Merry "Christmas"

let me start off by saying its now 11.17pm (or 10.14pm depending on if you have or haven't turned your clock back...) and i am sitting here blogging and enjoying and i mean really enjoying a left over roast turkey sandwich... but I'm getting ahead of myself so let me explain...

Today has been a great day! as a final farewell we are celebrating Christmas complete with Turkey, presents, Christmas crackers and fairy lights its amazement! The day started this morning with a massive skype catch up with Moo and Sian back home in NZ... whilst talking i said "its Christmas so we should be eating smoked salmon and scrambled eggs for brekkie a tradition which ended up continuing today... all it took was a quick trip into town to pick up supplies since that breakfast (which was really at lunchtime) it has felt like its actually Christmas... LP got the turkey on... then we relaxed until bout half two when we got the veg going and the pavlova topped.... then it was time for prezzies we got such a good haul! (and gave lovely gifts as well if i do say so myself) around 4.30pm we sat down for an AMAZING meal then (after doing all the washing up) we hobbled into the living room and watched TV/napped for a while before stuffing our faces with yet more food (the Pavlova) then it was out to the pub for a quick drink with some friends now back at home getting ready for our long day tomorrow...

The presents in all their glory...

Sue opening a prezzie...

LP showing off our card from moo (thanks Moo!!!!)...

Me and my brand new head torch ...

All around the dinner table...

And the other end...

Me panda hat and my Xmas hat...

Pav before decoration...

Finished product....

LP relaxing with a full belly...

LP has now printed off our boarding passes after checking in online a process which i find baffling what if (touch wood) you don't make it to the airport?... any who we got to choose our seats which were already mostly all gone... we got the last window seat.... LP loves looking out the window i love turning into a zombie watching a movie then conking out till we arrive... when we get to Heathrow all we need to do is drop off our luggage and head through security...tomorrow we just have one or two things to get done before we head off to the station our train is 8.45am but due to day light saving ending its actually 9.45am so it wont even feel early! this time tomorrow we will be on board the plane the adventure has finally started!....

This will be my last post from Blighty so i say a big goodbye to mother England see you in half a yearish...

Look what I can do!

The last few weeks i have been a busy little bee sewing up these cute little bags... (We call them moon bags but don't ask why its one of those things that doesn't make sense if you weren't there and so is just a tad weird!)... any who I'm so impressed with my sewing skills and i now know TWO different stitches which is extremely good as before i started i knew a grand total of none!

My lovely auntie is the one who taught me how to make them and also provided me with the dried lavender to put inside... harvested from her beautiful garden earlier in the year...

They don't really have alot to do with anything but I'm so proud of myself that i had to show them off so enjoy....

On another completely different note this week has been bizarre for me... normally i have no trouble sleeping what-so-ever as in i can sleep anywhere anytime on trains,planes,buses,cars in the morning, in the afternoon, at night, in a bed on the couch, i have even been known to curl up in a little ball on the floor in the staffroom at lunchtime for a 20 minute kip if the mood so takes me... but this last week i close my eyes and just lay there sleepy but wide awake at the same time its so strange i think its excitement but not my usual jump up and down screaming i could throw up I'm so excited excitement more of a extremely zen peaceful excitement in which i dream (whilst awake) of Africa and all the adventures we will so soon be having....so soon as in two more sleeps till we leave!....

Its the final countdown!

"We're leaving together...but still its farewell...."

This time next Sunday we shall be at Heathrow airport just waiting for our flight our last few hours in England before getting on that airplane and arriving in Africa....just seven short days and we will be leaving... its kind of surreal now that its almost finally here...i only have two more shifts at work tomorrow and Wednesday LP has five (but i need the extra days to pack up we have already started by putting LPs cricket kit up in the loft)

the countdown is officially on once work is over we are all going to enjoy "Christmas" this year we are having a little celebration on the 29th October! and then its final preparations and off and away! Africa here we come!...

Books Books and more books!

