Taking photos of clouds: My new obsession...

I have a fairly addictive personality, but I'm aware of it so I can channel it in the right direction. I get little obsessions and I'm loyal to them for as long as it takes to get bored of them and toss them aside.

So, I'm a little surprised that I'm married :)

My previous obsession was a game called Bejeweled on the iPhone. I didn't even HAVE an iPhone at the time, but I blame my sister Beth for getting me hooked on this game, she's like a pusher. She gave me a taste of it and then I was addicted. One time I played it for three hours straight and only stopped when Josh threatened to cut off my supply (it was his phone) and divorce me. When I stopped looking at the screen I could still see all the jewels... not good.

Check out my super high score though! (it came at a price...)

So... I was talking about clouds, not Bejeweled... My latest obsession is taking photos of clouds. And trees. I just love them. Give me a photo with clouds AND trees AND Instagram and I'm all over that.

Hell to the yeah.

On with the cloud love!

I've always loved clouds, even before I'd been in a plane (I first flew when I was 14 I think, to Holland) and I wondered what it would be like to fly through one.

I can name loads of different clouds too, yeah. Cirrus, stratus, cumulonimbus... errrr. Fluffy ones, giraffe shaped ones... well you don't have to know everything about something to appreciate it, I say.

I'm hoping to actually experience what falling through a cloud is as I'm doing a charity parachute jump soon. Good Lord that even frightened me to type that.

Hope you like my cloud pictures! I love Yorkshire.

I don't know what to write about first!

What a mental July I've had.

Presented an idea in front of 12 serious suits at the HQ of the company who owns the company I work for (big smiley face logo, you know the one) in the hopes of winning £1,500 towards another trip somewhere (can you guess where I'd go?!)

Kenya - I might have mentioned it.

Barcelona - For a week, for my birthday. Lots of tapas. Countless sangrias. Sun! Vitamin D ahoy! Rooftop pool, couldn't be more different to Kenya...

York. Just because I fancied getting on a train.

I'm getting closer and closer to home with my trips it seems. Time to go away again.

So there's plenty of things I have to write about and I REALLY enjoy writing. I just need to try and put it down in a way that doesn't make any sense to you whoever you are, reading this. I mean it barely makes sense at best anyway...

What I will do is this... because I haven't done it for ages:

Things I'm excited about!

(I can't remember if I used to do bullet points or numbers and I HATE being inconsistent) *quick check confirms it was bullets*

• Ooh! I might be doing a parachute jump for Lunahome in Kenya which I'm sh*tting myself really excited about. Why wouldn't you be excited about throwing yourself out of a plane?

• On that same note, there's talk of us climbing Mount Kilimanjaro too next year to raise money. Oh God. I'm really going have to start taking the gym seriously aren't I?

• The Olympics. That's right. I'm on board. GB! GB! GB! Although I'm also cheering on Kenya and Uganda at every opportunity.

• Going camping this weekend to see my lovely little sister's wedding venue. Exciting. We're off to the Lake District. PLEASE DON'T RAIN. I'm not good at camping in the rain, I get very grumpy.

I'll be back with more stories from far and near. Stick with me.

x x x x

10 Reasons Why I Love Kenya...

So, I've been to Kenya three times now and had three VERY different experiences there. Here are just a few of the reasons I love this wonderful country...

Can't I just say one reason and hit the beach?

1. The Kenyan Olympic runner Ezekiel Kemboi stabbed a man in Kenya and was on trial for this crime, but they still allowed him to compete in the Olympics. I love Kenya.

2. Nyoma choma is a meal where you order meat in kilograms, wash it all down with beer and eat it with your hands. Carnivore heaven, veggie hell. Meat and beer, you can't beat it.

3. When I was following a truck load of men all wearing the same clothes sitting in the back of a pickup truck, I asked if they were the local football team... the reply? 'No, they're prisoners'. They were riding in the back of the open pick up truck. Oh, ok then *locks car door*

4. Public transport? You have a choice of a boda-boda (get on the back of a motorbike and cling on) tuk-tuk (3 wheeled rickshaw thing which I think runs on AA batteries) or a matatu (a 9 seater minivan which normally has a minimum of 15 passengers at any time PLUS at night time, they turn in to mobile disco vans pumping out vintage Britney Spears and Ace of Base) Your guidebook will tell you avoid them all at all costs, but don't you dare avoid them! Otherwise you're paying well over the odds for a private taxi, and that's no fun. What the hell does the Rough Guide know about anything anyway...

5. Talking of tuk-tuks, it's so easy to flag one down and being a tourist, what I find the funniest is that even if they already have a passenger AND they're going in the other direction, they'll pull a u-turn and chuck out their passenger so that they can charge me over the odds for a ride.

6. Mazungu means 'whites' in Swahili. So, 'white person'. You'll be walking along and hear 'hey, Mazungu, how are you?' or 'Hey Mazungu, you give me fifty bob' which just has me in stitches every time, I don't get mad at that. Unless it's said in a derogatory way in which case I act in typical Brit fashion and curse under my breath and walk away.

