By this time we should have been on a cruise in the Gulf of Bothnia, but we are joining it half-way through. Now – be honest – do you know where the Gulf of Bothnia is, because I certainly didn’t.

This postponement has been because the Kenyan prime minister, who is a friend of the knight’s over many years, is on an official delegation to London.

So I had a few extra days at home nursing the cat and am now in sweltering, baking London, where the Kenyans are keeping the knight busy.

Raila Odinga was the main opposition candidate for the Kenyan presidency last December. As in Zimbabwe, the opposition won the election and, as in Zimbabwe, the sitting president managed to cheat his way out of an election defeat.

Perhaps if the world had woken up more to what was happening there, events in the more southern country might not have taken the course they have. It was only when rioting broke out as Kenyans realised they had been cheated of the election result that the West woke up at all.

To calm the violence, Odinga agreed to a compromise whereby the incumbent remained president and he became prime minister – but it is not a happy solution, and it is one with unfortunate precedents for Zimbabwe. It is perhaps not surprising, given his own experience, that Odinga has been the most outspoken of the African leaders about Mugabe’s behaviour and legitimacy.

Just before I came away, I had a call from an old schoolfriend who now lives in that unhappy country.

She has been in the UK for the last few weeks and had missed the second “election” there. She was remarkably phlegmatic and still optimistic about the long-term future of her adopted country – once Mugabe and his acolytes have gone.

Such huge issues in these nations dwarf all our own shortcomings in Scotland and Britain. The deprivations of Glasgow East are nothing compared with those in Harare.

The botches of the ballot papers at the last Scottish elections pale into insignificance beside the intimidation and corruption practised in these two countries at the presidential elections. The credit crunch, and even the escalated fuel increases, bear no comparison with the crisis posed by the million-fold inflation of Zimbabwe.

Perhaps, when we have the impulse to complain about some shortcoming of Scottish Borders Council, or of the Scottish Government, we should look at it in relation to a wider perspective – and count ourselves fortunate.

z I’m very grateful to all those who asked after the cat.

She is still on the go and the vet tells me she has a little more time with us. Although, she says, if the cat was human she’d be on kidney dialysis.

However, despite her poor appetite, she did manage the leftovers of this dish I made last weekend. The pheasant emerged during a freezer clear-out.