I all things Africa and since i can say that my only natural talent is reading i think its only natural that i love reading about Africa i can safely say that two of my favourite books of all time are "A story like the wind" and "A far off place" by Laurence Van Der post (i wasn't so keen on the movie adaption which is a surprise as its Disney and i love all things Disney) other memorable African books are "Half of a yellow sun"-Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and "The other hand"-Chris Cleave... anyway its safe to say I've read some amazing African books in my time... but since we first started planning our Africa trip earlier in the year my reading list has been almost exclusively African from African themed novels ("things fall apart"-Chinua Achebe,"Heart of Darkness"- Joesph Conrad,"white mischief"-James Fox the list goes on and on and on...) to travel writing ("Dark star safari"-Paul Theroux, "Geldof in Africa"-Bob Geldof, "Livingstone's tribe-A journey from Zanzibar to the Cape"- Stephen Taylor again the list goes on and on...)to guide books (lonely Planet-Africa)...i am from all fronts absorbing all things Africa including now watching African themed movies (the constant Gardener,Out of Africa,Gorillas in the mist...and a whole lot more downloaded and on LPs i-pod to watch whilst in Africa...)and listening to African tribal music that LP has down loaded... i have now read all the relevant books that the Truro library has on offer and have branched out to reading about all of Africa Rather then just the countries we are going to i am currently reading "Blood River" by Tim Butcher its all about his journey across the Congo following in the footsteps of H.M Stanley's famous expedition its an amazing book and a real eye opener to how other people live... its sure going to be different from our African Adventure riding in relative luxury compared with the hardships that the vast majority of the Continent endure...

I have also recently finished reading "The map of love"-Ahdaf Soueif in it there is a powerful paragraph (many of you will have already read it in some form its one of those things that circulates in forwards emails...)

"if we could shrink the Earths population to a village of 100 people, with all the existing human ratios staying the same, it would look like this: There would be 57 Asians , 21 Europeans, 14 from the Americas and 8 Africans. 80 would live in Substandard housing. 70 would be unable to read. 50 would suffer from malnutrition. 50 percent of the entire worlds wealth would be in the hands of only 6 people. And all 6 would be citizens of the untied states." -Ahdaf Soueif

of all the things i have read lately this really stuck out to me...It really makes you think...

I got Your Money Monies!

This morning when i headed downstairs to put some washing on i stuck my head out onto the porch to see if we had any post... and to my delight found a little package that had been squeezed through the flap in the door... i already knew what it was but resisted opening it till LP came home from work... when finally he arrived home just moments before i had to head out the door to work... we opened it together and what did we find...MONEY 6435.2 in various African currencies to be exact...you see i am lucky enough to have a lovely Auntie who travels for work in Africa who sent this little bundle of joy...anyway 6435.2 yeah baby we have hit the jackpot!....only when you convert that into pounds it does only add up to £13.12...but when you consider that 1000 Kenyan Shillings will buy you a meal in a restaurant or that 20 Kenyan shillings will get you a ride on the bus or that 250 Malawian Kwacha will get you two bottles of beer its all pretty good really i cant wait to actually get to Africa and spend it!...

Visa Fever

Since we are going to be heading through a whopping 15 countries in Africa I'm rather pleased that we only have to get one visa before we go... so last week we sent away all our forms and passports (and some money) for tourist visas for Egypt...i was fairly certain they would arrive on time but there's always that tiny little nagging feeling that something will go horribly wrong!...now some of you may say I'm worrying for nothing but considering LPs UK work holiday visa arrived mere hours before we got on a plane i think this is reasonable! lucky for us we didn't have weeks of uncertainty and annoyance as our visas arrived back this afternoon...LPs looks so lovely but mine is crooked he says we will have enough stamps and whatnot in our passports to worry... but then again his is straight so he would say that!...I'm quite pleased that i have something in my passport as its my brand spanking new NZ one its black and silver so much cooler then LPs stinky old blue one!...

strangeness lurking

let me start with an apology... it is almost certain that even I cannot make this post relate to Africa or travelling or anything that my blog is normally about... but today I saw something I just cant keep to myself...Its not often that you see a lady with a beard yet today I saw two... yes that's right two ladies each sporting a beard... why?... do they not have mirrors at their houses? because I'm fairly certain that if i wake up tomorrow with a beard the first thing I will do is grab the closest available wax strip/tweezers/razor that comes to hand... so how can both these ladies walk around with over a centimetre of beard protruding from their chins!?!...now as i write this I'm thinking to myself "are you being a hypocrite Georgia?"... for just yesterday I was complaining to LP that at the moment I look a bit like a man in drag... there is a reason for this and that reason is I'm currently growing out my eyebrows... about a month ago I looked in the mirror from across the room and I looked like I only had one eyebrow!...yes I am guilty of over plucking but its only because I don't actually want to look like a man... be it in drag...once when I was at school a close guy friend of mine turned to me and said "no offence Georgia but you kind of look like a man" I'm sorry but on what planet is that not an offensive comment? luckily I did find it quite funny I'm reasonably sure i don't look like a man (except with my bush man eyebrows) so believe it or not I laughed about it... now I'm not really sure where I'm going with any of this but had to share it with someone beards on women are not attractive...

on another note (which actually does have something to do with Travelling....) today I quit my job from tomorrow I officially only have two weeks left of work... then three days to finish packing,pack up our room,say all our goodbyes and head off into the great unknown...Africa we are coming home....

