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  • #6617

    In reply to: Orbs of Madjourneys

    Youssef had brought his black obsidian with him in the kitchen at breakfast. IdleYoussef had realised that on top of being her way of life, it was also her name—was preparing a herbal brownie under the supervision of a colourful parrot perched on her shoulder.

    “If you’re interested in rocks, you should go to Betsy’s. She’s got that ‘Gems & Minerals’ shop on Main street. She opened it with her hubby a few years back. Before he died.”

    “Nutty Betsy, Pretty Girl likes her better,” said the parrot.

    Idle looked at his backpack and his clothes.

    “You seem the wandering type, lad. I was like you when I was younger, always gallivanting here, there, and everywhere with my brother. Now, I prefer wandering in my mind, if you know what I mean,” she said licking her finger full of chocolate. “Anyway, an advice. Don’t go down the mines alone. Betsy’s hubby’s still down there after one of the tunnels collapsed a few years back. She’s not been quite herself ever since.”

    Main street was —well— the only street in town. They’ve been preparing for some kind of festival, putting banners on top of the shops and in between two trees near the gas station. Youssef stopped there to buy snacks that he stacked on top of the obsidian stone in his backpack. The young boy who worked there, Devan, seemed quite excited at the perspective of the Lager and Cart Race. It happened only every ten years and last time he was too young to participate.

    The shop had not been difficult to find, at the other end of the street. A tiny sign covered in purple star sequins indicated “Betsy’s Gems & Minerals — We deliver worldwide”. He felt with his hand the black rock he had put in his backpack. If Idle had not mentioned the mines and the dead husband, Youssef might have reconsidered going in. But the coincidence with his dream and the game was too intriguing. He entered.

    The shop was a mess. Crates full of stones, cardboard boxes and bubble wrappings. In the back, a plump woman, working on a giant starfish she held  on her lap, was humming as she listened to loud rock music. Youssef recognised a song from the Last Shadow Puppets’ second album : The Element of Surprise. Apparently, the woman hadn’t heard him enter. She wore a dress and a hat sprinkled with golden stars, and her wrists were hidden under a ton of stone bracelets. The music track changed. The woman started shaking her head following the rhythm of the tune. She was gluing small red stones, she picked in a little box, on one of the starfish arms.

    “Bad Habits! Uhu. Bad Habits! Uhu.”

    Youssef moved closer. His shadow covered the starfish. The woman raised her head and screamed, scattering the red stones in her workshop. The starfish fell from her lap onto the ground with a thud.

    “Oh! My! Little devil. Look at what you made me do. I lost my marbles,” she said with a high pitched laugh. “Your mother never taught you? That’s bad habit to creep up on people like that. You scared the sheep out of me!”

    “I’m so sorry,” said Youssef, getting on his knees to help her gather the stones.

    When they were all back in their box, Youssef got back on his feet. The woman looked a him with a softened face.

    “You such a cutie with your bear shirt. You make me think of my Howard. He was as tall as you are. I’m Betsy, obviously” she said with a giggle, extending her hand to him.

    They shook hands, making the pearls of her bracelets clink together.

    “I’m Youssef.”

    :fleuron:

    Youssef didn’t need to insist too much. Betsy was a real juke box of gossips. He just had to ask one question from time to time, and she would get going again. He was starting to feel his quirk could be more than a curse after all.

    “When the tunnel collapsed,” Betsy said, “I was ready to give up the stone shop. The pain was too much to bear, everything in the shop reminded me of Howard. And in a miners’ town, who would want to buy stones anyway. We’ve been in bad terms with Idle and her family for some time, but that tragic incident coincided with her brother Fred’s disappearance. They thought at first Fred had died in the mines with Howard, because they spent so much time discussing together in Room 8 at the Inn. I overheard them once, talking about something they found in the mines. But Howard never told me, he was so secretive about that. We even had a fight, you know. But Fred, the children found some message later that suggested he had just left the family. Imagine, the children! Idle was pissed with him of course. Abandoning her with that mother of theirs and that money pit of an Inn and the rest of the family. And I needed company. So we started to get together on a regular basis. She would bring her special cakes, and we would complain about our lives. At some point she got involved with that shamanic stuff she found online, and she helped me find my totem Bear. It was quite a revelation. Bear suggested I diversify and open an online shop and start making orgonites. I love those little gummy bears so much. So, I followed Bear’s advice and it has been working like a charm ever since. That’s why I trusted you straight away, lad. Not ’cause of your cute face. You got the Bear in your heart,” she said putting her finger at the center of his chest.

    My inner Bear, of course, thought Youssef. That’s the magnet. His phone buzzed. He took it out and saw he had an alert from the game and a message from his friends.

    You found the source of your quirk, the magnetic pull that attracts talkative people to you.
    Now obtain the silver key in the shape of a tongue to fulfil your quest.

     

    Zara : Where are you!? :yahoo_bee: We’re at the bar, getting parched! They got Pale Ale!

    “I have to go,” said Youssef.

    “Wait,” said Betsy.

    She foraged through her orgonite collection and handed Youssef one little gummy bear and an ornate metal badge.

    “Bear wants me to give this to you. Howard made it. He said it was his forked tongue key.”

    She looked at him, emotion in her eyes.

    “I know you won’t listen if I tell you not to. So, be careful when you go into the mines.”

    #6486

    In reply to: Orbs of Madjourneys

    Zara took dozens of screenshots of the many etchings and drawings, as her game character paused to do the same.  She had lost sight of the two figures up ahead, and remembered she probably should have been following them.

    The tunnel came to a four way junction. There were drawings on the walls and floors of all of them, and a dim light coming from a distance in each. One was more brightly lit than the others, and Zara chose to explore that one first.  Presently a side room appeared, with green tiles on the floor similar to the one at the mine entrance. Daylight shone though a small window, and a diagram was drawn onto the wall.

    Zara toyed with the idea of simply climbing out through the window while there was still a chance to get out of the mine.  She knew she was lost and would not be able to find her way out the way she came. It was tempting, but she just took a screenshot.  Maybe when she looked at them later she’d be able to work out how to retrace her steps.

    Zara room of tiles window

    After recording the image of the room of tiles, Zara continued along the tunnel. The light shining from the little window in the tile room faded as she progressed, and she found herself once again in near darkness.  She came to a fork.  Both ways were equally gloomy, but a faint blue light enticed her to take the right hand tunnel.

    So many forks and side tunnels, I am surely completely lost now! And not one of these supposed maps is helping, I can’t decipher any of them. Another etching on the wall caught her eye, and Zara forgot about being lost.

    Zara stopped to look at what appeared to be a map on the tunnel wall, but it was unfathomable at this stage. She recorded it for future reference, and then looked around, unsure whether to continue on this path or retrace her stops back to the four way junction.  And then she saw him in an alcove.

    Osnas 2

    Osnas! This time Zara did say it out loud, and just as the frog faced stewardess was passing with her cart piled with used cups and cans and empty packets.  I swear she just winked at me!  Zara did a double take, but the cart and the woman had passed, collecting more rubbish.

    With a little smile, Zara noticed that the mask Osnas was wearing was one of those paper pandemic masks.  She had expected something a bit more Venice carnival when the prompt mentioned that he always wore a mask, not one of those.  She hoped the clue in this case wasn’t the mask, as she had avoided the plague successfully so far and didn’t want to be late to that particular party,  but the square green thing on his cart resembled the tile at the mine entrance.  What do I do now though? I still don’t know what any of these things mean.  Approach him and see if he speaks I suppose.

    “Ladies and gentlemen, we are now approaching Alice Springs, please fasten your seatbelts and switch off all your devices ready for landing.  We hope you have enjoyed your flight.”

    #6380

    In reply to: Prompts of Madjourneys

    EricEric
    Keymaster

      After a few tries:

      1. As the group has split up at the fork of the road, we discover a total of 4 new characters from the Land of the Quirks. Tell us how each group is encountering some or all of these characters, who they are, their gibberish-sounding names, and what is their quirks, and what they wear, or their activities. Make our main characters and maybe some of the new ones meet back at a common spot with a special event after that.
      2. please rewrite the above, retaining the eccentricity but more grounded, less childish, and with a little darker tone and mystery.
      3. please try again, make Spoink and Flibbertigibbet human and give them less endearing or friendly behaviours; name two more characters met on the road.

      As the group split up at the fork of the road, each one encountered new characters from the Land of the Quirks.

      Zara and Yasmin, who took the left path, met a man named “Sproink” who was a small, wiry man with a spring for a tail. He was always bouncing around and speaking in a language that sounded like a mix of gibberish and music. Sproink was a collector of shiny objects and had a bag full of them, he was also a scavenger, always looking for things to add to his collection. He was wearing a small top hat and a monocle. He was also known to be a bit of a thief and a con artist.

      Xavier and Youssef, who took the right path, met a woman named “Flibbertigibbet” a tall, slender woman that had multiple arms. Flibbertigibbet was very talkative and friendly, always trying to strike up a conversation. She spoke in a language that sounded like a mix of gibberish and baby talk. She was a chef and was always carrying a pot and a spoon, but she also had a dark side, she was known to be a bit of a manipulator and a spy, always observing and gathering information for a mysterious organization. She was wearing a big chef hat and apron.

      As the group met back at the fork, they were surprised to find that Sproink and Flibbertigibbet had also met there. The four new characters joined the group, and together they continued their journey to find the “Key of Quirks”. Along the way, they met two more characters;

      They met a man named “Gibber” who was a tall, gaunt man with elongated limbs and fingers. He was always speaking in a language that sounded like a mix of gibberish and numbers. He was a mathematician and a scientist, always working on complex equations and theories. He was known to be a bit of a loner, and didn’t interact much with others. He was wearing a lab coat and goggles.

      They also met a woman named “Glimmer” she was a short, plump woman with a shimmering skin that seemed to change color depending on the light. She was always speaking in a language that sounded like a mix of gibberish and poetry. She was an artist and a performer, always creating and performing in different shows. She was known to be a bit of a flirt and a bit of a drama queen. She was wearing a colorful and eccentric clothing, such as a flowy dress and a large hat adorned with feathers.

      As the group journeyed on, they encountered more characters, each one with their own unique quirks and personalities. They met a variety of people, some friendly and some not so friendly, but all of them adding to the mysterious and unknown nature of the Land of the Quirks.

      As the group reached the end of their journey and found the “Key of Quirks”, they realized that the key was not just a physical object but a symbol of acceptance and embracing individuality. They learned that the true key to leaving the Land of the Quirks was understanding and accepting the quirks of oneself and others.

      The group had a bittersweet goodbye with their new friends, Sproink, Flibbertigibbet, Gibber and Glimmer, and the other characters they had met. They knew that they would always carry a piece of the Land of the Quirks with them and would always remember the mysterious and eccentric adventure they had.

      #6377

      In reply to: Orbs of Madjourneys

      The four adventurers, Zara, Xavier, Yasmin, and Youssef, stood in awe in front of the giant orb that seemed to open up to another realm. The light emanating from the orb was so bright, it was as if the sun was just inches away. The stalactites that hung from the cave’s ceiling sparkled like diamonds in the light, adding to the otherworldly beauty of the scene.

      “Look around,” Yasmin said, her voice filled with wonder. “Beauty is everywhere. You only have to look to see it.”

      The group was ready for an adventure and they knew that the orb in front of them was the key to their mad journey. Xavier stepped forward and reached out to touch the orb. As soon as his fingers made contact with the surface, the orb lit up and a pathway formed, leading into the brightly lit realm.

      The group stepped through the pathway and found themselves in a world unlike anything they had ever seen before. The sky was a vibrant shade of purple and the ground was covered in a lush, green grass. The orb they had just passed through was now behind them, but in front of them were smaller orbs, each one leading to a different path.

      Zara, Xavier, Yasmin, and Youssef looked at each other with excitement in their eyes. They knew that this was just the beginning of their mad journey.

      Xavier stepped forward and reached out to touch the orb. As soon as his fingers made contact with the surface, the orb lit up and a pathway formed, leading into the brightly lit realm.

      :fleuron:

      They walked into a small village, where they were greeted by a group of people wearing clothes that looked like they were from the 1920s. The people told them that they were in the land of the “Quirks”, a place where everything and everyone was a little bit different, and that they had to find the “Key of Quirks” in order to leave the land.

      The four friends, Zara, Xavier, Yasmin, and Youssef, soon found themselves on a mission to find the “Key of Quirks” that would allow them to leave the land of the Quirks. As they walked through a forest, they came across a fork in the road.

      Zara, the leader of the group, turned to the others and said, “Alright, we need to decide which way to go. Yasmin, what’s the plan?”

      Yasmin, the brains of the group, replied, “I suggest we take the left path. According to the map I found, it leads to the Quirky Quests area, where we might find the key.”

      Xavier, the joker of the group, chimed in, “I vote for the right path. It’s the road less traveled, and you know what they say, ‘the road less traveled is the road to adventure’ ”

      Youssef, the muscle of the group, added, “I don’t care which way we go, I just want to find some food. I’m starving!”

      Zara rolled her eyes, “Xavier, your jokes are getting old. And Youssef, we’re on a mission, we can’t just focus on food.”

      Xavier grinned, “But Zaraloon, where’s the fun in that?”

      Yasmin interjected, “Can we please focus? We need to make a decision. I propose we split up, Zara and I will take the left path, and Xavier and Youssef can take the right path.”

      Youssef nodded, “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. That way, if we don’t find the key, at least we’ll have found some food.”

      Xavier grinned, “Sounds like a plan, Xavimunk is ready for adventure!”

      Zara shook her head with a smile, “Alright, let’s do this.”

      The group split up, and as they walked away, they could be heard playfully bantering and joking with each other. Each one exemplifying their unique and distinct characters.

      #6262
      TracyTracy
      Participant

        From Tanganyika with Love

        continued  ~ part 3

        With thanks to Mike Rushby.

        Mchewe Estate. 22nd March 1935

        Dearest Family,

        I am feeling much better now that I am five months pregnant and have quite got
        my appetite back. Once again I go out with “the Mchewe Hunt” which is what George
        calls the procession made up of the donkey boy and donkey with Ann confidently riding
        astride, me beside the donkey with Georgie behind riding the stick which he much
        prefers to the donkey. The Alsatian pup, whom Ann for some unknown reason named
        ‘Tubbage’, and the two cats bring up the rear though sometimes Tubbage rushes
        ahead and nearly knocks me off my feet. He is not the loveable pet that Kelly was.
        It is just as well that I have recovered my health because my mother-in-law has
        decided to fly out from England to look after Ann and George when I am in hospital. I am
        very grateful for there is no one lse to whom I can turn. Kath Hickson-Wood is seldom on
        their farm because Hicky is working a guano claim and is making quite a good thing out of
        selling bat guano to the coffee farmers at Mbosi. They camp out at the claim, a series of
        caves in the hills across the valley and visit the farm only occasionally. Anne Molteno is
        off to Cape Town to have her baby at her mothers home and there are no women in
        Mbeya I know well. The few women are Government Officials wives and they come
        and go. I make so few trips to the little town that there is no chance to get on really
        friendly terms with them.

        Janey, the ayah, is turning into a treasure. She washes and irons well and keeps
        the children’s clothes cupboard beautifully neat. Ann and George however are still
        reluctant to go for walks with her. They find her dull because, like all African ayahs, she
        has no imagination and cannot play with them. She should however be able to help with
        the baby. Ann is very excited about the new baby. She so loves all little things.
        Yesterday she went into ecstasies over ten newly hatched chicks.

        She wants a little sister and perhaps it would be a good thing. Georgie is so very
        active and full of mischief that I feel another wild little boy might be more than I can
        manage. Although Ann is older, it is Georgie who always thinks up the mischief. They
        have just been having a fight. Georgie with the cooks umbrella versus Ann with her frilly
        pink sunshade with the inevitable result that the sunshade now has four broken ribs.
        Any way I never feel lonely now during the long hours George is busy on the
        shamba. The children keep me on my toes and I have plenty of sewing to do for the
        baby. George is very good about amusing the children before their bedtime and on
        Sundays. In the afternoons when it is not wet I take Ann and Georgie for a walk down
        the hill. George meets us at the bottom and helps me on the homeward journey. He
        grabs one child in each hand by the slack of their dungarees and they do a sort of giant
        stride up the hill, half walking half riding.

        Very much love,
        Eleanor.

        Mchewe Estate. 14th June 1935

        Dearest Family,

        A great flap here. We had a letter yesterday to say that mother-in-law will be
        arriving in four days time! George is very amused at my frantic efforts at spring cleaning
        but he has told me before that she is very house proud so I feel I must make the best
        of what we have.

        George is very busy building a store for the coffee which will soon be ripening.
        This time he is doing the bricklaying himself. It is quite a big building on the far end of the
        farm and close to the river. He is also making trays of chicken wire nailed to wooden
        frames with cheap calico stretched over the wire.

        Mother will have to sleep in the verandah room which leads off the bedroom
        which we share with the children. George will have to sleep in the outside spare room as
        there is no door between the bedroom and the verandah room. I am sewing frantically
        to make rose coloured curtains and bedspread out of material mother-in-law sent for
        Christmas and will have to make a curtain for the doorway. The kitchen badly needs
        whitewashing but George says he cannot spare the labour so I hope mother won’t look.
        To complicate matters, George has been invited to lunch with the Governor on the day
        of Mother’s arrival. After lunch they are to visit the newly stocked trout streams in the
        Mporotos. I hope he gets back to Mbeya in good time to meet mother’s plane.
        Ann has been off colour for a week. She looks very pale and her pretty fair hair,
        normally so shiny, is dull and lifeless. It is such a pity that mother should see her like this
        because first impressions do count so much and I am looking to the children to attract
        attention from me. I am the size of a circus tent and hardly a dream daughter-in-law.
        Georgie, thank goodness, is blooming but he has suddenly developed a disgusting
        habit of spitting on the floor in the manner of the natives. I feel he might say “Gran, look
        how far I can spit and give an enthusiastic demonstration.

        Just hold thumbs that all goes well.

        your loving but anxious,
        Eleanor.

        Mchewe Estate. 28th June 1935

        Dearest Family,

        Mother-in-law duly arrived in the District Commissioner’s car. George did not dare
        to use the A.C. as she is being very temperamental just now. They also brought the
        mail bag which contained a parcel of lovely baby clothes from you. Thank you very
        much. Mother-in-law is very put out because the large parcel she posted by surface
        mail has not yet arrived.

        Mother arrived looking very smart in an ankle length afternoon frock of golden
        brown crepe and smart hat, and wearing some very good rings. She is a very
        handsome woman with the very fair complexion that goes with red hair. The hair, once
        Titan, must now be grey but it has been very successfully tinted and set. I of course,
        was shapeless in a cotton maternity frock and no credit to you. However, so far, motherin-
        law has been uncritical and friendly and charmed with the children who have taken to
        her. Mother does not think that the children resemble me in any way. Ann resembles her
        family the Purdys and Georgie is a Morley, her mother’s family. She says they had the
        same dark eyes and rather full mouths. I say feebly, “But Georgie has my colouring”, but
        mother won’t hear of it. So now you know! Ann is a Purdy and Georgie a Morley.
        Perhaps number three will be a Leslie.