7. The music. I just love it, it gets under my skin and everyone that I've met just seems to love music and dancing and dance without shame. I don't have natural rhythm, plus I have hips, so that doesn't make for a great sight on the dance floor all the time but I don't care.

8. I'd move to Kenya just for the beer, NO! Sorry, not for the beer, for the Tusker brand of beer. I'm not a beer drinker at home, but it's cheap and cold and sooooo refreshing. I can just picture it now with the condensation running down the neck. Mmmmmmmmmmmm, when is the next flight to Kenya?

9. I'm teaching myself Swahili and it's not going so bad. I managed to have an argument with a tuk-tuk driver in Swahili, so I must be learning it... It's a great language and I loved it EVEN MORE ONCE I REALISED THAT THE LION KING IS BASED ON SWAHILI! Simba is ACTUALLY lion in Swahili... woah. This changed EVERYTHING.

10. They sell Top Deck chocolate bars in the supermarkets. Remember Top Deck? It was from Cadburys and was milk chocolate with white chocolate on top. Good Lord that stuff is magic.

Hmmm, so it seems that most of these points are around food and drink. Ooops. I'll be back with more food and drink political and religion based points next time. (I won't.)

Asante sana and kwaheri x

Where Your Donations Went...

Jambo!

I wanted to put a post together so that I didn't fill up your inboxes with an email with fifty million pictures attached. You think I'm kidding? I'm kind of kidding, lets try seven hundred photos perhaps.

So, while I was away, I got on the ol' interweb and sent a fairly emotional email back home to you folks and you were kind enough to send a total of £550 across - which is amazing, thank you. I can't tell you how much I cried when I saw the total! It helped hugely that I was there right then and there and could go and spend it and photograph it, but I have huge faith and trust in Ashleigh, who is out there right now, and Georga who lives in Ireland and manages the account you paid money in to.

Ashleigh is in the floral dress, Georga in the blue top

I'll tell you a little bit about Lunahome, the house where the children live. Ashleigh and Georga were ex- i-to-i volunteers who'd never met each other before last July and they kindly invited me (or I gatecrashed, I'm not sure) out to dinner on my second night in Kenya. I loved listening to the two of them, they're like a married couple, despite Georga being married to a lovely guy called Connor...

They told me that the original project they worked at with i-to-i had some horrific abuse (both physical, sexual and mental) and the owner of the home was involved in a huge amount of corruption. I won't name any names here as its an ongoing thing sadly. To cut an extremely long story short, Ashleigh and Georga could have buried their heads in the sand, but they chose to do some digging, chose to completely turn their own lives around in the hopes of helping the children at the home.

They went to the police, they went to the Children's Department, they went everywhere and came up against a whole lot of red tape, but refused to back down and fly home knowing that they had children depending on them.

Sadly, things don't run that fast in Kenya anyway, and when there's corruption involved, it takes even longer. So Ashleigh and Georga have opened a beautiful home of their own, Lunahome, and are happy to say that 15 children have now been taken off the streets and are in their care. Amazing.

No money from the government goes towards the home, it exists purely from donations, so the money you sent is amazing. Thank you again.

It's fair to say this place has stolen quite a large part of my heart and I can't wait to go back and see everyone again. Here are some photos of where your money went. Enjoy:

Ashleigh and I went shopping!

 

We ordered quality wooden furniture

We painted aforementioned wooden furniture!

And made a mess...

More toys!

More furniture!

Your cash in Kenyan Shillings! It made it over safely :)


I could go on for a lot longer but I'll leave it there for now. You've made 15 children very happy and of course it doesn't have to end there! You can make a donation of any amount whenever you can via this link http://www.mycharity.ie/donate_charityIndex.php?charityID=628


Asante sana and kwaheri (thank you and goodbye) Katie x x

Sorry About The Silence, I've Been in Kenya...

Wow. I'm back in England.

I'm not allowed to say Kenya anymore because I've been talking about it so much I've been banned from saying it out loud.
What a difference a week makes. I spent one week in Kenya and I went with absolutely no plans other than to make the most of a week away from my desk.

It was easily one of the best weeks of my whole life! Everything just fell in to place and worked out so well, I met some amazing people, some amazing little people and visited amazing places.

In one week I:

• Navigated my way around Mombasa alone on public transport
• Hand fed a giraffe
• Drank countless Tusker beers and tequila shots
• Met 15 amazing children at Lunahome Children's Home
• Raised £600 in donations from friends and family back home for Lunahome
• Spent a very pleasant afternoon drinking whiskey in a safari park and playing cards
• Ate roadside chicken and regretted it
• Blagged my way into a 5 star hotel saying it was my birthday
• Had an average of 4 hours sleep a night
• Sang 'Sweet Child of Mine' on a micrphone with the first butch Kenyan lady I've seen
• Learnt even more Swahili and managed to argue with a tuk tuk driver in Swahili :)
• Feel even deeper in love with Kenya

I have to go back and quickly. 15 children have stolen my heart and I don't mind one little bit. I'll tell you about them all in another post as I'm too emotional about the whole trip to even try and sum it up.

