We left the pristine luxury of the White Sands Hotel and re-entered the chaos and bone-rattling reality of the potholes leading out of Mombasa. The Chinese have the contract to improve this coastal road, so all I can say is, ‘Hurry up!’

We eventually arrived in the village where we were instructed to turn left off the main road, through fields of saisal then along a shaded avenue of raintrees. We came to the entrance to the enclosed paradise where guards man the gates of the 2,000 acre estate where giraffe, zebra, eland, oryx and wildebeest roam free. Beautiful houses encircle an emerald green golf course.

My best friend Gerry, whom I met fifty-seven years ago at school in Crieff, lives here with her husband, Sergio.

For all the years I have known her, I have grown up with stories of Mombasa, Kilifi, Nairobi, Dar-es-Salaam and Zanzibar. I remember her telling me of the night she and her elder sister sat with their father in a restaurant in Mombasa. They were sitting outside under the stars and he had his brandy and ginger ale. ‘This is the life, girls, nothing can beat it.’ To me, at that time, it painted a romantic picture of such an exotic life.

Now,  here I was, with her at last, living the dream.

John and I fell in love with her house. It is so beautiful and built in the style of Moroccan elegance. It is airy, with stone and wood latticework and carvings and artefacts from old Marrakesh and Zanzibar. We were just mesmerised and also very pleased that her washing machine worked. After a week of laterite dust our clothes alone told the story of our safari.

That first afternoon, Gerry took us out for a walk. We were aghast – for just across the road were zebra and the eland (who the residents have named George and who seems to think he is a zebra). Were we safe just to walk about? ‘Just keep walking  this side and we’ll be fine.’ I was secretly relieved when after a drink at the Sundowner Bar at the Golf Club Sergio came to collect us in his car.

During our stay Gerry had us tramping  through the mango forest where the undergrowth was covered in thick vegetation. The path was patterned with the imprints of giraffe and oryx. How could we be safe? She did casually mention that the last time she was there with her son, they had seen a puff adder underneath some dry leaves. I tried very hard to be brave.

But not so much later on when we met a baboon spider lurking on our mosquito net. John was quite amazing evicting the monster from our room. They are known to be quite aggressive and will jump apparently.

Most days we lay down by the Kiriweto Beach Club, where Bianca took care of us, bringing us fresh mango juice. I lay back under the casuarina trees totally in heaven.

Gerry snorkels there three times a week, and she had us out, exploring the reef which has undergone massive regeneration work to revitalise the dying coral. King Charles visited last year and commissioned a royal plaque under the sea. It became our mission to try and spot it. We did find it and saw the shiny crest with the crown glimmering under the waves. We also saw millions of fish, but sadly not the resident octopus or lionfish and scorpionfish. I’m sure they saw us so that would explain why they were hiding!

Gerry  also drove us to Malindi, about 100kms north. It took us nearly two hours due to crazy traffic, speed bumps, heavy rain and potholes. Where the road was clear and straight (thanks to the Chinese road building project) we were being overtaken from left and right by speeding vans (matatu buses) and motorbike taxis (bodda). Gerry was calm and drove steadily and just chattered away as the car rocked to the sounds of her music, Blue Velvet, Van Morrison, Tina Turner and Chris Isaac’s Wicked Game. Over it all she kept up a running commentary explaining the sights we passed.

‘That’s the huge cement factory, you get a fantastic free vegetarian curry if you visit. And those are saisal plants, and there’s a whole village that houses the workers for the plantations. Sergio’s father came out in the 1940s to work on them in neighbouring Tanzania, and look over there at the baobab trees, you can get really good jam from them.’ Gerry just chatted on as we drove. ‘But first I have to go to Watamu to get my chair fixed by Peter and we’ll have coffee there.’

Saying that she turned down a busy road, passing ladies in flamboyant colours, ladies carrying buckets on their heads, ladies sitting guarding their goods, and goats and other animals just walking about. I just wanted to stop and snap. Instead I had to blink and try and preserve the memory. Blink Blink Blink. I’m sure I looked suspicious.

We pulled into a dusty building just off the road. Inside were bits of dusty wood and furniture.

‘We’re here!’ said Gerry, jubilantly. John and I looked into the dark interior, trying to keep an open mind. Where were the tables and chairs and cups and little cakes? Where, more importantly was the coffee?

Peter came out, with a large bandage on his hand, and Gerry and he had an animated chat in Swahili. She explained the chair needed fixing, he explained how a knife had slipped and injured his hand. Anyway the outcome was that the chair would be fixed and would be sent back on the bus. I did wonder if it would have its own seat!

Peter was obviously thrilled to see Gerry, she has been a wonderful customer,  commissioning him to make all her beds and various other things in her house. The bed John and I were sleeping on was one of his creations. It is very well made, in four poster style with rubbed down white paint to give it the ‘shabby chic’ look.

