Tag Archives: UK

Movin’ on up…

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Thursday 10th March 2011

Hello again!
Well, it’s been a while, so you must be due another little ramble from moi. I’m afraid I started writing this email about 3 weeks ago and have been adding to it ever since, so aside from being a bit long, my apologies if my train of thought appears a tad scattered!

Let’s start with the hot topic of the week here at XXX – Happy International Women’s Day! This week (Tuesday 8th March – also pancake day) was the 100th anniversary of international women’s day, and so we have had lots of great presentations and discussion groups going all week at work. Here are some interesting facts for you to digest – Did you know that 50% of the world’s food is grown by women, yet they only receive 10% of the world’s income and own 1% of the world’s property and land? Continue reading →

New Year, New Job

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Tuesday 11th January 2011

Hello again everyone!

I hope you all had a good Christmas and New Year? Mine was brilliant – I was spoilt rotten and got LOADS of great presents, and ate so much I almost exploded.

I have now moved most of my stuff down to Oxford, and have been settling into the office at work quite nicely.
XXX is an amazing place to work, although there is so much to learn that I’m doing my best to shovel all the information into my head as fast as I can!

The building itself is huge, and was purpose-built for the NGO 5 years ago on the business park. It’s a convenient 15 minutes walk from my new flat, and houses over 700 employees. It’s all very funky and open plan, lots of open space and kitchens with comfy break areas. There’s an amazing cafe downstairs with a plethora of vegetarian options (yay!), and a breakfast bar, as well as hot lunches, a deli bar and a salad bar. We have our own ATM inside the building and they have regular sales of shop products so you can go and browse all the new products they are planning to introduce into their high street shops soon. There is also a yoga class once a week in the big conference room, and a massage therapist who comes in on Wednesday afternoons, although you have to pay for those. Karina, my line manager, also took me along to the singing group, who meet at lunchtime once a week, and there’s apparently also a book club who meet at the pub once a month, so I might join that too!

In other words, it’s hard to find time to do any work once I’m done choosing my muesli/fruit/yoghurt/eggs/toast/croissants in the morning, having a massage, doing yoga, shopping and deciding what I fancy for lunch! I also have a sneaking suspicion that if I’m not careful the majority of my paycheck will find it’s way back to XXX – I’m sure they have designed all these fun activities with that in mind!

The whole office is designed to reflect the NGO’s ethos, so it’s ALL open plan, even the CEO doesn’t have her own office, she’s just at a desk with everybody else. There are of course lots of meeting rooms and conference rooms, and one-to-one rooms as well, and the only staff member I’ve seen who has his own office is the staff counsellor! We also have a staff health team that includes two registered nurses for confidential health and travel advice.

So far I’ve been having a lot of induction meetings and doing a lot of self-study e-learning modules to get me up to speed on everything. I’ve had HOURS of health and safety training, including tours of the building and fire exits, a training session on how to properly adjust my chair for correct lumbar support, making sure that my computer screen is level with my eyes and my wrists are flat on my desk at right angles from my shoulders. I’ve done the online workstation safety assessment, and had meetings with my manager about the levels of glare on my screen and not slouching forward while I type. I’ve even been informed about the “No peanut” policy which applies to the whole building, as there’s one staff member with an extremely severe peanut allergy.

On top of all this, there’s a little sheep on my computer who pops up and tells me to take a micro-break (30 secs) every 15 minutes, and a break (15mins) every 2 hours. It registers if you ignore it and keep using your mouse or keyboard, and just reminds you more and more often. If you ignore it for too long a scary Lara Croft-style animated woman pops up and sternly orders you to start doing stretches at your desk! If you use your computer for more than 4 hours continuously, or for more than 8 hours with breaks, it just tells you you’re done and orders you to stop everything!