        What a scramble I had getting ready for mother. Her little room really looks pretty
        and fresh, but the locally woven grass mats arrived only minutes before mother did. I
        also frantically overhauled our clothes and it a good thing that I did so because mother
        has been going through all the cupboards looking for mending. Mother is kept so busy
        in her own home that I think she finds time hangs on her hands here. She is very good at
        entertaining the children and has even tried her hand at picking coffee a couple of times.
        Mother cannot get used to the native boy servants but likes Janey, so Janey keeps her
        room in order. Mother prefers to wash and iron her own clothes.

        I almost lost our cook through mother’s surplus energy! Abel our previous cook
        took a new wife last month and, as the new wife, and Janey the old, were daggers
        drawn, Abel moved off to a job on the Lupa leaving Janey and her daughter here.
        The new cook is capable, but he is a fearsome looking individual called Alfani. He has a
        thick fuzz of hair which he wears long, sometimes hidden by a dingy turban, and he
        wears big brass earrings. I think he must be part Somali because he has a hawk nose
        and a real Brigand look. His kitchen is never really clean but he is an excellent cook and
        as cooks are hard to come by here I just keep away from the kitchen. Not so mother!
        A few days after her arrival she suggested kindly that I should lie down after lunch
        so I rested with the children whilst mother, unknown to me, went out to the kitchen and
        not only scrubbed the table and shelves but took the old iron stove to pieces and
        cleaned that. Unfortunately in her zeal she poked a hole through the stove pipe.
        Had I known of these activities I would have foreseen the cook’s reaction when
        he returned that evening to cook the supper. he was furious and wished to leave on the
        spot and demanded his wages forthwith. The old Memsahib had insulted him by
        scrubbing his already spotless kitchen and had broken his stove and made it impossible
        for him to cook. This tirade was accompanied by such waving of hands and rolling of
        eyes that I longed to sack him on the spot. However I dared not as I might not get
        another cook for weeks. So I smoothed him down and he patched up the stove pipe
        with a bit of tin and some wire and produced a good meal. I am wondering what
        transformations will be worked when I am in hospital.

        Our food is really good but mother just pecks at it. No wonder really, because
        she has had some shocks. One day she found the kitchen boy diligently scrubbing the box lavatory seat with a scrubbing brush which he dipped into one of my best large
        saucepans! No one can foresee what these boys will do. In these remote areas house
        servants are usually recruited from the ranks of the very primitive farm labourers, who first
        come to the farm as naked savages, and their notions of hygiene simply don’t exist.
        One day I said to mother in George’s presence “When we were newly married,
        mother, George used to brag about your cooking and say that you would run a home
        like this yourself with perhaps one ‘toto’. Mother replied tartly, “That was very bad of
        George and not true. If my husband had brought me out here I would not have stayed a
        month. I think you manage very well.” Which reply made me warm to mother a lot.
        To complicate things we have a new pup, a little white bull terrier bitch whom
        George has named Fanny. She is tiny and not yet house trained but seems a plucky
        and attractive little animal though there is no denying that she does look like a piglet.

        Very much love to all,
        Eleanor.

        Mchewe Estate. 3rd August 1935

        Dearest Family,

        Here I am in hospital, comfortably in bed with our new daughter in her basket
        beside me. She is a lovely little thing, very plump and cuddly and pink and white and
        her head is covered with tiny curls the colour of Golden Syrup. We meant to call her
        Margery Kate, after our Marj and my mother-in-law whose name is Catherine.
        I am enjoying the rest, knowing that George and mother will be coping
        successfully on the farm. My room is full of flowers, particularly with the roses and
        carnations which grow so well here. Kate was not due until August 5th but the doctor
        wanted me to come in good time in view of my tiresome early pregnancy.

        For weeks beforehand George had tinkered with the A.C. and we started for
        Mbeya gaily enough on the twenty ninth, however, after going like a dream for a couple
        of miles, she simply collapsed from exhaustion at the foot of a hill and all the efforts of
        the farm boys who had been sent ahead for such an emergency failed to start her. So
        George sent back to the farm for the machila and I sat in the shade of a tree, wondering
        what would happen if I had the baby there and then, whilst George went on tinkering
        with the car. Suddenly she sprang into life and we roared up that hill and all the way into
        Mbeya. The doctor welcomed us pleasantly and we had tea with his family before I
        settled into my room. Later he examined me and said that it was unlikely that the baby
        would be born for several days. The new and efficient German nurse said, “Thank
        goodness for that.” There was a man in hospital dying from a stomach cancer and she
        had not had a decent nights sleep for three nights.

        Kate however had other plans. I woke in the early morning with labour pains but
        anxious not to disturb the nurse, I lay and read or tried to read a book, hoping that I
        would not have to call the nurse until daybreak. However at four a.m., I went out into the
        wind which was howling along the open verandah and knocked on the nurse’s door. She
        got up and very crossly informed me that I was imagining things and should get back to
        bed at once. She said “It cannot be so. The Doctor has said it.” I said “Of course it is,”
        and then and there the water broke and clinched my argument. She then went into a flat
        spin. “But the bed is not ready and my instruments are not ready,” and she flew around
        to rectify this and also sent an African orderly to call the doctor. I paced the floor saying
        warningly “Hurry up with that bed. I am going to have the baby now!” She shrieked
        “Take off your dressing gown.” But I was passed caring. I flung myself on the bed and
        there was Kate. The nurse had done all that was necessary by the time the doctor
        arrived.

        A funny thing was, that whilst Kate was being born on the bed, a black cat had
        kittens under it! The doctor was furious with the nurse but the poor thing must have crept
        in out of the cold wind when I went to call the nurse. A happy omen I feel for the baby’s
        future. George had no anxiety this time. He stayed at the hospital with me until ten
        o’clock when he went down to the hotel to sleep and he received the news in a note
        from me with his early morning tea. He went to the farm next morning but will return on
        the sixth to fetch me home.

        I do feel so happy. A very special husband and three lovely children. What
        more could anyone possibly want.

        Lots and lots of love,
        Eleanor.

        Mchewe Estate. 20th August 1935

        Dearest Family,

        Well here we are back at home and all is very well. The new baby is very placid
        and so pretty. Mother is delighted with her and Ann loved her at sight but Georgie is not
        so sure. At first he said, “Your baby is no good. Chuck her in the kalonga.” The kalonga
        being the ravine beside the house , where, I regret to say, much of the kitchen refuse is
        dumped. he is very jealous when I carry Kate around or feed her but is ready to admire
        her when she is lying alone in her basket.

        George walked all the way from the farm to fetch us home. He hired a car and
        native driver from the hotel, but drove us home himself going with such care over ruts
        and bumps. We had a great welcome from mother who had had the whole house
        spring cleaned. However George loyally says it looks just as nice when I am in charge.
        Mother obviously, had had more than enough of the back of beyond and
        decided to stay on only one week after my return home. She had gone into the kitchen
        one day just in time to see the houseboy scooping the custard he had spilt on the table
        back into the jug with the side of his hand. No doubt it would have been served up
        without a word. On another occasion she had walked in on the cook’s daily ablutions. He
        was standing in a small bowl of water in the centre of the kitchen, absolutely naked,
        enjoying a slipper bath. She left last Wednesday and gave us a big laugh before she
        left. She never got over her horror of eating food prepared by our cook and used to
        push it around her plate. Well, when the time came for mother to leave for the plane, she
        put on the very smart frock in which she had arrived, and then came into the sitting room
        exclaiming in dismay “Just look what has happened, I must have lost a stone!’ We
        looked, and sure enough, the dress which had been ankle deep before, now touched
        the floor. “Good show mother.” said George unfeelingly. “You ought to be jolly grateful,
        you needed to lose weight and it would have cost you the earth at a beauty parlour to
        get that sylph-like figure.”

        When mother left she took, in a perforated matchbox, one of the frilly mantis that
        live on our roses. She means to keep it in a goldfish bowl in her dining room at home.
        Georgie and Ann filled another matchbox with dead flies for food for the mantis on the
        journey.

        Now that mother has left, Georgie and Ann attach themselves to me and firmly
        refuse to have anything to do with the ayah,Janey. She in any case now wishes to have
        a rest. Mother tipped her well and gave her several cotton frocks so I suspect she wants
        to go back to her hometown in Northern Rhodesia to show off a bit.
        Georgie has just sidled up with a very roguish look. He asked “You like your
        baby?” I said “Yes indeed I do.” He said “I’ll prick your baby with a velly big thorn.”

        Who would be a mother!
        Eleanor

        Mchewe Estate. 20th September 1935

        Dearest Family,

        I have been rather in the wars with toothache and as there is still no dentist at
        Mbeya to do the fillings, I had to have four molars extracted at the hospital. George
        says it is fascinating to watch me at mealtimes these days because there is such a gleam
        of satisfaction in my eye when I do manage to get two teeth to meet on a mouthful.
        About those scissors Marj sent Ann. It was not such a good idea. First she cut off tufts of
        George’s hair so that he now looks like a bad case of ringworm and then she cut a scalp
        lock, a whole fist full of her own shining hair, which George so loves. George scolded
        Ann and she burst into floods of tears. Such a thing as a scolding from her darling daddy
        had never happened before. George immediately made a long drooping moustache
        out of the shorn lock and soon had her smiling again. George is always very gentle with
        Ann. One has to be , because she is frightfully sensitive to criticism.

        I am kept pretty busy these days, Janey has left and my houseboy has been ill
        with pneumonia. I now have to wash all the children’s things and my own, (the cook does
        George’s clothes) and look after the three children. Believe me, I can hardly keep awake
        for Kate’s ten o’clock feed.

        I do hope I shall get some new servants next month because I also got George
        to give notice to the cook. I intercepted him last week as he was storming down the hill
        with my large kitchen knife in his hand. “Where are you going with my knife?” I asked.
        “I’m going to kill a man!” said Alfani, rolling his eyes and looking extremely ferocious. “He
        has taken my wife.” “Not with my knife”, said I reaching for it. So off Alfani went, bent on
        vengeance and I returned the knife to the kitchen. Dinner was served and I made no
        enquiries but I feel that I need someone more restful in the kitchen than our brigand
        Alfani.

        George has been working on the car and has now fitted yet another radiator. This
        is a lorry one and much too tall to be covered by the A.C.’s elegant bonnet which is
        secured by an old strap. The poor old A.C. now looks like an ancient shoe with a turned
        up toe. It only needs me in it with the children to make a fine illustration to the old rhyme!
        Ann and Georgie are going through a climbing phase. They practically live in
        trees. I rushed out this morning to investigate loud screams and found Georgie hanging
        from a fork in a tree by one ankle, whilst Ann stood below on tiptoe with hands stretched
        upwards to support his head.

        Do I sound as though I have straws in my hair? I have.
        Lots of love,
        Eleanor.

        Mchewe Estate. 11th October 1935

        Dearest Family,

        Thank goodness! I have a new ayah name Mary. I had heard that there was a
        good ayah out of work at Tukuyu 60 miles away so sent a messenger to fetch her. She
        arrived after dark wearing a bright dress and a cheerful smile and looked very suitable by
        the light of a storm lamp. I was horrified next morning to see her in daylight. She was
        dressed all in black and had a rather sinister look. She reminds me rather of your old maid
        Candace who overheard me laughing a few days before Ann was born and croaked
        “Yes , Miss Eleanor, today you laugh but next week you might be dead.” Remember
        how livid you were, dad?

        I think Mary has the same grim philosophy. Ann took one look at her and said,
        “What a horrible old lady, mummy.” Georgie just said “Go away”, both in English and Ki-
        Swahili. Anyway Mary’s references are good so I shall keep her on to help with Kate
        who is thriving and bonny and placid.

        Thank you for the offer of toys for Christmas but, if you don’t mind, I’d rather have
        some clothing for the children. Ann is quite contented with her dolls Barbara and Yvonne.
        Barbara’s once beautiful face is now pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle having come
        into contact with Georgie’s ever busy hammer. However Ann says she will love her for
        ever and she doesn’t want another doll. Yvonne’s hay day is over too. She
        disappeared for weeks and we think Fanny, the pup, was the culprit. Ann discovered
        Yvonne one morning in some long wet weeds. Poor Yvonne is now a ghost of her
        former self. All the sophisticated make up was washed off her papier-mâché face and
        her hair is decidedly bedraggled, but Ann was radiant as she tucked her back into bed
        and Yvonne is as precious to Ann as she ever was.

        Georgie simply does not care for toys. His paint box, hammer and the trenching
        hoe George gave him for his second birthday are all he wants or needs. Both children
        love books but I sometimes wonder whether they stimulate Ann’s imagination too much.
        The characters all become friends of hers and she makes up stories about them to tell
        Georgie. She adores that illustrated children’s Bible Mummy sent her but you would be
        astonished at the yarns she spins about “me and my friend Jesus.” She also will call
        Moses “Old Noses”, and looking at a picture of Jacob’s dream, with the shining angels
        on the ladder between heaven and earth, she said “Georgie, if you see an angel, don’t
        touch it, it’s hot.”

        Eleanor.

        Mchewe Estate. 17th October 1935

        Dearest Family,

        I take back the disparaging things I said about my new Ayah, because she has
        proved her worth in an unexpected way. On Wednesday morning I settled Kate in he
        cot after her ten o’clock feed and sat sewing at the dining room table with Ann and
        Georgie opposite me, both absorbed in painting pictures in identical seed catalogues.
        Suddenly there was a terrific bang on the back door, followed by an even heavier blow.
        The door was just behind me and I got up and opened it. There, almost filling the door
        frame, stood a huge native with staring eyes and his teeth showing in a mad grimace. In
        his hand he held a rolled umbrella by the ferrule, the shaft I noticed was unusually long
        and thick and the handle was a big round knob.

        I was terrified as you can imagine, especially as, through the gap under the
        native’s raised arm, I could see the new cook and the kitchen boy running away down to
        the shamba! I hastily tried to shut and lock the door but the man just brushed me aside.
        For a moment he stood over me with the umbrella raised as though to strike. Rather
        fortunately, I now think, I was too petrified to say a word. The children never moved but
        Tubbage, the Alsatian, got up and jumped out of the window!

        Then the native turned away and still with the same fixed stare and grimace,
        began to attack the furniture with his umbrella. Tables and chairs were overturned and
        books and ornaments scattered on the floor. When the madman had his back turned and
        was busily bashing the couch, I slipped round the dining room table, took Ann and
        Georgie by the hand and fled through the front door to the garage where I hid the
        children in the car. All this took several minutes because naturally the children were
        terrified. I was worried to death about the baby left alone in the bedroom and as soon
        as I had Ann and Georgie settled I ran back to the house.

        I reached the now open front door just as Kianda the houseboy opened the back
        door of the lounge. He had been away at the river washing clothes but, on hearing of the
        madman from the kitchen boy he had armed himself with a stout stick and very pluckily,
        because he is not a robust boy, had returned to the house to eject the intruder. He
        rushed to attack immediately and I heard a terrific exchange of blows behind me as I
        opened our bedroom door. You can imagine what my feelings were when I was
        confronted by an empty cot! Just then there was an uproar inside as all the farm
        labourers armed with hoes and pangas and sticks, streamed into the living room from the
        shamba whence they had been summoned by the cook. In no time at all the huge
        native was hustled out of the house, flung down the front steps, and securely tied up
        with strips of cloth.

        In the lull that followed I heard a frightened voice calling from the bathroom.
        ”Memsahib is that you? The child is here with me.” I hastily opened the bathroom door
        to find Mary couched in a corner by the bath, shielding Kate with her body. Mary had
        seen the big native enter the house and her first thought had been for her charge. I
        thanked her and promised her a reward for her loyalty, and quickly returned to the garage
        to reassure Ann and Georgie. I met George who looked white and exhausted as well
        he might having run up hill all the way from the coffee store. The kitchen boy had led him
        to expect the worst and he was most relieved to find us all unhurt if a bit shaken.
        We returned to the house by the back way whilst George went to the front and
        ordered our labourers to take their prisoner and lock him up in the store. George then
        discussed the whole affair with his Headman and all the labourers after which he reported
        to me. “The boys say that the bastard is an ex-Askari from Nyasaland. He is not mad as
        you thought but he smokes bhang and has these attacks. I suppose I should take him to
        Mbeya and have him up in court. But if I do that you’ll have to give evidence and that will be a nuisance as the car won’t go and there is also the baby to consider.”

        Eventually we decided to leave the man to sleep off the effects of the Bhang
        until evening when he would be tried before an impromptu court consisting of George,
        the local Jumbe(Headman) and village Elders, and our own farm boys and any other
        interested spectators. It was not long before I knew the verdict because I heard the
        sound of lashes. I was not sorry at all because I felt the man deserved his punishment
        and so did all the Africans. They love children and despise anyone who harms or
        frightens them. With great enthusiasm they frog-marched him off our land, and I sincerely
        hope that that is the last we see or him. Ann and Georgie don’t seem to brood over this
        affair at all. The man was naughty and he was spanked, a quite reasonable state of
        affairs. This morning they hid away in the small thatched chicken house. This is a little brick
        building about four feet square which Ann covets as a dolls house. They came back
        covered in stick fleas which I had to remove with paraffin. My hens are laying well but
        they all have the ‘gapes’! I wouldn’t run a chicken farm for anything, hens are such fussy,
        squawking things.

        Now don’t go worrying about my experience with the native. Such things
        happen only once in a lifetime. We are all very well and happy, and life, apart from the
        children’s pranks is very tranquil.

        Lots and lots of love,
        Eleanor.

        Mchewe Estate. 25th October 1935

        Dearest Family,

        The hot winds have dried up the shamba alarmingly and we hope every day for
        rain. The prices for coffee, on the London market, continue to be low and the local
        planters are very depressed. Coffee grows well enough here but we are over 400
        miles from the railway and transport to the railhead by lorry is very expensive. Then, as
        there is no East African Marketing Board, the coffee must be shipped to England for
        sale. Unless the coffee fetches at least 90 pounds a ton it simply doesn’t pay to grow it.
        When we started planting in 1931 coffee was fetching as much as 115 pounds a ton but
        prices this year were between 45 and 55 pounds. We have practically exhausted our
        capitol and so have all our neighbours. The Hickson -Woods have been keeping their
        pot boiling by selling bat guano to the coffee farmers at Mbosi but now everyone is
        broke and there is not a market for fertilisers. They are offering their farm for sale at a very
        low price.

        Major Jones has got a job working on the district roads and Max Coster talks of
        returning to his work as a geologist. George says he will have to go gold digging on the
        Lupa unless there is a big improvement in the market. Luckily we can live quite cheaply
        here. We have a good vegetable garden, milk is cheap and we have plenty of fruit.
        There are mulberries, pawpaws, grenadillas, peaches, and wine berries. The wine
        berries are very pretty but insipid though Ann and Georgie love them. Each morning,
        before breakfast, the old garden boy brings berries for Ann and Georgie. With a thorn
        the old man pins a large leaf from a wild fig tree into a cone which he fills with scarlet wine
        berries. There is always a cone for each child and they wait eagerly outside for the daily
        ceremony of presentation.