Panda Hat and other bits and bobs

Last year around this time.... well a little bit later when I was thinking of what I wanted for Christmas I started to see people wearing the coolest hat around... and to tell you the absolute truth I was so jealous I didn't have one... I wanted one so bad but didn't know where to get it.... I even walked up to a girl on the street and asked but hers was gift and she didn't know...I sent LP on a mission I wanted this hat for Christmas so bad... but alas come Christmas morning there was no panda hat...sometime during the year I found out who sold them as a friend had one but there was none left...you can then imagine my utter absolute extreme excitement when yesterday we were out and about at the shops and happened to stumble upon one! lucky for me I have an amazing Auntie who brought it for me and I have barely taken it off since... despite the fact that the last two days have been two of the loveliest days in weeks!... Panda hat is in fact going to now travel with me always at all times panda hat is not only a hat but a travel companion and lucky charm...(i know I'm so weird)...below are some delight filled photos of me and panda hat in the garden in the sunshine...

Panda hat as a mask

Panda hat as a hat

Playing with stones

Hiding behind a tree

Ok so moving on (I Know you don't want to I don't either panda hat is so amazing I'm still wearing it as I type) onto some other news...

"Money makes the world go round"

Not only a snappy tune from the musical cabaret... but also a sad truth... Today we had hoped to get all our currency we need a bundle of American dollars... so off we trooped around town getting the best quotes... we started off in M&S not a bad rate but we're not silly enough to take the first thing we look at... next we tried our bank LP left me in charge of speaking.... let it be noted for the record i didn't actually want to and surprise surprise somehow...(and I'm going to try and blame the cashier here but I'm pretty sure I just asked wrong I don't really get numbers...) they gave us an AMAZING rate I'm talking hundreds of dollars better then M&S... turns out that was the "them buying from us rate" not "the us buying from them rate" so turned out to be not that great so off we went...next stop the post office (where I let LP do the talking) the best rate so far but we still had one more place to ask and it was worth waiting for (ish) now I add the ish at this point because although Sainsburys gave the best rate (mostly down to the fact that they have preferential rates for employees... (and LP is an employee) but what a hullabaloo the travel money counter is quite new... its only been there a few weeks and they are still ironing out most of the kinks... for one it took so much longer then it needed to... we told them what we needed- American dollars,large bills,good condition,year 2000 or newer the lady at the desk just didn't seem to comprehend this... she wanted to give us some kind of travel money card and wouldn't quite listen that we were going to more African countries then just south Africa... when she finally realised we only wanted cash she tried to give us $300 in $1 bills slightly ridiculous? um id say hugely ridiculous! eventually it was decided we couldn't get all of what we wanted because they didn't have it in stock so we would get some today, they would order more, and LP would get it tomorrow... so we payed and then waited while she counted out the bills.... shes counting away "$100,$200,$300...etc...$1000,$1100,$1200...etc...$1600,$1650,$2000" im not so good with numbers but i don't think even I'm that bad but we all had a laugh about it and despite it taking a long time she was a lovely lady and we are half way to having all the cash we need so thanks Sainsburys travel money lady (called Moni which as a little joke in my head I read as Money!)

Later on......

After getting our money we did some groceries then headed home, had a spot of lunch, wrote a resignation letter for my job, then organised all our gear... last Wednesday I had a bit of a practice pack it wasn't to hard and I got mostly everything in (considering my pack is 65L but LPs is only 40L I don't think this was a bad first attempt)... but last Wednesday I didn't include everything... (not our mountain of Anti-Malaria meds, not all our electronics-torches,chargers etc and not our entertainment items-books,PSP,ipods, journals,mini-cludeo or monopoly cards)... to start off with we reorganised all our pills... they come in useless packs of 8 tablets so we put 3 packs in each box...Then we got everything we could possibly need out and put it out on the bed....we started by packing our carry on luggage. once that was done... we packed our packs LP had a brilliant idea and so his pack contains our sleeping bags,bed rolls ,first aid kit, and a few other bits and bobs and then my bigger pack has all our clothes and toiletries and boots which take up so much space! all in all it was hugely successful and LP even stuck around long enough to help unpack (unfortunately we still need things before we go)... as we unpacked we also started the process of packing up our room which has now left us with two massive bags of clothes to donate somewhere...I wonder if some of them will end up in a market somewhere in Africa....

