2018 was celebrated at midnight this year! This might sound strange to most of you: of course The New Year is celebrated at midnight.... but it had never happened here in the 4 years we have been open. 10pm has generally been the accepted time when guests have paid their last respects to the year before, and why not: at 10, it is not only the Malawian midnight, it is midnight somewhere in the world :)
Since then, we have enjoyed a gentle easing in to the New Year. The guest's trickled out and we are currently enjoying a well deserved break! Although having guests is good for business (obviously) it is also really nice for us to be able to have the lodge and the gardens to ourselves :)Â
The Flame Lillies are all out and offer a startling contrast to the various shades of green. I am waiting for the next orchids to come out but the rains are refusing to come. We don't have much cloud cover to squeeze any moisture from. I wouldn't normally mind ... but this is the rainy season! We are contemplating putting the sprinkler on!! No rain at all since the 28th of December: what is going on??Â
In other news, aside from sponsoring the Happy Hammers football team, we are now in talks with the Nankhunda team: Sponsorship in exchange for firefighting, planting, patrolling :)Â
That is it for the first week of 2018 :)