Week 73 (8 - 15 Dec 2007)

Photos: Just to show the frost on the leaves at around 9am in Winchester! We are experiencing temperatures of around -1 to 6 deg C compared with a minimum of 17 degC up to around 30 deg C in Arua at this time of year.

We gave Mum a lift to the United Church in Winchester on Sunday morning. No drums to be heard and only one guitar. We stayed for coffee and spoke to two ladies who lived in Kampala for a while and an ex-Army chaplain who spent some time in Kenya. Mum treated us to lunch at a local garden centre restaurant – one which has a beautiful view over the valley and specialises in local dishes. The game pie was delicious (but the chess pieces were a bit hard). James’ Aunt Mary, brother-in-law Brian, brother John and partner Amanda, joined us – it was great to see them. We returned to Mum’s for coffee and James’ sister Libby joined us. We showed a few pictures of Ushindi – it seems so strange looking at where we were just a few days ago but it is another world.

With Christmas looming we decided that we needed to make an early foray into the shops in Winchester on Monday morning. Just after we parked it got very cold and wet so we had to take refuge in some shops every few minutes just to thaw out. In the end we spend all morning and most of the afternoon looking in bookshops and charity shops. It was surprising how tired we were in the evening.

On Tuesday we were beginning to feel a little the worse for wear – just tired and beginning to relax a bit from the last few days. We spend the day catching up on bits and pieces e.g. making a list of the photos to be printed and sorting out wool. Libby & Brian allowed us to use their internet connection in the evening to catch up with e-mails and order photos.

On Wednesday we took Mum to church for lunch i.e. we left her there. I think she was one of the younger ones as a lady of over a hundred arrived at the same time. We then went for our major culture shock experience. We tried to switch that part of our brain off (not to difficult in my case) and I managed to ignore the vast choice of “squash” type drinks that caught me out last year. But the number of cheeses struck me instead. We’ve only been able to get cheese recently in Arua and sometimes get it from Kampala. I did wonder how one of our neighbours in Ushindi would react to a Tesco’s. We are very fortunate in this country and it’s all too easy to forget, even for us after a few days. As a special treat, we bought some apple Tango and Walkers crisps to eat for lunch. It’s a long time since we tasted these! Andrea’s “culture shock” came at the checkout: she didn’t have to wait ages while the cashier wrote out every single item on a receipt! We worked on the internet in the afternoon. Andrea read some of the blog for the first time! She was surprised how detailed it is. I wonder if that’s something I need to change? I tried editing the first few and decided that took as long as writing it in the first place. I could write less of course and only include significant events. But what’s significant? We’ll see. In the evening we went out for a meal – at the church. They were running “Manna – food for the soul” and this was the last in the series. It was very much an “Alpha” course format with a choice of discussion groups to join after the meal. We sat in on the art one – very interesting but too short! There was a short session together at the end. Again, very different from anything we’ve experienced in the last six months.

Thursday morning was for packing and sorting. We were finding it hard to work out whether we were coming or going as we will be oscillating between Winchester and Brentwood for the next month and our belongings are divided between the two places. The journey to Romford took 2 hours and there were no traffic jams, even on the M25. It did seem strange with so many cars and smooth roads! There were no cyclists or pedestrians in the road either.

We stayed in on Friday preparing ourselves for the visit to the dentist after lunch; and catching up with the blog. I realised how much I don’t like visiting the dentist when the receptionist told us that he wasn’t in and they had sent a letter – to Geary Drive. We’ll probably get it in about a month. We rearranged the appointment and visited the shops instead. Almost as painful for me as the dentist! Again the choice of things struck us both. We spent a pleasant evening catching up with the Goldings – and even met Sarah as she returned home for a short break.

After another quiet (Saturday) morning we set off for the optician. Much less painful than the dentist although I seem to have a touch of dry eye – very common in hot countries and explains why I have found it more difficult to concentrate in the evenings when there is less light, my eyes suddenly water or feel a bit gritty. No explanation yet for why my concentration is poor the rest of the time. There was a particularly cold wind today so we were forced to take refuge in some shops on the way back to the car. We’ve (i.e. Andrea) nearly done all our Christmas shopping too.