Juliet's Kenya Days blog

Letter from Graham to Grandma & Grandad 7 Feb 1977 –

We have enjoyed some beautiful weather – almost hot, plenty of sun and no need to take an umbrella. At lunchtimes I can lie in the sunshine, or if it’s too hot, move into the shade of a tree. The birdsongs are beautiful and ever-present. It is just like home with many small birds twittering, only occasionally accompanied by some exotic calls such as hornbills.

Letter from Judy to Grandma & Grandad 2 Mar 1977 –

We’ve been enjoying beautiful weather. I only wish I could send a little of our sun and warmth back to you. However, writing about it is the next best thing. The children all have beautiful golden tans and sun bleached hair, and you can imagine them playing in and out of the swimming pool at Lake Naivasha where we stayed last weekend with several of their friends, running round on the lush green grass, surrounded by exotic flowers and beautiful acacia trees. They also spent some of the day horse riding in the grounds – even Fiona can go off on her own with the other girls, though of course the syce in charge of them is always discreetly around. In case you think this all sounds too idyllic for words I’ll just mention that we were completely flooded out on the Saturday by a tropical downpour that lasted from 2pm to 6pm. Fortunately all the children were swimming anyway (in an outdoor pool) so we adults settled in our tent and played bridge most of the afternoon, every so often mopping up all the water that seeped through the tent floor. The children finally arrived back soaked to the skin but happy, under two enormous umbrellas held by two of the hotel staff – I think we had 10 children between us – so we packed them all into the van where they spent the rest of the afternoon like damp sardines in an incredible chaos of wet clothes, mud and steam ! However no one was any the worse for their damp night and the sun soon dried everything out the next day. We took Juliet’s friend Catherine and she said to me “Don’t tell my Mum I’ve got nothing on under my tracksuit – she’d have a fit!’. At least she had a dry tracksuit which is more than most of the kids had ! We have got very lax about taking spare clothes as the weather is usually so good. One of the nice things about living here is that I can go off to Nairobi on Monday mornings leaving a horrible mess of dirty clothes, dirty dishes and camping equipment scattered all over the place and come home to a lovely clean tidy house.

Letter from Helen to Nanny & Grandad 15 Mar 1977 –

The weather here now is lovely but in February we had a week of pouring rain. We all have a lovely time swimming and are very glad that our tennis and hockey are in the morning not the afternoon (because of heat or rain?).