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Mon May 26 2003 (Johannesburg)

Freezing during night, but still slept well. Up early, met Jenny, Sinead & Leila. Quick breakfast, put dirty washing into laundry. Followed Rob to Centurion Lake Hotel in Pretoria to drop car off, Budget were cool about not dropping it at Joburg airport. Into Rob's work, checking FCO advice for visa applications. Decided I need Tanzania & Kenya. Battling to find out if they have embassies in South Africa. Eventually found Tanzania embassy in Pretoria, no idea for Kenya. Cadged lift down to mall with secretary, found travel agent, they weren't keen to get the visa for me as the passport has to be left. They gave me details for Kenyan embassy, which is also in Pretoria. Phoned both embassies to check costs and opening hours, Tanzania can process in one day, costs $50, Kenya takes a day and costs R550. Wandered around mall, digging the whole place up to expand which will take several years, real mess and very noisy. Grabbed an English breakfast, then got enough cash out to cover the visa fees. Emma phoned, as expected had been beefing when QPR lost, both agreed they should be favourites for automatic promotion next season. Emma will try to get some MP3s to me via my web-site if I can work out how to do this. Internet cafe for an hour, managed to delete a load of email I hadn't read yet. Then found a cafe that only had angle grinders and sledgehammers near it instead of road drills and spent several hours trying to sort the diary out. Three beers later I'd used up enough time and walked back up the hill to Rob's work and soon after I got there we headed back home. The ladies were already back there, and so was my laundry, which had been ironed, including possibly the first ever experience for one of my shirts. Tested the girls on their revision for tomorrow as Rob made dinner, salmon with onion & mushrooms, jacket spuds, salad and cheese sauce - it was great, didn't know he had it in him! Long discussion about the future of the Afrikaans language, then copied photos and diary onto kids' PC and started uploading what I could to the web-site. Jenny gave me a much thicker sleeping bag and blanket, and I turned in around 11.30. Photos from today