Thu 7 Apr

What do you do the day after your birthday? It's too soon to go back to routine. One option is to accept an invitation to an all day picnic with one of my students.

As Cleo's having a "please don't make me go to work" day she doesn't take much persuading to come too, and on the way we pick up Gassim – a male classmate of our host.

Einas, a natural born beauty, meets us in Bahri and takes us on a further bus ride to her home area called Halfiya ("hell fire"). Already there's an expectation mismatch. I am expecting Nile side gardens and allotments. I imagined orange groves, palm trees and fishermen's shacks. We are still in the suburban reaches of Khartoum North. Her aunt's house is right beside the main road. But soon we are inside being fudulled by pleasant people and frankly we could be anywhere.

Einas is a quiet 19 year old with good English and a sweet sense of humour. Her younger sister, Nafisa, is eleven years old, smart, smiling and fun; and her English is remarkably good for her age. Their aunt is a teacher in a private school and gets Thursdays off. She has four daughters, the younger two are paraplegic. They are lying on the same bed watching TV and playing with a handheld electronic game. They seem to understand some of our conversation but they don't speak much. After half an hour their oldest sister, Linda, comes in from work. It's about 11am. She is light skinned and her head is uncovered. She works at the airport doing check-ins for a domestic airline. A works' bus collects her at 4am each morning and drops her home too. Understandably, she's keen to shower and freshen up.

So as you may have gathered we have a collection of fine fun females, ranging from 11 to early 20s and the day ahead of us. After a certain amount more waiting we are presented with "fatoor" (brunchy breakfast). It's a tremendous spread: boiled egg, "sidjuq" (sausages), cheese, "ful" (mashed brown beans), vegetable salad, bread, honey, jam, cream, yoghurt, tomato salad. I make a (questionably) good impression by dipping my sausages in the jam; they are delicious.

After we sit around the house for a few hours more. It is not clear why or what we are waiting for. I had in mind lazing all day but preferably beside the Nile. At one point I think I understand that we are waiting while aunt and mother prepare the next meal, but we are also waiting for a neighbour who has a minibus and "knows the best place" to go.

Eventually, it's about 2:30pm, when we finally make a move. Cleo's had a great day (so far) but she's not sure if she can take any more. She makes her excuses and Linda finds her an amjad heading back to Omdurman. I text Katy to suggest I might not make it to the weekly movie that evening.

We drive through the dirt grid of Halfiya's streets and soon out the other side into open farmland. A few more fields and we're alongside the Nile, at last. There are not really any trees (for shade). Come to mention it there isn't really any beach here either – it's more like dirty, silty mud. So much for the man "who knows". Instead we pick up all the luggage and Julienne (one of the paraplegic girls) and walk a kilometre along the shore to a beautiful white sandy section. It's now about 3:30pm. There are no trees, so no shade; it's time for sun-cream.

But the rest of the day is perfect, short perhaps of a jug of sangria or two. We frolic around in paddling water and then dare each other further out. The Nile is never easy: the depth and current are quite unpredictable. Today it is shallow for a long way – and only a slight current. I suspect further out, where it's deep enough to swim, the current would be too strong. But, one thing for is sure, it's good for cooling off.

After a while we gather for a picnic lunch: very generous helpings of chicken and salad and macaroni meat "pie".

Curiously, it's the older generation, who want to go to a party that evening, who call and cajole us to get out of the water. It brings back memories of my childhood as not everyone obeys at once and those that have can't resist going back to the water to "get the others".