On Saturday morning Daniel had his first game of baseball at 8am. He is on the "Cardinals", the same team as last year. Last year, we had to stand there with him or he would disappear onto the Big Toy. This year, he is quite enthusiastic. After the baseball, Daniel went home with his friend Steven, who lives in Lekki Phase 1.

Erik came with Daniel and I, and stayed at the school until his baseball match at 11am. Inger-Lise is the team mom for Erik's team, so she arrived with Mathilde 15 mins before. Erik had a good hit and made it to second base.

After the baseball, Erik and I went out to Chevron where the boys were going to build their cars for the "Pinewood Derby". We took Brandon with us and picked up Uli on the way at the "Tarzan" ferry, opposite Shoprite.

I gave out the Pinewood Derby kits (containing a block of wood and a set of wheels) and the boys picked a template for cutting the car profile. They drew around the template and then gave it to the Chevron carpenters to saw with a band saw. The boys then had to sand it smooth.

After that, we had a Den meeting at the Lekki Conservation Centre. The main activity was to do a good deed (and tick off the requirement in the handbook!) and collect up rubbish. The giant tortoises were there as always but this time the monkeys were in the grounds. The boys took turns to look at them through my binoculars. Then, I had the idea of getting the fruit left over from the Baseball snack. One of the monkeys, unmistakably a female, came right down to us. She took a pience of pineapple from my hand. The boys placed pieces of fruit around the place for her to take. It was very nice for the boys to see the monkey so close up.

We left at 4pm, which should have been plenty of time to pick up Daniel and get back to Base before leaving again at 6pm for "Music and Dance on the Lagoon": a charity event at the Lagos Yacht club. We had already arranged for the boat to take us there (as we knew the traffic in that area would be very bad). However, the traffic generally was also so bad that it took us 1hr 30mins just to get to Lekki Phase 1. I called the boat and he came and picked us up (at the same place as the MD and I had been picked up the previous day when we went to Chevron for a meeting). The 4 boys were all squeezed in the back seat watching Star Wars III, so they didn't mind the wait and enjoyed the boat trip back.

Debikay, the boatman took us all the way to the bank opposite the Statoil compound and the boys and I jumped off, crossed the road and were home. Petra and Richard, who we had promised a lift, were just arriving as we went in. I did a lightening change and we all went back to the boat and a short while later moored at the jetty of the Lagos Yacht club in our dinner jackets. It's the only way to arrive!!

We had a great evening. The entertainment was OK, but we were on a nice table. In addition to Petra and Richard, there were Malcomn and Carol and another South African couple I hadn't met before. The arrangement for the event was that you brought your own food and bought drinks at the bar. The proceeds went to charity. We all drank far too much champagne (and suffered the consequences the next day!) For me, it was great to meet the Chevron crowd (a mixture of those I know from scouts, school and from work) and talk in a relaxed environment.

Jeremy