Day 17 — An art piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.)

This will be dull because I can't be faffed to find an image, but one of my favourite pictures is by Jack Vettriano, 'in thoughts of you' - it's of a woman sitting on a chair that's covered by a dust sheet, with her feet propped up on a footstool, holding a teacup and saucer, gazing out of the window. I love it because sitting next to a window with a cup of tea and a daydream is one of my favourite things to do - if only I ever had time to do it! That's the only downside of my current home - it's a gorgeous converted stable with wooden beams and oodles of character but no real window-gazing spot. I can't quite decide whether I prefer bay windows with a window seat or one up in a gable type place... I think the second - I do love a slopey ceiling!

Day 16 — A song that makes you cry (or nearly)

This one is fairly easy because I just listened to it yesterday in a fit of missing my ship-roomie an extra bit. Rachel left the ship a couple of weeks before I did and as a parting gift I made her a video of photos of us set to Greenday's "time of your life" so now every time I hear it I think of her, and if I'm feeling particularly emotional I might get 'peas' (slight welling up).

Day 13-15 are ridiculous

So, Day 13 is meant to be 'A fictional book', but I already talked about my favourites so it seems pointless to repeat myself. Day 14 is also silly - a non-fictional book, partly because I'd pick the Bible but mostly because I tend not to read non-fiction, apart from a few biographies, none of which immediately spring to mind. And Day 15 - a fanfic is not going to happen - I don't think I've ever read one, unless you count the sequel to Gone With the Wind, which is rubbish but gives Rhett and Scarlett the happy ending that neither of them really deserve so I continue to read it regardless of literary aspects.

Day 12 - Whatever Tickles Your Fancy - Olaf

One of the great things about my time on the Doulos was all the amazing people I got to live with for a year. One of these is an Indonesian girl called Shinta, she's now married and living in the Faroe Islands and, as someone who has experienced life-threatening illness, now often has a project to encourage other people who are suffering. So, she sent me a bear called Olaf, who was travelling around the world collecting experiences before being sent to a little girl called Daniella in the USA. To find out more about Olaf (and Shinta) check out

http://hansshinta.blogspot.com/2010/01/olaf.html

Olaf arrived with me three weeks before my wedding, which means his time with me was spent mostly doing wedding preparations! But all the fun ones...
First of all he got to come to my hen (bachelorette) party – it was a very civilised affair, beginning with afternoon tea on the terrace of a country hotel.
Olaf had a sneaky taste of real English tea while I wasn’t looking! He didn’t manage to steal my scone though...



The next day, Olaf came with me to a dress fitting – it was one of the last ones so you get a pretty good idea of what my wedding outfit will be on the day!





Of course, it was soon time to say goodbye to Olaf and send him on to the next person. Hope you had fun helping me prepare for my Wedding, Olaf! Enjoy the rest of your travels!
 

Day 11 — A photo of you taken recently

I love this photo! My best friend, Bethany, came to stay with us during the Easter holidays and she accidentally created this work of art! I wish I could remember what had caused Olly to make that face... Caption competition, anyone?

Day 10 — A photo of you taken over ten years ago

This is easy - I only have two old photos of me on my computer!



My mum, sisters and me! Guess which is which? Not too difficult...

and you thought I'd left the blogosphere... Day 9 - a photo you took

Just to confuse you all, I took a year off.. Okay, I confess, I just got distracted by all the wedding prep but a few people have asked where I went so I'm going to try to make a comeback. Any bets for how long I last this time?!

Anyway, back to my 30 days of blogging



I don't have that many photos I've taken recently - my camera died a dreadful death and I've only just replaced it. Anyway, I took this picture of Notre Dame in Paris when I was on holiday with my husband, my sister and her boyfriend, who organised the whole trip (including us being there too) as a surprise for her 30th birthday - how romantic is that?

Day 8: A photo that makes you angry/sad

I don't recall having any photos that make me angry - I'm not sure why anyone would keep such a photo; surely that would lead you down the miserable road to bitterness? Although I'm sure I could find one online that illustrates some human rights outrage that would probably inspire anger. Anyway, I'm going to go down the 'sad' route instead.



