Nairobi 5/11/10

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single traveller in possession of a weary body is always located in the vicinity of a small child. The one on the plane was either wailing or repeating ‘ba’ ad infinitum when contented. Her owner was an elderly Asian. Either he has done brilliantly with a much younger wife or is the grandfather. Either way he did not seem to crack much of a disciplinary whip. The upshot is that I am tired but it is the sort of tiredness I will probably get over very rapidly.

 

I am staying with Joss Taylor, who assures me he left Wellington in 1982. He looks about 35, probably still sets female pulses racing when he enters a bar ( which he does quite often, I think, as it is the entertainment lined up for tonight ) and has the most mellifluous of voices. His driver picked me up from the airport and his maid has ironed my outfit for the day and prepared a light lunch. When in Rome.

Joss was brought up here, returned to England to school followed by Sandhurst, got married and then was asked to come out to organise a sugar trading business 15 years ago. He is a mine of information about the country and its various dos and don'ts. Mrs Taylor is currently at a horse trial event somewhere in the Rift Valley They have two girls, the elder of whom is hoping to come to Wellington next year but may not make it on academic grounds, which is agonising. The kids are at The Banda School and Joss kindly organised 45 minutes with the Head at pick-up time yesterday. It strikes me that it is much like any British prep school but has probably a slightly greater resistance to change.

There are, inevitably, lots of things that strike the visitor to Nairobi. I am delighted not to have to do any driving. I am amazed by the variety of uses of the roadside. There is much more road traffic than there was in 1993. It smells African. The colours are East African. The jacarandas are in full blue bloom. There are dogs everywhere. It is very different in lots of ways but, under grey skies, in lowish temperatures and looking out of the window to the back garden at schloss Taylor, it could easily be Surrey in June.