directly into the online blog tool and thinking back to the last 7.5 months of our lives where we lived in a little Island called Nosy Be in Madagascar.

There's so much to try and say to sum it all up, but I thought I'd keep it simply, Mada style, and list the things down .... the things that will stick in our minds and be with us always ....

The many ways we've eaten fish:
Braai (BBQ)
Pie
Pasta
Nuggets
Burgers
Kedgeree
Kebabs
Cakes
Grilled
Steamed
Fried
Cervice
Smoked
Pizza
Stir fry
Soup
Curry - Indian, red thai and green thai
Sushi
Omlette
Salad
Sandwich
Cous cous
Battered with chips

Paella

and you'd be surprised to realise how much we've been missing it. And don't forget - to get the fish for the above dishes, David had to go and swim for it, then gut, scale and clean it before we could even start thinking about the many ways to enjoy it!

Things we're going to miss the most:
Not working
Serge
Sunny days - every day
The ducks waddling out each afternoon
Long days stretching ahead with no plans or expectations
The beautiful coral, seeing turtles every dive and the stunning fish life
The warm sea temperature
No traffic
Fresh fruit picked straight from the trees in the garden
Having zero stress
Living on an island in the middle of the ocean!
The fruit and veg markets - seeing the seasonal changes in what we can get
The active lifestyle - walking most places
The simple life, just slow and basic and ..... simple.
Free get aways to gorgeous locations like Cath and Ryans on Nosy Komba and FX's place on Nosy Sakatia, as well as the week Ross gave us on the houseboat!
Watching David hand feed and cuddle the hen and chicks every morning!
Watching the sunset everyday .... and the sunrise most days
Watching the natural rhythms of the tides with the moon changes
The 5 min walk to the beach
Daily walks and swims at the beach
Odi, Liko and Inja playing like maniacs all day
Having the time to be creative with cooking and baking
Hearing Clementine greet Inja in French every morning
The friendly people - greeting and being greeted by strangers when you walk past each other
Being taught new Malagash words by the neighbours and bread delivery guy
Having Pascals little shop next door for eggs, rice and ice cold beers!
Mama money - the roadside money exchange service who wave to me as I go past them in Hellville.
MOFO!!! Thats bread in Malagash. The man who comes by 6 days a week and shouts MOFO at the gate so we can go and buy our fresh baguette!
Duck eggs from Serge in the morning ... and with bananas means its time for me to make banana muffins!
A quad being our main mode of transport (after feet).

Things we're not going to miss:
ANTS - getting into everything .... eventually.
MOSSIES. I hate them
Not being able to talk fluently with anyone - as my French is worse than poor
The Malagash music (its really bad) especially when its being blasted at 6am.
Spring tides. No sea to swim in at low tide or beach to walk on at high tide
The same old man trying to sell me shells and silver bracelets on the beach every day for 7 months! EVERYDAY!

Little quirks we'll never forget:
Turning up at the petrol station and there's no fuel .... and won't be for 2 more days
Corrupt police officials - in the same spot every day pulling people over for no reason, and then asking you to give them AR 2000 for a 'cold drink'! They must make about AR100, 000 a day! Thats a LOT of cold drink!
Hearing the faint music from Tatie Chris across the rice paddies on a Sunday night when I'm drifting off to sleep
The poor young guy who sometimes looks after Kamakazi Snack who can't add up for love nor money - a simple transcation of one baguette plus four onions can take more than 5 mins to get the price agreed.
Serge coming to moan to us about the Malagash people and their lack of sophistication ... cest pas normaaaaal Daviiid! (its not normal)
Hearing all the kids and the locals in our road call Inja's name when we walk past
Hearing the fishermans wives mimicking me saying 'come on come on' to Inja and I when we walk past them onto the beach!
Greeting all the guys from the hotel being built across the road and the two lady's with the stalls EVERY time we walk past! Some days its more than 5 times in each direction!
Putting deodorant and proper clothes on once a fortnight to go into Hellville as its a big deal! (Proper clothes = something covering our swimming gear!)
Taking our own rum and booze to restaurants and bars with us and no one caring that we have!
Having a chat to some local on the other side of the island, where you mention the area you live in, and then next day they have come for a visit - how do they find us?!
The lady fruit sellers trying to sell us fruit when we are heading into the sea or walk out of it carrying dive and spear gear - oh yes! I completely forgot I need to take a pineapple spear fishing!
The initial shock when, on the rare occasion, a Malagash comes to chat to you ... and walks away without having asked you for something.
On national holidays, all restaurants, and even the hotel you're staying in, are closed as they have given all staff the day off - as none would turn up anyway due to their hangovers!
Catching a collective taxi, and having 5 passengers plus a baby on the back seat and two people on the front passenger seat - and the cops don't pull you over!
Paying more to paddle yourself in a pirogue to get to the nature reserve than it would have cost us to take our own speed boat!
Having all prices in the market quoted to you in a currency that they did away with more than five years ago - so hearing the numbers in French and then having to divide by 5 ..... and its all in thousands!
Walking back from the beach and knowing Jirama (elecricity) was off as you could hear the hum of the hotels generators all around you.
Becoming an instant millionaire when we change our monthly budget from euros to Ariary.
The road signs that say Mora Mora (easy easy)  for the SLOW side, and the Go side is in English.
Learning French before coming here and at least 50% of the people we know and meet are Italian.