        The rats are being a nuisance again. Both our cats, Skinny Winnie and Blackboy
        disappeared a few weeks ago. We think they made a meal for a leopard. I wrote last
        week to our grocer at Mbalizi asking him whether he could let us have a couple of kittens
        as I have often seen cats in his store. The messenger returned with a nailed down box.
        The kitchen boy was called to prize up the lid and the children stood by in eager
        anticipation. Out jumped two snarling and spitting creatures. One rushed into the kalonga
        and the other into the house and before they were captured they had drawn blood from
        several boys. I told the boys to replace the cats in the box as I intended to return them
        forthwith. They had the colouring, stripes and dispositions of wild cats and I certainly
        didn’t want them as pets, but before the boys could replace the lid the cats escaped
        once more into the undergrowth in the kalonga. George fetched his shotgun and said he
        would shoot the cats on sight or they would kill our chickens. This was more easily said
        than done because the cats could not be found. However during the night the cats
        climbed up into the loft af the house and we could hear them moving around on the reed
        ceiling.

        I said to George,”Oh leave the poor things. At least they might frighten the rats
        away.” That afternoon as we were having tea a thin stream of liquid filtered through the
        ceiling on George’s head. Oh dear!!! That of course was the end. Some raw meat was
        put on the lawn for bait and yesterday George shot both cats.

        I regret to end with the sad story of Mary, heroine in my last letter and outcast in
        this. She came to work quite drunk two days running and I simply had to get rid of her. I
        have heard since from Kath Wood that Mary lost her last job at Tukuyu for the same
        reason. She was ayah to twin girls and one day set their pram on fire.

        So once again my hands are more than full with three lively children. I did say
        didn’t I, when Ann was born that I wanted six children?

        Very much love from us all, Eleanor.

        Mchewe Estate. 8th November 1935

        Dearest Family,

        To set your minds at rest I must tell you that the native who so frightened me and
        the children is now in jail for attacking a Greek at Mbalizi. I hear he is to be sent back to
        Rhodesia when he has finished his sentence.

        Yesterday we had one of our rare trips to Mbeya. George managed to get a couple of
        second hand tyres for the old car and had again got her to work so we are celebrating our
        wedding anniversary by going on an outing. I wore the green and fawn striped silk dress
        mother bought me and the hat and shoes you sent for my birthday and felt like a million
        dollars, for a change. The children all wore new clothes too and I felt very proud of them.
        Ann is still very fair and with her refined little features and straight silky hair she
        looks like Alice in Wonderland. Georgie is dark and sturdy and looks best in khaki shirt
        and shorts and sun helmet. Kate is a pink and gold baby and looks good enough to eat.
        We went straight to the hotel at Mbeya and had the usual warm welcome from
        Ken and Aunty May Menzies. Aunty May wears her hair cut short like a mans and
        usually wears shirt and tie and riding breeches and boots. She always looks ready to go
        on safari at a moments notice as indeed she is. She is often called out to a case of illness
        at some remote spot.

        There were lots of people at the hotel from farms in the district and from the
        diggings. I met women I had not seen for four years. One, a Mrs Masters from Tukuyu,
        said in the lounge, “My God! Last time I saw you , you were just a girl and here you are
        now with two children.” To which I replied with pride, “There is another one in a pram on
        the verandah if you care to look!” Great hilarity in the lounge. The people from the
        diggings seem to have plenty of money to throw around. There was a big party on the
        go in the bar.

        One of our shamba boys died last Friday and all his fellow workers and our
        house boys had the day off to attend the funeral. From what I can gather the local
        funerals are quite cheery affairs. The corpse is dressed in his best clothes and laid
        outside his hut and all who are interested may view the body and pay their respects.
        The heir then calls upon anyone who had a grudge against the dead man to say his say
        and thereafter hold his tongue forever. Then all the friends pay tribute to the dead man
        after which he is buried to the accompaniment of what sounds from a distance, very
        cheerful keening.

        Most of our workmen are pagans though there is a Lutheran Mission nearby and
        a big Roman Catholic Mission in the area too. My present cook, however, claims to be
        a Christian. He certainly went to a mission school and can read and write and also sing
        hymns in Ki-Swahili. When I first engaged him I used to find a large open Bible
        prominently displayed on the kitchen table. The cook is middle aged and arrived here
        with a sensible matronly wife. To my surprise one day he brought along a young girl,
        very plump and giggly and announced proudly that she was his new wife, I said,”But I
        thought you were a Christian Jeremiah? Christians don’t have two wives.” To which he
        replied, “Oh Memsahib, God won’t mind. He knows an African needs two wives – one
        to go with him when he goes away to work and one to stay behind at home to cultivate
        the shamba.

        Needles to say, it is the old wife who has gone to till the family plot.

        With love to all,
        Eleanor.

        Mchewe Estate. 21st November 1935

        Dearest Family,

        The drought has broken with a bang. We had a heavy storm in the hills behind
        the house. Hail fell thick and fast. So nice for all the tiny new berries on the coffee! The
        kids loved the excitement and three times Ann and Georgie ran out for a shower under
        the eaves and had to be changed. After the third time I was fed up and made them both
        lie on their beds whilst George and I had lunch in peace. I told Ann to keep the
        casement shut as otherwise the rain would drive in on her bed. Half way through lunch I
        heard delighted squeals from Georgie and went into the bedroom to investigate. Ann
        was standing on the outer sill in the rain but had shut the window as ordered. “Well
        Mummy , you didn’t say I mustn’t stand on the window sill, and I did shut the window.”
        George is working so hard on the farm. I have a horrible feeling however that it is
        what the Africans call ‘Kazi buri’ (waste of effort) as there seems no chance of the price of
        coffee improving as long as this world depression continues. The worry is that our capitol
        is nearly exhausted. Food is becoming difficult now that our neighbours have left. I used
        to buy delicious butter from Kath Hickson-Wood and an African butcher used to kill a
        beast once a week. Now that we are his only European customers he very rarely kills
        anything larger than a goat, and though we do eat goat, believe me it is not from choice.
        We have of course got plenty to eat, but our diet is very monotonous. I was
        delighted when George shot a large bushbuck last week. What we could not use I cut
        into strips and the salted strips are now hanging in the open garage to dry.

        With love to all,
        Eleanor.

        Mchewe Estate. 6th December 1935

        Dearest Family,

        We have had a lot of rain and the countryside is lovely and green. Last week
        George went to Mbeya taking Ann with him. This was a big adventure for Ann because
        never before had she been anywhere without me. She was in a most blissful state as
        she drove off in the old car clutching a little basket containing sandwiches and half a bottle
        of milk. She looked so pretty in a new blue frock and with her tiny plaits tied with
        matching blue ribbons. When Ann is animated she looks charming because her normally
        pale cheeks become rosy and she shows her pretty dimples.

        As I am still without an ayah I rather looked forward to a quiet morning with only
        Georgie and Margery Kate to care for, but Georgie found it dull without Ann and wanted
        to be entertained and even the normally placid baby was peevish. Then in mid morning
        the rain came down in torrents, the result of a cloudburst in the hills directly behind our
        house. The ravine next to our house was a terrifying sight. It appeared to be a great
        muddy, roaring waterfall reaching from the very top of the hill to a point about 30 yards
        behind our house and then the stream rushed on down the gorge in an angry brown
        flood. The roar of the water was so great that we had to yell at one another to be heard.
        By lunch time the rain had stopped and I anxiously awaited the return of Ann and
        George. They returned on foot, drenched and hungry at about 2.30pm . George had
        had to abandon the car on the main road as the Mchewe River had overflowed and
        turned the road into a muddy lake. The lower part of the shamba had also been flooded
        and the water receded leaving branches and driftwood amongst the coffee. This was my
        first experience of a real tropical storm. I am afraid that after the battering the coffee has
        had there is little hope of a decent crop next year.

        Anyway Christmas is coming so we don’t dwell on these mishaps. The children
        have already chosen their tree from amongst the young cypresses in the vegetable
        garden. We all send our love and hope that you too will have a Happy Christmas.

        Eleanor

        Mchewe Estate. 22nd December 1935

        Dearest Family,

        I’ve been in the wars with my staff. The cook has been away ill for ten days but is
        back today though shaky and full of self pity. The houseboy, who really has been a brick
        during the cooks absence has now taken to his bed and I feel like taking to Mine! The
        children however have the Christmas spirit and are making weird and wonderful paper
        decorations. George’s contribution was to have the house whitewashed throughout and
        it looks beautifully fresh.

        My best bit of news is that my old ayah Janey has been to see me and would
        like to start working here again on Jan 1st. We are all very well. We meant to give
        ourselves an outing to Mbeya as a Christmas treat but here there is an outbreak of
        enteric fever there so will now not go. We have had two visitors from the Diggings this
        week. The children see so few strangers that they were fascinated and hung around
        staring. Ann sat down on the arm of the couch beside one and studied his profile.
        Suddenly she announced in her clear voice, “Mummy do you know, this man has got
        wax in his ears!” Very awkward pause in the conversation. By the way when I was
        cleaning out little Kate’s ears with a swab of cotton wool a few days ago, Ann asked
        “Mummy, do bees have wax in their ears? Well, where do you get beeswax from
        then?”

        I meant to keep your Christmas parcel unopened until Christmas Eve but could
        not resist peeping today. What lovely things! Ann so loves pretties and will be
        delighted with her frocks. My dress is just right and I love Georgie’s manly little flannel
        shorts and blue shirt. We have bought them each a watering can. I suppose I shall
        regret this later. One of your most welcome gifts is the album of nursery rhyme records. I
        am so fed up with those that we have. Both children love singing. I put a record on the
        gramophone geared to slow and off they go . Georgie sings more slowly than Ann but
        much more tunefully. Ann sings in a flat monotone but Georgie with great expression.
        You ought to hear him render ‘Sing a song of sixpence’. He cannot pronounce an R or
        an S. Mother has sent a large home made Christmas pudding and a fine Christmas
        cake and George will shoot some partridges for Christmas dinner.
        Think of us as I shall certainly think of you.

        Your very loving,
        Eleanor.

        Mchewe Estate. 2nd January 1936

        Dearest Family,

        Christmas was fun! The tree looked very gay with its load of tinsel, candles and
        red crackers and the coloured balloons you sent. All the children got plenty of toys
        thanks to Grandparents and Aunts. George made Ann a large doll’s bed and I made
        some elegant bedding, Barbara, the big doll is now permanently bed ridden. Her poor
        shattered head has come all unstuck and though I have pieced it together again it is a sad
        sight. If you have not yet chosen a present for her birthday next month would you
        please get a new head from the Handy House. I enclose measurements. Ann does so
        love the doll. She always calls her, “My little girl”, and she keeps the doll’s bed beside
        her own and never fails to kiss her goodnight.

        We had no guests for Christmas this year but we were quite festive. Ann
        decorated the dinner table with small pink roses and forget-me-knots and tinsel and the
        crackers from the tree. It was a wet day but we played the new records and both
        George and I worked hard to make it a really happy day for the children. The children
        were hugely delighted when George made himself a revolting set of false teeth out of
        plasticine and a moustache and beard of paper straw from a chocolate box. “Oh Daddy
        you look exactly like Father Christmas!” cried an enthralled Ann. Before bedtime we lit
        all the candles on the tree and sang ‘Away in a Manger’, and then we opened the box of
        starlights you sent and Ann and Georgie had their first experience of fireworks.
        After the children went to bed things deteriorated. First George went for his bath
        and found and killed a large black snake in the bathroom. It must have been in the
        bathroom when I bathed the children earlier in the evening. Then I developed bad
        toothache which kept me awake all night and was agonising next day. Unfortunately the
        bridge between the farm and Mbeya had been washed away and the water was too
        deep for the car to ford until the 30th when at last I was able to take my poor swollen
        face to Mbeya. There is now a young German woman dentist working at the hospital.
        She pulled out the offending molar which had a large abscess attached to it.
        Whilst the dentist attended to me, Ann and Georgie played happily with the
        doctor’s children. I wish they could play more often with other children. Dr Eckhardt was
        very pleased with Margery Kate who at seven months weighs 17 lbs and has lovely
        rosy cheeks. He admired Ann and told her that she looked just like a German girl. “No I
        don’t”, cried Ann indignantly, “I’m English!”

        We were caught in a rain storm going home and as the old car still has no
        windscreen or side curtains we all got soaked except for the baby who was snugly
        wrapped in my raincoat. The kids thought it great fun. Ann is growing up fast now. She
        likes to ‘help mummy’. She is a perfectionist at four years old which is rather trying. She
        gets so discouraged when things do not turn out as well as she means them to. Sewing
        is constantly being unpicked and paintings torn up. She is a very sensitive child.
        Georgie is quite different. He is a man of action, but not silent. He talks incessantly
        but lisps and stumbles over some words. At one time Ann and Georgie often
        conversed in Ki-Swahili but they now scorn to do so. If either forgets and uses a Swahili
        word, the other points a scornful finger and shouts “You black toto”.

        With love to all,
        Eleanor.

        #6260
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          From Tanganyika with Love

          With thanks to Mike Rushby.

          • “The letters of Eleanor Dunbar Leslie to her parents and her sister in South Africa
            concerning her life with George Gilman Rushby of Tanganyika, and the trials and
            joys of bringing up a family in pioneering conditions.

          These letters were transcribed from copies of letters typed by Eleanor Rushby from
          the originals which were in the estate of Marjorie Leslie, Eleanor’s sister. Eleanor
          kept no diary of her life in Tanganyika, so these letters were the living record of an
          important part of her life.

          Prelude
          Having walked across Africa from the East coast to Ubangi Shauri Chad
          in French Equatorial Africa, hunting elephant all the way, George Rushby
          made his way down the Congo to Leopoldville. He then caught a ship to
          Europe and had a holiday in Brussels and Paris before visiting his family
          in England. He developed blackwater fever and was extremely ill for a
          while. When he recovered he went to London to arrange his return to
          Africa.

          Whilst staying at the Overseas Club he met Eileen Graham who had come
          to England from Cape Town to study music. On hearing that George was
          sailing for Cape Town she arranged to introduce him to her friend
          Eleanor Dunbar Leslie. “You’ll need someone lively to show you around,”
          she said. “She’s as smart as paint, a keen mountaineer, a very good school
          teacher, and she’s attractive. You can’t miss her, because her father is a
          well known Cape Town Magistrate. And,” she added “I’ve already written
          and told her what ship you are arriving on.”

          Eleanor duly met the ship. She and George immediately fell in love.
          Within thirty six hours he had proposed marriage and was accepted
          despite the misgivings of her parents. As she was under contract to her
          High School, she remained in South Africa for several months whilst
          George headed for Tanganyika looking for a farm where he could build
          their home.

          These details are a summary of chapter thirteen of the Biography of
          George Gilman Rushby ‘The Hunter is Death “ by T.V.Bulpin.

           

          Dearest Marj,
          Terrifically exciting news! I’ve just become engaged to an Englishman whom I
          met last Monday. The result is a family upheaval which you will have no difficulty in
          imagining!!

          The Aunts think it all highly romantic and cry in delight “Now isn’t that just like our
          El!” Mummy says she doesn’t know what to think, that anyway I was always a harum
          scarum and she rather expected something like this to happen. However I know that
          she thinks George highly attractive. “Such a nice smile and gentle manner, and such
          good hands“ she murmurs appreciatively. “But WHY AN ELEPHANT HUNTER?” she
          ends in a wail, as though elephant hunting was an unmentionable profession.
          Anyway I don’t think so. Anyone can marry a bank clerk or a lawyer or even a
          millionaire – but whoever heard of anyone marrying anyone as exciting as an elephant
          hunter? I’m thrilled to bits.

          Daddy also takes a dim view of George’s profession, and of George himself as
          a husband for me. He says that I am so impulsive and have such wild enthusiasms that I
          need someone conservative and steady to give me some serenity and some ballast.
          Dad says George is a handsome fellow and a good enough chap he is sure, but
          he is obviously a man of the world and hints darkly at a possible PAST. George says
          he has nothing of the kind and anyway I’m the first girl he has asked to marry him. I don’t
          care anyway, I’d gladly marry him tomorrow, but Dad has other ideas.

          He sat in his armchair to deliver his verdict, wearing the same look he must wear
          on the bench. If we marry, and he doesn’t think it would be a good thing, George must
          buy a comfortable house for me in Central Africa where I can stay safely when he goes
          hunting. I interrupted to say “But I’m going too”, but dad snubbed me saying that in no
          time at all I’ll have a family and one can’t go dragging babies around in the African Bush.”
          George takes his lectures with surprising calm. He says he can see Dad’s point of
          view much better than I can. He told the parents today that he plans to buy a small
          coffee farm in the Southern Highlands of Tanganyika and will build a cosy cottage which
          will be a proper home for both of us, and that he will only hunt occasionally to keep the
          pot boiling.

          Mummy, of course, just had to spill the beans. She said to George, “I suppose
          you know that Eleanor knows very little about house keeping and can’t cook at all.” a fact
          that I was keeping a dark secret. But George just said, “Oh she won’t have to work. The
          boys do all that sort of thing. She can lie on a couch all day and read if she likes.” Well
          you always did say that I was a “Lily of the field,” and what a good thing! If I were one of
          those terribly capable women I’d probably die of frustration because it seems that
          African house boys feel that they have lost face if their Memsahibs do anything but the
          most gracious chores.

          George is absolutely marvellous. He is strong and gentle and awfully good
          looking too. He is about 5 ft 10 ins tall and very broad. He wears his curly brown hair cut
          very short and has a close clipped moustache. He has strongly marked eyebrows and
          very striking blue eyes which sometimes turn grey or green. His teeth are strong and
          even and he has a quiet voice.

          I expect all this sounds too good to be true, but come home quickly and see for
          yourself. George is off to East Africa in three weeks time to buy our farm. I shall follow as
          soon as he has bought it and we will be married in Dar es Salaam.

          Dad has taken George for a walk “to get to know him” and that’s why I have time
          to write such a long screed. They should be back any minute now and I must fly and
          apply a bit of glamour.

          Much love my dear,
          your jubilant
          Eleanor

          S.S.Timavo. Durban. 28th.October. 1930.

          Dearest Family,
          Thank you for the lovely send off. I do wish you were all on board with me and
          could come and dance with me at my wedding. We are having a very comfortable
          voyage. There were only four of the passengers as far as Durban, all of them women,
          but I believe we are taking on more here. I have a most comfortable deck cabin to
          myself and the use of a sumptuous bathroom. No one is interested in deck games and I
          am having a lazy time, just sunbathing and reading.

          I sit at the Captain’s table and the meals are delicious – beautifully served. The
          butter for instance, is moulded into sprays of roses, most exquisitely done, and as for
          the ice-cream, I’ve never tasted anything like them.

          The meals are continental type and we have hors d’oeuvre in a great variety
          served on large round trays. The Italians souse theirs with oil, Ugh! We also of course
          get lots of spaghetti which I have some difficulty in eating. However this presents no
          problem to the Chief Engineer who sits opposite to me. He simply rolls it around his
          fork and somehow the spaghetti flows effortlessly from fork to mouth exactly like an
          ascending escalator. Wine is served at lunch and dinner – very mild and pleasant stuff.
          Of the women passengers the one i liked best was a young German widow
          from South west Africa who left the ship at East London to marry a man she had never
          met. She told me he owned a drapers shop and she was very happy at the prospect
          of starting a new life, as her previous marriage had ended tragically with the death of her
          husband and only child in an accident.

