Click on a photo to enlarge it.
On Monday, one of the guides suggested that we do Cajun fish in a dry frying pan for shore lunch. Unfortunately it
was a bit too spicy for some of the guests. That evening we watched the first day of the Democratic Convention in the
US. It´s never shown on European TV so we were quite curious. It turned out to be quite entertaining - especially
Hillary introducing Bill and Bill calling Hillary "my senator"!!
On Tuesday, we had to say fond farewells and got hugs from "our ladies" as they were leaving. In the evening we got
another visit from rangers who were not very happy because the fishing licences were incorrect when they stopped the
owner and some guests out in a boat earlier on. One of the guides had not exactly been very respectful towards the
rangers with his comments!! In other words, he pissed the ranger off big time! The owner knew that the ranger would
be paying a visit so he had to get rid of more minnows from the pond again!
On Wednesday, Helen continued her cleaning action and on Thursday, the guests weren´t happy with the steaks because
there were spices already on them when they were put on the griddle and they didn´t want them spiced. Then we watched
a real fiasco at the democratic convention! There was obviously a problem with the balloons and confetti that were
supposed to fall from the ceiling. No one would have guessed there was a problem, except that the sound people had
switched off the mikes of the CNN commentators and all we could hear was one of the organisers shouting "Go balloons!
Go confetti!" Then, when nothing happened he started getting more and more irate. "What the hell are those guys
playing at? Where are the balloons? Go balloons! Go confetti!" And so it went on! We were actually quite worried that
he might start swearing because he obviously didn´t know he was live and on air!
On Friday, the owners wife said that all of Lisa´s belongings would have to be sent back to her. Apparently she had
been told she would not be needed again. So it was our job to pack them up. We went along to the cabin and still
couldn´t believe what a mess she´d left her room in! It took quite a while to get all her stuff into a small rucksack
and the rest of the clothes went into a fishnet bag which we attached to the outside of the rucksack so that it could
all be transported on the bus alone. It weighed a ton!
We also had a chat with the owners wife about the upcoming weeks as the current guests would be leaving on Tuesday
and then there wouldn´t be any guests for 9 days. Later there would be 3 days without any guests. So we agreed on
the days we would have off and that we would be staying at the lodge in Winnie, so we needed to go shopping for
supplies for that time. The owners wife said we could go into town with her tomorrow.
On Saturday, we spent far more money than we wanted getting all our food shopping for the coming days. On Sunday,
Helen finally finished her hoovering action of the main lodge and Kirsten finally finished cleaning up the storage
room which had taken her several days to get done. We also settled up our bill with the owners wife - at her request.
We owed her money for all the cranberry/raspberry juice and cornflakes etc that she had bought us over the weeks.
We´d reminded her several times about it but for some reason she wanted to do it today.
After our break, we saw that the owners wife had made more salads for the salad bar. We normally have 5 different
salads but for some reason the owners wife obviously wanted 7 out tonight! That's never happened before. What was
more puzzling was that there were only 2 guests, so why did we all of a sudden need so many salads? At the evening
meal, the guests told us what they wanted to go along with their meatloaf and then the owners wife had a go at Helen
for asking them! (They hadn´t been asked though!) Kirsten went to pick up a plate to start putting the food on it for
one of the guests and the owners wife pushed her out of the way! Kirsten asked her what she was doing because she
wasn't letting us do our job. She said really angrily "Lets not discuss it. Why don´t you take the rest of the
evening off! I can cope with two guests on my own!"
Well we were used to being treated like dirt but it still made us really angry because there was no need for it.
There was only another hour to go anyway! But she was obviously in another bad mood so we left and went for a walk
for an hour and a half, and discussed everything we´d had to put up with over the last 12 weeks. We were also hungry
because we hadn´t eaten anything since lunch time, so we ate some chocolate when we got back.
It seemed as if the owners wife was trying to make us leave without her having to fire us. Well that's nothing new.
Its been going on right from the start, but we´ve just learned to ignore her when she gets into a bad mood - which
happens quite regularly. As always, our motto was "tomorrows another day"!
We were back on the road again! And it was a wonderful feeling to be free to do what we wanted. But there was one last
thing that happened today that would not let us forget all about the lodge right away. But that will have to wait for
the next update!!!
