Sunday 22 April 2012

Getting out of the rut - trying 5 new things in Leeds!

When you live somewhere for a while, it's all too easy to get stuck in a rut. When you try somewhere new in your city, there's always a 50/50 chance you'll love it or hate it. Or maybe it'll be 'just ok' which is even worse, not to have an opinion on something.

(I can't get on board with people who don't have an opinion on things... I have an opinion on EVERYTHING. But that's me. Hello.)

So when you have such precious little spare time because WORK keeps getting in the way of your social life, sometimes it's easier to just go somewhere you know you'll enjoy, somewhere that's comfortable, somewhere everbody knows your name (or at least your food order. Gulp. I'm known in one curry house in Leeds as 'lamb saag girl' - shudder.)

This weekend I made a stand.

"No! I will not fester away in comfort! I will instead have an adventure in my city (it's not actually my city) that I think I know so well but don't actually know all that much about"

So I decided to do 5 brand new things in one day in Leeds:

  1. Take a new and alternative route:
I won't bore you with the mundane deets, but normally I'd take the bus in to Leeds city centre. Exciting, non? Well not today, bus driver! I took the bridleway and walked instead. Yep, on foot and everything.

A pied!
My shoes took a beating in the mud, but I took a new path and burnt a few calorie enemies.

Which leads me on to my second new thing...

    2. Visit a new cafe and eat a huge slice of cake

It's a tough life, this life of mine.

I'd known about the Tiled Hall Cafe in Leeds City Art Gallery (that's a lot of capital letters right there) for a long time but never quite made it there in my spare time. So when my friend started working there, I figured I'd add it to my list of places to visit. It's rather lovely.

I maintain carrot cake is healthy as it contains carrots...
The cake is more than alright too, well worth a visit. Plus, a giant teapot of Yorkshire Tea (the ONLY tea worth drinking) is only £1.80. Brillo.

     3. Visit a cathedral

I think it's a cathedral anyway, I just saw it and thought 'I've never been in there before, so I'm going in there today.'

Shhhhhhhhhh!

Not much to report here, I like churches and cathedrals as much as the next person but there's no beer or cake to sample, so after I'd lit a candle for my Nan, we were off. Whistlestop indeed! I AM IN LOVE WITH INSTAGRAM BY THE WAY.

     4. Visit a museum (free entry, naturally)

I'm quite partial to a museum, but only if part of the exhibits include some reference to Victorian sewage systems or horrible crimes committed with subsequent gruesome punishments (I know, it's not normal) so it was with glee I discovered the Leeds City Museum:

Leeds. City. Museum. Wonder what's in there then?

Hee hee!
It's actually quite liberating to go to a museum without your parents. I used to run around them as a kid yelling 'boring, boring, boring - where's the gift shop so I can buy a pencil?' etc. generally making a real nuisance of yourself and offending every single staff member and visitor in the process.

My Dad however, is one of those types who reads EEEEEEEEVERYTHING, even the hand washing signs as you leave the toilets. Anyone else have a parent like that?

So I ran around this museum as quickly as possible, found the most gruesome of stories to read, ran around the gift shop and ticked number four off my list. Yays.


5. Eat an entire meal with chopsticks (smug face)

I've been to two different branches of Wagamama's (that has to be the MOST therapeutic of words to type surely) but neither of them are Leeds based. So I thought I'd keep it local for my fifth new thing. Yes that totally counts.

For those of you who know me, you'll know about my freaky amazing thumb with no muscles, so you'll be surprised to hear that I CAN use chopsticks, and not those training chopsticks they bring round for newbies either, real grown up chopsticks.

Cue chopstick action shot!

A girl's gotta eat...
And that was a summary (albeit an extended one) of my five new things in my city. I hope I've encouraged you to abandon your local, just for one night and try something new! Let me know if you do!

Oh my God, I actually rhymed without intention there. 100% cool.


Saturday 14 April 2012

No TV for one month??!

What did I do that was so bad I deserved that, I hear you cry?

I'll tell you dear reader, I lived in Uganda and came nowhere near a TV for four straight weeks.

Want to know a secret?

I didn't miss it one bit. I really didn't. I mean it!

When you're living in a tiny village in Uganda where your electricity comes from solar power, your water supply comes from rainwater collected and your evening entertainment comes from chattting around a campfire under a blanket of stars, you kinda learn to do without a lot of things you thought you NEEDED back home.

Before I went to Uganda, my idea of a far flung holiday was to fly somewhere all inclusive, sit on the beach for a week (or two if I'd been a good girl ha ha) and then I'd come home having ticked that place off my list. The only place I'd seen was the stretch between the airport and hotel, the only people I'd met were the ones working in the travel industry.


Yet here I found myself and four others like me, in the middle of nowhere and I bloody loved it. Every minute of it. We were teaching in the school next door during their summer holidays and generally being gawped at by everyone who came near us. The gawping was down to the fact that we were the first westerners to have ever been to the village, so they'd never seen anything like us in their lives.

