Where is my phone charger?

I'm working from home this morning as I have to get myself to Irvine for my second rabies jab mid morning. It's all frosty and wintery outside and I'm feeling very snuggled up with the Christmas tree lights on, a cup of tea, and hinba asleep in front of the fire. I'm supposed to be writing a presentation on Miller Genuine Draft but I've lost my phone charger and I'm totally distracted by looking for that instead.

We had our housewarming & christmas party on Saturday night, with Chris and Nicola flying up from Birmingham and filling our little house with laughter and merriment. We had quite a locals dinner party that Saturday night, and were even joined by our 86 year old land lady who came to join in the mince pie munching and mulled wine supping. Hugo and I took advantage of having a captive audience to cook all the game he'd been storing away in the new freezer, so we made one huge pheasent casserole which was brilliant - to prepare the meat, we flopped it about in flour and then flashed fried it to seal the juices in, before dropping it into a simmering pan of beer. (Not Millers). Anyhow, many compliments, and we all got merry and Hugo even managed to dent the wall by exploding the champagne bottle cork into it. Definitely a sign of a good night (thank goodness at this point, the 86 year old land lady had gone home..!)

I also hosted my first 'book club' meeting here last week - 7 or 8 local Ayrshire ladies and me, and these nights are always fun as we do make a point of really discussing the book (so far, we've read The Bonesetters Daughter, Amy Tan, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith and this one). I had baked some banana bread (thanks kate for the receipe!) and we sat around discussing The Collector (John Fowles). For anyone who hasn't read it, but is interested in the 8-year kidnap of the austrian girl, Natascha Kampusch, then I'd strongly recommend it. It was written in 1964 and you do wonder whether people like that Priklopil chap hadn't read it himself and found real inspiration in it. Half way through the evening, one of the book clubbers had a call to say her daughter's baby was on it's way, and the following day little Amelia was born, so that's all very Christmassy and lovely. (In case you hadn't worked it out, I am the youngest by 8 years).

This weeks' social events are somewhat limited (and boy do I miss my London lifestyle now that it's winter and nothing to do here in the evenings) but we're going to see Borat and I've got work drinks on Thursday with Taylor McKenzie which will be great, as so far, it sounds ridiculous but I haven't been for one drink after work with anyone yet. Not because I am totally mateless (well, actually, yes I am), but because everyone is 22 / 23 and they are all trying to snog each other and frankly I am seen as grandma alice. I also find that I am dressing like grandma alice too - but that's because in Glasgow, even if it's -4 degrees C, you are a complete numpty if you are not wearing leggings under a mini skirt and a low cut top with a push up bra underneath. They even overheat the office so everyone is comfortable wearing nothing. I tell you, it's a whole different culture up here (David, why didn't I listen to you?!). Sometimes I really miss working somewhere where I am one of the youngest and least experienced - I miss being around older and sage people.

Anyhow, it's 26 days til I leave for the hot shores of Costa Rica and although my original plan was to go and stay in Manuel Antonio national park for 8 days before Raleigh starts and really do some surfing, I quite fancy the idea of having a good look around the area as well, and perhaps even pop into Nicaragua for a couple of days.

We had an email from the country director of Raleigh in Costa Rica yesterday who said he hadn't managed to get funding for one of the projects ($6000 or £3200) which was one I was really keen to do - working with indiginous people on the Panamain border, in a very remote area you can only get to by walking 8 hours along a beach between tides which would cut you off because of the cliffs at either end. He asked us to see if we could find the funding as he's got to go to Mexico on holiday...erm, ok?! When we met him at our training weekend in Dulwich he was pretty confident he'd get the cashish, so it's a bit of a blow and I'm not sure how he's going to plan our expedition if he's one project site down, other than put three project managers on each site and increase the size of each of the venturer's groups. We shall see.

As for coming home again and future plans, at this stage, I'm due to come back to Scotland mid May. BUT, I really miss London at the moment, especially all my friends and I am very drawn to coming back to London. BUT, the lifestyle here is amazing in the summer and as it will be summer when I come back, I'll come here and enjoy that again, and then decide where to go in the Autumn I think. I really would be happiest if everyone came to live in Edinburgh and be a stone's throw away from me. Come on guys...you know you want to...!

Some of my Raleigh Rules...

I've just seen these warnings in my Risk Assessment document from Raleigh (105 pages long...I'm skim reading) and thought they were reasonably entertaining...having said that I'm relieved I'm having my rabies jabs, as I heard a terrible story about a canadian girl canoeing in Lake Nicaragua whose boat bashed into a rock on an island (big waves or something) and provoked a rabid money to jump on her and munch her arm. She ended up flying home via medical treatment in Honduras and had to go through 6 months of rabies treatment, including 27 injections into her stomach, before getting the all clear.

Also, interestingly, my BCG tester has come up positive! This means I've been exposed to TB and have some natural antibodies. Must have been from sitting on the tube in London all those years. ("In 2003, almost half of all tuberculosis cases reported in England and Wales were from London, where the incidence was almost five times higher than in the rest of England and Wales.")

'scuse any spelling mistakes, I can see my breath in here and hands are frozen.

Here goes, 'how to survive a raleigh expedition'...

"Great care should be taken in environments populated by rabid animals particularly bats, as their faeces when dissolved to a dust, can become airborne & inhaled, thus causing infection."

Lovely, but this is just the tip of the iceberg..

"Fires attract scorpions and snakes – do not sleep within 10 metres of a fire."
But this contrasts slightly with the lion advice:
"Lions will be deterred by fire. If appropriate, keep a fire alight throughout the night. "

And apparently snakes can move very fast over short distances and teh best thing to do is...run.