In amongst this hive of activity it’s hard to know where to start! I’ve been busy reading lots of reports and things, and meeting people to figure out what they do and how it fits in with what I’m going to be doing. For those of you who don’t know, my new job title is “xxx” and in a nutshell my job is to help the humanitarian department achieve their vision, which is to develop the capacity of all the country offices in order to make sure that they are fully prepared to cope with a Category 2 or 3 emergency on their own, should one occur. This of course sparks off endless meetings and debates about how one defines “prepared”, and is of course a much bigger undertaking for some countries compared to others.

Countries as large and complex as the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) would require enormous manpower to cope with an emergency, whereas a country like Albania might be able to cope just fine. Then there’s levels of complexities, such as DRC or Sudan, with a complex political context, or Indonesia, which has over 16,000 islands, and requires a lot of remote management!

At the moment we are developing a set of frameworks to help individual countries plan their staff needs in an emergency.
We’ve had some hilarious meetings so far trying to hammer out the issue of language, and “unpack the jargon” – which in itself is a hilarious phrase. Each team leader has written a draft of their framework, and they are all completely different in every way, so my job (and Karina’s) is to try and standardise them and make them work as a generic tool for field staff to use.

Anyhoo, that’s enough about that! In other news, Oxford is a fantastic city, small and friendly with LOADS of great little bars and pubs and shops etc. Carl, my credit card, was feeling a bit nervous about the move, so I took him out and familiarised him with all the shops in town. He feels much more comfortable now, and thinks we’re going to like Oxford! One of my close friends from school, Hannah, is living here in Oxford, so she and her flatmates have very kindly been showing me around, and my cousin R has just finished her degree here, so she came back to visit the other day too.

I have found a lovely place to live, only 15mins walk to work, and 5mins from the local swimming pool and shops. J, the girl who owns the house, lives there too, and it’s a nice big house with loads of space. She is really nice, and although we’re still slowly getting to know each other I think we’re going to get on well. It might take me a while to get up to speed on everything (like remembering to rinse out my yoghurt pots for recycling, and only buying non-toxic organic dishwasher tablets), and she does occasionally have a rather judgemental raised eyebrow look (it’s usually combined with a comment like “You’re having a cup of regular tea with sugar at this time of night??? Caffeine AND sugar?…Tsk…You’ll never get to sleep…” or “Gin and tonic? On a school night? Hmmm….”) but in general I think we’ll get on fine.

That’s about it from me really.

Hope that gives you all a good idea of what I’m up to!

Lots of love to everyone,
Fully-Lumbar-Supported Maya!
xxx

P.s. – I almost forgot! Seeing as this year marks the official end of my twenties, I am having a big birthday party to celebrate! It’ll be at my mum’s house in XXX on the 21st May, starting at lunchtime and going on all day and evening. Feel free to drop in any time and we’ve got plenty of room if anyone wants to stay the night. Also I’ve decided on a fancy dress theme, although I know there are some of you (particularly of the older generation) who may not want to dress up! The theme is characters from your favourite children’s tv programme/cartoon. For those people around my age it’s a great excuse for some retro costumes – think Fraggles, Smurfs, He-man, Thundercats, Care Bears, Dangermouse, Muppets, Superted, Button Moon, Ducktales, Transformers, Sooty and Sweep, Inspector Gadget, etc!

Naturally there are many more – that’s just a few ideas to get you going!
Do let me know if you’ll be able to come, and if you’d like to stay the night.
Hope to see many of you then!
xxxx

Christmas Cheer!

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Tuesday 14th December 2010

Hello again everyone!
Well, seems I’ve got time to squeeze in another update before I slip into my annual chocolate-induced coma (also known as Christmas!).

I have yet to get fully into the spirit of the thing, as despite having bought and wrapped most of my presents, we have not yet acquired a tree or put up any decorations yet. I must admit that in a very childish way I only really feel like Christmas has arrived when I can go nuts and smother everything in sight with tinsel and sparkly things!
However, I am pleased to announce that one particular Christmas present (and frankly by far the best one I could possibly get!) has arrived early this year. Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to announce that I have GOT A JOB!!!!
YAY!!!