During the four weeks, the five of us learnt:

  • How to make and cook chappatis
  • How to light and maintain our own campfire (a big deal!)
  • How to cook meals using only two gas hobs and no fridge to store ingredients in
  • How to brave a freezing cold, open aired shower (just get on with it)
  • How to educate 200 children who speak only basic English
  • How to walk with baskets on our heads like our new friends did
We knew we'd spent long enough in Uganda when a cow just moseyed on by down the street past us as we were drinking in a cafe and we just gave it a second glance. True locals now, look at us.


Home @ Teach Inn Uganda

During the four weeks we went without TV, the main things that apparently happened back in England were that:

  • Maddy McCann went missing
  • England lost the Eurovision Song Contest (duh)
  • Neighbours moved to Channel 5
We exchanged emails with those back home who updated us about what we were missing, and we replied with updates such as 'Oh Katie's had Typhoid, Angela has one sunburnt toe and we've been a to a nightclub where we were the only westerners, you know, the usual'

It's amazing how time passes when you're away from home. It felt like after two weeks we'd been there for ages and ages and ages and ages. You get my point. The halfway point of our trip came and the last two weeks slipped away from us far too quickly (time flies when you have Typhoid).

Leaving the village in Uganda was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, and being just another tourist in Uganda felt horrible after that, we all wanted to go back where everyone knew something resembling our names.

We checked in to a hotel altogether and shared one big dorm room, the first thing we did was switch the TV on. Ahhhhh TV. We sat in silence for about three hours and although the only English channel
we could get was Sky news which was rolling about six stories in a loop, we lapped it up. If that TV was a drink we'd had drank it dry. We hated what we'd become but knew we were shortly going back home where water came from a tap, electricity came from god knows where, but was available at the flick of a switch. We might as well sit and watch TV if there was no campfire available.
I miss Uganda.

Volunteering in Uganda

Friday 6 April 2012

Reasons I Know I'm Growing Up

Yep, it turns out I'm not getting any younger, depsite my best efforts and downloading Miley Cyrus songs - what?! They were for my niece... hoe down throw down y'all.

I do remember the day after I graduated from Uni. saying the words 'bloody students!' despite moving away from my student status the previous day! Almost five years later, I'm a world away from the person I was back at university... kind of. Sometimes. Not at weekends.

But I know I'm getting older when the following things annoy me/concern me/wear me out!

• Girls who wear leggings that are so see through, I can see the laundry label on their pants underneath - where is your shame ladies??!

• I quite like fruit cake now.

• I don't text as much anymore. I genuinely can't be bothered to make my fingers find the right buttons. Thank the LORD for auto correct.

• Food isn't a necessity anymore, it's something to enjoy! It is no longer acceptable to buy 'chicken in a can in a white sauce' although I'm not sure it ever was acceptable?

• I'm spending more than £5 on shoes. And they're usually flat.

• I can't remember the last time I watched the Hollyoaks omnibus

• I like blue cheese, mushrooms and red wine now. My tastes are maturing even if my general outlook on life isn’t!

• I’m finding dubstep is just a load of noise!

I'm still ridiculously immature at times. Who cares? <sticks tongue out>

Napenda Kenya!

Ahhhh Kenya, even the name of the country makes me smile! I’ve been to Kenya twice and can’t wait to return for more adventures! Every place I’ve been to  in Kenya sounds happy, and phonetically ends in an ‘oooh’ or ‘ahhhh’ or ‘eeeeee’ sound - Nakuru (oooh) Mombasa (aahhh) Lamu (oooh)Nairobi (eeeee), Kembu (you get the picture) Other countries and cities should take heed! Saying ‘Leeeeeeeeeeeeeds’ just isn’t the same…



I taught in a tiny school in Mombasa back in 2009 and just returned from another trip last September, but in the North of Kenya this time. Both trips were great fun, an eye opener and full of adventure with the friendliest people.

It might sound strange to others, but to me Kenya has a distinctive smell that instantly takes me back whenever I get a sniff of it elsewhere…it’s a hot smell of sunshine, charcoal, dust and a faint tinge of hot rubber along with something else that I can’t put my finger on. But I know that smell and I’d bottle it if I had the chance!



Teaching in Kenya holds so many memories for me… of children singing in their tiny classrooms, empty of resources and not a magic whiteboard in sight, children sitting at their wooden desks with their tiny backpacks still on their back because there’s nowhere to hang them up, eating their lunch in their classroom and shouting ‘thank you teacher’ as they run screaming out of the school building…sure their school is basic and made of mud, but they love school, love learning and can’t wait to come back tomorrow.



Travelling around Kenya holds so many memories for me…of being crammed in to a matatu van with 20 other people of varying background and ages, all staring at me with my huge backpack on my lap and wafting a novelty LED fan as if my life depended on it, African music blaring, horn bleeping and me squeezing my eyes shut to avoid the crazy scenes of traffic in front me! But being happy and content and not missing England a tiny bit – who really needs traffic lights anyway?

Eating and drinking in Kenya holds so many memories for me…of eating a kilo of goat and posho (all filler, no killer) with my hands, washing them in a tub of water after eating and washing it down with a bottle of Tusker beer. Lovely. Being on a bus and having men sell sticks of unidentified meat through the window... Not so lovely but still worth a try!

Kenyan sunsets, safari parks, delicious food, amazing beer, happy people, bright colours, tiny shops, loud music, cheery children, community spirit - a few of the reasons why I love Kenya and would recommend it to anyone.