Christmas journeys
10 01 09 - 10:04 Well, it has been a very long time since I updated this blog! I think it was early November!Well, in the intervening period we:
- Completed the 2008 term
- started extensive building works on the IT Department to increase provision for 2009
- went to England for Christmas.
Ok, so that last entry should actually be the subject of at least half a dozen blog entries, but we didn't have a great deal of time back home (19 days) Mum & Dad picked us up at Heathrow on the 9th December, which is coincidentally my brother's birthday. He didn't fancy the 5:45am arrival time, so stayed in bed!
Mum had a huge fluffy blanket waiting for us in the car as to us it was COLD!! The pilot from Nairobi to London seemed to take great delight in telling us (in that slightly smug voice only pilots can manage) "it's... currently 27.... degrees on the runway here at Nairobi... we've just been informed.... that it's 3 degrees in London..." - oh bugger. glad we packed all our kili climbing gear, we might finally get to use it, just to survive London!
After a year of watching insane Tanzanian drivers, and braving the awful roads, it was nice to roll smoothly along the M25, even if the BMW drivers treated us to a demonstration of the 110mph overtaking maneuvers that physically aren't possible on African roads.
Over the next 3 weeks we hurried around the country (thanks for the car mum!) visiting family & friends. We managed to get out to Essex and Yorkshire seeing all the families, including my uncle up in Harrogate who delighted me with the story of how he lost his VW Passat in a river..!
Siân has taken over our house in Leeds, and still has a lot of our old furniture. But everything has been moved around & it was very odd to see it changed, yet still the same house.
We had a couple of central meet-ups for meals, one in central London, to cover folks in the south and one in Leeds for the Northeners.
It was great to see everyone, some folk traveled quite long distances to see us, but the prize has to go to John & Sandra Horne, who DROVE up to Leeds from Marrakesh in Morocco!!
We didn't get to see everyone we would have liked too, as sometimes the logistics of getting to everyone simply did not work.
Special mention on that count goes to Sarah Lewis, who made the effort to come to meet me at the AHC office for lunch, but I was several hours late & missed her. Hope all is going well mate & we're really happy about the new arrival!!
Christmas was a lovely family day, but things were starting to get a bit more manic as we were leaving the UK again on the 28th.
The flight back was crowded, and being a day flight meant very little rest was possible, I think we'll take the quieter overnight flight next time.
Almost missed our connecting flight from Nairobi to Kilimanjaro as the airport staff never updated the departure gate screen - that's one way to welcome us back to Africa I guess!
We're now safely back home in Usa River & having all-new adventures with new faces, but that's another story for another day as I'm hungry!
Many more photos will be going up on the picasa website Here as soon as I sort out my new laptop for uploading pictures properly!
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