(insert screams of adulation and general fabulousness)

Even better, it’s not just any old job, not sharpening pencils for some teeny tiny little charity that no-one has ever heard of (even though I’d have taken that job if I was offered it). No, no, this is a stupendous job, an awesome and brilliant job, working for…….. (drumroll please……)………….XXXXX!!! (Major UK NGO)

Yeah baby, that’s right. The big fish. The blue chip. The motherload.

In other words, I am thrilled to have been offered a position working for them!
So, details, details……

Well, the position itself is as XXXX, working at their head office in Oxford.  Anyhoo, the job itself is mostly to do with staff training and development, and condensing and collating lessons learned from evaluations and reports to create fun! easy-to-read! intranet pages. Apparently they’re going to teach me how to design an intranet page, so that’s a bonus!

Anyway, that’s all really brilliant and exciting. I went through a rigorous screening process, which included a phone interview, a test, then a face-to-face interview and another test before I was offered the position. I got the call about 2 weeks ago, but was waiting to announce my news until all the administration was out of the way (checking references, negotiating salary, getting contracts and offer letters sent out and signed and sent back etc).

So, here we are, and I’m about to head down to Oxford to look for a flat, and then I’m officially starting my new job on Monday! Although it’s a bit strange to start so close to Christmas, my new line manager explained that it’s a lot easier for her to show me the ropes and settle in while the office is nice and quiet and empty! So I’m starting on Monday, and just working for 3 days, then home for xmas, then back down on the 29th for another 3 days before new year.

So, that is my big huge exciting news!
The perfect Christmas present – and just in time!

Soooo, well, what else is there? Not a lot really. Since my last update I’ve mostly been filling in endless job applications, visiting friends, and hauling my enormous bulk around the back roads behind the village in preparation for my 5km charity run. The impetus for losing weight and getting fit has recently increased after I sat on a friend’s sofa a few weeks ago and broke it. You know you need to lose a few kilos when sofas start to collapse underneath you!

We had lots of snow a couple of weeks ago, although sadly it’s all melted now, and I felt extremely hard-core when I went jogging in the snow. The shocked looks on my neighbours’ faces was enough to spur me on!
Unfortunately when I went out the following day all of the snow had frozen into solid ice, and no-one grits the country lanes, so I fell over a lot, and could barely get above a brisk walk without losing my balance! The neighbours especially enjoyed watching me slipping and sliding about, although the real low point was when I accidentally inhaled a large snowflake while jogging and almost choked (until it suddenly melted halfway down to my lungs!).

But nevertheless, I have bravely persevered! I was actually starting to look forward to the event itself (just so I could get it over with), but sadly it was cancelled due to all the ice! (Apparently the event organisers don’t have insurance against several thousand broken legs and shattered hips). So, sad day for me, but fear not, all you good people who have sponsored me! There is still hope!

The options left are that
a) I can get hold of a santa suit and run my own 5k with a friend taking photos and verifying that I actually did do it
or
b) I can post-pone it until May when the same organisers are holding a super-hero themed 5k fun run

So, don’t worry about your sponsorship money – I have promised you a 5k run in a silly outfit and one way or another I will complete the challenge!!
The only thing I am waiting for is to find out the specific date of the May run, as although I LOVE dressing up as superheroes, if it’s anywhere near my birthday weekend I’ll be either far too drunk or far too hungover to attempt it!

However feel free to write back and let me know which YOU’D rather see me do – a lone Santa run, or mass superhero run?

I guess that’s about all my news for now, except to wish everybody a very happy Christmas and spread a little bit of my xmas joy to you via the interweb.

Merry Crimble!!!!

lots of love
Employed Maya!!!
xxx

Life in the slow lane…

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Wednesday 17th November 2010

Hello again all!

