After a busy few weeks we were all very ready for a half term break last week. Granny is visiting and the kids have been keen to show her the delights of the Indian Ocean. And the thought of a week of sun, sea, swimming and snorkelling has been very appealing through the last month. So we packed our costumes, took plenty of sun cream, charged up kindles and the underwater camera and headed to the coast. It was bliss.
By popular demand we returned to the kids favourite hotel in Watamu. it isn't a place to go for silence and time alone. It is full of children, lots who we know already, and there is a never ending supply of fizzy drinks and daily pancakes at 4pm to keep folk going after a hard day of lounging around. Our three are busy and happy from breakfast through to bed time, only occasionally to be spotted (or heard) in the pool or round a table with friends and chocolate sauce covered plates at pancake time. And that means I get some me time, reading, swimming and the occasional dive. I am pretty sure granny is a convert too.
We all read loads, spent most of the day in some form of water - the pool, a very sea weedy (which didn't put any of us off body surfing) sea and even jumping off the top of a Dhow into a creek, did plenty of snorkelling and kayaking and just had fun. Tim went for early morning runs and mum went bird watching but the rest of us pretty much stayed on site for the week, only venturing off for sundowners on a Dhow in the creek. A tough life.
And now we are back to work and school and missing our afternoon pancakes. It will be a busy couple of months in the run up to Christmas with school matches and pantomime, sales and parties with friends and lots of work with travel for both Tim and me. so it is good to have recharged our batteries. But the biggest question for us all is just how quickly can we get back to the beach.
Anne
Saturday 26 October 2013
Friday 11 October 2013
That was the week (or two) that was
It has been a long couple of weeks here absorbing the impact of the terrible attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi. And I haven't quite known how to blog about it. I know I'm not alone with this. Having a much needed relaxing lunch with some mates a week after the attack, the three bloggers amongst us compared notes on how to begin. None of us knew. We opted instead to go back to our rose tasting and help our friend choose her party supplies. Much safer ground.
The attack itself stirred up all sorts of emotions for us all - i found a good article in The New York Times which summed it up pretty well for me. The Mall is about 10 minutes from where we live. We didn't go there every weekend - as a very good friend messaged on the day of the attack, she assumed my loathing for shopping meant we were safe. But we had been there a lot the previous saturday and it housed one of our favourite places to eat as a family. These facts were not lost on Jamie or pretty much everyone we know in Nairobi - this attack was far too close to home. But we are safe and whilst we know people who were there and who lost friends, our experience of the attack was an indirect one.
The last few weeks have also highlighted what good friends we have around the world, with loads of people getting in touch to check we were OK. I'm a late arrival to Facebook and mainly use it to post updates on our work community page or to stalk my friends and show through an occasional comment or well placed "like" that we are thinking of them. When news of the attack broke (and at that point it wasn't clear if it was a police shoot out with criminals - an almost weekly occurrence here - or something terrorist) I dropped a quick email to family to say we were safe. But my later very short timeline update reached so many people so quickly that I'm properly converted. Not convinced that will translate into a fuller timeline or more effective posting but I suspect I understand the social media angle to things like the Arab spring a tiny bit better than before. And it may take the kids a week or two more to be ahead of me in their digital footprint.
And we have benefitted from a real sense of community in Nairobi with our newer found friends here. Tim worked from home for a few days and was not the only parent spending much more time in the playground than the usual drop and dash. The kids definitely needed it alongside the usual routine of school. School was great, with lots of pre-existing emergency planning coming into play and carefully tailored sessions for each age group. And there has been plenty of coffee and popping in on neighbours and just listening to each other over the last few weeks. There's been the odd mojito and glass of wine too for the grown ups and a few treat DVD evenings for the kids, and a fundraising run at the weekend, all of which are helping life return to a more normal pace. And means next week I will be back to blogging about animals and beaches and life's little routines.
Anne
The attack itself stirred up all sorts of emotions for us all - i found a good article in The New York Times which summed it up pretty well for me. The Mall is about 10 minutes from where we live. We didn't go there every weekend - as a very good friend messaged on the day of the attack, she assumed my loathing for shopping meant we were safe. But we had been there a lot the previous saturday and it housed one of our favourite places to eat as a family. These facts were not lost on Jamie or pretty much everyone we know in Nairobi - this attack was far too close to home. But we are safe and whilst we know people who were there and who lost friends, our experience of the attack was an indirect one.
The last few weeks have also highlighted what good friends we have around the world, with loads of people getting in touch to check we were OK. I'm a late arrival to Facebook and mainly use it to post updates on our work community page or to stalk my friends and show through an occasional comment or well placed "like" that we are thinking of them. When news of the attack broke (and at that point it wasn't clear if it was a police shoot out with criminals - an almost weekly occurrence here - or something terrorist) I dropped a quick email to family to say we were safe. But my later very short timeline update reached so many people so quickly that I'm properly converted. Not convinced that will translate into a fuller timeline or more effective posting but I suspect I understand the social media angle to things like the Arab spring a tiny bit better than before. And it may take the kids a week or two more to be ahead of me in their digital footprint.
And we have benefitted from a real sense of community in Nairobi with our newer found friends here. Tim worked from home for a few days and was not the only parent spending much more time in the playground than the usual drop and dash. The kids definitely needed it alongside the usual routine of school. School was great, with lots of pre-existing emergency planning coming into play and carefully tailored sessions for each age group. And there has been plenty of coffee and popping in on neighbours and just listening to each other over the last few weeks. There's been the odd mojito and glass of wine too for the grown ups and a few treat DVD evenings for the kids, and a fundraising run at the weekend, all of which are helping life return to a more normal pace. And means next week I will be back to blogging about animals and beaches and life's little routines.
Anne
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