Off to Kenya! Airport trouble...

So I'm finally on the plane. I'm not at all sure I'm ready to be.

When I was packing I did so safe in the knowledge that I couldn't possibly fit 30kg of luggage (that's the limit) into my suitcase. Actually a surprising amount could be fitted into the bag, so much surprise that I was 3kg over the weight limit at the airport. To put it another way, this is about $400 worth of excess baggage charge and I have now had a go at being one of those people in airports with their bag open and worldly possessions strewn over the floor very much regretting my mantra that underwear should always be packed last (because it's the easiest thing to fit into a tightly packed bag). My long-suffering mother was on hand and extremely patient throughout the whole affair - she's quite possibly relieved at the prospect of a break from my chaotic presence for a couple of months. It feels a bit disappointing when we're all meant to be striking out as mature adults - I would have wanted everything to run a lot smoother.

It was nice to meet up with everyone else in the group and be reassured that someone else had also brought 35kg of luggage; another lost (then found) their wallet; a water bottle was misplaced and then I realised I hat got the wrong visa documents with me and left my yellow fever vaccination certificate at home. I'm starting to fear there's no hope for me! It's quite possible that no matter how old I get I might never become a reliable adult. If I were the Kenyan immigration authorities I would think twice about letting me in!

The things I'm worried about most right now, in order of priority are:

1. My future roommate might snore
2. Kenya might not let me in without the appropriate paperwork
3. Rumour has it that a carb heavy African diet induces about a stone's weight gain per month
4. My house might not have a toilet

I've taken a moment to reflect on what real adults are worrying about right now and concluded that it was the EU referendum. On this basis it's probably just as well to count me out (of adulthood that is, not the EU, I'm absolving myself of the responsibility to have an opinion on that for now!)

Goodbye London!

So the time has come and I've moved from London home. If I had any more possessions at all it wouldn't have fitted in the car. It was dangerous enough as it was. The local children were quite excited at the sight of me with my jam packed vehicle and got involved, helping to post coat hangers into the crevices between the jumble. Just as I  was about to leave, one of my housemates reminded me that I also own a large vase, 2 casserole dishes, a cake tin and a saucepan. Disaster!

I drove with the uncomfortable feeling that I might kill myself off during the journey. I had just as many blind spots as I did clear ones, such was the amount of baggage in the car and so I did the whole journey without changing lane. As motorways merged and split off the M25 I found that the lane I was in changed and so when in the slow lane I settled behind drivers at 50mph and when I was in the middle lanes I enjoyed driving at 70mph. Basically, my driving style was more flexible than my choice of lane!

I felt sad as I travelled. It hit me for the first time that I'd given everything up. I'm in just the same position now as when I first graduated (not that I want to engage in a game of one-upmanship against my past self!). To make matters worse 'London calling' then came on the radio. I'm going to miss the city so much! However, when I walked in through the front door it was lovely to see mum and dad. Mum had cooked supper and being catered for felt like a real luxury. After eating we watched a film together, packed in 3 in a row in the sofa, all holding hands, such was our happiness at being reunited. I do very much appreciate these elements of being at home. I really ought to ask them about how they feel about my being here, giving up everything and leaving my job...I dread to think about the answer!

You can't shock a chippie. Fact

There comes a point in the night after which, drunk people should stay on the dance floor where they can't embarrass themselves becasue no one can hear them talk and their flails look like wild moves if only lit by a strobe. When they stray off it to get chips, that's when the trouble starts...