So, it’s once again time for a little update on my life, before the Christmas mania and panic starts to fully set in…

I must admit I haven’t been up to many exciting things recently, although I do find myself incredibly busy in general – the days seem to be flying by! I’m still flogging away at the job-hunting and am reluctantly doing my best to network on the few occasions that I leave the village! I must say that things are looking up compared to last year – although I am still unemployed, I have had a lot more interviews this time round, so clearly my CV is getting better, and I’m now getting roughly a 1:10 ratio of interviews to applications sent out, which is encouraging! Of course now that my CV is up to scratch I need to start honing my interview skills, in order to get through to round two (and these days it seems there are several rounds of selection, including phone interviews, face to face interviews and timed tests, all of which I had to do recently!).

But anyhoo, enough about that, what else have I been up to?

Two of my dearest friends recently got married in a beautiful ceremony in Islington Town Hall, which was a really fantastic day, and one of the best weddings I’ve ever been to. So naturally I drank far too much and spent the day afterwards with a hangover so severe I can only assume it’s the early stages of liver failure.
I’ve also been getting back into my knitting and sewing, in an attempt to make more homemade xmas presents! I am still fairly limited to scarves and other things that can be knitted in a straight line, although I almost managed a hat recently, but it all went a bit peculiar towards the end, and isn’t really very hat-shaped after all. Poor thing.

And course small-town rural life continues to be full of hilarious little anecdotes. Just today as I walked through the town center I came across 6 or 7 elderly pensioners standing in a huddle on the pavement outside the brand-new, just-opened fish and chip shop (humourously named “The Codfather”). As I walked past they were muttering to each other “ooooh, look at that!”, “It’s so smart!”,  “And look, it’s a restaurant – you can sit down to eat and everything!”, “Oooooohh”

It was just so funny.

And then of course, there’s my latest fad/hobby, Jogging.

It’s hard to put my thoughts on jogging down clearly to be honest. It’s a sport, much like it’s sibling, running, which people who do it claim to enjoy. They tell me insistently over and over again that once one gets the hang of it, it’s a lot of fun, or something similar.
I would have to say, after several weeks of “training” for my epic 5km fun run in December, that it is not fun, and it does not, in fact, become any more enjoyable over time. I have (most weeks) been doing my little 3-mile circuit of interval training (alternating jogging and walking) round the fields behind the village, 3 times a week. I did have one week off when I inadvertently made my knee go “twang” and couldn’t go up and down stairs for a week, but that seems to have fixed itself and regular torture has resumed.

There are brief moments, when I’m wheezing and panting my way through the ice-cold drizzle and gale-force winds of your average November morning, when I think perhaps it’s all a huge conspiracy and there are hundreds of people out there laughing hysterically at my gullibility and naivetee. And then there are other moments, when I’m gasping for air and barely able to move beyond snail’s pace, when I know that it really is a conspiracy. The only way running could EVER be enjoyable as a sport would be if, at the finish line, there was an enormous double bed, covered in rose petals, chocolates and Johnny Depp, and even then you’d only ever need to do the running bit once.

However, I persevere, because I have signed up for the fun run and am committed to raising a bit of cash for a really great NGO called EJF – Environmental Justice Foundation. Not only do they do all sorts of gung-ho environmental actions like lobbying and advocacy, and fair-trade to make sure Joe Bloggs-Ngumbe gets a decent price for his fish in Sierra Leone, but more importantly, they are one of the select few organisations that saw my potential and gave me an interview! Although I didn’t get that particular job, I still think they deserve your hard-earned £5 for being fabulous and for recognising my talent and brilliance! So please please please dig deep into your pockets and sponsor me on my 5km personal marathon! I only have £70 left to raise, and I’m fairly confident that you guys have got what it takes to get me there! GO TEAM! Do it! Do it now!

If that wasn’t motivational enough for you, I should also point out I’ll be staggering around Greenwich Park IN A SANTA SUIT! I’ll be taking my place alongside thousands of other fundraising Santas, complete with my red and white jacket and trousers, Santa hat AND BEARD! Naturally there will be photos to follow after the event, and any of you who want more comedy are welcome to come and watch me in person.