Of all the people we have met and hung out with here, we don't know anyones surnames and nor have we ever been asked for ours!

So many times when we have told people about what we have been doing, the most common response is "I wish I could do something like that" ... and you really can. You just have to plan for it and then have the balls to do it!

We went there wanting to spend more time just hanging out with each other, we just felt we didn't get enough 'us' time with being apart all day at work. We wanted to see if a simple lifestyle with no shopping, work, electronics and rushing around would make our lives better. And we wanted to see if all this could help us fall pregnant. And we all know how that turned out!

Our baby BOY (yes, the lovely nurses at the Italian hospital got it wrong!!) is still due to make his appearance on valentines day. So thank you Nosy Komba for helping us get that right. Thank you Nosy Be for the beautiful days, the stunning seas and for the great natural weight loss program - we've never been in better physical condition than we were while living there. And thank you to everyone we met and spent time with in Mada for helping make the Great Escape just so great!

I'm so glad we did it. I'm also glad to be back in a more modern environment. Its taking some getting used to, but change always does.

Thanks to everyone who read the blog! I hope we managed to take you away from the real world for just a little bit to live the dream with us for just a little while.

Inja the time to make sure his memories last too

Serge and his boys Claudio and Romeo

Adeline and Romeo preparing dinner

The boys getting this old electronic motorbike / cycle working

The lady from the 'empty plot' with some of the guys from the construction site

The other little 'tea room' on the walk to the beach

One of the staff from Nosy Lodge who greeted us in English all the time

Our beach

Manga Be

David with his daily chick cuddle

IN the park in Hellville

Family Portrait

Inja fetching mangoes in Hellville

A little goes a looooong way

When we were leaving Dubai, our wonderful friends and colleagues wanted to give us leaving gifts. We asked that in lieu of any gifts or things for us, if they would please rather donate the cash to us and we would find some worthy causes during our stay in Nosy Be that would appreciate their generosity.

We were a little disappointed to realise that with the huge gap between locals and vassers on the island, if you flashed around cash or gave anything away, the locals would pounce for more, as is the way with the 'haves' and 'have nots'. Even Serge says he has people always asking and expecting things from him because he has this wonderful property and a car, which is all actually his brothers who lives in France and Serge is the caretaker for it all!

Anyway - as our time was nearing an end, we identified some people who we knew would benefit in the right ways and who would graciously accept some support and help. Below are the stories.

Harris:

A chap we know, Henry, came to see us with his wife Rose and his 2 year old son Harris. Little Harris has an issue that is apparently quite common - he had a block in his urethra causing the fluids to drain into his scrotum instead of out his body. There is a simple procedure to fix this, but of course they did not have the funds and asked us if we could help.

So Harris has had the procedure and all is fixed. They were ever so grateful and there was no way Harris could have had this procedure without you guys. So from Henry, Rose, Harris and us, a super big THANK you for your generosity and kindness.

A big thank you to Jacqui and Darren Nightscales for their generous donation.

Dionnel:

Education is one of the only ways people can have a better shot at improving their life and being ahead of someone who hasn't had the privilege, especially in a place like Nosy Be.

We decided that some of the money donated would be really well spent by sponsoring two years of education for young Dionnel. He is the sweetest young kid, aged 7, and is Clementines son. Clementine is one of the most honest and reliable people we met in Mada - walking 8 km's everyday, no matter the heat and the weather, to come to work. She always has a smile and during the school holidays, young Dionnel would do the walk with her on some days.