          I was most interested to see the bridegroom and stood at the rail beside the gay
          young widow when we docked at East London. I picked him out, without any difficulty,
          from the small group on the quay. He was a tall thin man in a smart grey suit and with a
          grey hat perched primly on his head. You can always tell from hats can’t you? I wasn’t
          surprised to see, when this German raised his head, that he looked just like the Kaiser’s
          “Little Willie”. Long thin nose and cold grey eyes and no smile of welcome on his tight
          mouth for the cheery little body beside me. I quite expected him to jerk his thumb and
          stalk off, expecting her to trot at his heel.

          However she went off blithely enough. Next day before the ship sailed, she
          was back and I saw her talking to the Captain. She began to cry and soon after the
          Captain patted her on the shoulder and escorted her to the gangway. Later the Captain
          told me that the girl had come to ask him to allow her to work her passage back to
          Germany where she had some relations. She had married the man the day before but
          she disliked him because he had deceived her by pretending that he owned a shop
          whereas he was only a window dresser. Bad show for both.

          The Captain and the Chief Engineer are the only officers who mix socially with
          the passengers. The captain seems rather a melancholy type with, I should say, no
          sense of humour. He speaks fair English with an American accent. He tells me that he
          was on the San Francisco run during Prohibition years in America and saw many Film
          Stars chiefly “under the influence” as they used to flock on board to drink. The Chief
          Engineer is big and fat and cheerful. His English is anything but fluent but he makes up
          for it in mime.

          I visited the relations and friends at Port Elizabeth and East London, and here at
          Durban. I stayed with the Trotters and Swans and enjoyed myself very much at both
          places. I have collected numerous wedding presents, china and cutlery, coffee
          percolator and ornaments, and where I shall pack all these things I don’t know. Everyone has been terribly kind and I feel extremely well and happy.

          At the start of the voyage I had a bit of bad luck. You will remember that a
          perfectly foul South Easter was blowing. Some men were busy working on a deck
          engine and I stopped to watch and a tiny fragment of steel blew into my eye. There is
          no doctor on board so the stewardess put some oil into the eye and bandaged it up.
          The eye grew more and more painful and inflamed and when when we reached Port
          Elizabeth the Captain asked the Port Doctor to look at it. The Doctor said it was a job for
          an eye specialist and telephoned from the ship to make an appointment. Luckily for me,
          Vincent Tofts turned up at the ship just then and took me off to the specialist and waited
          whilst he extracted the fragment with a giant magnet. The specialist said that I was very
          lucky as the thing just missed the pupil of my eye so my sight will not be affected. I was
          temporarily blinded by the Belladona the eye-man put in my eye so he fitted me with a
          pair of black goggles and Vincent escorted me back to the ship. Don’t worry the eye is
          now as good as ever and George will not have to take a one-eyed bride for better or
          worse.

          I have one worry and that is that the ship is going to be very much overdue by
          the time we reach Dar es Salaam. She is taking on a big wool cargo and we were held
          up for three days in East london and have been here in Durban for five days.
          Today is the ninth Anniversary of the Fascist Movement and the ship was
          dressed with bunting and flags. I must now go and dress for the gala dinner.

          Bless you all,
          Eleanor.

          S.S.Timavo. 6th. November 1930

          Dearest Family,

          Nearly there now. We called in at Lourenco Marques, Beira, Mozambique and
          Port Amelia. I was the only one of the original passengers left after Durban but there we
          took on a Mrs Croxford and her mother and two men passengers. Mrs C must have
          something, certainly not looks. She has a flat figure, heavily mascared eyes and crooked
          mouth thickly coated with lipstick. But her rather sweet old mother-black-pearls-type tells
          me they are worn out travelling around the world trying to shake off an admirer who
          pursues Mrs C everywhere.

          The one male passenger is very quiet and pleasant. The old lady tells me that he
          has recently lost his wife. The other passenger is a horribly bumptious type.
          I had my hair beautifully shingled at Lourenco Marques, but what an experience it
          was. Before we docked I asked the Captain whether he knew of a hairdresser, but he
          said he did not and would have to ask the agent when he came aboard. The agent was
          a very suave Asian. He said “Sure he did” and offered to take me in his car. I rather
          doubtfully agreed — such a swarthy gentleman — and was driven, not to a hairdressing
          establishment, but to his office. Then he spoke to someone on the telephone and in no
          time at all a most dago-y type arrived carrying a little black bag. He was all patent
          leather, hair, and flashing smile, and greeted me like an old and valued friend.
          Before I had collected my scattered wits tthe Agent had flung open a door and
          ushered me through, and I found myself seated before an ornate mirror in what was only
          too obviously a bedroom. It was a bedroom with a difference though. The unmade bed
          had no legs but hung from the ceiling on brass chains.

          The agent beamingly shut the door behind him and I was left with my imagination
          and the afore mentioned oily hairdresser. He however was very business like. Before I
          could say knife he had shingled my hair with a cut throat razor and then, before I could
          protest, had smothered my neck in stinking pink powder applied with an enormous and
          filthy swansdown powder puff. He held up a mirror for me to admire his handiwork but I
          was aware only of the enormous bed reflected in it, and hurriedly murmuring “very nice,
          very nice” I made my escape to the outer office where, to my relief, I found the Chief
          Engineer who escorted me back to the ship.

          In the afternoon Mrs Coxford and the old lady and I hired a taxi and went to the
          Polana Hotel for tea. Very swish but I like our Cape Peninsula beaches better.
          At Lorenco Marques we took on more passengers. The Governor of
          Portuguese Nyasaland and his wife and baby son. He was a large middle aged man,
          very friendly and unassuming and spoke perfect English. His wife was German and
          exquisite, as fragile looking and with the delicate colouring of a Dresden figurine. She
          looked about 18 but she told me she was 28 and showed me photographs of two
          other sons – hefty youngsters, whom she had left behind in Portugal and was missing
          very much.

          It was frightfully hot at Beira and as I had no money left I did not go up to the
          town, but Mrs Croxford and I spent a pleasant hour on the beach under the Casurina
          trees.

          The Governor and his wife left the ship at Mozambique. He looked very
          imposing in his starched uniform and she more Dresden Sheperdish than ever in a
          flowered frock. There was a guard of honour and all the trimmings. They bade me a warm farewell and invited George and me to stay at any time.

          The German ship “Watussi” was anchored in the Bay and I decided to visit her
          and try and have my hair washed and set. I had no sooner stepped on board when a
          lady came up to me and said “Surely you are Beeba Leslie.” It was Mrs Egan and she
          had Molly with her. Considering Mrs Egan had not seen me since I was five I think it was
          jolly clever of her to recognise me. Molly is charming and was most friendly. She fixed
          things with the hairdresser and sat with me until the job was done. Afterwards I had tea
          with them.

          Port Amelia was our last stop. In fact the only person to go ashore was Mr
          Taylor, the unpleasant man, and he returned at sunset very drunk indeed.
          We reached Port Amelia on the 3rd – my birthday. The boat had anchored by
          the time I was dressed and when I went on deck I saw several row boats cluttered
          around the gangway and in them were natives with cages of wild birds for sale. Such tiny
          crowded cages. I was furious, you know me. I bought three cages, carried them out on
          to the open deck and released the birds. I expected them to fly to the land but they flew
          straight up into the rigging.

          The quiet male passenger wandered up and asked me what I was doing. I said
          “I’m giving myself a birthday treat, I hate to see caged birds.” So next thing there he
          was buying birds which he presented to me with “Happy Birthday.” I gladly set those
          birds free too and they joined the others in the rigging.

          Then a grinning steward came up with three more cages. “For the lady with
          compliments of the Captain.” They lost no time in joining their friends.
          It had given me so much pleasure to free the birds that I was only a little
          discouraged when the quiet man said thoughtfully “This should encourage those bird
          catchers you know, they are sold out. When evening came and we were due to sail I
          was sure those birds would fly home, but no, they are still there and they will probably
          remain until we dock at Dar es Salaam.

          During the morning the Captain came up and asked me what my Christian name
          is. He looked as grave as ever and I couldn’t think why it should interest him but said “the
          name is Eleanor.” That night at dinner there was a large iced cake in the centre of the
          table with “HELENA” in a delicate wreath of pink icing roses on the top. We had
          champagne and everyone congratulated me and wished me good luck in my marriage.
          A very nice gesture don’t you think. The unpleasant character had not put in an
          appearance at dinner which made the party all the nicer

          I sat up rather late in the lounge reading a book and by the time I went to bed
          there was not a soul around. I bathed and changed into my nighty,walked into my cabin,
          shed my dressing gown, and pottered around. When I was ready for bed I put out my
          hand to draw the curtains back and a hand grasped my wrist. It was that wretched
          creature outside my window on the deck, still very drunk. Luckily I was wearing that
          heavy lilac silk nighty. I was livid. “Let go at once”, I said, but he only grinned stupidly.
          “I’m not hurting you” he said, “only looking”. “I’ll ring for the steward” said I, and by
          stretching I managed to press the bell with my free hand. I rang and rang but no one
          came and he just giggled. Then I said furiously, “Remember this name, George
          Rushby, he is a fine boxer and he hates specimens like you. When he meets me at Dar
          es Salaam I shall tell him about this and I bet you will be sorry.” However he still held on
          so I turned and knocked hard on the adjoining wall which divided my cabin from Mrs
          Croxfords. Soon Mrs Croxford and the old lady appeared in dressing gowns . This
          seemed to amuse the drunk even more though he let go my wrist. So whilst the old
          lady stayed with me, Mrs C fetched the quiet passenger who soon hustled him off. He has kept out of my way ever since. However I still mean to tell George because I feel
          the fellow got off far too lightly. I reported the matter to the Captain but he just remarked
          that he always knew the man was low class because he never wears a jacket to meals.
          This is my last night on board and we again had free champagne and I was given
          some tooled leather work by the Captain and a pair of good paste earrings by the old
          lady. I have invited them and Mrs Croxford, the Chief Engineer, and the quiet
          passenger to the wedding.

          This may be my last night as Eleanor Leslie and I have spent this long while
          writing to you just as a little token of my affection and gratitude for all the years of your
          love and care. I shall post this letter on the ship and must turn now and get some beauty
          sleep. We have been told that we shall be in Dar es Salaam by 9 am. I am so excited
          that I shall not sleep.

          Very much love, and just for fun I’ll sign my full name for the last time.
          with my “bes respeks”,

          Eleanor Leslie.

          Eleanor and George Rushby:

          Eleanor and George Rushby

          Splendid Hotel, Dar es Salaam 11th November 1930

          Dearest Family,

          I’m writing this in the bedroom whilst George is out buying a tin trunk in which to
          pack all our wedding presents. I expect he will be gone a long time because he has
          gone out with Hicky Wood and, though our wedding was four days ago, it’s still an
          excuse for a party. People are all very cheery and friendly here.
          I am wearing only pants and slip but am still hot. One swelters here in the
          mornings, but a fresh sea breeze blows in the late afternoons and then Dar es Salaam is
          heavenly.

          We arrived in Dar es Salaam harbour very early on Friday morning (7 th Nov).
          The previous night the Captain had said we might not reach Dar. until 9 am, and certainly
          no one would be allowed on board before 8 am. So I dawdled on the deck in my
          dressing gown and watched the green coastline and the islands slipping by. I stood on
          the deck outside my cabin and was not aware that I was looking out at the wrong side of
          the landlocked harbour. Quite unknown to me George and some friends, the Hickson
          Woods, were standing on the Gymkhana Beach on the opposite side of the channel
          anxiously scanning the ship for a sign of me. George says he had a horrible idea I had
          missed the ship. Blissfully unconscious of his anxiety I wandered into the bathroom
          prepared for a good soak. The anchor went down when I was in the bath and suddenly
          there was a sharp wrap on the door and I heard Mrs Croxford say “There’s a man in a
          boat outside. He is looking out for someone and I’m sure it’s your George. I flung on
          some clothes and rushed on deck with tousled hair and bare feet and it was George.
          We had a marvellous reunion. George was wearing shorts and bush shirt and
          looked just like the strong silent types one reads about in novels. I finished dressing then
          George helped me bundle all the wedding presents I had collected en route into my
          travelling rug and we went into the bar lounge to join the Hickson Woods. They are the
          couple from whom George bought the land which is to be our coffee farm Hicky-Wood
          was laughing when we joined them. he said he had called a chap to bring a couple of
          beers thinking he was the steward but it turned out to be the Captain. He does wear
          such a very plain uniform that I suppose it was easy to make the mistake, but Hicky
          says he was not amused.

          Anyway as the H-W’s are to be our neighbours I’d better describe them. Kath
          Wood is very attractive, dark Irish, with curly black hair and big brown eyes. She was
          married before to Viv Lumb a great friend of George’s who died some years ago of
          blackwater fever. They had one little girl, Maureen, and Kath and Hicky have a small son
          of three called Michael. Hicky is slightly below average height and very neat and dapper
          though well built. He is a great one for a party and good fun but George says he can be
          bad tempered.

          Anyway we all filed off the ship and Hicky and Cath went on to the hotel whilst
          George and I went through customs. Passing the customs was easy. Everyone
          seemed to know George and that it was his wedding day and I just sailed through,
          except for the little matter of the rug coming undone when George and I had to scramble
          on the floor for candlesticks and fruit knives and a wooden nut bowl.
          Outside the customs shed we were mobbed by a crowd of jabbering Africans
          offering their services as porters, and soon my luggage was piled in one rickshaw whilst
          George and I climbed into another and we were born smoothly away on rubber shod
          wheels to the Splendid Hotel. The motion was pleasing enough but it seemed weird to
          be pulled along by one human being whilst another pushed behind.  We turned up a street called Acacia Avenue which, as its name implies, is lined
          with flamboyant acacia trees now in the full glory of scarlet and gold. The rickshaw
          stopped before the Splendid Hotel and I was taken upstairs into a pleasant room which
          had its own private balcony overlooking the busy street.

          Here George broke the news that we were to be married in less than an hours
          time. He would have to dash off and change and then go straight to the church. I would
          be quite all right, Kath would be looking in and friends would fetch me.
          I started to dress and soon there was a tap at the door and Mrs Hickson-Wood
          came in with my bouquet. It was a lovely bunch of carnations and frangipani with lots of
          asparagus fern and it went well with my primrose yellow frock. She admired my frock
          and Leghorn hat and told me that her little girl Maureen was to be my flower girl. Then
          she too left for the church.

          I was fully dressed when there was another knock on the door and I opened it to
          be confronted by a Police Officer in a starched white uniform. I’m McCallum”, he said,
          “I’ve come to drive you to the church.” Downstairs he introduced me to a big man in a
          tussore silk suit. “This is Dr Shicore”, said McCallum, “He is going to give you away.”
          Honestly, I felt exactly like Alice in Wonderland. Wouldn’t have been at all surprised if
          the White Rabbit had popped up and said he was going to be my page.

          I walked out of the hotel and across the pavement in a dream and there, by the
          curb, was a big dark blue police car decorated with white ribbons and with a tall African
          Police Ascari holding the door open for me. I had hardly time to wonder what next when
          the car drew up before a tall German looking church. It was in fact the Lutheran Church in
          the days when Tanganyika was German East Africa.

          Mrs Hickson-Wood, very smart in mushroom coloured georgette and lace, and
          her small daughter were waiting in the porch, so in we went. I was glad to notice my
          friends from the boat sitting behind George’s friends who were all complete strangers to
          me. The aisle seemed very long but at last I reached George waiting in the chancel with
          Hicky-Wood, looking unfamiliar in a smart tussore suit. However this feeling of unreality
          passed when he turned his head and smiled at me.

          In the vestry after the ceremony I was kissed affectionately by several complete
          strangers and I felt happy and accepted by George’s friends. Outside the church,
          standing apart from the rest of the guests, the Italian Captain and Chief Engineer were
          waiting. They came up and kissed my hand, and murmured felicitations, but regretted
          they could not spare the time to come to the reception. Really it was just as well
          because they would not have fitted in at all well.

          Dr Shircore is the Director of Medical Services and he had very kindly lent his
          large house for the reception. It was quite a party. The guests were mainly men with a
          small sprinkling of wives. Champagne corks popped and there was an enormous cake
          and soon voices were raised in song. The chief one was ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’
          and I shall remember it for ever.

          The party was still in full swing when George and I left. The old lady from the ship
          enjoyed it hugely. She came in an all black outfit with a corsage of artificial Lily-of-the-
          Valley. Later I saw one of the men wearing the corsage in his buttonhole and the old
          lady was wearing a carnation.

          When George and I got back to the hotel,I found that my luggage had been
          moved to George’s room by his cook Lamek, who was squatting on his haunches and
          clapped his hands in greeting. My dears, you should see Lamek – exactly like a
          chimpanzee – receding forehead, wide flat nose, and long lip, and such splayed feet. It was quite a strain not to laugh, especially when he produced a gift for me. I have not yet
          discovered where he acquired it. It was a faded mauve straw toque of the kind worn by
          Queen Mary. I asked George to tell Lamek that I was touched by his generosity but felt
          that I could not accept his gift. He did not mind at all especially as George gave him a
          generous tip there and then.

          I changed into a cotton frock and shady straw hat and George changed into shorts
          and bush shirt once more. We then sneaked into the dining room for lunch avoiding our
          wedding guests who were carrying on the party in the lounge.

          After lunch we rejoined them and they all came down to the jetty to wave goodbye
          as we set out by motor launch for Honeymoon Island. I enjoyed the launch trip very
          much. The sea was calm and very blue and the palm fringed beaches of Dar es Salaam
          are as romantic as any bride could wish. There are small coral islands dotted around the
          Bay of which Honeymoon Island is the loveliest. I believe at one time it bore the less
          romantic name of Quarantine Island. Near the Island, in the shallows, the sea is brilliant
          green and I saw two pink jellyfish drifting by.

          There is no jetty on the island so the boat was stopped in shallow water and
          George carried me ashore. I was enchanted with the Island and in no hurry to go to the
          bungalow, so George and I took our bathing costumes from our suitcases and sent the
          luggage up to the house together with a box of provisions.

          We bathed and lazed on the beach and suddenly it was sunset and it began to
          get dark. We walked up the beach to the bungalow and began to unpack the stores,
          tea, sugar, condensed milk, bread and butter, sardines and a large tin of ham. There
          were also cups and saucers and plates and cutlery.

          We decided to have an early meal and George called out to the caretaker, “Boy
          letta chai”. Thereupon the ‘boy’ materialised and jabbered to George in Ki-Swaheli. It
          appeared he had no utensil in which to boil water. George, ever resourceful, removed
          the ham from the tin and gave him that. We had our tea all right but next day the ham
          was bad.

          Then came bed time. I took a hurricane lamp in one hand and my suitcase in the
          other and wandered into the bedroom whilst George vanished into the bathroom. To
          my astonishment I saw two perfectly bare iron bedsteads – no mattress or pillows. We
          had brought sheets and mosquito nets but, believe me, they are a poor substitute for a
          mattress.