So, that’s about all from me this time, I do hope you’re all well,
tons of love
xxx
Jogging Maya

Re-Entry

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Monday 11th October 2010

Hello everyone,
I’m so sorry I haven’t written for AGES – completely unforgivable I know, and I’m sure most of you are DYING to know what I’ve been up to for the last two months or so, so prepare for a very long update!

Well, I came home from India in early August, and was almost immediately swept up in all of the excitement of my sister’s wedding, which was on the 4th September. There was a lot of logistics planning, and military-style organisation involved, including figuring out who was driving over to pick up the bouquet and bring it to the correct venue at what time/day etc. All terribly efficient, and it gave me a glimpse of just how much insane planning actually goes into a wedding!

Suffice to say the wedding itself was perfect, with a lovely registry office ceremony in Cambridge on Friday, and then a blessing ceremony and reception at my aunt’s house in Essex on Saturday. Two of my friends from Uni had also gotten married on the bank holiday Monday beforehand, so by Saturday it was technically my 3rd wedding in a week!
It was all fabulous however, and great to have a chance to catch up with so many friends and family – including my dad and stepmother, and my brother and his family, who had all come over from Australia for the occasion!

After all the wedding excitement died down, I spent a fantastic month with my brother and his family, who I have not seen for three years! We all had an amazing time, and mum and I got to babysit my gorgeous nephews while my brother and his wife had a couple of well-deserved mini-breaks – 3 days in Berlin and then 3 days in Barcelona. My nephews are perfect in every way – I still maintain that they are the best-behaved children in the world, and I know I’m not biased, because the rest of my extended family think so too!

O, the oldest, is now 6 and a half, devastatingly cute, and terrifyingly bright. He is very artistic, and is already reading the 5th Harry Potter book and can spell Lord Voldermort (I’m so proud!). He has of course also mastered the art of sulking, which is HILARIOUS to watch – I’ve never seen it done with such panache!

J is in the middle, and about to turn 5. He’s gorgeous as well of course, and LOVES all things Star Wars – so old school! He is extremely perceptive and also very funny, and has such a sunny disposition that he can’t stay in a huff for more than 5 minutes! He is very cheeky and loves wrestling and sword-fighting, and comes out with the best quotes.

Then there is N, who is the youngest, and just turned 2. He is an utterly adorable toddler, as his brothers were before him, and has a brilliant smile. He LOVES cars and driving cars and making brrrrummm, bruummm noises, and likes to pretend to drill things a lot. He is very cuddly and also sings little random tunes all the time, and frequently got us all joining in with “Do DO Do dooo Do Duh Duh Duh DOOOOO…YAY!” – A classic song for all the ages!

Basically they are all wonderful, and spending a month with them left my ovaries screaming! (I seem to have become even more broody than I was before!).

Anyhoo, it was of course also wonderful to see my bro, who is awesome, and my sister-in-law, who I get on with incredibly well too, so we spent LOADS of time gossiping and generally catching up. And so, with all of this hustle and bustle of activity going on I have barely had time to do any of the other things I was meant to be doing, like once again looking for a job!

However, since the family have swept off back to Oz, and mum and her partner are off on their holidays, I’ve now got the house to myself and some time to focus on it a bit more. I have now sent off around 35 job applications since leaving the University (which incidentally was recently shut down due to tax fraud, so a lucky escape there!), and have been attempting to take a few more pro-active measures about job-hunting.

I have not yet had any interviews as such, although I did get invited up to Leicester for a kind-of pre-interview interview with XXXX (more of an informal meeting to discuss my suitability for the post or any others they might have for me etc). All very good, and I spent £50 on a return train ticket to Leicester, but then got a very apologetic phone call the day before telling me that DFID (the UK Department for International Development) had just cut most of their funding and they have to immediately halt all recruitment, including for the position I was going for, as they can no longer afford to hire someone for that position! So sadly I never got to have that particular interview, although they very kindly offered to refund my train fare.

