I broke a promise. Well, the lawyer that still lives somewhere deep inside me (despite my best endeavours to the contrary) would rather say that, actually, I have refined my approach to this particular promise and, while, yes, I did break the existing promise as then phrased, I can now re-cast it more intelligently. Semantics. Sorry, Mum. I walked across the border into the Democratic Republic of the Congo yesterday to stay overnight in the provincial capital of Goma. My promise had been that I would not travel to any country or any part of any country in respect of which the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office at that time advised against either all travel or “all but essential travel”. On a practical level, if the FCO has issued this kind of warning, it invalidates my ... read more

Bush television. Watching Damara hornbills scrape at the sand and through the leaf litter in their patient search for insects. One dozily flies over my shoulder, so close I could feel the air displaced by its wings, to clatter noisily into the window behind me with a hornbill’s seemingly typical fascination for their image reflected in glass. How often did I look out of the windows at the Cheetah Conservation Fund to see yellow-billed hornbills berating their reflections? Or the half-dozen porcupine coming in for their multi-coloured evening repast at Porcupine Camp, just beyond Kamanjab. A sludgy hillock of elderly porridge was swiftly waded through and devoured, the usual delights of oranges and other fruit ignored for once; a porcupine equivalent of caviar, it appears… except that we tend not to wade into our delicacies feet ... read more

Sitting here in Windhoek, listening to jazz on the radio and watching the dying rays of the sun on the hills of Avis, our three weeks and 6,200 km round northern Namibia and north-western Botswana seems a very long time ago, although we got back less a fortnight ago. I’ve been procrastinating about blog-writing, initially on the basis that I needed to sort out (and, ideally, rationalise) my 1,000+ photos, but latterly without such a good excuse though many distractions. The muses have not, I hope, abandoned me; I’ve simply been delaying summoning them to my assistance, caught up in the paperwork and logistics of a friend’s move to Australia, a whirlwind of social engagements, an inconvenient stomach bug followed by a dose of a ‘flu-like thing, and, of course, preparations for my next trip. But ... read more

Hushed silence on the email. All quiet on the blogging front. What’s happened to her? Has she been sucked back into the real world? Is she somewhere so remote that even her usually pretty resourceful ability to find an internet connection has failed? Or is she struck down by some ghastly lurgy somewhere? No, strange to say, there have been multiple sightings of one Elizabeth Weir in the United Kingdom over the last four months. Most of the reported appearances of this rare migrant have been in the central London area, although we are hearing reports of sightings at various locations between Devon and the Midlands. She may also have been seen in Edinburgh, although those reports are now some months old and experts are waiting to see if there are any further sightings in the ... read more

I fell out of love with India. Temporarily, anyway. In Bangalore. Bangalore was my first stop in a fleeting trip around the south-western state of Karnataka. The irony of visiting this capital of outsourcing more than three years after I resigned my job as an outsourcing lawyer initially amused me, particularly as it wasn’t out of choice, but necessity: being also the state capital, it’s the easiest place in the state to fly to from Mumbai and a good starting point for exploring some of the variety that the south of Karnataka has to offer. But it has an ugly side. It seems to have more numerous, more aggressive touts than anywhere else I’ve ever been. Or maybe I didn’t yet have my “India head” screwed on. Initially, the city bemused me. From the road into ... read more