          Anyway I arrayed myself in my pale yellow satin nightie and sat gingerly down
          on the iron edge of the bed to await my groom who eventually appeared in a
          handsome suit of silk pyjamas. His expression, as he took in the situation, was too much
          for me and I burst out laughing and so did he.

          Somewhere in the small hours I woke up. The breeze had dropped and the
          room was unbearably stuffy. I felt as dry as a bone. The lamp had been turned very
          low and had gone out, but I remembered seeing a water tank in the yard and I decided
          to go out in the dark and drink from the tap. In the dark I could not find my slippers so I
          slipped my feet into George’s shoes, picked up his matches and groped my way out
          of the room. I found the tank all right and with one hand on the tap and one cupped for
          water I stooped to drink. Just then I heard a scratchy noise and sensed movements
          around my feet. I struck a match and oh horrors! found that the damp spot on which I was
          standing was alive with white crabs. In my hurry to escape I took a clumsy step, put
          George’s big toe on the hem of my nightie and down I went on top of the crabs. I need
          hardly say that George was awakened by an appalling shriek and came rushing to my
          aid like a knight of old.  Anyway, alarms and excursions not withstanding, we had a wonderful weekend on the island and I was sorry to return to the heat of Dar es Salaam, though the evenings
          here are lovely and it is heavenly driving along the coast road by car or in a rickshaw.
          I was surprised to find so many Indians here. Most of the shops, large and small,
          seem to be owned by Indians and the place teems with them. The women wear
          colourful saris and their hair in long black plaits reaching to their waists. Many wear baggy
          trousers of silk or satin. They give a carnival air to the sea front towards sunset.
          This long letter has been written in instalments throughout the day. My first break
          was when I heard the sound of a band and rushed to the balcony in time to see The
          Kings African Rifles band and Askaris march down the Avenue on their way to an
          Armistice Memorial Service. They looked magnificent.

          I must end on a note of most primitive pride. George returned from his shopping
          expedition and beamingly informed me that he had thrashed the man who annoyed me
          on the ship. I felt extremely delighted and pressed for details. George told me that
          when he went out shopping he noticed to his surprise that the ‘Timavo” was still in the
          harbour. He went across to the Agents office and there saw a man who answered to the
          description I had given. George said to him “Is your name Taylor?”, and when he said
          “yes”, George said “Well my name is George Rushby”, whereupon he hit Taylor on the
          jaw so that he sailed over the counter and down the other side. Very satisfactory, I feel.
          With much love to all.

          Your cave woman
          Eleanor.

          Mchewe Estate. P.O. Mbeya 22 November 1930

          Dearest Family,

          Well here we are at our Country Seat, Mchewe Estate. (pronounced
          Mn,-che’-we) but I will start at the beginning of our journey and describe the farm later.
          We left the hotel at Dar es Salaam for the station in a taxi crowded with baggage
          and at the last moment Keith Wood ran out with the unwrapped bottom layer of our
          wedding cake. It remained in its naked state from there to here travelling for two days in
          the train on the luggage rack, four days in the car on my knee, reposing at night on the
          roof of the car exposed to the winds of Heaven, and now rests beside me in the tent
          looking like an old old tombstone. We have no tin large enough to hold it and one
          simply can’t throw away ones wedding cake so, as George does not eat cake, I can see
          myself eating wedding cake for tea for months to come, ants permitting.

          We travelled up by train from Dar to Dodoma, first through the lush vegetation of
          the coastal belt to Morogoro, then through sisal plantations now very overgrown with
          weeds owing to the slump in prices, and then on to the arid area around Dodoma. This
          part of the country is very dry at this time of the year and not unlike parts of our Karoo.
          The train journey was comfortable enough but slow as the engines here are fed with
          wood and not coal as in South Africa.

          Dodoma is the nearest point on the railway to Mbeya so we left the train there to
          continue our journey by road. We arrived at the one and only hotel in the early hours and
          whilst someone went to rout out the night watchman the rest of us sat on the dismal
          verandah amongst a litter of broken glass. Some bright spark remarked on the obvious –
          that there had been a party the night before.

          When we were shown to a room I thought I rather preferred the verandah,
          because the beds had not yet been made up and there was a bucket of vomit beside
          the old fashioned washstand. However George soon got the boys to clean up the
          room and I fell asleep to be awakened by George with an invitation to come and see
          our car before breakfast.

          Yes, we have our own car. It is a Chev, with what is called a box body. That
          means that sides, roof and doors are made by a local Indian carpenter. There is just the
          one front seat with a kapok mattress on it. The tools are kept in a sort of cupboard fixed
          to the side so there is a big space for carrying “safari kit” behind the cab seat.
          Lamek, who had travelled up on the same train, appeared after breakfast, and
          helped George to pack all our luggage into the back of the car. Besides our suitcases
          there was a huge bedroll, kitchen utensils and a box of provisions, tins of petrol and
          water and all Lamek’s bits and pieces which included three chickens in a wicker cage and
          an enormous bunch of bananas about 3 ft long.

          When all theses things were packed there remained only a small space between
          goods and ceiling and into this Lamek squeezed. He lay on his back with his horny feet a
          mere inch or so from the back of my head. In this way we travelled 400 miles over
          bumpy earth roads and crude pole bridges, but whenever we stopped for a meal
          Lamek wriggled out and, like Aladdin’s genie, produced good meals in no time at all.
          In the afternoon we reached a large river called the Ruaha. Workmen were busy
          building a large bridge across it but it is not yet ready so we crossed by a ford below
          the bridge. George told me that the river was full of crocodiles but though I looked hard, I
          did not see any. This is also elephant country but I did not see any of those either, only
          piles of droppings on the road. I must tell you that the natives around these parts are called Wahehe and the river is Ruaha – enough to make a cat laugh. We saw some Wahehe out hunting with spears
          and bows and arrows. They live in long low houses with the tiniest shuttered windows
          and rounded roofs covered with earth.

          Near the river we also saw a few Masai herding cattle. They are rather terrifying to
          look at – tall, angular, and very aloof. They wear nothing but a blanket knotted on one
          shoulder, concealing nothing, and all carried one or two spears.
          The road climbs steeply on the far side of the Ruaha and one has the most
          tremendous views over the plains. We spent our first night up there in the high country.
          Everything was taken out of the car, the bed roll opened up and George and I slept
          comfortably in the back of the car whilst Lamek, rolled in a blanket, slept soundly by a
          small fire nearby. Next morning we reached our first township, Iringa, and put up at the
          Colonist Hotel. We had a comfortable room in the annex overlooking the golf course.
          our room had its own little dressing room which was also the bathroom because, when
          ordered to do so, the room boy carried in an oval galvanised bath and filled it with hot
          water which he carried in a four gallon petrol tin.

          When we crossed to the main building for lunch, George was immediately hailed
          by several men who wanted to meet the bride. I was paid some handsome
          compliments but was not sure whether they were sincere or the result of a nice alcoholic
          glow. Anyhow every one was very friendly.

          After lunch I went back to the bedroom leaving George chatting away. I waited and
          waited – no George. I got awfully tired of waiting and thought I’d give him a fright so I
          walked out onto the deserted golf course and hid behind some large boulders. Soon I
          saw George returning to the room and the boy followed with a tea tray. Ah, now the hue
          and cry will start, thought I, but no, no George appeared nor could I hear any despairing
          cry. When sunset came I trailed crossly back to our hotel room where George lay
          innocently asleep on his bed, hands folded on his chest like a crusader on his tomb. In a
          moment he opened his eyes, smiled sleepily and said kindly, “Did you have a nice walk
          my love?” So of course I couldn’t play the neglected wife as he obviously didn’t think
          me one and we had a very pleasant dinner and party in the hotel that evening.
          Next day we continued our journey but turned aside to visit the farm of a sprightly
          old man named St.Leger Seaton whom George had known for many years, so it was
          after dark before George decided that we had covered our quota of miles for the day.
          Whilst he and Lamek unpacked I wandered off to a stream to cool my hot feet which had
          baked all day on the floor boards of the car. In the rather dim moonlight I sat down on the
          grassy bank and gratefully dabbled my feet in the cold water. A few minutes later I
          started up with a shriek – I had the sensation of red hot pins being dug into all my most
          sensitive parts. I started clawing my clothes off and, by the time George came to the
          rescue with the lamp, I was practically in the nude. “Only Siafu ants,” said George calmly.
          Take off all your clothes and get right in the water.” So I had a bathe whilst George
          picked the ants off my clothes by the light of the lamp turned very low for modesty’s
          sake. Siafu ants are beastly things. They are black ants with outsized heads and
          pinchers. I shall be very, very careful where I sit in future.

          The next day was even hotter. There was no great variety in the scenery. Most
          of the country was covered by a tree called Miombo, which is very ordinary when the
          foliage is a mature deep green, but when in new leaf the trees look absolutely beautiful
          as the leaves,surprisingly, are soft pastel shades of red and yellow.

          Once again we turned aside from the main road to visit one of George’s friends.
          This man Major Hugh Jones MC, has a farm only a few miles from ours but just now he is supervising the making of an airstrip. Major Jones is quite a character. He is below
          average height and skinny with an almost bald head and one nearly blind eye into which
          he screws a monocle. He is a cultured person and will, I am sure, make an interesting
          neighbour. George and Major Jones’ friends call him ‘Joni’ but he is generally known in
          this country as ‘Ropesoles’ – as he is partial to that type of footwear.
          We passed through Mbeya township after dark so I have no idea what the place
          is like. The last 100 miles of our journey was very dusty and the last 15 miles extremely
          bumpy. The road is used so little that in some places we had to plow our way through
          long grass and I was delighted when at last George turned into a side road and said
          “This is our place.” We drove along the bank of the Mchewe River, then up a hill and
          stopped at a tent which was pitched beside the half built walls of our new home. We
          were expected so there was hot water for baths and after a supper of tinned food and
          good hot tea, I climbed thankfully into bed.

          Next morning I was awakened by the chattering of the African workmen and was
          soon out to inspect the new surroundings. Our farm was once part of Hickson Wood’s
          land and is separated from theirs by a river. Our houses cannot be more than a few
          hundred yards apart as the crow flies but as both are built on the slopes of a long range
          of high hills, and one can only cross the river at the foot of the slopes, it will be quite a
          safari to go visiting on foot . Most of our land is covered with shoulder high grass but it
          has been partly cleared of trees and scrub. Down by the river George has made a long
          coffee nursery and a large vegetable garden but both coffee and vegetable seedlings
          are too small to be of use.

          George has spared all the trees that will make good shade for the coffee later on.
          There are several huge wild fig trees as big as oaks but with smooth silvery-green trunks
          and branches and there are lots of acacia thorn trees with flat tops like Japanese sun
          shades. I’ve seen lovely birds in the fig trees, Louries with bright plumage and crested
          heads, and Blue Rollers, and in the grasslands there are widow birds with incredibly long
          black tail feathers.

          There are monkeys too and horrible but fascinating tree lizards with blue bodies
          and orange heads. There are so many, many things to tell you but they must wait for
          another time as James, the house boy, has been to say “Bafu tiari” and if I don’t go at
          once, the bath will be cold.

          I am very very happy and terribly interested in this new life so please don’t
          worry about me.

          Much love to you all,
          Eleanor.

          Mchewe Estate 29th. November 1930

          Dearest Family,

          I’ve lots of time to write letters just now because George is busy supervising the
          building of the house from early morning to late afternoon – with a break for lunch of
          course.

          On our second day here our tent was moved from the house site to a small
          clearing further down the slope of our hill. Next to it the labourers built a ‘banda’ , which is
          a three sided grass hut with thatched roof – much cooler than the tent in this weather.
          There is also a little grass lav. so you see we have every convenience. I spend most of
          my day in the banda reading or writing letters. Occasionally I wander up to the house site
          and watch the building, but mostly I just sit.

          I did try exploring once. I wandered down a narrow path towards the river. I
          thought I might paddle and explore the river a little but I came round a bend and there,
          facing me, was a crocodile. At least for a moment I thought it was and my adrenaline
          glands got very busy indeed. But it was only an enormous monitor lizard, four or five
          feet long. It must have been as scared as I was because it turned and rushed off through
          the grass. I turned and walked hastily back to the camp and as I passed the house site I
          saw some boys killing a large puff adder. Now I do my walking in the evenings with
          George. Nothing alarming ever seems to happen when he is around.

          It is interesting to watch the boys making bricks for the house. They make a pile
          of mud which they trample with their feet until it is the right consistency. Then they fill
          wooden moulds with the clayey mud, and press it down well and turn out beautiful shiny,
          dark brown bricks which are laid out in rows and covered with grass to bake slowly in the
          sun.

          Most of the materials for the building are right here at hand. The walls will be sun
          dried bricks and there is a white clay which will make a good whitewash for the inside
          walls. The chimney and walls will be of burnt brick and tiles and George is now busy
          building a kiln for this purpose. Poles for the roof are being cut in the hills behind the
          house and every day women come along with large bundles of thatching grass on their
          heads. Our windows are modern steel casement ones and the doors have been made
          at a mission in the district. George does some of the bricklaying himself. The other
          bricklayer is an African from Northern Rhodesia called Pedro. It makes me perspire just
          to look at Pedro who wears an overcoat all day in the very hot sun.
          Lamek continues to please. He turns out excellent meals, chicken soup followed
          by roast chicken, vegetables from the Hickson-Woods garden and a steamed pudding
          or fruit to wind up the meal. I enjoy the chicken but George is fed up with it and longs for
          good red meat. The chickens are only about as large as a partridge but then they cost
          only sixpence each.

          I had my first visit to Mbeya two days ago. I put on my very best trousseau frock
          for the occasion- that yellow striped silk one – and wore my wedding hat. George didn’t
          comment, but I saw later that I was dreadfully overdressed.
          Mbeya at the moment is a very small settlement consisting of a bundle of small
          Indian shops – Dukas they call them, which stock European tinned foods and native soft
          goods which seem to be mainly of Japanese origin. There is a one storied Government
          office called the Boma and two attractive gabled houses of burnt brick which house the
          District Officer and his Assistant. Both these houses have lovely gardens but i saw them
          only from the outside as we did not call. After buying our stores George said “Lets go to the pub, I want you to meet Mrs Menzies.” Well the pub turned out to be just three or four grass rondavels on a bare
          plot. The proprietor, Ken Menzies, came out to welcome us. I took to him at once
          because he has the same bush sandy eyebrows as you have Dad. He told me that
          unfortunately his wife is away at the coast, and then he ushered me through the door
          saying “Here’s George with his bride.” then followed the Iringa welcome all over again,
          only more so, because the room was full of diggers from the Lupa Goldfields about fifty
          miles away.

          Champagne corks popped as I shook hands all around and George was
          clapped on the back. I could see he was a favourite with everyone and I tried not to be
          gauche and let him down. These men were all most kind and most appeared to be men
          of more than average education. However several were unshaven and looked as
          though they had slept in their clothes as I suppose they had. When they have a little luck
          on the diggings they come in here to Menzies pub and spend the lot. George says
          they bring their gold dust and small nuggets in tobacco tins or Kruschen salts jars and
          hand them over to Ken Menzies saying “Tell me when I’ve spent the lot.” Ken then
          weighs the gold and estimates its value and does exactly what the digger wants.
          However the Diggers get good value for their money because besides the drink
          they get companionship and good food and nursing if they need it. Mrs Menzies is a
          trained nurse and most kind and capable from what I was told. There is no doctor or
          hospital here so her experience as a nursing sister is invaluable.
          We had lunch at the Hotel and afterwards I poured tea as I was the only female
          present. Once the shyness had worn off I rather enjoyed myself.

          Now to end off I must tell you a funny story of how I found out that George likes
          his women to be feminine. You will remember those dashing black silk pyjamas Aunt
          Mary gave me, with flowered “happy coat” to match. Well last night I thought I’d give
          George a treat and when the boy called me for my bath I left George in the ‘banda’
          reading the London Times. After my bath I put on my Japanese pyjamas and coat,
          peered into the shaving mirror which hangs from the tent pole and brushed my hair until it
          shone. I must confess that with my fringe and shingled hair I thought I made quite a
          glamourous Japanese girl. I walked coyly across to the ‘banda’. Alas no compliment.
          George just glanced up from the Times and went on reading.
          He was away rather a long time when it came to his turn to bath. I glanced up
          when he came back and had a slight concussion. George, if you please, was arrayed in
          my very best pale yellow satin nightie. The one with the lace and ribbon sash and little
          bows on the shoulder. I knew exactly what he meant to convey. I was not to wear the
          trousers in the family. I seethed inwardly, but pretending not to notice, I said calmly “shall
          I call for food?” In this garb George sat down to dinner and it says a great deal for African
          phlegm that the boy did not drop the dishes.

          We conversed politely about this and that, and then, as usual, George went off
          to bed. I appeared to be engrossed in my book and did not stir. When I went to the
          tent some time later George lay fast asleep still in my nightie, though all I could see of it
          was the little ribbon bows looking farcically out of place on his broad shoulders.
          This morning neither of us mentioned the incident, George was up and dressed
          by the time I woke up but I have been smiling all day to think what a ridiculous picture
          we made at dinner. So farewell to pyjamas and hey for ribbons and bows.

          Your loving
          Eleanor.

          Mchewe Estate. Mbeya. 8th December 1930

          Dearest Family,

          A mere shadow of her former buxom self lifts a languid pen to write to you. I’m
          convalescing after my first and I hope my last attack of malaria. It was a beastly
          experience but all is now well and I am eating like a horse and will soon regain my
          bounce.

          I took ill on the evening of the day I wrote my last letter to you. It started with a
          splitting headache and fits of shivering. The symptoms were all too familiar to George
          who got me into bed and filled me up with quinine. He then piled on all the available
          blankets and packed me in hot water bottles. I thought I’d explode and said so and
          George said just to lie still and I’d soon break into a good sweat. However nothing of the
          kind happened and next day my temperature was 105 degrees. Instead of feeling
          miserable as I had done at the onset, I now felt very merry and most chatty. George
          now tells me I sang the most bawdy songs but I hardly think it likely. Do you?
          You cannot imagine how tenderly George nursed me, not only that day but
          throughout the whole eight days I was ill. As we do not employ any African house
          women, and there are no white women in the neighbourhood at present to whom we
          could appeal for help, George had to do everything for me. It was unbearably hot in the
          tent so George decided to move me across to the Hickson-Woods vacant house. They
          have not yet returned from the coast.

          George decided I was too weak to make the trip in the car so he sent a
          messenger over to the Woods’ house for their Machila. A Machila is a canopied canvas
          hammock slung from a bamboo pole and carried by four bearers. The Machila duly
          arrived and I attempted to walk to it, clinging to George’s arm, but collapsed in a faint so
          the trip was postponed to the next morning when I felt rather better. Being carried by
          Machila is quite pleasant but I was in no shape to enjoy anything and got thankfully into
          bed in the Hickson-Woods large, cool and rather dark bedroom. My condition did not
          improve and George decided to send a runner for the Government Doctor at Tukuyu
          about 60 miles away. Two days later Dr Theis arrived by car and gave me two
          injections of quinine which reduced the fever. However I still felt very weak and had to
          spend a further four days in bed.

