The last three nights have been spent on a houseboat on the infamous Lake Kariba: infamous because of Dad talking about his ride on it when he was travelling in Africa. I mentioned this and the capenta fish Dad talked about to the guide Heath, and he had the cooks make some! I'm not sure it was just as Dad had it, but very nice to think I was doing as he had all those years ago.

Most of the days on the boat were spent twiddling our thumbs, a few games of cards, maybe a book or two to read, but most people sunbathed. I'm not very good at sunbathing and so sat it out most of the time, except for one day when I failed to put sunscreen on as I was sitting below deck. I failed to take into account the roof being pulled back, which put me under the full force of the sun's rays, my burn lines are as red as rubies and run in straight lines following the outline of my t-shirt. I foolishly went back into the sun after noticing the burns to try and even it out, but the burning was too much to bear by then! Will I ever learn?

We had a bad taste party on the first night; everyone had drawn names out of the hat and bought an outfit for that person from the Zambian markets. The picture shows just how varied our clothes were! I had a lovely pink and black satin dress from the 80s to boast about: reminded me of a dress I had at Uncle Bernard and Auntie Jackie's 25th wedding anniversary in 1994!

There was a bit of drama on the last night when Heath stormed off to his room, slammed door included, as there wasn't any beef left for him once we'd all served ourselves. Everybody swore they'd only taken one piece, but he wasn't having any of it. It made for a rather awkward night as a few others said they'd tell him how unprofessional he was and that he should grow up: funny how people always say this when the person they intend to speak to is well out of earshot.

More drama took place when a monkey stalked us on the boat: it'd harassed Tracey whilst she was fishing on shore, careful not to stand in the water with the crocs! We then saw it in the trees when we went ashore for a bonfire; it was staring at us from its treetop position, we had our sticks at the ready, but then some clever person decided to take a flash-photo of it from underneath and then stand beneath in defiance. Of course the monkey wasn't too happy about this and made its way to the floor, surveyed his height, and then jumped up on his shoulders. He quickly threw the monkey down, which then ran through the bonfire and made all the girls scream. Poor monkey, he was being antagonised. Us girls made our way back on the boat, but heard reports in the morning that the monkey had returned and some dingbat had thrown a rock at it!

It'd do them good to remember that he was there first, not us.