But on a lighter note my friend Anja in NZ who runs a pre-school in NZ and is very focussed on connecting with nature, asked if I’d write a blog entry about life in Uganda.
It’s on her blog, http://www.eyesonnature.blogspot.com/ You need to scroll down to Sunday, February 13, 2011, ‘Connecting with nature in Uganda, a personal story.’
We did connect with nature a bit for my niece’s 12th birthday when my sister and her husband took Kira and I with them to Blackpool zoo!
I was quite impressed to see a couple of crested cranes there. They are the national bird of Uganda.
Not only that, but one of the presenters from the famous kids' TV
programme, Blue Peter, was doing a show there with the seals and sea lions.
And not only that, but he and the TV crew sat next to us in the café. As you can see,life in the UK is still one long whirl of excitement.
And talking of famous people, we went for a day out to Morecambe, further up the coast, recently.
This is a photo of Jon next to a statue of Eric Morecambe (of Morecambe and Wise fame).
We were quite taken by the sea front developments that have been carried out there.
It was World Book Day on 4th March and children at Kira’s school were asked to dress up as a character from their favourite book.
Kira’s favourite book is Pokémon, which if you are familiar with it (and the games) is full of weird and wonderful creatures
My heart sank when she said she wanted to go as Pikachu.
However, my heart rose again when she decided to go as Dawn, one of the vey few human characters, instead!
Only one person recognised who she was - a fellow Pokémon fan - but she didn’t mind.
They had to go to school dressed in their costume and stay in it all day. As her best friend went as … yes … a loaf of bread, I’m not sure how she managed sitting in class all day.
There were some very convincing characters, Spiderman, Harry Potter, Dennis the menace, Buzz Lightyear, Incy wincy
spider, cat in the hat, a clown, and lots of princesses.
The day before that was the 21st anniversary of my and Jon’s first date (3rd March 1990). We thought we should do something to mark the occasion, so actually went to a pub! Crikey.
There is a nice traditional looking pub near us with a real fire so we went there, leaving Jordan looking after Kira for the first time.
Obviously things weren’t going too well as after 20 minutes I got a phone call from Kira, crying. “He won’t let me play on a computer game!”
Anyway by the time we got back after our hour of freedom they were both happily playing on the computer game together.
Disaster averted.
The order of the day for women here seems to be spray on tans (along with acrylic nails and fake eyelashes) and there are many ‘tanning’ places around.
“Why are the women here ORANGE?” Jon asked one day.
There is a wonderful place not far from here - Bygone Times - a huge ‘shop’ the size of about 3 warehouses. We took my mum a few weeks ago.
They stock a
lot of antiques along with memorabilia. You can find some amazing things there - the head of a bison; an Egyptian sarcophagus, a biplane, a life-size cardboard cut out of Darth Vader; the birth certificates of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor (probably a desirable item at the minute), and a tardis. Well alright, a police box, then.
This is my Mum.
I spoke at a Soroptimists conference on International Women’s Day, 8th March. Soroptimists support causes for women worldwide, and they had an interesting array of speakers giving presentations on very sobering topics.
One woman spoke about honour killings and forced (not arranged) marriages. She told of a woman who had raised two sons, now adults, and who decided she would like to find a job. Her husband and sons saw this as something which would bring shame on the family, so while the two sons held her back, the husband poured acid on her face. They felt this would make her unemployable.
She told of a man whose neighbour told him he had seen the man’s 14 year old daughter talking to a boy. The man didn’t check if it were true or not because the very fact that someone had said this had brought shame on the family. To address this, her brothers killed her and buried her body in wasteland. When questioned about it, they felt no remorse and saw it as something which needed to be done.
This is not happening overseas, this is happening in Blackpool.
Similarly there were talks on, and from, Young Carers, ie children who are caring for their parent(s) as they are not able to look after themselves. There are carers from as young as 5 years old.
This is also happening in Blackpool.
There was a presentation on domestic violence, but I couldn’t face another talk of that nature, it’s pretty sobering to hear of the range of issues facing women and girls on our doorstep.
Anyway, to finish off on a much light note, Comic Relief / Red Nose Day took place last Friday, the main aim to raise money to support people in Africa.
My sister and I went to a ‘Zumbathon’ (ie non-stop zumba dancing for an hour) which raised about £700.
Everyone wore red, and some people had some wonderful outfits -
red wigs, deely boppers, fairy wings. One woman wore a red sequinned flapper dress … and trainers!
My sister Joy doesn’t possess a red t-shirt so wore a maroon t-shirt and navy blue track pants.
Have you ever seen the ‘Superman’ film where Superman turns evil? His bright red and blue outfit turns to a dull red and blue one.
That’s what my sister looked like. An evil Superman…
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