I also attended a conference last week on job-hunting and careers in the International Development sector, hosted by a charity recruitment company. It was…. interesting. The first half was a bit lame – all the speakers kept telling us to focus on volunteering abroad (yup, done that), and getting a masters degree (check) – all very useful for the 200-odd students and fresh graduates there, but not so helpful for me. The other thing that every single speaker kept harping on about was the importance of networking. “Network, Network, Network” was the general consensus, and there was a 40-minute “networking break” built into the conference timings.

I found it all a bit terrifying – 200 people vying to speak to 5 speakers in 40 minutes. Queuing disintegrated very quickly and it ended up being a case of shove your way to the front and say something interesting really really fast. Luckily I was one of the few people who had brought copies of my CV with me, so I was able to shove it at several people before getting trampled under the crowd of desperate graduates hungry for jobs. It was truly quite a scary experience, and I’m still not sure it was worth the £25 ticket price, but then again I suppose it can’t hurt. I did manage to get some useful CV advice from a major recruiter for charity/NGO jobs, so that part was good, and one of the speakers was from an organisation I had just applied for a job with, so I squeezed my way in to shake her hand and introduce myself (but in fact did not subsequently get selected for an interview for that position).

To be honest, I’m still very sceptical about networking. Even though I know it does seem to be the only way to get anywhere in the world these days, I think my bleeding-heart liberal mind still feels that it’s uncomfortably close to nepotism, which I fundamentally and very strongly disapprove of, and I wish that I could get a job based only on my merits, but apparently that’s not really possible these days. Also in fairness, I only got my most recent job in India because I have a friend who was related to someone there, so I can’t really be too judgemental! But anyhoo, job-hunting continues at a steady pace, and my attempts at networking continue….

So, in other news, I am finally attempting to get vaguely fit, so have taken some proactive measures in that general direction. Firstly I bought a cheap second hand bicycle back in August when I first came home and managed to cycle into Sudbury from the village several times (a 9-mile round trip I discovered!). However during the madness of the wedding and hanging out with my family, I didn’t really do much, and the filthy wet, soggy, cold British weather has dampened my enthusiasm for cycling in general, although I’m slowly building up the guts to get out and carry on in the rain!

I have also decided that I need a slightly bigger incentive to exercise, so I have signed up for a charity fun-run in December. It’s only 5k, which is apparently very easy, and I’m running it to raise money for EJF – Environmental Justice Foundation, an NGO my friend works for. I will of course be looking for sponsors for my epic jogging debut, and to make things more interesting, I’ll be running the whole thing in a Santa suit – I KNOW there are many of you who would pay to see me do that!

Please feel free to check out my fundraising page and sponsor me.
Also any of you who would like to come down in person and watch me run 5k in a Santa suit (or just come to point and laugh), please feel free to come to Greenwich Park, London, on Sunday 5th December, where the merriment will commence at 11am.

Now, I feel I should warn any of you planning to sponsor me that I may not necessarily manage to run the whole thing – I may end up walking some of it, but I am attempting to train in order to do my best. I started my “training” today – and was shocked to discover that Step One actually involves leaving the couch and going outside! I found a website online that suggested starting out with interval training (alternating 60 seconds of jogging and 60 seconds of walking for 20 minutes), so I went over to the village playing field to have a go. Of course there was a bloke over there in a tractor mowing the field, so I had an extremely amused audience for my very first attempt at learning to jog! I made it about 4 times round the field doing the intervals before getting a stitch and running out of breath! Fairly pathetic given that it’s such a small field, but hopefully it’ll be easier tomorrow!

So, that’s just about all of my news for now (Phew! Sighs of relief can be heard across the globe!). I hope you are all well and will send me some of your updates soon so I know what everyone has been up to!

For those of you wanting to catch up and hang out, I should be around for a while and my mobile number is the same as it was before, so feel free to give me a call! My immediate future plans involve continued job-hunting and reluctant networking, learning to jog, learning French (including a possible trip to France to practice sometime before xmas), and all sorts of other odds and ends like attempting to finish the patchwork quilt I’ve been working on for 10 years, and learning to knit something other than a scarf.

