A Visitor From Afar .... Who Can It Be ?

The farm house has been a hive of activity this past week, as we prepare for my mother-in-law's arrival

There’s great excitement in our house at the moment, because in a mere 2 days time, my mother-in-law is arriving from the UK for a 3 week visit ! (She last came to visit us here in 2008, and you can read all about that in my blog post “Zimbabwe Farm Memories ….. And Tears”).

I’m close to my mother-in-law, she is an amazing lady and has survived many hard knocks in her life. She was also a farmer’s wife and mother to a young family growing up in remote Africa, so can relate a lot to my life here today. It will also be the first time that she’s met her new grandson, and she can’t wait !

Shopping in the UK is an absolute treat as there is still so much which we can’t get here easily … I am also a complete and utter self-confessed Ebay addict but can only satisfy my addiction when we have someone from the UK coming to visit, so I have been shopping up a storm these past few weeks and my mother-in-law is bringing all my online shopping over with her ….

The last time she was here, we took her to a tented camp deep in the Tanzanian bush and this time, we’re taking her to the beautiful Tanzanian coast. We’ve also got quite a few other things planned during her stay and I will, of course, blog about them so that you can all see what we’ve been up to – but for now, I really must dash as I have soooo much to do still, before she arrives !

Ouma Ellen's Strawberry Jam Biscuits

The original recipe calls for Apricot jam, but I used Strawberry jam instead

I have no idea who ‘Ouma Ellen’ is, but I can tell you that the word ‘Ouma’ means ‘Granny’ in the South African language of Afrikaans. So, this is ‘Granny Ellen’s’ recipe and it comes from one of my favourite South African cook books ‘Cook and Enjoy It’ by S.J.A. de Villiers.

I have adapted this recipe slightly – some of the measurements were in cups, some in litres/ml’s and some in grams – quite confusing, so I have adjusted them so that they are all the same. The original recipe also calls for Apricot jam but I used Strawberry jam for mine, and I adjusted the recipe as the original recipe yielded 130 to 140 biscuits (cookies) – oh my word, Granny Ellen must’ve been baking biscuits for the entire ‘dorp’ or village, at that rate !

Anyway, thanks to Granny Ellen, here is the recipe -:


Ouma Ellen’s Strawberry Jam Biscuits

*note – I used a 300 ml cup to measure ingredients for this recipe (that’s around 11 fluid ounces).

2 cups Flour
Pinch of Salt
½ cup Margarine (or Butter)
1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
¼ cup Strawberry Jam
¼ cup Sugar

Sift the flour & salt together. Rub the margarine (or butter) in with your fingertips. Mix the jam and bicarbonate of soda together (it will go light & foamy) and add to the flour/salt mix, then add the sugar. Blend everything together and knead until smooth. Roll out the dough (about 6 mm thick) and cut into rounds with a biscuit cutter and then cut out a small round in the centre of each biscuit. Place on greased baking trays and bake for 15 minutes at Gas Mark 5/190’C/375’F.

Makes around 30 biscuits.

The Snows Of Kilimanjaro ....

I took the title of this blog post from Ernest Hemingway’s book of the same name (which is actually a collection of short stories) as it seemed fitting for the photo’s I wanted to show you today.

I took these two photo’s of Mt Kilimanjaro (or ‘Kili’ as she is affectionately known) a few weeks ago. The second one shows exactly where our farm is located – all 3500 acres of it completely dwarfed by Kili’s towering 5891 m (19344 feet) height.

At different times of the year … month …. day …. even the hour, she can look totally different, and she’s not always easy to photograph. In these photos I think that her snow looks like white icing sugar (frosting) dripping off a (still warm-from-the-oven) chocolate cake … mmmm !

Her snow cap has been a cause of concern and debate over the years, and researchers stated in 2007 that 85% of the ice which covered her in 1912 had completely disappeared, and that 26% of the ice which covered her in 2000 was also gone. An increase in the Earth’s surface temperature is one of the factors being blamed for this – and Kilimanjaro is not the only African mountain where this is happening.

Some say that her ice cap will, in all likelihood, have completely disappeared within the next 20 years. It is hard to imagine this, and I really hope that they are wrong – for what would this magnificent extinct volcano be, without her ever changing blanket of snow ?