12 Images of 2012

Starting the year in Rajasthan

Decluttering

First weekend at Bureh

My office

Youyi

View of Freetown I see every morning

My VSO home

London 2012 - wonderful

Carolyn and Aoife - great new friends!

Such a fun night for a great cause

Jumping for joy at making it through the year

A fairy godmother?

I don't think so!  However, three couples have bestowed the honour of their children's moral well being by asking me to be a godmother to their daughters and son. This Christmas I have managed to see them all and marvel at how much they are growing.

Here they are (with their adoring god parent)

Niamh my eldest godchild who turned 13 in November. Looking forward to the teenage years unfurling and many shopping trips.

Eve is my second god daughter (lucky their names rhyme - that makes things easier!) and she was 8 in February.  This year she played a rally with Andy Murray but is more keen on swimming.

Harry is 6  and a keen Chelsea fan as you can see from the pyjamas.  My magic skills may have to come to the fore soon as he'd love to see them play at Stamford Bridge.  I'll have to wave that fairy wand!

It's great spending time with them all and their siblings and parents this Christmas.  I completed a Spiderman jigsaw, played charades and was introduced to the board game Apple to Apple.  They keep you young and I need that!

A Boxing Day Tradition

Hello from a rainy Scotland.

Last Friday I left Freetown for a two week Christmas break in the UK.  I flew up to Scotland on Christmas Eve for Christmas in a flooded Stonehaven with my parents.

Over the last ten years a tradition has developed whereby I spend Boxing Day with my friend Susan and her family if I am in the country which I was this year.  So, on Christmas Night my dad gave me a lift to Edzell to join the Leonard/Marwood/Cranswick celebrations.  A glass of prosecco in hand,  it was lovely to catch up with everyone and their ever growing children.  There is no way to escape the passing years when they take the form of a child - can Andrew really be a teenager and Kate starting senior school in 2013?

After a good night's sleep we headed out into the Angus countryside for a walk up the Sturdy Hill.  It was a bracing day but it was lovely to be among the hills and take in the beautiful views.

An Angus Glen

Susan, Ruth, Donald, Pat and Richard

Back to the house and a lovely lunch of all the things I have missed - oatcakes, leek and potato soup, lovely bread and smoked salmon.  All this topped off with a game of charades - my Bourne Identity may live in the memory for many Boxing Day's to come.

Thank you to all who allowed me to share their Boxing Day and here's hoping the tradition carries on for many years to come.

Bruce and the Spider – Salone Style

The other day while sitting waiting to see the Director of Financial Resources the story of Bruce and the Spider came to my mind.  I was sitting in his secretaries’ office (he has two!) waiting and as I stared into space a movement on the floor caught my eye.  A coke bottle was under a desk and something inside it was moving.  I took a closer look to discover it was the new home for a cockroach.  According to Mah it had been in there for the last week but this still didn’t stop it from trying to climb out – very unsuccessfully.

OK so not exactly the same outcome as Bruce and the Spider but it did make me think of that story and how it relates to my time here.   If you are not Scottish perhaps you do not know what I am going on about so here is a potted version:

King Robert the Bruce was born at Lochmaben Castle in 1274. He was Knight and Overlord of Annandale. In 1306 he was crowned King of Scotland and from that time tried to free Scotland from the English enemy. After being defeated at a battle, Bruce escaped and found a hideout in a cave. Hiding in a cave for three months, Bruce was at the lowest point of his life. He thought about leaving the country and never coming back. While waiting, he watched a spider building a web in the cave's entrance. The spider fell down time after time, but finally he succeeded with his web. So Bruce decided also to retry his fight and told his men: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again".

So there you are.   Here I have often been disheartened and have felt like giving up but like Robert the Bruce I have pulled myself together and waded into battle again and again and I slowly may be winning.

O positive? We'll have some of that

Last Monday the time came to do something I have always felt guilty about not having done sooner - give blood.

I had promised Carolyn that I would donate a pint to Aberdeen Women's Centre before she leaves in mid December. So, on 3rd December I built up the courage and made my way to the lab.

Some of you may wonder why this warrants a blog entry while some others will be amazed that I have actually done this given my history with needles.  It is not a good history and there have been many moments of hysteria in dentist and doctor's surgeries.  

Off I went into the lab and had the first of two needles stuck in me.  The first was in my hand to draw a small amount to test.  They tested for my blood group (o+) and various communicable diseases (HIV, Syphillis, Hep A and Hep B).  After a 20 minute wait I was given the all clear and the serious business could begin.  In fact I was given a gold star as my Hb count was 16 - very good so I'm told.

