Progress is coming to our remote corner of Kenya

The principal of the local polytechnic was waiting for me in the kitchen. Frequently in the kitchen there is a chief or a surveyor, or geese, or the cats Omar and Bernini, the dogs Jock, Sasi and Potatoes, foundling lambs or calves gambolling about hoping for milk, or stockmen with news of a sick cow, or armed askaris clumping in after a hard night to lay assault rifles down on the counter before slurping mugs of sugar-loaded tea. Bees try to swarm behind the fridge and one day Milka, the cook, primly announced there was a big snake coiled on the shelf of pots and pans. In her Cold Comfort Farm Miss Stella Gibbons talked of ‘clettering’ the dishes. You should have seen the clettering of kitchenware as I went after that snake, which rose up out of the Le Creuset, an 8ft Ashe’s large brown spitting cobra with a head the size of my fist.

But I hadn’t met a polytechnic principal in the kitchen before. As African despots wield power through their kitchen cabinets, I manage our African cattle ranch through the farm kitchen. All meetings with the highest officials or the closest friends take place here. When I arrived, it appeared the entire academic staff of the local technical college had come to say hello. The heads of plumbing, masonry, carpentry, farming science and accountancy all sat down to tea. They were polite and charming in that typically Kenyan way. They roared with laughter when I told them British tertiary education staff were always on strike. They were intrigued to hear how in England, all plumbers became millionaires without ever turning up to work.

Surrounded by gardens, our kitchen stands away from the houses and huts where we sleep, work or eat.