I never really appreciated just how wild and ridiculous our stories sound to the outside world until one evening after dinner, in a stunning house overlooking Paignton Bay, a dear friend said “you really do have to write a blog about this”. Apparently the rest of the world live pretty mundane lives and don’t find themselves coming face to face with a hippo outside their front door after a ‘sundowner’ that turned into a very late night.
My name is Emma Childs, and I live on the edge of Nairobi National Park, where (along with my husband Anthony) I run The Emakoko. We have built a house at the top of the cliff overlooking the lodge with our two ‘wild & woolly’ children William and Netty and have a menagerie of creatures, some of which are welcome 24/7 and others – the odd Lion – are not welcome at all.
Running a lodge has often been described as rather ‘Swan like’ – to our guests we appear to glide effortlessly along the surface but underneath feet are paddling away frantically. Our lives are no different, and throwing in a 45 minute each-way school run through the game park into the mix does not help at all. My blog is really to give you a glimpse of what goes on under the surface and introduce you to the characters, both 4 legged and 2, who without which, our lives would be incredibly dull.