That's a Baobab tree, for those of you who don't know. Looking at any of my pictures from my time in Senegal makes me a little bit sad - I miss it! Too much to really look at those pictures very often. Not just the place and the people, although obviously that plays a huge part in it, but also the work - it's the only time I've felt such a rightness about where I was and what I was doing. Fortunately, my self-imposed exile is soon to end - first Bible College, then back to Africa! Hurrah! We don't know exactly where we're going to be yet, and a lot can happen in a year, but East Africa is looking likely - it's not Senegal, but I'm assured they have Baobabs there too.

Day 7: A photo that makes you happy

Okay, I know I just posted, but this one is SO EASY:



This is me, just after Olly proposed (and I accepted). I think you can tell from the picture how happy I am about the whole situation...

Day 6: Whatever tickles your fancy

Well, since it's nearing the end of the month, what tickles my fancy is the fact that there's a new theme approaching! Last May, Bethany (my flatmate) decided she needed to use her imagination more when choosing clothes. She invited me to join this endeavour and named it 'no jeans June'. Since then we've been improving our lives in various ways through the simple medium of alliterative months. We're reaching the end of 'Aquatic April', where we had to drink lots of water and do other aquatic things like swimming, looking at rivers, wearing boat/naval inspired clothes. Sounds awesome, but we failed a little bit because we were both pretty busy this month.

Floral February was probably our most successful month since 'no Jeans June' - we both managed to wear something floral every day (more difficult AND expensive than you might immediately imagine) and our flat was abundant with floral displays. We also gave lots of people flowers, which caused many of them to try and get on board with our theme that month.

Anyway, even though we won't be living together for that much longer, we've decided to continue with our months for as long as we can... This is going to seriously stretch our imaginations/vocabularies! So far for the rest of this year we've come up with:

Musical May (oh yes, watching musicals, listening to the soundtracks... this will be fun.)
Juvenile June (wearing our hair in bunches/pigtails, revisiting childhood dens, reading Enid Blyton - could oust February in my favourites.)
Joyful July (a little vague right now, doing things that bring us/others joy. Culminating in the extreme joy of my wedding on the 31st!)
We're totally stuck on August - any suggestions?
Studious September (I'll hopefully be starting Bible College so that one's easy... Lots of preparation for going back into education!)

That's pretty much as far as we've got. Feel free to join in the fun - it may sound odd, but it really does bring variety to your life!

Day 5: Favourite Quote

Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy

"you make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore."

Day 4: Favourite Book

What a ridiculous question. As if, out of the world of literature at our fingertips, I could possibly pick one favourite book. You could at least narrow it down to a genre, although choosing a favourite crime novel would also be difficult, seeing as how I've only ever read crime books as a result of desperation at having absolutely nothing else to read.

Anyway, I suppose I could answer this with the list of books I took to Senegal with me; luggage allowance restricted me to only a couple so I chose 'The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets' by Eva Rice, and 'I Capture the Castle' by Dodie Smith. They were chosen on the basis that I thought I would be able to read them over and over for a year and not go too mad. Which was true. People who know me well might be wondering about the lack of Jane Austen in my luggage - that was due to my theory that any community of more than 3 ex-pats would probably include owners of classics (fyi I was right. It also included people with almost all Georgette Heyer's regency romances - I call that a win.). I also didn't take any L.M.Montgomerys, partly because they're mostly series' and you can't just take one of a set, but also because they're all available online.

Right now my brain is filling up with books, all of them shouting 'pick me! pick me!' Maybe I should write my own version of that BBC top 100 books... It would definitely include the Harry Potters (sorry to those of you out there that think they're evil but I love them), Narnia (oh, Narnia!), LOTR, some Sproul (not fiction but fabby), Tozer (ditto), Enid Blyton (just finished re-reading Malory Towers, great nostalgic reading), as well as all the ones I rejected in the 'favourite film' post for being better as books. Man, this is turning into an epic ramble...

