Ella Fitzgerald springs to mind...it's too darn hot...Today has been absolutely stifling. Unlike yesterday when at least we had a breeze up on the balcony, today it has been still, still, still: unrelenting and scorching. The wind is only just starting to make its presence felt now as the afternoon rolls on. Perhaps if we're lucky, it might blow in another unseasonal rain shower, to relieve the stifling heat...

The only ones to venture out at midday were the vervet monkeys, dashing out across the beach for a quick drink and then dashing back to the shade and safety of the tree line, and two Hadada Ibises who seemed unconcerned by the heat. The was little bird song from the bushland, and even the Marabou Storks at the far end of the sandbank on Hippo Bend were sitting listless and immobile, and waiting for the heat to subside.

Come three o'clock, a herd of Lesser Kudu came to quench their thirst downstream - to see them back on the river is a sure sign that it's getting hotter and drier in the hinterland. The river is so low that the reed islands with all the African Golden Weaver and Grosbeak Weaver nests are almost not islands any more - if I wanted to, I could walk out to them across the sand (see photo below, behind my trampoline).

Sitting here in the sauna that is my office, I am glad that I got my day's exercise out of the way this morning, before the sun became too unforgiving...you've got to admit, this is not a bad spot for a personal gym... (does my little trampoline qualify as a gym?)...