Jamaica Inn

Not far from Marondera, there's a collection of shabby thatched buildings to your left. A sign reads: "Jamaica Inn. National Training Centre For Total Skills Training."

My in-laws spent their wedding night here in the early 1960s, when the place really was an inn. It was a disappointment. "It didn't have the palm trees you'd expect," my father-in-law says.

Up till then the day had been picture-perfect. My mother-in-law descended the stairs in a tiara made of daisies (there are pictures to prove it). The best man treated them to a supper at his father's house. His father was then the governor of the Reserve Bank. The governor's official residence was opposite State House. My in-laws left -- this bit I'm imagining -- in the dark in a flurry of good wishes.

After a half-hour drive they were met at Jamaica Inn by "a lecherous old so-and-so" with an smirk. My father-in-law soon found out why. When they opened their room door (after a suitable interval in the bar, pretending to be a long-married couple), they found a whole boiled chicken and a flask of milk sitting on the bedside table. A friend had ordered a "sustaining" snack.

These days it's Mr Mugabe's Green Bombers and Co. who hang around the sign, hoping for some food.