The Oasis

Wednesday, 25th August, Semliki Time: 1:49pm

Ah, the weekend, the weekend. Don’t ask me why but Wednesdays have always been my favourite day of the week. Maybe it’s because I was born on a Wednesday or something, but good things always seem to happen on Wednesdays. It just so happens that, for reasons that I shan’t go into, Wednesdays are also our one day weekend. I find myself, therefore, sitting in the lap of luxury in the Semliki safari lodge having just had a nice relaxing dip in the pool. The laptop is plugged into the mains, god is in his heaven and all is right with the world. Not only is the lodge a fantastic place, but I really relish the change of scene.

The journey here was tough. Alex and I, with a bit too much foolhardiness for our own good, headed out on a bicycle into elephant country with the laptop, two bags of swimming things and various pieces of electrical equipment and their respective chargers. We both jumped upon the bike and merrily sallied forth straight off the path and into the long grass. We rearranged the stuff, swore a bit and started out again. We got a couple of meters before ending up, again, in the long grass. After this process was repeated four or five times, I gingerly suggested to Alex that we swap round so that I could cycle. She accepted my proposition far more readily than I’d anticipated and after two attempts I’d managed to get us going. This continued for a good two minutes until my knee injury started playing up and we careered into the long grass.

-- Pause here: A very pleasant member of the lodge staff has just come to tell me how nice the British are and that the Italians are "bad people”. His English isn’t so hot, but apparently the Italians got mud on his car… or the lodge’s car… or something --

Eventually we elected to just walk it and we were nearly halfway there when I realised that I’d left the laptop charger at home. It was now midday and the sun was beating down. I cycled off to get it. To cut a long story short, we eventually got to the lodge, I only fell over on a muddy puddle once and am now reaping the rewards of swimming pool and electricity. Anyway, I’d better stop writing and have another dip before we make the journey back!