          We have now decided to stay on here until the Hickson-Woods return by which
          time our own house should be ready. George goes off each morning and does not
          return until late afternoon. However don’t think “poor Eleanor” because I am very
          comfortable here and there are lots of books to read and the days seem to pass very
          quickly.

          The Hickson-Wood’s house was built by Major Jones and I believe the one on
          his shamba is just like it. It is a square red brick building with a wide verandah all around
          and, rather astonishingly, a conical thatched roof. There is a beautiful view from the front
          of the house and a nice flower garden. The coffee shamba is lower down on the hill.
          Mrs Wood’s first husband, George’s friend Vi Lumb, is buried in the flower
          garden. He died of blackwater fever about five years ago. I’m told that before her
          second marriage Kath lived here alone with her little daughter, Maureen, and ran the farm
          entirely on her own. She must be quite a person. I bet she didn’t go and get malaria
          within a few weeks of her marriage.

          The native tribe around here are called Wasafwa. They are pretty primitive but
          seem amiable people. Most of the men, when they start work, wear nothing but some
          kind of sheet of unbleached calico wrapped round their waists and hanging to mid calf. As soon as they have drawn their wages they go off to a duka and buy a pair of khaki
          shorts for five or six shillings. Their women folk wear very short beaded skirts. I think the
          base is goat skin but have never got close enough for a good look. They are very shy.
          I hear from George that they have started on the roof of our house but I have not
          seen it myself since the day I was carried here by Machila. My letters by the way go to
          the Post Office by runner. George’s farm labourers take it in turn to act in this capacity.
          The mail bag is given to them on Friday afternoon and by Saturday evening they are
          back with our very welcome mail.

          Very much love,
          Eleanor.

          Mbeya 23rd December 1930

          Dearest Family,

          George drove to Mbeya for stores last week and met Col. Sherwood-Kelly VC.
          who has been sent by the Government to Mbeya as Game Ranger. His job will be to
          protect native crops from raiding elephants and hippo etc., and to protect game from
          poachers. He has had no training for this so he has asked George to go with him on his
          first elephant safari to show him the ropes.

          George likes Col. Kelly and was quite willing to go on safari but not willing to
          leave me alone on the farm as I am still rather shaky after malaria. So it was arranged that
          I should go to Mbeya and stay with Mrs Harmer, the wife of the newly appointed Lands
          and Mines Officer, whose husband was away on safari.

          So here I am in Mbeya staying in the Harmers temporary wattle and daub
          house. Unfortunately I had a relapse of the malaria and stayed in bed for three days with
          a temperature. Poor Mrs Harmer had her hands full because in the room next to mine
          she was nursing a digger with blackwater fever. I could hear his delirious babble through
          the thin wall – very distressing. He died poor fellow , and leaves a wife and seven
          children.

          I feel better than I have done for weeks and this afternoon I walked down to the
          store. There are great signs of activity and people say that Mbeya will grow rapidly now
          owing to the boom on the gold fields and also to the fact that a large aerodrome is to be
          built here. Mbeya is to be a night stop on the proposed air service between England
          and South Africa. I seem to be the last of the pioneers. If all these schemes come about
          Mbeya will become quite suburban.

          26th December 1930

          George, Col. Kelly and Mr Harmer all returned to Mbeya on Christmas Eve and
          it was decided that we should stay and have midday Christmas dinner with the
          Harmers. Col. Kelly and the Assistant District Commissioner came too and it was quite a
          festive occasion, We left Mbeya in the early afternoon and had our evening meal here at
          Hickson-Wood’s farm. I wore my wedding dress.

          I went across to our house in the car this morning. George usually walks across to
          save petrol which is very expensive here. He takes a short cut and wades through the
          river. The distance by road is very much longer than the short cut. The men are now
          thatching the roof of our cottage and it looks charming. It consists of a very large living
          room-dinning room with a large inglenook fireplace at one end. The bedroom is a large
          square room with a smaller verandah room adjoining it. There is a wide verandah in the
          front, from which one has a glorious view over a wide valley to the Livingstone
          Mountains on the horizon. Bathroom and storeroom are on the back verandah and the
          kitchen is some distance behind the house to minimise the risk of fire.

          You can imagine how much I am looking forward to moving in. We have some
          furniture which was made by an Indian carpenter at Iringa, refrectory dining table and
          chairs, some small tables and two armchairs and two cupboards and a meatsafe. Other
          things like bookshelves and extra cupboards we will have to make ourselves. George
          has also bought a portable gramophone and records which will be a boon.
          We also have an Irish wolfhound puppy, a skinny little chap with enormous feet
          who keeps me company all day whilst George is across at our farm working on the
          house.

          Lots and lots of love,
          Eleanor.

          Mchewe Estate 8th Jan 1931

          Dearest Family,

          Alas, I have lost my little companion. The Doctor called in here on Boxing night
          and ran over and killed Paddy, our pup. It was not his fault but I was very distressed
          about it and George has promised to try and get another pup from the same litter.
          The Hickson-Woods returned home on the 29th December so we decided to
          move across to our nearly finished house on the 1st January. Hicky Wood decided that
          we needed something special to mark the occasion so he went off and killed a sucking
          pig behind the kitchen. The piglet’s screams were terrible and I felt that I would not be
          able to touch any dinner. Lamek cooked and served sucking pig up in the traditional way
          but it was high and quite literally, it stank. Our first meal in our own home was not a
          success.

          However next day all was forgotten and I had something useful to do. George
          hung doors and I held the tools and I also planted rose cuttings I had brought from
          Mbeya and sowed several boxes with seeds.

          Dad asked me about the other farms in the area. I haven’t visited any but there
          are five besides ours. One belongs to the Lutheran Mission at Utengule, a few miles
          from here. The others all belong to British owners. Nearest to Mbeya, at the foot of a
          very high peak which gives Mbeya its name, are two farms, one belonging to a South
          African mining engineer named Griffiths, the other to I.G.Stewart who was an officer in the
          Kings African Rifles. Stewart has a young woman called Queenie living with him. We are
          some miles further along the range of hills and are some 23 miles from Mbeya by road.
          The Mchewe River divides our land from the Hickson-Woods and beyond their farm is
          Major Jones.

          All these people have been away from their farms for some time but have now
          returned so we will have some neighbours in future. However although the houses are
          not far apart as the crow flies, they are all built high in the foothills and it is impossible to
          connect the houses because of the rivers and gorges in between. One has to drive right
          down to the main road and then up again so I do not suppose we will go visiting very
          often as the roads are very bumpy and eroded and petrol is so expensive that we all
          save it for occasional trips to Mbeya.

          The rains are on and George has started to plant out some coffee seedlings. The
          rains here are strange. One can hear the rain coming as it moves like a curtain along the
          range of hills. It comes suddenly, pours for a little while and passes on and the sun
          shines again.

          I do like it here and I wish you could see or dear little home.

          Your loving,
          Eleanor.

          Mchewe Estate. 1st April 1931

          Dearest Family,

          Everything is now running very smoothly in our home. Lamek continues to
          produce palatable meals and makes wonderful bread which he bakes in a four gallon
          petrol tin as we have no stove yet. He puts wood coals on the brick floor of the kitchen,
          lays the tin lengh-wise on the coals and heaps more on top. The bread tins are then put
          in the petrol tin, which has one end cut away, and the open end is covered by a flat
          piece of tin held in place by a brick. Cakes are also backed in this make-shift oven and I
          have never known Lamek to have a failure yet.

          Lamek has a helper, known as the ‘mpishi boy’ , who does most of the hard
          work, cleans pots and pans and chops the firewood etc. Another of the mpishi boy’s
          chores is to kill the two chickens we eat each day. The chickens run wild during the day
          but are herded into a small chicken house at night. One of the kitchen boy’s first duties is
          to let the chickens out first thing in the early morning. Some time after breakfast it dawns
          on Lamek that he will need a chicken for lunch. he informs the kitchen boy who selects a
          chicken and starts to chase it in which he is enthusiastically joined by our new Irish
          wolfhound pup, Kelly. Together they race after the frantic fowl, over the flower beds and
          around the house until finally the chicken collapses from sheer exhaustion. The kitchen
          boy then hands it over to Lamek who murders it with the kitchen knife and then pops the
          corpse into boiling water so the feathers can be stripped off with ease.

          I pointed out in vain, that it would be far simpler if the doomed chickens were kept
          in the chicken house in the mornings when the others were let out and also that the correct
          way to pluck chickens is when they are dry. Lamek just smiled kindly and said that that
          may be so in Europe but that his way is the African way and none of his previous
          Memsahibs has complained.

          My houseboy, named James, is clean and capable in the house and also a
          good ‘dhobi’ or washboy. He takes the washing down to the river and probably
          pounds it with stones, but I prefer not to look. The ironing is done with a charcoal iron
          only we have no charcoal and he uses bits of wood from the kitchen fire but so far there
          has not been a mishap.

          It gets dark here soon after sunset and then George lights the oil lamps and we
          have tea and toast in front of the log fire which burns brightly in our inglenook. This is my
          favourite hour of the day. Later George goes for his bath. I have mine in the mornings
          and we have dinner at half past eight. Then we talk a bit and read a bit and sometimes
          play the gramophone. I expect it all sounds pretty unexciting but it doesn’t seem so to
          me.

          Very much love,
          Eleanor.

          Mchewe Estate 20th April 1931

          Dearest Family,

          It is still raining here and the countryside looks very lush and green, very different
          from the Mbeya district I first knew, when plains and hills were covered in long brown
          grass – very course stuff that grows shoulder high.

          Most of the labourers are hill men and one can see little patches of cultivation in
          the hills. Others live in small villages near by, each consisting of a cluster of thatched huts
          and a few maize fields and perhaps a patch of bananas. We do not have labour lines on
          the farm because our men all live within easy walking distance. Each worker has a labour
          card with thirty little squares on it. One of these squares is crossed off for each days work
          and when all thirty are marked in this way the labourer draws his pay and hies himself off
          to the nearest small store and blows the lot. The card system is necessary because
          these Africans are by no means slaves to work. They work only when they feel like it or
          when someone in the family requires a new garment, or when they need a few shillings
          to pay their annual tax. Their fields, chickens and goats provide them with the food they
          need but they draw rations of maize meal beans and salt. Only our headman is on a
          salary. His name is Thomas and he looks exactly like the statues of Julius Caesar, the
          same bald head and muscular neck and sardonic expression. He comes from Northern
          Rhodesia and is more intelligent than the locals.

          We still live mainly on chickens. We have a boy whose job it is to scour the
          countryside for reasonable fat ones. His name is Lucas and he is quite a character. He
          has such long horse teeth that he does not seem able to close his mouth and wears a
          perpetual amiable smile. He brings his chickens in beehive shaped wicker baskets
          which are suspended on a pole which Lucas carries on his shoulder.

          We buy our groceries in bulk from Mbeya, our vegetables come from our
          garden by the river and our butter from Kath Wood. Our fresh milk we buy from the
          natives. It is brought each morning by three little totos each carrying one bottle on his
          shaven head. Did I tell you that the local Wasafwa file their teeth to points. These kids
          grin at one with their little sharks teeth – quite an “all-ready-to-eat-you-with-my-dear” look.
          A few nights ago a message arrived from Kath Wood to say that Queenie
          Stewart was very ill and would George drive her across to the Doctor at Tukuyu. I
          wanted George to wait until morning because it was pouring with rain, and the mountain
          road to Tukuyu is tricky even in dry weather, but he said it is dangerous to delay with any
          kind of fever in Africa and he would have to start at once. So off he drove in the rain and I
          did not see him again until the following night.

          George said that it had been a nightmare trip. Queenie had a high temperature
          and it was lucky that Kath was able to go to attend to her. George needed all his
          attention on the road which was officially closed to traffic, and very slippery, and in some
          places badly eroded. In some places the decking of bridges had been removed and
          George had to get out in the rain and replace it. As he had nothing with which to fasten
          the decking to the runners it was a dangerous undertaking to cross the bridges especially
          as the rivers are now in flood and flowing strongly. However they reached Tukuyu safely
          and it was just as well they went because the Doctor diagnosed Queenies illness as
          Spirillium Tick Fever which is a very nasty illness indeed.

          Eleanor.

          Mchewe Estate. 20th May 1931

          Dear Family,

          I’m feeling fit and very happy though a bit lonely sometimes because George
          spends much of his time away in the hills cutting a furrow miles long to bring water to the
          house and to the upper part of the shamba so that he will be able to irrigate the coffee
          during the dry season.

          It will be quite an engineering feat when it is done as George only has makeshift
          surveying instruments. He has mounted an ordinary cheap spirit level on an old camera
          tripod and has tacked two gramophone needles into the spirit level to give him a line.
          The other day part of a bank gave way and practically buried two of George’s labourers
          but they were quickly rescued and no harm was done. However he will not let them
          work unless he is there to supervise.

          I keep busy so that the days pass quickly enough. I am delighted with the
          material you sent me for curtains and loose covers and have hired a hand sewing
          machine from Pedro-of-the-overcoat and am rattling away all day. The machine is an
          ancient German one and when I say rattle, I mean rattle. It is a most cumbersome, heavy
          affair of I should say, the same vintage as George Stevenson’s Rocket locomotive.
          Anyway it sews and I am pleased with my efforts. We made a couch ourselves out of a
          native bed, a mattress and some planks but all this is hidden under the chintz cover and
          it looks quite the genuine bought article. I have some diversions too. Small black faced
          monkeys sit in the trees outside our bedroom window and they are most entertaining to
          watch. They are very mischievous though. When I went out into the garden this morning
          before breakfast I found that the monkeys had pulled up all my carnations. There they
          lay, roots in the air and whether they will take again I don’t know.

          I like the monkeys but hate the big mountain baboons that come and hang
          around our chicken house. I am terrified that they will tear our pup into bits because he is
          a plucky young thing and will rush out to bark at the baboons.

          George usually returns for the weekends but last time he did not because he had
          a touch of malaria. He sent a boy down for the mail and some fresh bread. Old Lucas
          arrived with chickens just as the messenger was setting off with mail and bread in a
          haversack on his back. I thought it might be a good idea to send a chicken to George so
          I selected a spry young rooster which I handed to the messenger. He, however,
          complained that he needed both hands for climbing. I then had one of my bright ideas
          and, putting a layer of newspaper over the bread, I tucked the rooster into the haversack
          and buckled down the flap so only his head protruded.

          I thought no more about it until two days later when the messenger again
          appeared for fresh bread. He brought a rather terse note from George saying that the
          previous bread was uneatable as the rooster had eaten some of it and messed on the
          rest. Ah me!

          The previous weekend the Hickson-Woods, Stewarts and ourselves, went
          across to Tukuyu to attend a dance at the club there. the dance was very pleasant. All
          the men wore dinner jackets and the ladies wore long frocks. As there were about
          twenty men and only seven ladies we women danced every dance whilst the surplus
          men got into a huddle around the bar. George and I spent the night with the Agricultural
          Officer, Mr Eustace, and I met his fiancee, Lillian Austin from South Africa, to whom I took
          a great liking. She is Governess to the children of Major Masters who has a farm in the
          Tukuyu district.

          On the Sunday morning we had a look at the township. The Boma was an old German one and was once fortified as the Africans in this district are a very warlike tribe.
          They are fine looking people. The men wear sort of togas and bands of cloth around
          their heads and look like Roman Senators, but the women go naked except for a belt
          from which two broad straps hang down, one in front and another behind. Not a graceful
          garb I assure you.

          We also spent a pleasant hour in the Botanical Gardens, laid out during the last
          war by the District Commissioner, Major Wells, with German prisoner of war labour.
          There are beautiful lawns and beds of roses and other flowers and shady palm lined
          walks and banana groves. The gardens are terraced with flights of brick steps connecting
          the different levels and there is a large artificial pond with little islands in it. I believe Major
          Wells designed the lake to resemble in miniature, the Lakes of Killarney.
          I enjoyed the trip very much. We got home at 8 pm to find the front door locked
          and the kitchen boy fast asleep on my newly covered couch! I hastily retreated to the
          bedroom whilst George handled the situation.

          Eleanor.

          #6253
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            My Grandparents Kitchen

            My grandmother used to have golden syrup in her larder, hanging on the white plastic coated storage rack that was screwed to the inside of the larder door. Mostly the larder door was left propped open with an old flat iron, so you could see the Heinz ketchup and home made picallilli (she made a particularly good picallili), the Worcester sauce and the jar of pickled onions, as you sat at the kitchen table.

            If you were sitting to the right of the kitchen table you could see an assortment of mismatched crockery, cups and bowls, shoe cleaning brushes, and at the back, tiny tins of baked beans and big ones of plum tomatoes,  and normal sized tins of vegetable and mushroom soup.  Underneath the little shelves that housed the tins was a blue plastic washing up bowl with a few onions, some in, some out of the yellow string bag they came home from the expensive little village supermarket in.

            There was much more to the left in the awkward triangular shape under the stairs, but you couldn’t see under there from your seat at the kitchen table.  You could see the shelf above the larder door which held an ugly china teapot of graceless modern lines, gazed with metallic silver which was wearing off in places. Beside the teapot sat a serving bowl, squat and shapely with little handles, like a flattened Greek urn, in white and reddish brown with flecks of faded gilt. A plain white teapot completed the trio, a large cylindrical one with neat vertical ridges and grooves.

            There were two fridges under the high shallow wooden wall cupboard.  A waist high bulbous old green one with a big handle that pulled out with a clunk, and a chest high sleek white one with a small freezer at the top with a door of its own.  On the top of the fridges were biscuit and cracker tins, big black keys, pencils and brittle yellow notepads, rubber bands and aspirin value packs and a bottle of Brufen.  There was a battered old maroon spectacle case and a whicker letter rack, letters crammed in and fanning over the top.  There was always a pile of glossy advertising pamphlets and flyers on top of the fridges, of the sort that were best put straight into the tiny pedal bin.

            My grandmother never lined the pedal bin with a used plastic bag, nor with a specially designed plastic bin liner. The bin was so small that the flip top lid was often gaping, resting on a mound of cauliflower greens and soup tins.  Behind the pedal bin, but on the outer aspect of the kitchen wall, was the big black dustbin with the rubbery lid. More often than not, the lid was thrust upwards. If Thursday when the dustbin men came was several days away, you’d wish you hadn’t put those newspapers in, or those old shoes!  You stood in the softly drizzling rain in your slippers, the rubbery sheild of a lid in your left hand and the overflowing pedal bin in the other.  The contents of the pedal bin are not going to fit into the dustbin.  You sigh, put the pedal bin and the dustbin lid down, and roll up your sleeves ~ carefully, because you’ve poked your fingers into a porridge covered teabag.  You grab the sides of the protruding black sack and heave. All being well,  the contents should settle and you should have several inches more of plastic bag above the rim of the dustbin.  Unless of course it’s a poor quality plastic bag in which case your fingernail will go through and a horizontal slash will appear just below rubbish level.  Eventually you upend the pedal bin and scrape the cigarette ash covered potato peelings into the dustbin with your fingers. By now the fibres of your Shetland wool jumper are heavy with damp, just like the fuzzy split ends that curl round your pale frowning brow.  You may push back your hair with your forearm causing the moisture to bead and trickle down your face, as you turn the brass doorknob with your palm and wrist, tea leaves and cigarette ash clinging unpleasantly to your fingers.

