Monthly Archives: October 2021

…………………….For many years, as long as Jac and I owned a home outside of the city, Jac planted her favorite MORNING GLORIES…..I love them too, and I have continued to plant them in her memory. Over the past four years for some reason I have had no luck with them. While everything else in the garden does beautifully, all I have gotten from the Morning Glories is a mass of beautiful vines, but no blooms. Franco, my gardener said, “maybe they are all male plants”….All male plants??? How are you supposed to know when you buy these little 3 inch plants in containers at a nursery which are male and which are female? There aren’t any signs, “MALE PLANTS, FEMALE PLANTS”, or any outward appearance to indicate the sex of the plants, so I dismissed this notion. For the last four years I maybe have gotten one or two blooms very late in the season….Oct. to be specific…..I have waited all season for the Morning Glories to bloom on these very lush vines, and had given up hope. Last year I got one bloom, and I thought history was going to repeat again…..after all it is the end of October……I made up my mind that if they didn’t bloom this year that would be the end to my planting Morning Glories….and I told them so! It was starting to get depressing…..Was  it a sign??? Then, the other day there it was……one bloom….and then another, and another, and another. I guess they heard me! It’s not abundant, but hope blooms, and I’m happy to have what there is. Morning Glories were one of Jac’s favorites, and they always bloomed when she was here, but then they stopped…………….so I am very grateful for the blooms I have.

………..After Chris and I took our walk to see the pool at Mombo Camp we continued on to see the sister camp, Little Mombo. It’s a smaller version of the camp we stayed at, and is supposed to be more private because the rooms are more spread out, but I don’t know how much more private you can get than where we stayed, as there are only 6 or 7 rooms to each camp. It looked very much the same as Mombo where we were, but honestly I thought Little Mombo was less luxurious. When we arrived at Little Mombo is was totally empty except for one or two of the staff. I was told both camps were totally booked, but except for breakfast and dinner we hardly saw a soul, but there aren’t that many guests to begin with! The noise you hear in the background is the wind. The microphone is very sensitive….What really struck me about the three camps, Abu, DumaTao and Mombo, was how different the landscapes were….Abu, though on the water, had much more vegetation in the water, while Duma had the vast open water of the Linyanti River, and Mombo was flat dry plains as far as the eye could see…..no water at all. They each had their own uniqueness….It would surprise me every morning at Mombo to wake up and take a cup of coffee out onto the deck, and be treated to a wildlife show.

…..After breakfast Chris an I took a walk on the wooden plank path to see the pool. gym. and spa. It is situated between the Mombo Camp where Chris and I were staying, and Little Mombo where friends of ours were staying. I have to say even though the plains around the pool were flat and open….it was still very isolated. There were animals grazing, but I would never feel comfortable taking a pool side nap! Who knows what you may wake up to!!The bridge we had to walk over to get to the pool was very high, because during rainy season the land below gets flooded. The bridge may not look so high in the video, but it was a good climb. Michael and Carolyn, our French friends, were on a helicopter flight. When we met them for dinner at Little Mombo, Carolyn told me the copter didn’t have any doors and she was strapped to the seat! I guess this makes for better picture taking, but she didn’t know this before hand, and wasn’t thrilled being in a flying object without door!!. We had a wonderful last evening with them, and when it was over we were driven back to our camp in a jeep. They didn’t want us to take that long walk back in the dark, even with a guide…..That was fine with me.