We quietly sighed with relief as she roared off to the real coffee shop. We pulled into a gated complex supporting the jewellery shop (‘Keep your eyes averted, not now, we’ll be back later’),  also the Blue Marmalade supermarket (‘best cards and wrapping paper’) and finally the Italian coffee shop. We gorged on freshly made doughnuts stuffed with jam and brioche stuffed with patisserie cream. Oh my. They were good.

‘Hellooooo!’ cried our hostess. ‘It’s my physiotherapist, Ammar.’ They proceeded to have a quick consultation over the cappuccino  and then Gerry went  off to the chemist to get something for the back pain that has been plaguing her for days. She was pain free for the rest of the journey. Magical.

Then on to Malindi and the chaos, the heat, the traffic and the motorbikes. We made a purchase of beautiful beaded mats from an absentee seller.

‘Where is she?’

‘Don’t know, Mama.’

‘Well we’ll just take them all or I shall sell them for her,’ offered Gerry.

Miraculously a very pretty dolly bird emerged from the ladies room. She had been putting on her false eyelashes and reduced the total price by £6. Very good.

We noticed string-vested, elderly Italian men sitting about reading newspapers. They were nut brown from a life time in Kenya. There were so many Italian businesses, we visited the supermarket, the cheese making factory and coffee shops dotted around Malindi. It was like Little Italy.

A heavy downpour had flooded the roads, Gerry laughed saying a guy had recently attached a rope to his friend’s car and had water-skied through the immense puddles. I could believe it. But that didn’t stop  the valiant seller of three-piece-suites. The water sloshed about the chairs as he sat quite relaxed waiting for the water to recede.

We left the craziness of Malindi and drove back to Watamu to visit Anita’s second-hand clothes shop. What a paradise for shoppers. Mostly new, some designer and a lot of linen and for next-to-nothing prices. Big bags of clothes that are left over from the season in Europe are sent to Africa. We now had the pick of this store. John grumbled about not needing anything, but was persuaded by a blue, purple and white striped shirt. Gerry and I nearly had a battle over a pair of palazzo pants. ‘I saw them first.’ ‘I’ll try them, I love them.’ ‘I love them, but not the colour.’ Anyway, they came home with us, together with a white dress, a linen blouse and John’s shirt.

Lunch was an escape from the noise and crazy confusion. We ate fish and watched a guy sculpt a dolphin in the sand.

The drive back was into the setting sun, kids walked home in school uniforms, mangoes were piled in bamboo cages at the road side, motorbikes weaved around us and Gerry sang along to her music. I blinked as scenes whizzed by. How can you record so much with a click.

‘This is  where I come to buy my eggs, sadly the lady is dead now. She was Lady Marian Langham, from Langham Square in London.’ I heard the story of a love affair of long ago, and how the couple came to Kenya to get away from it all. Lady Langham kept chickens and created a garden and became president of the horticultural society of Kilifi.  We whizzed by and I pondered about how we all live our lives and some are blessed with such magical places to conduct the business of living. I thought of the book, ‘The Bolter’ by Frances Osborne, telling the story of the ultimate hedonist, Idina Sackville who personified the whole Happy Valley Set of Kenya back in the 1930s and of John ‘Chupps’ Ramsden. He built a house called Clouds, where Lady Idina lived with three of her five husbands.

And we drove on, the sun set over the saisal plantation and we turned into Gerry’s home drive. The zebra and oryx and eland were nibbling and frolicking on the putting green and grasses of the golf course. Gerry told us about one of her friends, quite inebriated, who had tried to persuade George the eland not to attempt to mate with a zebra. Stupidly he had tried to touch the animal’s head. The man was gored and left for dead. Surgeons said he was lucky as there was no damage to the vital organs. He was three weeks in intensive care.

Later that night I lay on the beautiful bed (made by Peter) listening to the sounds of the cicada outside. We were going to see a film tomorrow about the reef protection. What should I wear? Perhaps the new white dress. I lost the battle of the palazzo pants.

On our last day, soft rain fell on the swimming pool, tiny coloured birds clustered in the hibiscus bushes and John and I sat by the turquoise mosaic pots full of ferns. The two weeks had gone so quickly.

Just for a while we became part of Gerry’s life, sharing the shopping experiences with Wilson the tailor, Anthony the carver (who made John the most exquisite ebony rung, the Maasi weapon) and listening to her various phone calls with Bernard, Eric and Lawrence. It was sad to say goodbye to Cathy, who cooked for us, Helen who looked after our room, and Kennedy who kept the garden so perfect. But it was particularly sad to leave my beautiful friend, framed in her doorway, who had made her Africa real to us. As the taxi neared the gateway and slowed down a giraffe appeared. We gasped as he ambled towards the car and bent down to the window. His face was huge, and we looked into the big brown eyes. He may have been coming to say goodbye.  I like to think so.