Best wishes to all of you – and well done for making it to the end of my email!
tons of love
wheezing, jogging Maya
xxx

2009 Round-up

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Friday 8th January 2010

Hi Everyone,
My deepest apologies for not writing much over the last 5 months or so.

I think the last time I wrote it was about July and I was manically writing my masters dissertation. I’d have written sooner, but I’m afraid my life in the last 4 or 5 months has been unbelievably dull and so there really hasn’t been much to report!

Let’s see, I finished my thesis in August, and am proud to announce that I somehow wangled a distinction, and I graduated in December, so I am now, officially, Maya, Master of Science (Brief pause for applause and adoration….) Continue reading →

Unwelcome advice…

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Monday 27th July 2009

Hello again!

Well, not so much to report this time around. The dissertation deadline looms, and myself and most of my friends have been locked in our rooms chained to our laptops. I have personally reached a stage where I’m so sick of reading and re-reading paragraphs over and over that I basically can’t bear to work on it at all at the moment!

However, what amusing anecdotes can I regale for your amusement this time?

Well, last week I accidentally set my kitchen on fire, but I maintain that that was not my fault at all, except in a technical way.
I was cooking bangers and mash for a few of my classmates (a lot of them are international students who have never tried such a classic british meal!), as we’ve been getting together once a week to discuss our issues, problems and general dissertation-related nightmares. Continue reading →

The bells, the bells!

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Sunday 12th July 2009

Hello again everyone,
Just a quick update to let you all know how I’m doing.

I’m now back in Liverpool, attempting to write up my beasty dissertation and hunt for jobs at the same time!

It’s starting out pretty slowly, but I’m hoping I can get into the flow pretty soon. I’ve been going to the University library from 9 to 5, as they have these little private study rooms you can use which are really quiet. So, it’s like having my own office to go to really. The only problem is, they’re so quiet that the other day, I didn’t hear the announcement that the library was closing. I carried on working and when I looked at my watch and realised it was ten past six, I packed up and hurried downstairs, expecting to see an irate member of the library staff ready to give me a telling-off.

Instead, as I came down the stairs, something started beeping over and over again, and it dawned on me that the place looked awfully deserted. I stood in the massive entrance area, yelling “Hello? Is anyone there?” before realising I was all alone, and clearly locked inside the giant library (hence the beeping of the alarm!).
I knew I’d set off the alarms, but didn’t really know what else to do, so I just went out the turnstiles as normal and went out the emergency exit door. Continue reading →

The Hounslow Triangle

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Thursday 7th May 2009

Hello everyone!
Here is the first of my African blogs!

However, before I describe my first impressions of Africa, I’ll have to tell you what a drama I had getting there!
My flight was on Friday, at 9.35pm, and I was due to fly to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia and connect to Juba in South Sudan on Saturday morning.
Having gone through the usual tedious process of Heathrow security, I was reading my book, waiting for them to display the gate number, when a voice on the tannoy system announced “Could all passengers on the Ethiopian Airlines flight to Addis Ababa please go directly to the transit desk.”
Hmmmm, it didn’t sound good. Continue reading →

Whatever happened to romance?

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Tuesday 7th April 2009

Hello again everyone,
The last couple of weeks have been really busy as usual, but also really quite surreal too!

(Before I get started I should attach a small health warning to this email. There will be some strong language, sexual references and absolute proof that men are evil nasty arseholes. My apologies about the foul language – there’s plenty more to come, so anyone likely to be offended may want to stop reading! I have edited my list of recipients so hopefully anyone likely to be really offended will get sent an alternative, less-offensive version of this email!)

First things first, (I’ll start off with the unoffensive bits!) 2009 is a very interesting year, as I’ve just discovered. I watched a documentary the other day about the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which I think is the largest oil spill North America has ever seen, although I don’t know if it was the biggest in the world. This year is the 20th anniversary, and just last year the people of Valdez finally got their settlement from Exxon – £12,000 per person after 20 years of fighting, and they’re still living with the aftermath. Continue reading →