I just loved being there and feeling so independent. It helped that this was my third visit, but I felt smug for some reason when chatting to people who were flying there and had no plans to leave their resort. As they were being bussed there in their air-conditioned buses, I was in a tuk-tuk on my way to the supermarket to get some fruit and Top Deck chocolate - do you remember Top Deck? White chocolate and then milk chocolate at the bottom? Anyway, I digress.

Here's a few picture highlights of my trip:

That's all for now, but trust me, you haven't heard the last about Kenya on this blog :)

But... You're Married? Why Are You Going Alone?

Yep, I'm married (happily thanks very much) and I have a lovely little rock on my finger to prove it. The last time I checked, this wasn't the fifties (or something similar) and women were allowed to go off and do stuff on their own...

I'm off to Kenya next week (hopefully, I'm on a standby flight) and without fail every single person I've told has asked the question 'Is Josh going too?'.

Hey Josh! Watcha doin'?

Now, I KNOW I'm completely irrational a bit uptight about some things, but it's hugely important for me to retain a sense of self - whatever the heck that means, I know what I'm trying to say. I never really thought of myself as independent - until I got married. I KNOW, I'M WEIRD. All of a sudden it was really important for me not to be 'a stereotypical wife' in the traditional sense and I'm really trying not to sound like a bitch here. I adore being married, but it's not the sum of my parts.

Honestly, I thought I'd punch the next person who asked me 'So, how's married life?'

I think because it just seemed such a LAZY question. I'm sure you don't really care about the answer, and the answer is that IT'S NO DIFFERENT SHITHEAD. What on EARTH would you like me to answer that question with?! I got married over a year ago, so the question has now expired, and guess what question comes next? Babies. Yeah, get in line for a punch.

What I'm trying to say is that just because I've walked down the aisle with the boy, that's not the end of the road for Katie on her own. Just because we're married doesn't mean we're joined at the hip at all times. PLEASE don't get me wrong, I love my husband to bits (but I'm NEVER going to call him 'hubby' - bleurgh!)

I don't need him to validate me as a person and I think that's healthy. I love being with him, but I love being me too and having things that I'm interested in. I recognise that what makes us stronger isn't necessarily sharing everything. As long as we have fun together and are happy, what does it matter? When you live together, it's important to make an effort and for things not to go stale. I will not be part of those divorce statistics that both of our parents so heavily contributed to (thanks 'rents).

The main thing is, he can't take any holiday until September and I might burst if I have to wait that long to go away. So, I either burst or go alone. And I don't feel like bursting right now...

I figure absence/absinthe makes the heart grow fonder, plus he can watch all the football he wants AND he gets to live in a tidy house for a while (I'm really messy). Then I'll get back, we'll go back to a messy house and relative domestic bliss.

By the way, I have no idea why I've used so many brackets in this blog post tonight, I must be feeling brackety. Read into that what you will.

Yours happily in marriage but refusing to conform to tradition,

Katie x

Kenya believe it?! Standby, I'm going to Kenya on my own...

One of the rare perks of working in travel is that I can put myself on standby for any flight belonging to one of the world’s biggest holiday providers (I’ll give you a clue, their logo is the red smiley face).

I’ve known that I can do this for the five years that I’ve worked in travel, but for some reason I’ve never got around to doing it. I know, I'm an IDIOT.

I guess it’s the uncertainty of not knowing if you’re going on holiday or not. There are many things to be uncertain about in life – going away shouldn’t be one of them in my opinion. So there’s always the chance that you won’t get a flight on standby because all those other greedy buggers have booked themselves a flight at full price and taken up all the seats. Christ. How SELFISH.

I'm making up for it now though! I’m biting the bullet and trying something new. I’m really pushing myself at the moment to stay out of my comfort zone.

It’s bad enough that I work full time and am restricted to being adventurous and keeping busy in my evening and weekends, I’m NOT going to be a couch potato in my spare time, there’s too much to and… you guessed it, life’s too short!

So, I’m going to try and fly to Kenya for one week in one weeks’ time to see my mate Alice. On my own. Yep, all by myself.

Yes, it’s a 7 hour flight and I’ll probably be tired, but I’d rather be tired in Kenya and meeting up with old friends than always wondering what it would have been like to go to Kenya for a week. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I’m happy to say that it’ll be my third trip to Kenya, it makes me so happy to say that.

I’ve got no idea what I’ll do when I get there. I’ve got a few options, but I’m not going to put pressure on myself and plan too much, I don’t have time for that. I’ve been learning Swahili because one of my goals is to speak another language at beginner level, and I’ve chosen Swahili because I love East Africa and plan to go back there again and again.

So please, keep everything crossed for me that I get a standby flight next Monday 2nd July and can try something completely new. I’m not scared, I’m excited.

The only thing I’m scared of is not wanting to come home and settle back again in to my ‘normal’ life, because that’s happened a few times so far in life, but I’ll get used to it. Or I’ll make another plan that involves travel and some form of stability so that I can see my husband and cat every now and again :)