While Carolyn chatted away to me as a distraction  Musu did a wonderful job of making the whole experience relatively pain free.  I winced a bit as the needle went in but as I pumped my had the blood flowed quickly and it was all over in 10 minutes.

Here is the photographic proof

Finding a vein

All over and still smiling

In the white try between his arms is my blood.

So everyone out there - if I can do this surely everybody can.

Elections don don

Translation of post title: The Elections are finished

Well nearly a month on from the elections I feel it can be said that they were successful.  The No Violence campaign won out and the elections were peaceful. There were hiccups along the way but overall it went well.

I had been a trifle nervous about being here over the period but at the end of the day I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.  The noise, the colours, the singing, the rallies, the posters, Election Day and results night – these are all times that shall stay with me forever.

Here is a billboard that has been put up by the re-elected President Dr Ernest Bai Koroma. 

So what now for Sierra Leone as he begins his second term?  Who can tell, but hopefully this country will keep moving forwards and will finally, after these third set off successful elections, lose the epithet “war torn” whenever it is mentioned.  As the advert on the telly here says this is not a country of blood diamonds but rather one of peace diamonds.

A tent on my spare bed – it can’t be good for my Feng Shui

A few weeks ago I borrowed a tent from my friend Ed as I was off to the beach and may have needed one.  In the end I didn’t so it sat in the cupboard.

Last Saturday I was at a loose end so decided to open it up.  It’s a pop up tent and it did just that when I removed it from its carrier – pop there it was.

said instructions

Great I thought that’s easy.  So I consulted the instructions on how to collapse and store.  I encountered the first problem as the instructions are in German. 

Not a big issue I thought as I studied German to higher level (1984!) and there are pictures.  Ten minutes later absolutely no luck – I had managed to achieve a lovely circle of tent but it’s double the size of the carrying case.

carrying case - it will be used again one day!

So out came the laptop to use Google translate to see what the instructions said.  Turns out I should be creating 3 circles.  During the searching discovered a youtube video (there are numerous) showing how to achieve the task that I am now thinking is impossible.  But, internet is so slow here there was no way to watch it.

So the outcome is one week on I have a tent on top of the spare bed.

My spare room!

Hopefully someone can come to my rescue this week.  Marc did have a look at it but it flummoxed us both.

Does anyone have any experience they can share?

Please,  somebody – I have guests next weekend.

Ladies who Brunch

On Sunday I had the most wonderful brunch thanks to my friend Cathrin who returned from a whistlestop  visit to London with a case full of goodies.

Cathrin, our wonderful hostess

 The excitement was palpable as we set up the table for the ladies who brunch: bagels, cream cheese, smoked salmon, prosecco, fresh orange juice, chorizo, spinach, lovely bread and fresh milk! These may seem mundane items to you but believe me here they are like manna from heaven.

This was then topped off with the Saturday Guardian, Times and Independent for those in search of serious stories.  However, the fight was over Grazia and Heat!

Here is the table laden with the amazing fare and us ladies enjoying a Bucks Fizz on Cathrin’s lovely balcony. 

Claire, Cathrin and Laura

Needless to say we stayed a long time and had a thoroughly relaxing day. 

There may be more to come as I heard Cathrin mutter the words feta, goats cheese, fresh pasta, puy lentils, parsnips, beetroot, rhubarb and raspberries.  I’m sitting here with fingers crossed for an invite to dinner!

Dis Na MOvember

Around the world over the last few years the month of November has become known as Movember as moustaches of all shapes and sizes are grown and groomed to raise money for prostate cancer.

This year in Freetown a band of 16 Mo Bros came together to embrace Movember.  However, this had a slight difference as it was decided to raise funds for City of Rest, a Day Care Mental Health Organisation.  It is all explained here.

The culmination of the whole event was a party on Saturday night when the Mo Bros put on a catwalk parade with each Mo Bro coming in the character of their moustache.  More funds were also raised with other fun events such as pin the moustache on a picture, arm wrestle a Mo Bro, have a moustache painted on in liquid eyeliner and bang a nail in the Mo Log.  The finale was an auction where people bid to shave off the moustaches.

These images will hopefully give you a feel for the fun that was had!

Pin the moustache on the lady

Banke takes aim

Dr Livingstone I presume

The Mo Bro parade

Me and Alex - I think mine beats his!