The sponsorship covered his education for this year and next year, as well as covered for the provision of uniforms for the next two years and all books and stationery etc that he would need.

They were so absolutely thrilled and bowled over by the generosity.

So thank you to The Dubai Festival City Team from Emrill for giving this young guy a brighter future.

Pierrot:

Our young friend Pierrot, who we met early on and visited us occasionally in order to study English with David was a breath of fresh air. He never pushed his luck and asked for anything. All he wanted was to push himself and he was constantly striving to improve himself. He volunteered for any charities or youth programs, he was involved in local dance competitions, he got himself a job which provided him with a new lovely room to stay in, and if school closed for even a day - he was working to make sure he never took advantage of those who assisted him.

He even organised to do a Michael Jackson dance 'show' at Nosy Lodge for the tourists so he could earn some money - doing something that he loves at the same time!

He is one of the people we met who we thought would benefit from a sponsorship. We spoke with Eric from Nosy Lodge and asked if he would allow Pierrot to apprentice at his hotel - in the kitchens as a chef, as a barman and as a waiter, to give Pierrot work experience that could take him ahead of others when his school education finished at the end of 2014. His work experience would be on Saturdays for a few hours and we gave Eric the sponsorship money to pay for over 100 hours of training.

Pierrot was so excited, he went and spoke to Eric the same day we told him about it and set up to start that same Saturday. He is someone who will really go far with his determination to better himself and to do it with his dazzling smile, his ambition and excellent work ethic and of course with his and very personable nature.

We will be emailing Eric for regular updates on Pierrot's progress and can only wish the young man the best of luck in his endeavours.

Thank you to the Fendercare Middle East team for giving Pierrot this opportunity from your donations.

Village Dwelling

They say that change is as good as a holiday, but our holiday in SA and moms holiday here brought a lot of change to life on Nosy Be.
Not only have the roads on the island been repaired, meaning no more potholes and cars slamming on breaks or swerving maniacally to avoid them, but we even had hot water in our shower for 3 weeks, and Serge ran a line and put a tap in for the well water, so no more hauling buckets out the well, we merely turned a tap. Its getting way too advanced here for us!

With the arrival of Allen and Casey, our little village was filling up, and a day later Lin and Malcolm arrived. The only Capetonions, but we welcomed them into the fold! Young David had met Lin in the supermarket and her and Malcolm are friends who do yacht delivieries, and had just come off a yacht that had come from Maritius via the Seychelles. Tough, I know. So they moved in and filled the final of the four bungalows we have here. Its been absolutely great! We all cook and eat together, the boys drink plenty of beers together, we pick up things from the markets for each other ..... Its just been a totally different place with a completely different vibe.

The boys have also done plenty spear fishing, so the little Kitching will be a genius of course with all those Omega-3s! Yay! David will write a dedicated blog to the 3 weeks of spearing they had the pleasure of!

Whats been great with knowing more people and having a group is that we have explored more too. We did a trip with Edith, Lin, young David and I around the island in an afternoon, and we stopped off at the Sacred tree. This tree has over 1 hectare of underground roots and the tree has cable stay roots from the ground up, so its just huge. Before we went in we were dressed up in local traditional dress as a sign of respect, so I got to learn how to tie the malagash saraong. We also had to enter and leave with our right foot first.

It was interestng hearing the story of the Sakalava people - that they wanted a sacred place and so named this tree the sacred tree (its not even indiginous but comes from India!!!). People come and pray here, and they believe that their spirits come to 'work' here once someone has passed away. But the spirits only work during the day, and only for four days a week - Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday (still, its more than when the person was alive!!!). They aren't there on a Tuesday, Thursday or Sunday, so make sure you don't take your wishes and prayers on those days. If you pray for something, like some good materials for a new house, and you get them, you have to bring a gift, maybe some food or a beer for the spirits. If its something big you get like a car or a whole house, then you have to bring a Zebu that you have sacraficed for this celebration, well you just bring its skull and some blood to leave for the spirits in thanks. 
It was rather amusing to get this deeper understanding of the mentality of the poeple here - kind of makes a lot of things make sense!!!

They also don't frown upon extra marital relationships. Children born from the married parents are the higher up on the food chain so to speak, but all others born to non married women or not from a husband and wife, are still considered to be the children of God and are not shunned from society, as in most cultures. Also makes a lot of things make more sense!

The tree has red and white 'ribbons' wrapped around it symbolising the two tribes, the red and the white blood of the Royals .... this bit all got a bit confusing and political so we tried not to pay too much attention to it!!

