Back in Uganda after a flying visit to the UK
on Jason and Anna in Mbarara (Uganda), 10/Jul/2009 07:37, 34 days ago
There's been no new blogging for a while, as we were on holiday(!) in the UK for a couple of weeks. The reason for our trip back was that Jason's sister Amanda was getting married to Martin, and there's no way we would have missed seeing their special day. So while we were back, we thought we'd do a crazy trip around the country visiting nearly everyone we know.Jason and I at the Equator, on our way to Entebbe AirportWe had a fantastic couple of weeks back in the UK, especially as we were able to catch up with nearly all of our friends and family. A couple of my best friends (Joanne and Sarah) have recently had babies, so I was really pleased that we could finally meet the new arrivals Charlotte Burke and Leo Bloor - both are very cute indeed. It also gave me an excuse to drag Jason around Hamleys in London looking for baby toys!Amanda and Martin's wedding in Edinburgh was amazing. It was in the Mansion House at Edinburgh Zoo, which was a beautiful setting for a wedding. Jason loved being appointed official Chauffeur for the day, and driving his parents' Saab convertible around!We celebrated Jason's birthday in Liverpool, which was lovely as we went out for dinner with a big group of our friends. I felt a bit sad afterwards, as we won't see most of our friends again until June next year, and we will miss some really important events like weddings and new babies arriving.We got back to Uganda last Wednesday, and travelled straight back to Mbarara as we had loads of luggage and didn't want to lug it around Kampala. I didn't know how I would feel about being back here, but it's actually really good to be back. We thought we might get culture shock again, but that hasn't happened at all. We're settling back into the more relaxed pace of life very easily indeed.We met up with a fellow VSO volunteer for lunch on Saturday, at a place we call the 'Hobbit Hole' - It's a bar/restaurant where the owner decided to build an upstairs and balcony area, but maybe didn't take into account the ceiling height....even I have to bend down to avoid banging my head on the ceiling....I just feel sorry for the waiters who have to carry the food without dropping it!Sunday was spent planting some of the seeds my parents had kindly sent us when we first arrived in Uganda (March)....they didn't arrive until May! So hopefully we will soon have fresh mint, basil, chives, chillies, red peppers and cress (the cress has already started growing). When the rainy season starts we're going to try and take over the vegetable patch in our compound and grow tomatoes, courgettes, lettuce and stuff like that. Neither of us have much recent experience of gardening, so we're looking forward to seeing if anything actually grows.We brought a couple of tennis racquets back from England with us, as there is a clay tennis court on our compound. We had a game yesterday evening, and I did actually manage to hit the ball quite a few times which was an unexpected surprise....watch out Wimbledon!