A few weekends ago I was at a fundraising party for a charity in Kenya (my own fundraising party, in fact) and all the guests were tasked with completing certain missions before the night was up in order to earn points. Some missions were easy and earned few points (hug a bouncer), others were more more challenging and so earned lots of points (turn a team of 5 people upside down in any way you like). On my way home with a few fellow party-survivors I  was very happy (not least because it wasn't my home I was going to but a friend's, thereby ensuring that the social spectacular would last another day). Much mischief had been achieved, much wine had been drunk and much funding had been raised. To make matters even better it was snowing and none of us were sober enough to feel the cold. Win, win.
You might think at this point that we were on the pinnacle of drunken satisfaction, but no, as we skipped through the snowflakes we came across a chip shop, still open at 3am. Marvellous! And once inside, with my sufficiently greasy order placed, I realised that there were still one more challenge that could be completed. Hurah! This in fact was a much more exciting pursuit than food, which I soon forgot about. It was imperative that I exercise the opportunity to take of an item of underwear and wave it in the air (thereby earning 5 more points for my team). Actually, better still, everyone ought to join in, that would be more appropriate. One female friend was keen but the other required a bit of cajoling. The boys weren't invited to join in - we needed them to hold our jackets and be the photographer. Bras were waved vigorously in the air. What a triumph! As the scene unfolded the man behind the chip shop counter tried in vain to attract our attention to tell us our food was ready (not that we were at all interested. Let's face it, it's not every night you get to wave your bra about, but it's fairly commonplace to eat cheesy chips) he was not remotely sympathetic and seemed slightly irritated that we were taking so long to leave the premises. The fact that we were in the middle of something more important clearly didn't register. It must be the case that the staff of late night take-aways have seen it all before. Customers enthralled in the tasks of being eccentric can in no way surprise them. They see the most idiotic of human antics, probably quite regularly.

Some might say, it was out of pure respect, we didn't waste his time but ran out into the night, chips in one hand underwear in the other.

Let's review book clubs

Forget book reviews. I think book clubs should be reviewed. My office book club has terrible taste (and actually has now given up reading altogether). Firstly we read 'the man in the tall castle' which has a fascinating premise but is written so badly that my school-day English teachers would weep. The club couldn't understand what was going on with the plot and largely gave up. Amazon are now turning it into a film. That'll be interesting. The next one (the purple hibiscus) the group found to be 'gritty' and 'touching' but I found it boring. When I eventually got to chose a book it was 'Scoop' by Evelyn Waugh. Amazing. Best book I've read in a really long time. It had me laughing all the way through. It was like Oscar Wilde had a grandson (named E.Waugh) who was also into writing (I realise that for practical reasons Wilde probably didn't have a grandson). No one else liked Scoop. No one even read it, they couldn't get past the first few chapters.

Scoop had actually been a second choice. I had wanted to selecting 'Closing Time', which is the follow up to Catch 22, my all time favourite book. Unfortunately for me the club collectively hates Catch 22, so the sequel was off the cards.

I can't help but feel that there's a niche for a kind of OkCupid for book clubs. In this way I can find a bunch that like books that are generally recognised to be good and they can recruit someone in my place who enjoys slow moving grit.

Some sort of learning at the British Museum

I recently went to the British museum for the first time ever. What a great place! When you arrive you know it's special. It's in the type of building that has droves of tourists outside taking selfies in front of it. I have no idea if the architecture is as significant as it looks because what's inside is even more distracting. The British Museum basically houses everything we Brits ever stole from another country as we expanded our empire throughout the world.

Did I make full use of this fantastic resource and learn extensively about all the relics of rich culture around the globe? No. Well, maybe sort of.

During the course of that museum visit, I came to develop a theory that one's experience of an exhibit depends entirely on who you go with. I just so happened to be there with  Jess (who you may remember from the aqua aerobics class). We are two highly energetic and distractable souls, so happy to see each other that we couldn't stop talking long enough to read any of the placards in the building. In this way we educated each other about everything we saw. I told her all I knew about Roman coinage and she taught me about the Rosetta stone. Neither of us knew much about mummies so we swept through the Egypt section and speculated briefly. Sometimes if something was particularly  interesting, we would read half the placard, usually out loud in order to share the information with the other (and stop them from talking!) When you look at a sign and a particular word jumps out, that's how you know you've found the half worth reading. If you're wrong, you'll never know. Sometimes we stood in front of the sign, intending to read it, but couldn't get to a suitable point to pause our conversation and so just generally got in the way.