So with time tick tocking on, we have been frantically trying to sell the boat and quad, to no avail as yet. We have sanded the boat down and painted it again, so it now sparkles and looks fantastic! It was hot work, with the temps ever increasing, we certainly felt it in the hot sun!

We've also been trying to do some shopping - finally! We want to bring things back to fill our new home with and keep to our memories of our awesome time here in Mada alive!

I'm trying to sort the container out, but as with things here, change is the only constant - dates of departure change, fees change blah blah! I'd forgotten how mundane admin and dealing with other people could get! But hopefully it will be done and dusted this week so we can load it and wish it on its way as we leave on the 19th of October.

We decided that we didn't want to miss our 18 week scan, and our friends had told us that the Italian hospital has pretty good equipment and you can go for free, just make sure you have an appointment, and they had the golden ticket of the name and number of the Head Nurse there, Yasmine - wohoo!

So I called and made an appointment and off we went. We arrived and luckily she was waiting for us. In the doorway was a little registration table where I had my blood pressure taken and was weighed. It was here that I started to doubt the equipment as their scale read 2kg's lighter than mine! And mine is rubbish! But it was clean and the staff friendly, as Yasmine linked her arm thorugh mine and lead us to the ultra sound room. The sonographer was there and expecting us - which was a good sign. I'm at the stage where I have one skirt (thats covered in paint from painting the boat) and my shorts and trousers don't do up, so I was in a dress for the scan, so whip it up over my belly and they get to work. Granted they could see what was going on and we saw a double arm wave from baby Kitching which was cool, the rest was pretty grainy and blurry, but we got the reassurance that everything is good - and that we're having a GIRL!

Once the sonographer was done, Yasmine who is standing at the foot of the bed, turns and leans with her arms onto my legs and starts having a fat chat about nothing much - like we've been best friends for years! It was hilarious, David and I are just looking at each other trying not to giggle as I sit there in my pants, dress up to my chest trying to understand what exactly we're chatting about! It ended with her saying I should bring her a souvenier sometime, and that she'll ring us to get together next Sunday .... erm... ok then! So we gave her a little tip for the freebie scan and were on our way!

We had heard that the annual Nosy Be regatta was on one Saturday, so the community jumped on scooters and quad and headed own to La Marina in Crater Bay. We arrived to find we had pretty much ... mised the boat! We found Edith walking up the road on our way there and she said it was all over, but it was Lukes birthday (he only remembered that morning) and the boys were already a few beers down, so Edith jumped on the quad with us and returned to La Marina. The boys turned up with their own beers plus a bottle of rum. We ordered a bunch of soft drinks and ice and proceeded to drink our own booze - well soft drinks for me! No one blinked or commented, brilliant. What the boys didn't realise at the time was that David had picked up the 52 proof bottle of rum, not the 40 proof, so the party ramped up rather quickly but fizzled out just as quick as they drank the whole bottle between 3 in less than an hour and once home the boys passed out hahahaha! The girls were stoked as it meant an early night without too much drunken madness! Oh how having a baby changes one!

Another couple have also joined the community, a young French couple Nathalie and Khoen. They've only ben married for 3 months and Nathalie was keen to pick up a teaching post somewhere different. So Serge put them in the big house while the bungalows were full, but now they've moved into one of the bungalows. Khoen has picked up some temporary work cooking in a Gargote owned by one of the teachers from Nathalie's school and her Malagash Rasta husband. So on Sunday we headed over to Madirokely, and we sat in this gorgeous, simple restaurant on the beach and had lunch cooked by Khoen. We knew he was a good cook as him and Nathalie had already had all 8 of us over for dinner and had put on a spectacular meal with home made samoosas - chicken and fruit, sushi, cantonese style rice and delicious chicken and veg kebabs! All cooked on one gas ring!

On the Sunday there was frog on the menu! We didn't go for it but Nathalie did and we tried it - seriously, it tastes just like chicken and was pretty good!
The bonus to the day was that Serge drove us there and back, so it was a super lazy Sunday!