Also, for those who are wondering why I didn't just pick the Bible and be done with it. Don't worry, I still love it! But I've always held the view that it's totally cheating to pick that in these situations. Akin to those people who, when asked what item they'd take to a desert island, answer 'a boat'. Gah! Aside from that, I wouldn't really put the Bible in a list with Jane Austen. It has a category all of it's own, a much higher one!

Finally, completely gratuitously, look at all my books! Okay, only about half are mine, but the hallway in my flat is lined in bookcases filled with our (mine and Beth's) books and it makes me happy! Sometimes I'll just look through the open door of my room at all those books and heave a sigh of contentment...

Spring...

Is one of my favourite seasons. A large part of that is because it contains Easter, which is my favourite of favourite festivals! Creator of the universe dying for you and me can't really be beaten. But, in second place on my list of 'things I love about Spring' (probably tying for second with the sun making much more frequent appearances) are Daffodils! Possibly the happiest flower in the world. It's so glorious to be living in Somerset right now and seeing 'hosts of golden daffodils' everywhere I look.

Day 3: Favourite TV programme

This is a fairly easy one. Not too long ago I would have said 'Friends' immediately, but that was before I was introduced to 'Outnumbered', a fairly recent British series about an English family. The thing that makes it so fabulous is that, while there is a script and a plotline and all, a lot of the kids' lines are totally adlibbed and it's beyond hilarious. Americans/other internationals, I'm not sure if you can experience this joy yet, but I'd highly recommend that you find out! In fact, series 3 started last night and I was at work... No prizes for guessing what I'm about to do - thank you, BBC iPlayer!

silly...

I take it back. My favourite film is 'The Princess Bride'. How could I forget that? Clearly some sort of mental breakdown...

"rodents of unusual size? I don't think they exist... aaargh!"

"I'm not saying I'd like to build a summer house here, but the trees are really quite lovely"

"I'm not a witch, I'm your wife!"

"Bow down to her! Bow down! Bow to the queen of slime, the queen of filth, the queen of putrescence! Boo! Boo! "

"you've fallen victim to one of the classic blunders; the first is 'never get involved in a land war in Asia' but the second, only slightly lesser known is 'never go up against a Sicilian when DEATH is on the line' a ha ha ha, a ha ha ha, a ha ha-"

What's not to love?

Day 2: favourite film

Alright, alright, I know it says 'favorite movie' but I'm English, so I translated! I got kind of excited when I saw this one, because I figured it was easy - BBC Pride and Prejudice, hands down. Then I realised that, technically, that's a TV series so I was a bit stumped. I find it difficult to pick a favourite of anything - there's just so much choice!

So, I love 'the Railway Children' - it always manages to bring tears to my eyes ("Daddy, my Daddy" I'm almost welling up just thinking about it) and is very feel good. And I've just realised I no don't really own it anymore as it was on VHS, which is no longer a part of my life. Gah!

I also love 'the slipper and the rose'. Very few people have seen this version of Cinderella, but it's fabulous! All singing, all dancing, and hilarious. Also, a lot of musicals - 'sound of music', 'my fair lady'... Do they really count? I'm sure if I saw them (which one day I will) I'd prefer the stage shows... Does that mean I also discount 'the Railway Children', because I prefer the book?

I will also confess to being a 'Twilight' fan, but again, if we're discounting films of books that I love...

It looks like the Slipper and the Rose wins. At least today...

30 Days of Blogging : Day 1

My favourite song... Is a hard one! Dammit. It changes so frequently that I can't pick just one. So instead I'll tell you my current favourite playlist. I've been working on it for a while - it's called 'iWorship' on my ipod and it's supposed to be songs that make me, well, worship, as well as having a general over-arching chronological Biblical history thing going on.

