Just when you thought...

...it was safe to make plans.

This could be the strapline for 2020. A colleague due to return home to Zimbabwe in two days told me her plans had been thrown into disarray. In the UK everyone has been scouring the news for potential changes to the Christmas bubble rules. We certainly all need to get used to ‘going with the flow’. Today marks the nine-month anniversary of arriving in the UK and getting stuck. This is apparently similar to the gestation period of a cow.

I had a mixture of exhausting calls on bog standard things, and an energising call with a new colleague during which we discussed an exciting initiative in Mozambique. We realised we were both speaking to each other from within Devon. He is based in Totnes, further west than where I am at the moment, where the county bulges down.

As I went to fetch tonight’s serving of battered sausage and chips (it has been a few days so large chips were warranted), I noticed that in Seaton people habitually say hello to each other when they pass. This definitely isn’t the case in Cambridge and is presumably the hallmark of a small town. As I munched my chips on the prom wall I thought that although Seaton is a bit rundown and is bleak in winter, it’s a great place to be spending time.

A win in the evening was negotiating a reduction in the rent of the apartment in Maputo where my stuff is sitting. Helena the landlady is a very accommodating sort who has also agreed to go inside and check the mould status. Temperatures there have been pushing 40 degrees so I’m worried about everything disintegrating, especially as the hot season is also the wet season in Mozambique.