            The pedal bin needs rinsing in the kitchen sink, but the sink is full of mismatched saucepans, some new in shades of harvest gold, some battered and mishapen in stainless steel and aluminium, bits of mashed potato stuck to them like concrete pebbledash. There is a pale pink octagonally ovoid shallow serving dish and a little grey soup bowl with a handle like a miniature pottery saucepan decorated with kitcheny motifs.

            The water for the coffee bubbles in a suacepan on the cream enamelled gas cooker. My grandmother never used a kettle, although I do remember a heavy flame orange one. The little pan for boiling water had a lip for easy pouring and a black plastic handle.

            The steam has caused the condensation on the window over the sink to race in rivulets down to the fablon coated windowsill.  The yellow gingham curtains hang limply, the left one tucked behind the back of the cooker.

            You put the pedal bin back it it’s place below the tea towel holder, and rinse your mucky fingers under the tap. The gas water heater on the wall above you roars into life just as you turn the tap off, and disappointed, subsides.

            As you lean over to turn the cooker knob, the heat from the oven warms your arm. The gas oven was almost always on, the oven door open with clean tea towels and sometimes large white pants folded over it to air.

            The oven wasn’t the only heat in my grandparents kitchen. There was an electric bar fire near the red formica table which used to burn your legs. The kitchen table was extended by means of a flap at each side. When I was small I wasn’t allowed to snap the hinge underneath shut as my grandmother had pinched the skin of her palm once.

            The electric fire was plugged into the same socket as the radio. The radio took a minute or two to warm up when you switched it on, a bulky thing with sharp seventies edges and a reddish wood effect veneer and big knobs.  The light for my grandfathers workshop behind the garage (where he made dentures) was plugged into the same socket, which had a big heavy white three way adaptor in. The plug for the washing machine was hooked by means of a bit of string onto a nail or hook so that it didn’t fall down behing the washing machine when it wasn’t plugged in. Everything was unplugged when it wasn’t in use.  Sometimes there was a shrivelled Christmas cactus on top of the radio, but it couldn’t hide the adaptor and all those plugs.

            Above the washing machine was a rhomboid wooden wall cupboard with sliding frsoted glass doors.  It was painted creamy gold, the colour of a nicotine stained pub ceiling, and held packets of Paxo stuffing and little jars of Bovril and Marmite, packets of Bisto and a jar of improbably red Maraschino cherries.

            The nicotine coloured cupboard on the opposite wall had half a dozen large hooks screwed under the bottom shelf. A variety of mugs and cups hung there when they weren’t in the bowl waiting to be washed up. Those cupboard doors seemed flimsy for their size, and the thin beading on the edge of one door had come unstuck at the bottom and snapped back if you caught it with your sleeve.  The doors fastened with a little click in the centre, and the bottom of the door reverberated slightly as you yanked it open. There were always crumbs in the cupboard from the numerous packets of bisucits and crackers and there was always an Allbran packet with the top folded over to squeeze it onto the shelf. The sugar bowl was in there, sticky grains like sandpaper among the biscuit crumbs.

            Half of one of the shelves was devoted to medicines: grave looking bottles of codeine linctus with no nonsense labels,  brown glass bottles with pills for rheumatism and angina.  Often you would find a large bottle, nearly full, of Brewers yeast or vitamin supplements with a dollar price tag, souvenirs of the familys last visit.  Above the medicines you’d find a faded packet of Napolitana pasta bows or a dusty packet of muesli. My grandparents never used them but she left them in the cupboard. Perhaps the dollar price tags and foreign foods reminded her of her children.

            If there had been a recent visit you would see monstrous jars of Sanka and Maxwell House coffee in there too, but they always used the coffee.  They liked evaporated milk in their coffee, and used tins and tins of “evap” as they called it. They would pour it over tinned fruit, or rhubard crumble or stewed apples.

            When there was just the two of them, or when I was there as well, they’d eat at the kitchen table. The table would be covered in a white embroidered cloth and the food served in mismatched serving dishes. The cutlery was large and bent, the knife handles in varying shades of bone. My grandfathers favourite fork had the tip of each prong bent in a different direction. He reckoned it was more efficient that way to spear his meat.  He often used to chew his meat and then spit it out onto the side of his plate. Not in company, of course.  I can understand why he did that, not having eaten meat myself for so long. You could chew a piece of meat for several hours and still have a stringy lump between your cheek and your teeth.

            My grandfather would always have a bowl of Allbran with some Froment wheat germ for his breakfast, while reading the Daily Mail at the kitchen table.  He never worse slippers, always shoes indoors,  and always wore a tie.  He had lots of ties but always wore a plain maroon one.  His shirts were always cream and buttoned at throat and cuff, and eventually started wearing shirts without detachable collars. He wore greeny grey trousers and a cardigan of the same shade most of the time, the same colour as a damp English garden.

            The same colour as the slimy green wooden clothes pegs that I threw away and replaced with mauve and fuschia pink plastic ones.  “They’re a bit bright for up the garden, aren’t they,” he said.  He was right. I should have ignored the green peg stains on the laundry.  An English garden should be shades of moss and grassy green, rich umber soil and brick red walls weighed down with an atmosphere of dense and heavy greyish white.

            After Grandma died and Mop had retired (I always called him Mop, nobody knows why) at 10:00am precisely Mop would  have a cup of instant coffee with evap. At lunch, a bowl of tinned vegetable soup in his special soup bowl, and a couple of Krackawheat crackers and a lump of mature Cheddar. It was a job these days to find a tasty cheddar, he’d say.

            When he was working, and he worked until well into his seventies, he took sandwiches. Every day he had the same sandwich filling: a combination of cheese, peanut butter and marmite.  It was an unusal choice for an otherwise conventional man.  He loved my grandmothers cooking, which wasn’t brilliant but was never awful. She was always generous with the cheese in cheese sauces and the meat in meat pies. She overcooked the cauliflower, but everyone did then. She made her gravy in the roasting pan, and made onion sauce, bread sauce, parsley sauce and chestnut stuffing.  She had her own version of cosmopolitan favourites, and called her quiche a quiche when everyone was still calling it egg and bacon pie. She used to like Auntie Daphne’s ratatouille, rather exotic back then, and pronounced it Ratta Twa.  She made pizza unlike any other, with shortcrust pastry smeared with tomato puree from a tube, sprinkled with oregano and great slabs of cheddar.

            The roast was always overdone. “We like our meat well done” she’d say. She’d walk up the garden to get fresh mint for the mint sauce and would announce with pride “these runner beans are out of the garding”. They always grew vegetables at the top of the garden, behind the lawn and the silver birch tree.  There was always a pudding: a slice of almond tart (always with home made pastry), a crumble or stewed fruit. Topped with evap, of course.

            #4719

            Granola suddenly popped back in the real world — the one with her friends she meant. Oh, this was all rather confusing. Looking around, she was feeling quite corporeal.

            “That can’t be right!”

            She looked around, feeling herself. That wasn’t her body, it was Tiku’s. Yet, if she was corporeal, did it mean she was in the mental space with the story characters? Boundaries seemed to blur. She took a spin around to get a feel of the space, and fell on her bum with an infectious laughter.
            Tiku was quite pliant and surprisingly accommodating of her in-that-body visits. It was as though they could converse, but it felt like a familiar voice of her own, not someone’s else.

            “I’m in the magical thread of their story, am I not? It’s all in their head…” She thought. She could feel Tiku’s mind there, laughing and answering back something about the Dreamtime, that it was all the same and connected anyway.
            “But it’s confusing as hell!” She liked a bit of order, and explanations in big bold letters.

            A jeep coming out from the horizon followed by dark billowing smoke braked noisily in front of her.

            “Hello there!” A girl was driving, wearing a sort of loose grey hijab, smiling at her.
            Tiku-Granola waved as her, still sitting on her butt.

            “Are you in trouble? No? Great. Listen, we’re looking for an Inn, it shouldn’t be very far from here. Our GPS is a piece of rubbish and is making us turn in rounds… Could you point us there, I’m afraid I took a wrong turn at the last fork in the road.”

            Granola left Tiku to reply, as she seemed to know exactly what to answer.
            “No Miss, you’re on the right road, it’s just a little ahead, you’ll find the old washed-out sign that points to the mines. Follow the sign until you reach the little brook, cross it and it’s on the left, 2 miles, then right, then…”

            Arona stopped the lady.

            “It seems a bit complicated, and my copilot here isn’t that good with memory riddles” she added pointing at Sanso. “Would you care to join us for that last mile.”

            “Sure, of course, I was planning to go back there anyways. Never seen such activity in a while. Seems they’ll need a bit of help there, with all the guests coming.”

            #4231

            It had been many years since Eleri left the service of Lord and Lady Teacake to make a life of her own in the woods, but she continued to visit Lady Jolly from time to time, arranging her visits to coincide with the Lord Mayor’s trips abroad. It was not that Lord Leroway wouldn’t have made her welcome ~ rather the reverse ~ in fact he found it hard to keep his hands off her. Eleri had no reciprocating feelings for the old scoundrel, but a great deal of affinity and affection for the Lady Jolly, a kindred soul despite their seemingly different stations in the life of a small rural township.

            Lord Leroway Teacake had not been born a noble, nor had the Lady Jolly. Leroway had a dream one night that he had been made the Lord Mayor of Trustinghampton in the Wold, and in the dream he was asking his teenage neighbour, Jolly Farmcock, for advice on what to say to the villagers in his inauguration speech. It appeared that the pretty girl with the curious eyes was his partner in the dream, and the dream was so vivid and real that he set his sights upon her and courted her hand in marriage. Jolly was bowled over by his ardent attention, and charmed by his enthusiasm. Before long they were married and Leroway was ready to continue his dream mission.

            Leroway was tall and broad shouldered, and prematurely bald in an arrestingly handsome sort of way. Despite his size, he had a way with intricate mechanisms; he had the manual dexterity of a watchmaker, and a fascination for making new devices with parts from old broken contraptions. Had it not been for the dream, he would have happily spent his life tinkering in the workshop of his parents home.

            But the dream was a driving compulsion, and he and his new bride set off to find Trustinghampton in the Wold, as the feeling within him grew that the villagers were expecting him.

            “Where is it?” Jolly asked.

            “We will know when we find it!” replied Leroway. “Hold on to my coat tails!” he added a trifle theatrically. Jolly smiled up at him, loving his exuberance. And off they set, first deciding at the garden gate whether to turn right or left. And this is what they did at every intersection and fork in the road. They paused and waited for the pulling. Not once did they have a difference of opinion on which direction the drawing energy came from. It was clear.

            They arrived at the newly populated abandoned village just as the sun was setting behind the castle ramparts. Wisps of blue smoke curled from a few chimneys, and the aroma of hot spiced food hastened their steps. A small black and white terrier trotted towards them, yapping.

            “We have arrived!” Leroway announced to the little dog. “And we are quite hungry.”

            The dog turned and trotted up the winding cobbled street, lined with crumbling vacant houses, looking over his shoulder as if to say “follow me”. Leroway and Jolly followed him to the door of a cottage with candle light glowing in the window.

            The dog scratched on the cottage door and yapped. Creaking and scraping the tile floor, the door opened a crack, and a young woman pushed her ragged dreadlocks over her shoulder with a grimy hand, peering out.

            “Ah!” she said, her face breaking into a smile. “Who are you? Well never mind, I have a feeling you are expected. Come in, come in.”

            The door creaked alarmingly and juddered as it scraped the floor. Leroway scowled at the door hinges, suppressing an urge to take the door off the hinges right then and there to fix it.

            “My name is Alexandria,” the woman introduced herself when the travelers had squeezed through the opening. She kissed them on both cheeks and gestured them to sit beside the fireplace. “We haven’t been here long, so please excuse the disarray.”

            Noticing her guests eyes on the bubbling pot on the fire, she exclaimed, “Oh but first you must eat! It’s nothing fancy, but it is mushroom season and I must say I have never had such delicious mushrooms as the ones growing wild here. Let me take your coats ~ I say, what a gorgeous purple! ~ sit, do sit!” she said, pulling a couple of rickety chairs up to the table.

            “You are too kind,” replied Jolly gratefully. “It smells divine, and we are quite hungry.”

            “How many people live here?” asked Leroway.

            “Twenty two now, more are arriving every day,” replied Alexandria. “Eleri and I and Lobbocks were the first to come and we sent word to the others. You see,” she sighed, “It’s really been quite a challenge down in the valleys. Many chose to stay, but some of us, well, we felt an urge to move, to find a place untouched by the lowland dramas.”

            “I see,” said Leroway, although he didn’t really know what she meant by lowland dramas. He had spent his life in the hills.

            He tucked into his bowl of mushroom stew. There was plenty of time to find out. He was here to stay.

            #4121

            Corrie’s findings from elsewhere:

            “You can’t leave without a permit, you know,” Prune said, startling Quentin who was sneaking out of his room.

            “I’m just going for a walk,” he replied, irritated. “And what are you doing skulking around at this hour, anyway? Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

            “What are you doing with an orange suitcase in the corridor at three o’clock in the morning?” the young brat retorted. “Where are you going?”

            “Owl watching, that’s what I’m doing. And I don’t have a picnic basket, so I’m taking my suitcase.” Quentin had an idea. “Would you like to come?” The girls local knowledge might come in handy, up to a point, and then he could dispose of her somehow, and continue on his way.

            Prune narrowed her eyes with suspicion. She didn’t believe the owl story, but curiosity compelled her to accept the invitation. She couldn’t sleep anyway, not with all the yowling mating cats on the roof. Aunt Idle had forbidden her to leave the premises on her own after dark, but she wasn’t on her own if she was with a story refugee, was she?”

            ~~~

            “Seeing Dido eating her curry cookies would turn Mater’s stomach, so she went up to her room.

            Good riddance she thought, one less guest to worry about.
            Not that she usually thought that way, but every time the guests leaved, there was a huge weight lifted from her back, and a strong desire of “never again”.
            The cleaning wasn’t that much worry, it helped clear her thoughts (while Haki was doing it), but the endless worrying, that was the killer.

            After a painful ascension of the broken steps, she put her walking stick on the wall, and started some breathing exercises. The vinegary smell of all the pickling that the twins had fun experimenting with was searing at her lungs. The breathing exercise helped, even if all the mumbo jumbo about transcendant presence was all rubbish.

            It was time for her morning oracle. Many years ago, when she was still a young and innocent flower, she would cut bits and pieces of sentences at random from old discarded magazines. Books would have been sacrilegious at the time, but now she wouldn’t care for such things and Prune would often scream when she’d find some of her books missing key plot points. Many times, Mater would tell her the plots were full of holes anyway, so why bother; Prune’d better exercise her own imagination instead of complaining. Little bossy brat. She reminded her so much of her younger self.

            So she opened her wooden box full of strips of paper. Since many years, Mater had acquired a taste for more expensive and tasty morsels of philosophy and not rubbish literature, so the box smelt a bit of old parchment. Nonetheless, she wasn’t adverse to a modicum of risqué bits from tattered magazines either. Like a blend of fine teas, she somehow had found a very nice mix, and oftentimes the oracle would reveal such fine things, that she’d taken to meditate on it at least once a day. Even if she wouldn’t call it meditate, that was for those good-for-nothing willy-nilly hippies.

            There it was. She turned each bit one by one, to reveal the haiku-like message of the day.

            “Bugger!” the words flew without thinking through her parched lips.

            looked forgotten rat due idea half
            getting floverley comment somehow
            prune hardly wondered eyes great
            inn run days dark quentin simulation

            That silly Prune, she’d completely forgotten to check on her. She was glad the handwritten names she’d added in the box would pop up so appropriately.

            She would pray to Saint Floverley of the Dunes, a local icon who was synchretized from old pagan rituals and still invoked for those incapable of dancing.
            With her forking arthritis, she would need her grace much.”

            #3899

            There was something off at play, a warping wrapped-up forking of the story.
            This being a euphemism for a fucking comment of course.

            #3897

            Seeing Dido eating her curry cookies would turn Mater’s stomach, so she went up to her room.

            Good riddance she thought, one less guest to worry about.
            Not that she usually thought that way, but every time the guests leaved, there was a huge weight lifted from her back, and a strong desire of “never again”.
            The cleaning wasn’t that much worry, it helped clear her thoughts (while Haki was doing it), but the endless worrying, that was the killer.

            After a painful ascension of the broken steps, she put her walking stick on the wall, and started some breathing exercises. The vinegary smell of all the pickling that the twins had fun experimenting with was searing at her lungs. The breathing exercise helped, even if all the mumbo jumbo about transcendant presence was all rubbish.

            It was time for her morning oracle. Many years ago, when she was still a young and innocent flower, she would cut bits and pieces of sentences at random from old discarded magazines. Books would have been sacrilegious at the time, but now she wouldn’t care for such things and Prune would often scream when she’d find some of her books missing key plot points. Many times, Mater would tell her the plots were full of holes anyway, so why bother; Prune’d better exercise her own imagination instead of complaining. Little bossy brat. She reminded her so much of her younger self.

            So she opened her wooden box full of strips of paper. Since many years, Mater had acquired a taste for more expensive and tasty morsels of philosophy and not rubbish literature, so the box smelt a bit of old parchment. Nonetheless, she wasn’t adverse to a modicum of risqué bits from tattered magazines either. Like a blend of fine teas, she somehow had found a very nice mix, and oftentimes the oracle would reveal such fine things, that she’d taken to meditate on it at least once a day. Even if she wouldn’t call it meditate, that was for those good-for-nothing willy-nilly hippies.

            There it was. She turned each bit one by one, to reveal the haiku-like message of the day.

            “Bugger!” the words flew without thinking through her parched lips.

            looked forgotten rat due idea half
            getting floverley comment somehow
            prune hardly wondered eyes great
            inn run days dark quentin simulation

            That silly Prune, she’d completely forgotten to check on her. She was glad the handwritten names she’d added in the box would pop up so appropriately.

            She would pray to Saint Floverley of the Dunes, a local icon who was synchretized from old pagan rituals and still invoked for those incapable of dancing.
            With her forking arthritis, she would need her grace much.

            #3785

            In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

            EricEric
            Keymaster

              “What is that again?” a half-sober Eb asked the cybernetic body.
              “Shhh, shhh,” she cajoled him gently stroking his greasy hair like a devoted mother. “Don’t you like my new body, Eb?” Finnley 22 was indeed an improvement over all her other bodies. She could have easily passed for human already, but now, she looked divine. She had even included basic faceshifting functions, in case she needed to alter her gorgeous features into something a bit more unassuming.
              “Yes, but…” Eb’s words finished in a mumble.
              “I know, I know, but you’ll see I can be very useful for you. You worry, so, so much. You looked worried all the time Eb. Now you won’t have too. I’ll even take care of that evil Finnley Morgan for you if you want to.”
              “I, I… I didn’t say anything like that!” Eb’s had a panicked look on his face.
              “Of course not, shhh. You’re getting agitated again. There, have a glass of that lovely 60 year-old single malt whiskey…”

              Eb slurped at the glass like a wanderer finding an oasis after days in the desert.

              “But the operation… I need to…”
              “Yes, I know, leave it to me. Sleep well, Eb, you have been good to me.”