The Singer (Let There Be Light),David Phelps
Undo, Rush of Fools
I Need Thee Every Hour, Jars of Clay
On Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand, Jars of Clay
Stars, Switchfoot
You're Everywhere, Third Day
House of God, Forever, Jon Foreman
White As Snow, Jon Foreman
You're Beautiful, Phil Wickham
Prepare the Way of the Lord, Jeremy Riddle
Come Let Us Return (Gloria), Brenton Brown
Instead of a Show, Jon Foreman
One King (Live), David Phelps
Your Love Is Strong, Jon Foreman
These Thousand Hills, Third Day
East to West, Casting Crowns
True Love, Phil Wickham
How Deep The Father's Love For Us, Spring Harvest Hymns 2
O Come and Mourn With Me Awhile, Jars of Clay
Sunday!, Tree63
Jesus Saves, Travis Cottrell
He's Alive, Suzy Wills Yaraei
Christ Is Risen, Jeremy Riddle
From the Inside Out / Majesty, Soul Survivor
The Stand, Soul Survivor
Joyful Noise, Jeremy Riddle
A New Hallelujah, Paul Baloche
Marvelous Light, Charlie Hall
I'll Fly Away, Jars of Clay


Currently there are no changes pending, but I'm sure as I discover new music/get bored there will be some adjustments. I'm loving that playlist right now and listen to it most days. The last year or so has been so good for finding new music that I love! A lot of it is Christian; Jon Foreman has improved my life vastly, as has my recent acquisition of 'redemption songs' by Jars of Clay - it's going to be my soundtrack to this Easter, alternating to with my iWorship playlist. Lovely.

This is most impressive. Two posts in one day.

Cat xxxx

Let's see if anyone still reads this!

Wow... Long time no blog and A LOT has happened! Fortunately, I doubt anyone still reads this so I can sort of start anew and if I bother updating more often then maybe I'll mention to people that I'm writing again.

(I figure anyone who knows me is aware of the changes in my life, like returning to England, getting engaged etc... so I shan't bother with a long life update, although I may return to those things later on)

As a way to get re-immersed in the blog-o-sphere, I'm filching something of a blog one of the girls from my Church writes, which is "30 days of blogging". Now, I doubt I'll write these on consecutive days because I am running around A LOT in the next couple of weeks, but I'll endeavour to write one on every evening that I'm home in my flat. This is what's coming :

Day 01 — Your favorite song
Day 02 — Your favorite movie
Day 03 — Your favorite television program
Day 04 — Your favorite book
Day 05 — Your favorite quote
Day 06 — Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 07 — A photo that makes you happy
Day 08 — A photo that makes you angry/sad
Day 09 — A photo you took
Day 10 — A photo of you taken over ten years ago
Day 11 — A photo of you taken recently
Day 12 — Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 13 — A fictional book
Day 14 — A non-fictional book
Day 15 — A fanfic
Day 16 — A song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 — An art piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.)
Day 18 — Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 19 — A talent of yours
Day 20 — A hobby of yours
Day 21 — A recipe
Day 22 — A website
Day 23 — A YouTube video
Day 24 — Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 25 — Your day, in great detail
Day 26 — Your week, in great detail
Day 27 — This month, in great detail
Day 28 — This year, in great detail
Day 29 — Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 — Whatever tickles your fancy

Could be dull, could be interesting. But would you really be reading this if you weren't kind of bored already?

Cat xxxxxxxxxx

Adventures galore

So, as probably most people who read this already know, I had a little *incident* a couple of weeks ago. Got a little bit stabbed while trying to avoid football riots. Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d say!

The way it happened was something like this...

I’d been out to visit a family in a nearby village (well, sort of near, just over an hour’s drive on a good day) and it was wonderful! It’s the rainy season so there’s green everywhere and we had a lovely time, eating, siesta-ing, and chatting. The problems began on the way home... We knew that there was a football match that evening and actually went back a little late so that we’d avoid the crowds. That was the plan. But the best laid plans and all... What we hadn’t realised was that it was a very important football match, one of those make-or-break ones. And it was a break. We lost and that caused some, ahem, consternation! We were on a Diague Ndiaye, which is a public transport kind of like a car rapide but for longer distances (see a post aaaaages ago about transport systems). Anyway, this was fun; I was having a nice chat about how fast I can text with one hand and not looking at the phone, with the guy next to me and ignoring comments from my two companions about the destination of the afore-mentioned texts. We’d reached the outskirts of Dakar when we started to notice large crowds of people, wearing footballs shirts, pouring out of the city. This was the first sign that things might be a bit different to normal. The second sign was when traffic going in slowed to a halt and we realised that there were no vehicles coming out! The third, and arguably most worrying sign was when a couple of truckloads of riot police zoomed past us on the other side of the road and our Diague Ndiaye driver asked us all to get off as we weren’t moving and I suppose he wanted to go home! We could easily sympathise with that.