Makes a sharp contrast to freezing ayrshire where the biggest danger to me are the neds and the weegies.

Frothing at the mouth

I shouldn't have joked yesterday - but 9 o clock last night I was curled up on the sofa feeling like I had flu. When I went to bed I had some strange vivid dreams - one of which involved finding myself in a fenced off section of dry woodland where all the locals feared to go because of the snakes. I was with Hugo. We saw the dry branches which had fallen to the ground which were long like snakes and if you knocked one or stepped on one, it shook. We picked one up, laughing that this is what they were afraid of, and then I looked into the branches and saw a green snake hanging watching us. Suddenly the green snake grew feet and became a giant green catepillar which could stretch it's millions of black feet across the tree to grip onto another branch and then it would pull itself over. Amazed, we stood in the sandy earth watching this. It was then, that I noticed something was watching me. A wild boar, behind a pile of sticks we had made. We ran. We ran and ran and ran and at the last moment, I could feel the heat of his breath on my neck. And I woke up. Now, even for me, that's a little random. I'd love to know what it means.

Shuna photos and rabid arms

Some photos of our wild weekend on the isle of Shuna to entertain anyone who lives in London or any other urban area, lacking sea lochs, high winds, big waves, sheep barges and runny noses.

I, for one look very like a split pumpkin in this photo, with a life jacket which had to eventually be tied on with baler twine. Charlie and Liv are clearly the trendy London couple with their goretex yomper kit.

This weekend on Shuna followed the Taylor McKenzie Christmas Party which apparently culminated with Jonny, one of the lads working there to declare that he was / is a man trapped in a woman's body. I did think it was odd that he wore eyeliner, despite the fact he's a rocker in a rock band. Sadly no other gossip ensued.

I had my rabies jab today which was fairly painfree, only 2 more to go before I'm immune (and thankfully rabies injections no longer go in through the stomach...can you imagine...) however the doctor confirmed my long-held suspicion that I've never had the BCG for TB, so I was given the tester shot, under the skin on my left forearm - now that was painful! How little kiddies manage that one without being in hysterics is beyond me.
Apparently the reason the actual BCG scars people's arms, is because one of the effects of TB is to turn healthy lung into useless scar tissue, and when a small amount of the virus is injected into your arm as an innoculation, it causes the same scarring effect that the actual disease would do to your lung...nasty.

So, tonight I have a sore arm full of rabies, and I'm wondering at what stage I might get a little hydrophobic and start frothing at the mouth. Nevermind, where there is no water, there can be wine. Mulled wine at that...mmmmm.

Passport # 2

Hooray! Arrived back from fantastic weekend in Oxfordshire and London for an old school friend's wedding, to find my second new passport of 2006. Now central america is more of a reality and I'm getting those adrenaline stabs of excitement when I think about it. Still, I've got a bit more to organise - as follows:

Rabies - turns out despite registering with the one medical practice in Ayrshire which provides vaccinations, rabies is a tricky one to get hold of, so my course of 3 jabs only starts tomorrow at the Ayrshire hospital in Irvine. I should get the last one just before I leave - rabies is 'essential' for costa rica / nicaragua so I'm relieved I've managed to get this sorted out at last.

Insurance - must organise extra insurance for pre-raleigh week that I'm going to be sunning myself on the beach at Manuel Antonio national park, and the 3 weeks post raleigh when Hugo and I are going to explore nicaragua and hopefully cross over to the Corn Islands in the Carribean for a bit of hammock swinging and cocktail sipping over the transluscent fish filled waters.

Kit - I still need a head torch, stuff sacks, a solar panelled ipod charger (oh yes), a solar panelled shower bag (maybe), karribiners and those balls that you put in your washing machine which fluff up your clothes. Apparently to wash clothes we put them in the waterproof rucksack liner with washing liquid/powder and add these balls, shake em around a bit and voila! Lovely clean clothes. I found a hoodie fleece in Primark for £4!! Tesco also sell fleeces for £4. Primark also sells things like combat trousers, long sleeved t-shirts etc, all for between £4 and £8 which is useful, given I'm going to have to throw most of these things away at the end of the trip.

Music - I am going to devote Christmas time to downloading all the music I possibly can onto my ipod. I considered going with just a walkman, but the space that tapes take up would mean leaving something else behind. So, my little ipod it is :-)

As for the wedding, what an experience! I cried as the bride walked down the aisle, I cried when they exchanged vows, and I then had to deal with a sniffy nose as I stood at the lectern giving my reading (in front of 190 people, scary mary) A poem adapted by Steven T Fader / F'der etc etc. Very difficult not to laugh as my brother and his fiance acted out all the sections of the poem in front of me, but all done and dusted without having my legs collapse beneath me, or a massive sneezing fit, and that's the main thing.

Crops and Christmas Parties

It is with great excitement that I post this picture of my first crop
of carrots and radishes. Some of them had rather peculiar shapes as you can see from the photo below. Nevermind, they were still tasty.

It's the Office Party tonight at Taylor McKenzie and the secret santa tree in the hall is becoming rather swamped with festive looking presents. The champers is on ice and everyone is in the loos applying lots of lip gloss and tottering heels. And that's just the men.

I look forward to reporting on the office gossip next week - limited as it will be as I am collecting my brother from the airport tonight before everyone else heads on out for supper (apparently the new guys have to sing live...come to think about it, it's a relief I can't go).

Oh, the wonderful pop of a champagne bottle has sounded. Must go and mingle.