We've had a couple of evenings out this week with us and Lin. Its such a rareity that we felt pretty strange being out at night! The first was our young friend Pierrot invited us to watch his dance performance at Nosy Lodge. He had organised to put on a mini Michael Jackson dance show for the hotel guests. Eric, the owner has been the one buying all the fish the boys have caught, and he is smoking it to perfection - truly delicious. Anyway, he's not only bought the fish but also given us some of the smoked fish to try. So David took him over a jar of his home made sweet chilly sauce. Its divine but pretty HOT. You can only get birds eye and scotch bonnet chillies here! 
So when we arrived for Pierrots dance spectacular, Eric said he had something for us to try - he is a chef by training - but for all his guests that evening he was serving a little shot glass of a creamy fish he bought from us and spinach with a drop of Davids magic sauce! Needless to say it was amazing, and Eric also gave us complementary mocktails! Pierrot was great - he has such potential this kid - he is relentless at trying to be something and make a good life for himself through acting, not asking. Its truly not the Malagash culture to be like that and he is a gem! It was very sweet watching the guests make a big deal of him during and after his performance! 

Our next night out was with Ross, his colleague Sarah and some clients of theirs who have just arrived. Ross is showing Sarah the ropes here in Madagascar, so this time David and I were out numbered with all the Capetonions with just us being from Durbs! We had sunset drinks at La Residence and then went to a local restaurant, Papa Babeto, in Ambataloaka - I had calamari which was absolutely delicious! After dinner the others all went for another drink, but Lin and I hopped on the quad and headed home, David would come later on Lins scooter - so another nice thing with having new friends in our community!

The next morning at 9 we all went snorkelling - no wet suits this time! Its finally warmed up again - but also my wet suit doesn't fit over my bump anymore, so thats worked out well!

The last 3 Saturdays saw the community gradually getting smaller, the first leavers were Allen and Malcolm, then it was Luke and Casey and young David, and lastly this morning was Lin. We've done nice farewell dinners with everyone and for Lin's, we did a vegetarian extravaganza! It was pretty cool and we did pretty well with lots of different tasty treats - Khoen and Nathalie did veggie sushi, David made a rice noodle salad with mango, red onions and peanuts, I made bean and potatoe cakes with a salsa and Lin made her now famous lentil salad!

It is strange though, as now that we don't have any projects besides to pack and go, which we can't start yet, we kind of wake up each morning and ask, hey brain, what we gonna do today? The days seem to stretch out in front of us like they never did before. I guess a part of us keeps saying - make the most of it, with baby on the way, we will never know peace and boredom again! And its not such a bad place to be bored - sunshine, sea and simplicity.

To releive some of our boredom, we went with Lin for a last snorkel yesterday afternoon. As is with every afternoon, the wind was up and boy was it rough! More like adventure snorkeling and not the calm serene conditions you'd expect. Made it a bit more of a challenge and fun at least!

So now, with just two weeks to go, its all about admin and chores and ticking things off the list - selling the quad and boat being first priorities, get the container sorted, pack and go! We've sorted Injas travel back, so will miss him as he will be a month behind us ... but at least it means he's coming home too!

I guess the last and final Nosy Be adventure blog will be written from our next destination, Kloof, South Africa!

Like and Malcolm enjoying the island

The two Davids off to sell some fish

Our village! Plus Loic who'd come to join for the festivities

The location of the sacred tree

In my traditional dress for the sacred tree

Edith, me, David, Lin and some other tourists

Walking through the cable stay root system of the tree

Where we had the explanation given to us

The cute little Lemurs there

Eating chocolate biscuits David gave them!

The original journey by pirogue by the Indonesians who first settled here. The journey was done again by some westerners a few years ago in a similar boat. It took more than 90 days - hectic!

David, Lin, Edith and me on the island tour

20 weeks pregnant - half way!

Our veggie extravaganza meal!

Cute little lizard sharing breakfast with us

David charming the pets - Inja, Odi and Liko! Check out Inja giving the paw!!!

Amaaaazing kingfish curry

A day on beautiful Andilana beach

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Moms visit to Nosy Be!

Moms visit was absolutely divine. We spent lots of time suntanning, walking on the beach and exploring the area so mom could see it all and take it in in its entirety.

We went to Andilana for a day trip and saw our friends Loic and Nelly who own Blue Vision Diving. Spent a few hours lying on the beach and soaking up the sunshine. We did a snorkeling trip to Tanikely and made a good long day of it, only thing is that every afternoon the wind picks up making the sea a little rough - our boat trip back was so bouncy that mom and I had bruised bums the next day and our entire bodies were stiff from bracing against the movement!

We did a car trip up Mount Passot and took Inja with us. He was hilarious - second time ever in a car and he just chiled out with his chin resting on the window sill and his little paw paws on the arm rest! On the way back down the mountain our car was accosted by two cheeky litle lemurs! Never seen them there before but they raced to the car and jumped all over it - looking for bananas we assume but were out of luck with us.