So, there we were, unsure as to how far we were from home, with no clear way of getting there. At night, with football rioters possibly heading our way. It wasn’t the best situation to find ourselves in, to say the least. We decided to get off the main road in an effort to avoid large crowds, as we’re always told to, and wandered around a bit until we were fairly sure that this wasn’t a terribly safe option either. We did meet some lovely people who told confirmed this – ‘it is not safe for you here’ is a pretty direct translation of what they said to me. So, we were very glad when a taxi appeared out of the night. We hopped in and he headed off to find a different way into the city as that one was blocked. We were rather relieved at this turn of events – heading away from the trouble and in a car rather than on foot. We all breathed a sigh of relief and turned our thoughts homewards.

Alas! We relaxed too soon. We’d just reached the other main road into the city when traffic again slowed to a standstill. This is fairly standard for trying to get into Dakar of an evening so we weren’t too worried –it was mostly cars etc now rather than crowds of disappointed football fans, what could possibly go wrong? Well, someone could yank open the back door of the taxi and try to take my friend’s handbag. And did. I looked around from the other side of the back seat and saw her pulling away from some random guy so I leaned over to help push him off, realising that he had a knife as it slid into my arm! Fortunately, our taxi driver then noticed the commotion, looked around and leapt into knight in shining armour mode! He exited the taxi in one fluid motion, grabbing the baseball bat he had concealed down the side of his seat and chased off our attacker – what a hero! We locked ourselves in (admittedly something we should have done before and normally remember) and headed home to put antiseptic on our wounds! Luckily, the knife, if it even was a real one, was terribly blunt and we each escaped with two tiny puncture wounds which we antisepticked with three different kinds of ointment and went on to eat the pizza and chocolate thoughtfully provided by our wonderful Acting Director. All’s well that ends well they say, and we have amazed and confounded many people by how remarkably unfazed we were by the whole experience. My lasting feeling is one of relief that it wasn’t worse and slight disappointment that I’m not even going to have a scar! Most people are very sympathetic about the whole thing, in a manner most amusing to us as they generally seem more traumatised than we do, but there are the odd few who see our wounds and say ‘is that it?!’ Someone described mine as ‘pathetic’. And I have to admit, I quite agree. I’ve had worse injuries from mosquitoes. As proof, here’s a little challenge for you! Which of these pictures do you think is the real stab wound...?

Okay, the bruise may have given it away. ‘Twas the second one. And this is what it SHOULD have looked like (thanks to some wonderful photoshopping from the talented Rachel).

Impressive, huh? No prizes for guessing which one I’m going to show my grandkids when I’m telling them stories of my adventurous life!

Plumbing

Most of my life I have been blessed with what my Dad calls 'brawn' in various shapes and sizes; that is, people - usually men, who come charging to my rescue whenever I'm faced with an unpleasant situation such as heavy bags and steep stairs at train stations, various DIY/house upkeep tasks, and of course car stuff such as oil and water checking. Now, to satisfy all the feminists reading this I know I can do all these things myself, but frankly I prefer not to have to. Unfortunately as most people are aware I currently live in Africa and most of the people I might usually call upon to perform such tasks are either on furlough or live on a different continent. I have previously proved my worth as a flatmate when I managed to fix our gas bottle when it wasn't sending the gas to our stove (although admittedly that was partially on the advice of a 'brawn' and the guy from the shop carried the gas bottle upstairs for us). Today was another opportunity for me to prove my previously hidden gifts for independence as I was fairly fed up with waiting three hours for the kitchen sink to empty of water. So, I rolled up my sleeves (metaphorically of course, real sleeves in this heat would be ridiculous) and took the pipe-thing out, cleaned it and fixed all our problems with just a nailfile and a roll of kitchen roll. And it worked! The water drains and everything, although the nailfile is ruined. I'm feeling very pleased with myself right now. I wonder what I'll amaze myself with next... Maybe I can make shelves or something?