Sitting in front of the tennis watching Federer and ignoring Robson (who isn’t doing herself any harm with her performance, even if she does go down to Hantuchova). I have seventy thousand photos to process still, but that’ll happen (slowly), and seventy thousand words to edit. I have a print out of the thesis-so-far and am wielding the pink muji pen over it to try and sort out the two problem chapters to the soothing sounds of tennis balls being hit too and fro (and this is why I won’t be watching much women’s tennis – the grunting, it is NOT soothing).
Tanzania ended in a Battle Royale with Kenedy (albeit with less blood) which we finally won. Fortunately, Zanzibar is such that it’s appeal can survive even his awfulness in the memory. Dar not so much – but then there is so little to do, and it’s horribly humid, so it’s not so appealing. We spent our last day on the Msasani Peninsula relaxing at Sea Cliff Village. I got very excited because there was a Spur, which I know from holidays in South Africa, and so we ate amazing steak, and waffles and ice cream, whcih meant there was no room for plane food at all, fortunately.
‘Tis graduation this week, so I’m trying to pack in the work between catching up with the boys who have come back from New Zealand, the US and Cambridge for it. It’s quite like old times, bizarrely, except now Gwyn and I are hard at work in the office (at Jamie and Jeremy’s old desks), and we can make them tea monkey for us. So it’s all go, and I just decided to add to my busy by booking some Edinburgh tickets for the summer. I’m off to see Moon on Tuesday, and Adventureland on Friday at the Film Festival. Now I have tickets for Neil Gaiman and for Gerald Scarfe for the Book Festival, and the Early Edition on the Fringe – that’s my August treat to myself, as I’ll be desperately wrapping up the thesis.