One of my favourite stories was the Elgin marbles (a great game - I suggest you ask a member of museum staff how to play). Apparently Greece want them back but we keep telling them that the marbles are too delicate to move and so for many years now we've been bound to keep them in the British museum. Our lies were then totally blown open when we took the marbles on a tour of Russia. That's awkward! But our blushes were spared as the Greeks then accidentally blew up the Parthenon (an old building storing old Greek treasures and, apparently, gunpowder) so now we tell them that they are too irresponsible to have their marbles back and we'll be keeping them safe in the British museum for the foreseeable future. At least, that is my recollection of Jess' version of events and with a story like that who cares for an alternative?!

The Elgin Marbles. To be honest, they're already broken.

Loving what we're seeing. Don't know what it is.

It's the type of architecture that tourists take selfies with.

I can tolerate anything except intolerace

Before letting me lose in Kenya, there is a certain amount of pre departure training that must be done. We had some sessions looking at cross-cultural understanding, not judging people by their appearance and considering issues from other people's point of view (amongst others). Although fun I can't say I had any revelations. After studying a human geography degree it would be somewhat disappointing if I still had a lot to learn on the subject of respecting individual or collective differences (or so I thought).

That evening I found myself sat with 2 other volunteers in the bar, (a male and female) and we ended up talking about feminism. Nancy was a black feminist (sic) and Luke wanted to know what feminism was (I always like it when people ask this as I generally find that people who are anti tend not to know what it is that they're opposing. I was in for a surprise). After I'd explained, he thought for a moment:

"Yeah, but it's a woman's role to prepare the home isn't it? I mean, a man doesn't do that" 

I was surprised to hear that. Young people in the 21st century tend not to come out with anything so antiquated and offensive.

"Don't you think that in a modern relationship men and women can share responsibilities?" I tried to get him to reconsider. I shouldn't have bothered

"Yeah, well the husband can tell the wife what to do and he can oversee it can't he? But he can't do it for her"

Good god the man was digging his hole faster than an autonomous mechanical digger.

Nancy, the black feminist across the table, wasn't much help.

"There are certain things women just can't do. I mean men can't breast feed." I wondered what this had to do with housework and whose side she was on. Certainly she didn't strike me as the most convicted of feminists. But then she reverted to the other extreme, "I hate men. All men. They are Satan." If I thought I couldn't be any more shocked I was wrong.

Luke joined in, "I hate men too. Especially black men" (WTF, he is a black man!) and as if to misalign himself further to the patriarchal corner he added "I don't trust women either." I wanted to hold my head in my hands (but I didn't, that would have been rude). I can't handle this much unjustified hatred! I did try to throw him a life raft. Surely no one intends to come across this badly (Nancy I felt was well informed and beyond help - Luke may be just confused).

"You've just said that you don't like men and you don't  trust  women, so you've ruled out everyone. Are you perhaps trying to  say that you have to decide who you like  on a case by case basis?"

I knew it was a long shot but I so wanted it to be true. 

It wasn't. 

Of course it wasn't.

At that point another girl sat down with us. Thanks goodness! A distraction! I'm not open minded enough to tolerate this obnoxious boarder-line-incoherent prejudice. I admit it! I'll discriminate against discriminators. It takes someone more accommodating than me to put up with it. I give up. Let me talk about the weather...

At last! Proof that I've got better at drinking

A few weekends ago I ended up going to a 2-day training course in London with a load of 18 year-olds and a handful of fresh uni grads. It was funny going out drinking with that lot. I was the oldest, but not by a long way. This has only served to highlight to me how much you change from 18 to 25. It's like a social experiment. If you put us in a bar with the express and repeatedly reiterated message of 'do not get drunk' there is general confusion. The poor lambs don't know what to do.

"Shots! Yes, let's do shots! Oh I bought water"
"There's a minimum spend of £10 so I got 3 gin and tonics. Do you want one?"
"\Surely you're not going to drink alcohol?!"

I decided to order independently of this melee. Never has 1 pint of cider seemed so bold or so complicated. It's funny to think I might have matured since I was 18. It's nice to have some proof at last!