The Bush Telegraph: 'Time to make a plan' I briefly speculated whether the gun was for putting the hapless rider out of his misery or as a deterrent to the lion, but gave Corné the benefit of the doubt. In the event, that week was one of the most memorable bush experiences of my life and we all returned home happy and unscathed. But Corne's choice of vocabulary has stayed with me. While the phrase "Don't run, whatever you do" became the title of a 2010 best-selling book by the safari guide, Peter Allison, a follow-up entitled "Time to make a plan" would probably sell equally well. It's a phrase used all over southern Africa, but is particularly popular in the bush where logistics are notoriously difficult and where the "Can Do" spirit is as prevalent as in Britain during the Blitz. Its surface meaning belies its implicit "Do or Die" mentality. True to the Blitz analogy, it's a phrase I've often heard crackling over the radio waves when the ever-resourceful bush camp staff are grappling with a particularly knotty problem. Just the other day, Sarah and I were helping out preparing a surprise bush brunch for the guests here at Xigera camp in the Okavango Delta, when we heard the sonorous Irish tones of camp manager, Olivia O'Reilly, talking over the radio with HQ in Maun. After much crackling of the airwaves, Olivia delivered her verdict. Thank you Maun. Copy that. We'll talk to the airstrip now and we'll make a plan. Richard and Sarah Madden in Botswana Radio receivers in either hand and issuing instructions to the bush brunch team as she went, Olivia calmly multi-tasked and was as good as her word. A potential itinerary disaster for some guests who had left that morning and needed to make a connection with a flight to New York was avoided thanks to Olivia's quick thinking and an ability to "make a plan" on the hoof. The problem, it transpired later, was that the light plane which was due to take the guests back to Maun for an Air Botswana flight to Jo'burg and a connection on to NYC had developed a technical hitch. Olivia's quick thinking meant that a plane belonging to Wilderness Air, the aviation arm of Wilderness Safaris who own Xigera, was able to divert from another camp and pick up the guests in the nick of time. Making a plan is part of daily life in the bush and one which Sarah and I had to put into practice on a number of occasions when we worked as relief managers last year for Greystoke Mahale camp on Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania. Greystoke is adjacent to one of the largest groups of wild chimpanzees in the world who live in the adjacent Mahale mountains. A chimp at Greystoke Mahale On one memorable occasion (perhaps more for me than for Sarah it has to be said), I was required to take drastic action when the noxious odours from a blocked drain threatened to spoil a romantic evening meal for our guests at the bar overlooking the lake. Applying my basic plumbing knowledge in the form of an arm to remove the blockage, I hadn't reckoned on the build-up of pressure within and the proverbial solids duly hit their unwitting victim. "Sweetheart," said Sarah always quick to get to the nub of the problem. That was your only clean shirt. All the rest are in the wash and we've got to host the guests in five minutes. "Don't worry, my darling," I replied through gritted teeth. I'll make a plan.