Please bear with me and this newsletter as I fear it will be fairly long on writing and short on photos as there is so much to tell you all and as always the ever present mountain of other work means I am yet again a month late with sending out this e mail!

Steven & I have been blessed so far this year with quite simply the most wonderful guests who I like to think arrived as strangers and left as firm friends, much laughter (the mountain cabin will never be the same after the antics of the February Safari!), great game viewing and incredibly proud moments watching our horses in action. Two new horses started safari this year – Sien (Afrikaans for Son) a 16.1 Boerperd with a real zest for life, I first took him on safari at New Year and he was just perfect, didn’t put a foot wrong and has a wonderful acceleration for exhilarating gallops. The other new boy is possibly Steven’s favourite horse, Kruger a 16.hh dark bay with stunning looks and a beautiful attitude to working and game, I think he will rival Steven’s other top lead horse Moyani from Botswana and we are delighted that out new additions are performing so well this early on in their careers.

Kruger on Safari as “Lead Boy"

On another much sadder note (sorry I hope that I am not depressing you all this time!) I have to advise that we lost our beloved Enzo a month ago. Anyone who has ever met Steven’s constant companion will know that this was much more of a hammer blow than Songimvelo. To this day we are still not sure exactly what happened, he was getting on in years and really couldn’t bear to be parted from Steven for any length of time, he was constantly slipping his collar and running to the yard when he was left behind, so one day when I returned to the house early in the morning after Steven had gone to the yard I was not surprised to find that both him and Inky had disappeared. However, by the evening when neither had returned nor appeared at the yard it became very clear that something was wrong. The next afternoon Inky came flying back in to the house by herself, ran straight to bed and refused to move for two days. It seemed over the next week we searched the whole reserve, on foot, car and horse to try and find him, but to no avail and by the end of the week although neither of us would admit it to each other it was clear that he would not ever be coming home.

Enzo was the ultimate bush dog, having spent the majority of his adult life surrounded by Big Game and running in the bush, so although its not really a consolation we can only think at this time that a mountain leopard or a snake got him as if he had a breath in his body there is no way he would have been parted from Steven for that length of time. A seemingly fitting end for a bush dog one would think.

I think anyone who has owned dogs and knows how they creep in to your heart and become such a huge part of your life will understand the devastation that we feel and how even now when I keep looking around for him just feel totally desolated knowing he is not there. He was a very unique animal and had a very personal way of greeting people with a cold nose connecting at speed that could quite literally take you off your feet, that and christening certain guests baggage didn’t always endear him, but as one good friend said “I always felt like he was marking me as his own” and he was instantly forgiven. He has his own fan club and in the early years at Songimvelo when I managed to become parted from him for a night (a long story for another time) it was unclear who was more upset at the time, me, Steven or the guests and when he returned in the morning he had a hero’s welcome that from the look on his face was fitting for a dog of his exulted position.

Whether it was saving me from snakes, pointing out lion to Steven, taking Rhino charges from the group or just running free with the horses, I think the photo here sums him up……………….just my boys doing what they were born to do.

Although we have had a couple of blows this year, we are very excited and committed to our new venture – Steven cant wait to get back to real African Bush and I am slowly getting my head round the fact that I will be sharing my garden with Elephant, Buffalo and all sorts of other animals who will clearly have more right of access than myself!! A long way to come for a City Chick don’t you think?

Best wishes to you all and we hope to see you either this year for a celebration of all that is wonderful in our beautiful Songimvelo or in 2009 on a new exciting, adventure in Zambia.