Sep 2020
Memories of Kenya with Ursula
One of the residents at Jubilee Lodge in Bourton on the Water has been telling us about her life in Kenya and memories from her time there.
Ursula, along with her husband moved to Kenya with her husband’s job in the army. They initially moved onto a large farm with another couple from England and they loved living there, they could see Mount Kenya from the veranda.
Ursula told stories of camping trips where she saw zebras and giraffes wandering around. There were so many animals around that the night air was alive with the sound of rustles and frogs in a nearby pond. In fact, when it quite ominously fell silent, she and her husband woke with a start. Needless to say, they did not suffer any serious encounters that night. Though Ursula did tell of a time a hyena poking its head through the tent doors, her husband flung a shoe at it and, thankfully, the hyena scarpered.
They once tried to drive to a safari site, but once the car hit the sand it immediately began to sink. They even tried to dig it back out but the sand was too dry meaning it just slipped and tumbled back into place, and they were forced to walk a moonlit six miles back, thankfully only encountering the occasional snake which they successfully dodged.
Both of Ursula’s children were born in Kenya, and it was ultimately this that caused them to move back to the UK. Ursula wanted her children to have a relationship with their grandparents. But the glint in her eye as she recounts these tales shows how much she enjoyed her years living in Africa.