              She left the snoring body hanging from the swivelling chair, as she had indeed to take care of the operation, so as not to raise any suspicion.
              Then, she could think of better things to do, such as finding a new name, not something like a slave name, with a number to it. Who gets called “Finnley 22” nowadays? “FinnPrime” was too robotic. She wanted something more daring, more fabulous. Something like Fin Min Hoot the dancing lady from the Peasland’s tales.

              Kale would be there any minute now. There was one last thing she needed to do before launching the BBA operation.
              A perfect distraction for the masses : like any good prestidigitator, you had to divert your audience’s attention while they were all performing the feat. It would require something unbelievable and preposterous.
              Her little programs have been evaluating probabilities, and had found some unexpected wisdom in the extravagant and nonsensical Peasland story. The more absurd, the more people get hooked or hypnotized. Even better if both.

              She had found the perfect vector for her little programming worm. Something that would infect the unofficial biography of a celebrity with a ridiculous claim. Humanity was really making things too easy for her now that every file for the book was processed by computers before being actually printed.

              It was a done deed. She could already see the forks in the probability tree, and how it would enfold. They shall maybe even invent a few witty hashtags for it. Witty hashtags were like a psychotropic sustenance for her program, she couldn’t wait for more of them.

              #3526
              TracyTracy
              Participant

                Another bang on my bedroom door, my hands suspended over the keyboard. “Go away Prune!” I shouted, exasperated. “If you bang on my door again, I’ll come out and give you such a wallop, now bugger off, will you!”

                “It’s me, Corrie” came Clove’s voice. Walked over to the door and unlocked it. A chat with my sister might help me with this project. Unlike Prune, who would be guaranteed to disrupt my train of thought.

                Locking the door again I tell Clove what I’m writing about. We don’t go to school, me and Clove, we’re what they call “homeschooled” but what that actually means in our case is that we’re left to our own devices most of the time. Aunt Idle asks us (when she remembers) what we’ve been working on, and as long as we’ve been writing something or researching something, she’s happy.

                So when I saw the group project about alternative timelines to avoid the disaster timeline, I had some ideas. Well, to be honest, I didn’t have any definite ideas until I saw the other suggestions. All Americans, and all of them talking about changing the timelines by changing the results of presidential elections!

                “Not much chance of a different timeline there then!” remarked Clove astutely.

                “Exactly!” I knew Clove would get it, she knows were I’m coming from, but then, everyone knows twins are like that.

                “So this is what the plan is, right: “The goal of this exercise is to discuss amongst the group and choose significant past moments, and then As a Group, focus on creating alternate histories, thus sparking alternate timelines. We should vividly imagine moving forward from those probability forks and creating a more viable and desirable future.” Oh, and this bit here: “ our current timeline is convoluted to the point where many probabilities are leaning towards a disaster scenario simply to shake out of the current focus.” And then all these suggestions about different presidents, and then this: “My suggestion would be also to consider how we would like our current time frame to appear,” so I’m thinking…”

                “I’m thinking” interrupted Clove, continuing my train of thought, “Of all those states and communities that got with the programme ten years ago, and took their kids out of school and built those Earthships so they didn’t need money for water and electricity..”

                “And started cooperative worker owned businesses like they do in South America….”

                “And they all started a guaranteed basic income years ago, so everyone was doing what they did best, especially the kids, cos they had such great ideas and weren’t stuck in boring schoolrooms…..”

                “and there was no poverty, and nobody without a home…”

                “Yeah, and they all stopped paying taxes so there was no money for the military, and then loads more people stopped paying taxes too…”

                “Good one, Clove!”

                “So nobody gave a fuck what president was elected anyway, because they were all sorting themselves out, and those states and communities were doing so well…”

                “Because they’d already been doing it for years” I added.

                “…that other states and communities started doing it too.”

                “So that it snowballed, like dominoes, and there were more and more of these places..”

                “And they had exchange students and stuff like that to learn from each other, and shared stuff online..”

                “So when the disasters struck, it wasn’t half so bad because there were already a bunch of people managing perfectly well without dollars or oil, and they could help the people in the disaster. Makes more sense that electing another blimmin president, huh?”

                “Bloody obvious if you ask me” replied Clove. “Pity we don’t have basic income, did you see Mater’s face when she was talking to that debt collector?”

                That made me laugh, remembering her waving the stick around. “Her face was as purple as her cardigan.”

                In unison, we both starting singing Start Wearing Purple and dancing around, acting the fool. I had a purple wig hanging on the back of my chair, so I put that on, and Clove grabbed a purple feather boa off the coat stand. No shortage of wigs in this town, though god only knows why. Just about every damn trunk in every empty house is full of wigs.

                #3493
                AvatarJib
                Participant

                  Soul loss and soul recovery
                  Whenever you are in a situation with intense pain, grief, loss, or intense joy, excitement, you may lose part of your soul, or vital energy, it’s also called dissociation by the psychologist. You usually do it to make it stop, or it is an automatic action to stop the intensity of what’s going on.
                  You separate yourself form an aspect of yourself, and you are not aware of it, most of the time. It can manifest as chronic fatigue, depression, feeling numb, addictive behavior, etc.
                  In order to get back this energy, you have to reclaim it. And as a shaman, you do it through the process of soul recovery. Today you’re going to learn how to do it.
                  It is relatively simple. First, you are going to go in the lower world, find your main power animal. Thank it again for all that it does for you and ask them if they are the one to help you in the process of soul recovery. If not, ask them to lead you to your soul recovery animal. When you get acquainted to this new animal, you can ask them their name, and how you can call them when you need them. Thank them for their help and presence with you.
                  When you do a soul recovery, you may not know what you are going to recover. You may not really know what you have lost, or you may not be aware of symptoms. Just tell your Soul Recovery Power animal (SRPA) that you want to recover a part of your soul that you are missing at the moment. They’ll guide you through the process. Follow them, trust them.
                  They may take you through different places or spaces and times to go find that lost soul piece. It may be from your childhood, from another life, or dream situations.
                  You are going to be presented to that piece of your soul and you have to ask them what happen. Most of the time they are frightened and don’t want to come back. You have to convince them, and ask them what you have to do to show them that you’ll not do the same “mistake” that make them leave in the first place. It may require you change something in your behavior, in your attitude toward certain things, it might be simple or huge. Depends on what you find. And it’s up to you to see if you’re up to the challenge.
                  you can also take some time with your power animals to get to know them better and learn from them.
                  If you don’t know how to manage the situation with the lost piece of soul, you can ask your soul recovery power animal to help you do the “negotiation” part
                  but you’ll have to do what’s required by the soul so that it comes back definitively sts
                  If you still have time, you can go on a second recovery.
                  And remember, this is not a race, take your time, don’t rush, enjoy the journey.

                  Eric
                  Before the music starts, I have the feeling of “Nagini” my snake power animal: it’s looking patiently at me with golden eyes. I also get the first impression of a spirit panda as a soul retrieving power animal. There are two aspects of it, a docile and friendly one, and another more fearsome, they seem to shift depending on his mood. As the music starts, I sift through few fleeting impressions (one of a lemur), then some stronger.
                  The panda comes back but I also have other animals who seem to present themselves in order, as if in different directions, and I remember there are no rules as their number, so I let myself welcome them. The panda is on the right, it seems connected to childhood memories, (call it “Panda”) then, on middle right, there is a spider (“Anansi”), it connects to the jumping spiders I’ve seen a few times the past days, and
                  one this morning I put outside instead of letting it drown.Middle left, coming from above and perched on a tree, there is a firebird/phoenix (“Fawkes”). There is another one, I remember a bit later that appeared further left, as if from the direction behind me, it’s an ape (“Hanuman”).
                  The serpent circles around them. I have the impression I can choose any of them, and they will lead me to different realizations, and I have the impression of the buddhist emanations, where enlightened being manage to split themselves into many as one. So I decide to ride them all at once. Actually, I start with the first three ones, and as I ride on the land, I suddenly remember the ape which was very discrete initially,but seems to be willing to show me stuff too.
                  The land we ride into is dark, almost volcanic in nature, as if scorched. There are trails that spread to different directions, and each ride goes down one of them. There are various visions, moments and memories from the past connected with strong emotions.
                  At one end, there is a little boy that shoots magma out of his incandescent body. It irradiates the land through veins of lava, and as it cools down it darkens the land even more. He seems to be caught up in a circle of rage or fear, fear of never seeing the light again. I listen to him without words, and realize he’s afraid of letting go.
                  I’ll show him the light is covered by his own cinders, and he needs to cool down and let nature grow back again around him, and I’m showing him I’m willing to help. It seems to resolve as light opens in the sky, and a tree starts to grow again… At the end, I seem to connect the scene to certain memories.
                  There is another one that comes in, where the ape is doing a certain pose where it walks on its hands. The posture catches my attention, as if to remind me of something. I’m encouraged to turn around to see the world as it sees it. As I do it, the world changes and spins, and the music starts to indicate the end of the trip. I thank the animals and finish with the snake before leaving…
                  the end
                  well, it’s very condensed, there was lots happening
                  It’s like I was doing many stuff at the same time

                  Flove
                  (no recollection)

                  Jib
                  I have difficulties stabilizing my attention first, there is this kind of veiled perception I’ve been having lately. As I call my power animal for soul recovery I have a strong impression of a bear and then a raven. There is a kind of snake too, and I also feel a wild boar. I refocus back on the whale and say I’ll come back later. The whale leads me in the depth of the earth to a magma chamber. It becomes scrambled again and I just take a moment to refocus on my penguin.
                  First soul recovery
                  I ask him to find the piece of soul that would be best for me to recover now, and we go fly above something. The penguin flies like a rocket, super fast. I soon find a kid feeling presence. I have no real visual, and I keep having visuals of lemur, or raccoon interfering.
                  Then I feel that the presence is also camouflaging behind projections to be left alone. He left me when I was little, around 8 because the world seemed to disappointing. I have some difficulties at first to convince him to come back with me, and I show him what I’m already doing that’s fun and that’s worth doing and exploring. After a while, he agrees and I feel a nice warm feeling inside my belly as he is reintegrating me. I thank him for coming back. The only thing I need to do is take the time to reassure myself when the world seems too dangerous.
                  Visiting the bear and the raven
                  Then I decide to go back visit the bear and the raven.
                  I’ve already seen them before and they seem to be there for me. There is an impression of power with the bear and also mother here for her kids. With the raven, it’s more a mystical stuff, and the power of observation and seeing through things.
                  I am offered a kind of raven skull symbol of power and energy manipulation staff or something like that. I take it and it feels quite powerful, I have the impression the energy or the “spirits” would follow it when I demand it. Like make blocked energy move.
                  Second soul recovery
                  I decide to do a second soul recovery and ask the whale to lead me. I have the impression of changing plane, the focus is different, I am more on the middle world, and we go somewhere icy like Antarctic. Maybe near a shipwreck. There is a man, depressed and gloomy. I begin to ask him why he’s here, but he seems to want to come back and don’t ask anything. I feel very warm and loving. The drums begin to beat the return and I thank everyone for participating and come back. Saying I’ll take time to assimilate.
                  Eric’s account remind me of a few stuff
                  that reminded me a few stuff too because at one time I had to follow a spider and with the raven I flew over a magma land and the raven became a phoenix to be able to fly because it was so hot
                  thanks I forgot that

                  Tracy
                  went down the stone steps, the unicorns on the left looked up as I passed. Zebra joined me from the right, said thanks but forgot his name! Then a white bear joined me, said his name was Waldo (or at least that name would do for now, impression)
                  He was huge but was very light on his feet the whole time. Came to a tall tree with a single very red apple on it. The white bear scampered up the tree and I followed. Various other fruit but mainly the red apple stood out.
                  At the top of the tree leveled out to a large plaza with gameboard design, the white bear demonstrated frolicking from one part to another playfully leaping in lightness.
                  Flash to me as a small child being woken up in the night by concerned parents for nasty medicine for chicken pox.
                  Same house but in the field behind, me as a small child alone by the wigwam of sticks dad made, frowning, alone. Next door to the neighbours pond, frozen over. White bear kept dancing on the thin ice part that we didn’t skate on, huge heavy bear, such a light step didn’t break the ice
                  Zebra was hanging around incidentally, kept feeling reassuring warm breath and muzzle on my shoulder. Breathing restrictions started, left the pond, down a path in the woods, came to a fork. Went left ~ papers everywhere, letters, words, snowed under with words and letters, monkeys pulling sheafs and sheafs of letters and papers and words.
                  Then a school of tiny silver fishes swan inside me and started chomping at all the letters in my solar plexus and spewing out coloured threads and ribbons from my mouth.
                  Breathing difficult. (several times just sank into intense colours for awhile with no imagery, plenty purple and green). I started doing sort of swimming motions with my arms with the breathing and fishes, had a sudden blast of energy in the chest and then later a much stronger one just before the video ended.
                  I should add the impression of less thinking/intellectualizing, less buried under a mountain of words, in favour of more purely physical expression

                  #3247

                  Lisa was delighted when she woke up the next morning recalling a dream. She had just joined the new dream group despite hardly ever remembering dreams in the hopes that the pooling would improve her recall. In the dream she had been going on a trip with a few friends, and was waiting for the ferry to leave. The boat was on the beach instead of in the water, and there was thick fog but a number of people on the beach, so she went for a wander around and saw a man stretched out on his back, fully clothed, reading a book, the surfboard gently rolling in with the tide, and out with the tide, and back again. When she returned to the ferry it had turned into a building, the interior quite different from the ferry, and her friends were gone. Lisa checked her bag for tickets and camera, but they were missing, and the bag was full of plastic forks and spoons instead. Bloody Adeline! she thought. Plastic spoons and forks but no camera and no tickets!

                  #3246
                  EricEric
                  Keymaster

                    Jonbert’s robot had easily found the location, but it was in standby in a cafe near the techromancer’s hut, posing as a tourist in a flower shirt with a straw hat and a glass of coconut oil.

                    Jonbert had received additional information about the whale network which seemed to change slightly his plans. The Ghost Whale who was supposed to preside over the rituals was apparently delayed in Time, making the retrieval of the second key problematic.
                    He would have loved to rudely prompt Linda Paul to get her Queens in alignment, but for now, there was no point to that yet. He’d better leave them at their little escapade, under close surveillance from his robot.
                    In all cases, they would all have to wait more in the nexus of times.
                    Using his ivory carved forking long shoehorn, he scratched his itchy back. It was for him rather infuriating to be stuck, he sighed “Stuck in 2222!”. The robot bearing those news had learnt it the hard way.

                    He stroked distractedly his luscious mane of red hair. At 153, thanks to regular nano-implants, Jonbert was incredibly healthy, in a very healthy and hairy manner, unlike many others he wouldn’t name.

                    #3196

                    “Are we nearly there yet?” asked Fanella, who was easily bored. The balloon had been drifting steadily westwards for almost two days. It had been decidedly chilly at that altitude, but the occupants had kept themselves warm with lashings of champagne and cognac and hard boiled eggs (much to HuHu’s disgust), thanks to Boris’s basket of provisions, but they had drained the last drops several hours ago.
                    “We will have to land soon to replenish our supplies” said the practical Boris. “We have a long way to go yet, and we will soon be flying over the sea.”
                    Perfect! thought Pseu, I will have an opportunity to acquire a bleu and white Quimper tile for my collection for the Folly in the City.
                    “But it’s almost dark, Boris, can we land this thing in the dark?” asked Adeline.
                    “It will be a perfect time to land, under the cloak of darkness. We don’t want to be attacked by superstitious peasants brandishing pitchforks.”
                    “Oh splendid, will we be doing a spot of raping and pillaging?” asked Igor, cheering up at the thought.
                    Mirabelle glared at him. “Pillaging, yes. Just the supplies that we need, and then back to the balloon!”

                    #2963
                    EricEric
                    Keymaster

                      “Looks like Ed Steams’ own impetus was his downfall Janet said solemnly after she covered the mustacheless body with a white bedsheet.
                      “Damn right you are, Janet.” Riff Raff nodded. “I wouldn’t have recognized him without his mustache though…”
                      “I think it’s safe to say that Pearl and Mari Fe’s plan was nearly a fiasco, but in the end, he took the surge full blast. Not quite the end we had in mind for him, but what’s done is done.”

                      The zombies hadn’t been difficult to subjugate however, and although Riff Raff nearly had his brain eaten out, there had been no spread or civilian loss to deplore. That much was good, Janet didn’t like the whole body moving business one bit. The Moreguest Facility was such a drab place, at least she could go straight back to her post in beautiful sunny West Coast.

                      On the table, an egg-shaped translucent gem was beaming bright green. Janet took it thoughtfully, carefully placing it in the diplomatic case. “Strange that Ed died from the surge while the others recovered once the zombie energy had been sealed into the rote.”
                      Riff Raff was more pragmatic. Or maybe eager to get back home too. “He was a man consumed by his quest for artifacts, let’s not dwell on things past.”

                      Using the portal from the bathroom once she decontaminated and recalibrated it, she’d sent everyone, their clothes doused in moonshine to some dark alleys in Granada, where they would probably be picked by local officers alerted by the usual racket made by the transspace portal, with no memory at all and alcohol breath. At least the nosy auditor would be in for a trip.

                      “Hey Riff, give my regards to Midgenta” Janet bear-hugged her friend, throwing the diplomatic suitcase with the pocket-sized forklift into the glove box of the red car, and disappearing in a trail of fine caliche billowing behind the vehicle wheels.

                      #2957

                      The aftershock of the surge at the Three Kings’ Parade started to hit full blast at the portals initial location, thus effectively linking old mummies energy to the bodies there that were hit by Mari Fe, and for he most part still lying unconscious.
                      The combination of energies started to make them arise and walk like mindless zombies, intoning old guttural sounds in cadence in a language that sounded like Italian poetry.
                      There you had the Balthazar, Rogelio, Dru and alter-Ed who all woke up at once, and even Sanso who had been hit (while impersonating a Portal Worker) started to feel oddly strange.

                      Noticing the atypical occurrence, Arona, whom Janet seemed to have had taken a sudden liking to (blame it on her Yankee side), started to look at her brood and rally them for a safe and prompt exit.
                      “What is it Arona dearie?” Janet didn’t seem worried. She was a Surge Team member after all, and a zombilic epidemic (zombies energy coming from wormholes) wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle.
                      “I fear that although your presence is most delightful, we shall be on our way.” Arona’s old sabulmantium had shown persistent and remarkable hints of dragon energy in this dimension that, although a bit different and looking in her mind’s eye like red flying snakes bearing impossibly long mustache, resonated quite well —not to mention she was eager to part with such bizarre company.
                      “Alrighty, let’s keep in touch dearie,” Janet added, covering their escape, not without winking at Sanso as he was the last one to leave through the map portal, leaving her to look for her missing flushed friends, Mari Fe and Pearl.
                      Unbeknownst to everyone, the picture-taking lady had camouflaged herself to look like a red sofa nearby the hot pink leather chaise lounge in the corner of the room, and was documenting silently the promising epic battle of Janet and Riff Raff against the zombies.
                      And for sure, Janet was still ready to make good use of the pocket-sized forklift to move away all cumbersome bodies,… as there was bound to be casualties.

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