Mom even endured a quad ride into Hellville, but preferred the taxi brusse service, even though the one we got into swayed from side to side the entire journey home!

We did the long walk from Palm Beach to Madirokely for sundowners and a bit of the action at Tatie Chris! Loved the people watching and the antics that goes on, its seriously a must do on the Nosy Be list. We carried on up the beach to Ambataloaka and hit Boabab for dinner where I had the worlds largest burger! It was amazing!

We hit the Tana market that came to town, and the Artisans markets too, which was good for me as I've not really done any shopping here, so it was good to get to places I"d not yet seen but had wanted to.

All too soon moms visit was over and we were saying goodbye and crossing fingers that the Air Mada delays weren't too bad and wouldn't include an over nighter in Tana. Luckily the delays were there but not the over nighter! It was the first goodbye in 15 years that wasn't too bad knowing we'd see each other again in less than 8 weeks!

Two days after mom left and Davids Madagascar dream came true!! Ryan had put him in touch with another South African, also called David, who had come out to Mada to work in a spear fishing charter company, Orca Diving. Unfortunately and very sadly, the owner Craig Scott passed away from Cerebral malaria 3 days after David had arrived to work with him, so David had been taking the clients out who had booked and trying to keep tings going in the wake of Craigs death. 

So now David was free, had another month on his visa and just needed someone to go spearing with! So he moved into one of the bngalows across from us, his friend Luke hopped on a plan to come and play, and the boys have been sorting out some spearing trips. The only problem being, that when you put three chilled out fun living guys together in an awesomely chilled place like Mada, sometimes beer wins!!! So they have gone on one all day trip, and had a couple of shorter and shore entries, and all I can say is, in that over a week, we've only had two fish to eat, had a few veggie meals and had to even resort to pork sausages!!!

The competition board is up and David Kitching is laughing all the way at the 'whipper snappers' as he calls them, as he is in the lead, not only having caught the most fish to date, but also having sold 3 which puts him in lead with the cash earnings too! (at this point I can let you know that a total of 5 fish have only been speared in over a week, between 3 guys!)

So this week, yet another spearo joins the crew - Allen who is part of the team at the Rob Allen Dive Factory (not the Allen in Rob Allen!). I think the older more mature influence of Allen may actually turn the tables to more spearing trips, less beer drinking! I also think that due to the younger boys bodies rejecting lifestyle (and Lukes girlfriend Casey's arrival also on Tuesday) will mean that I better start getting inventive with fish recipes, and preparing womb service for a massive fish dinner influx! Fingers crossed at least - I was planning on this Kitching being a genius with all the brain food from fish!

One of the sad things with us leaving is that, as with all things, its taken time to make friends and meet people, and in the last couple of months we have really started to make good friends - and now we are leaving - its so typical. We went for dinner at Nelly and Loics - and Nelly is leaving this month to go back to France and have her baby, but they will be returning to the dive centre of course. But if we weren't leaving, they had asked us to manage their dive centre for the 3 plus months while they were away! That was totally our plan when coming here - to be able to help and cover for people in exactly thay kind of way!

Yesterday we had a braai / BBQ at ours with Bob, Stefan, his dad and an old friend of theirs, along with Luke and David and Edith who is the FnB manageress from Sakatia Lodge, who has been here for 7 years. Its so great to have other women in the fold as its mostly all men here! Again - such a pity all this is happening so late, but we are at least glad we are getting the chance to make new and good friends and as we set out to do - make the most of the last few weeks we have.

The countdown is going way too fast, and now with less than 6 weeks to go, I'm starting to get a speed wobble. The weather is perfect, the sea water warming up, the company entertaining .... what more could we ask for as we do our final countdown ...? OK - maybe a few more fish to eat!!!

Fish cakes and salad for lunch

Lovin the Zebu

The new additions to Serges garden

The stalls at Andilana

Two monkeys

The Zebu getting their weekly Sunday morning bath

Pizza day!

Madirokely and a Durban yacht

The hooligans at Tatie Chris

Family portrait on top of Mount Passot

Gorgeous views at the top

Inja chilling on his ride

The Lemurs

Beach day at Nosy Tanikely

The view from the lighthouse on Nosy Tanikely, Nosy Komba in the background

The little shop Pascals next door to Serge's place - great for cold beer and eggs!