Drugs anyone?

So on Friday LP took our prescription for the most dreaded and hated anti- malaria tablets into the pharmacy (boots was our pharmacy of choice very good price, wonderful service...) and since it was such a humongous order we had to wait until Monday to pick it up so on my lunch break yesterday i popped in asked for it then waited.... as the pharmacist double checked it all....i waited...and waited... and waited.... for this...

that's enough doxycycline for me and LP for our entire trip!

Pretty much need another bag each for all our pills!

One pile for LP...one for me...

Can you see now why this has been the bane of my life since i first started rambling about it on here?

(now let me just point out although this post is headed "drugs anyone?" I'm not actually giving away/selling drugs....just to avoid confusion...)...

These boots were made for walking.....

So recently as you know LP brought my hiking boots back from NZ... they have been sitting there in a bag in the crawl space above the garage since my semi-childhood bedroom was completely moved into storage.... so i figured along with the whole "i have to break these boots back in so they don't give me massive blisters..." it might be nice to have some fun with it and since my lovely friend Maezee (that's right you get a shout out!) back in NZ insisted on photos i thought i would write a random blog all about my boots (and LP's if you remember i made him get some too although he says they are are lovely to wear although he didn't use the word lovely that was all me...) so any who long story short yesterday we turned regular Sunday into... boot trek Sunday!! and went for a somewhat leisurely walk around St Clements... we are yet to re-test/test the boots on some mountainous terrain but for now at least they have had a run in the mud and puddles of the Cornish countryside....

Setting off from home...

the hard track ahead...

Me trekking along...

Jumping over puddles...

Heel click!

Taking a break from trekking to skim some stones...

LP jumps for joy!...(or more likely because i made him)

My boots as they look like from directly above...

LP's boots looking a bit muddy...

Home again home again Jiggidy jig....

Heres hoping this wee jaunt will have slightly prepared our boots for Africa...i dont think so somehow...

Photos!

I did promise some pics off the new camera so here is me making nice.....

Moody clouds at Chapel Porth Cornwall

Moody Seas at Chapel Porth Cornwall

The view out of the window LP's Flight Sydney to Singapore

A seal pup Kaikoura New Zealand

The view out of LP's Parents house Christchurch New Zealand

Porrit park after the September 2010 earthquake Christchurch New Zealand

If this was a robin it would make the perfect Christmas card Christchurch New Zealand

Bud and Mr monkeylegs (his toy) when we house/dog sat Truro Cornwall

LP and Bud Porth Curnick Cornwall

Me on the beach Porth Curnick Cornwall

Photos taken by both me and LP....

Heck thats alot of km!

So i previously stated a random amount of miles we were gonna travel across Africa i shall now update that figure....its actually more then 22,000km heck that's a lot of km...

So Last Saturday LP arrived home from kiwiland and ever since it has been all go on all fronts! on Sunday we jumped in the car and headed to Barnstaple for a day of learning some family history and seeing some historic family sites...here's some pictures....

Stained glass window in the Newport church in Barnstaple (The Jewells are family)

The Bridge in Barnstaple

Me and a tree planted by the Jewells

Sues Old house in Chilerton

Then on Monday me and LP had a day of organising for Africa (he got up at 5am headed up the hill to work got there where he was sent home as he wasn't actually working hopefully this will teach him to read messages a bit better)

so we started off by writing ourselves a big list then checking them off in the town....

ü 15 passport photos for LP for obtaining visas on route (I got mine ages ago when I had to get pictures for my new NZ passport)

ü Got LP some hiking boots (cheap ones as he doesn't like boots…who doesn't like boots)

ü Got some new torches (wind up ones which never need batteries how handy…)

ü Assembled almost all of our first aid kit…(all we need now is some needles just in case we end up in hospital (touch wood))

ü Got all our toiletries (including shampoo bars like a bar of soap but shampoo great space saver!)

ü Then when we got home we brought our insurance online…(over 70 outdoor activities are covered including rambling and orienteering I’m so pleased that really takes a load off! But seriously it does cover the very necessary safari and gorilla trekking so is money well spent)

ü And lastly we brought our train tickets (to London for the 31^st October )

so it all seems to be coming together in less then four weeks now we head into the unknown....wish us luck...