Alison & Alex's Wedding

Alison & Alex's Wedding

Alison & Alex's Wedding

Air Display - Red Arrows

Alison & Alex's Wedding

Alison & Alex's Wedding

Alison & Alex's Wedding

Fancy an ice cold Coke?

Well, if you live in Kerala (South India), you won't be able to get one for love or money. The state government announced today that they are banning sales of Coca cola and Pepsi, due to fears over pesticide levels in the ubiquitous fizzy drinks. An independent lab has apparently found high levels of the poison in the drinks!

Rice dream

Yep, I've named this post after a particularly disgusting-tasting rice drink, which is another one of those 'milk substitutes'. Why on earth people can't just like soya milk, I'm really not sure.

Anyway, what I was actually going to say is that my stomach hates me at the moment. It's making all these growling noises and feeling sore when I wake up, when I eat, when I don't eat, at night... you get the picture. I couldn't work out what was going on, until yesterday I ate Chinese food, and guess what? I felt fine. A-ok. Super-douper. No pain. Now, get what I'm saying here, my body has become so accostomed to Chinese food, especially rice, that I can't get used to my 'regular' London diet of cous cous, salad, veggies, pasta, brown toast etc. Oh no, that makes me ill!

I can honestly say that having spent six months longing to get back to my normal food, this revelation is pretty depressing. A friend who lived in Singapore for about the same amount of time told me today that it took her body 12 months to get used to eating British food, especially bread, her stomach couldn't take it. Hmmm. I feel a dumpling coming on...

Spam spam

I have a gmail account, which is great, and I'm particularly fond of the search feature. However, gmail has intelligent advertising that scans my messages and 'helpfully' provides me with links to external sites, more often than not, selling rubbish. Let me give you an example... I'm bridesmaid for a friend and my sister this summer, and we've been emailing about dressees/shoes etc, all girly stuff. So the links I'm given are all related to bridesmaid clothes/accessories and wedding sites. Spot on if you think about it.

Recently, things have taken a siniser turn. Almost every message I open is headed with a link to a recipe site... Now, I enjoy cooking, so there's nothing odd about that in itself, but ALL these recipes are for dishes made with Spam. Yes, Spam, that jelly-covered, pretending to be meat tinned lump of gunk that people ate during the war. Thing is, I'm kinda curious, so I've been checking out some of the recipes, and they're actually for pretty trendy food... 'Spam Mexican Tortilla Wrap', 'Warm Spam and Lemon Couscous salad'. But who in their right mind would ruin a perfectly good dish with a tin of Spam? I have no idea, but it's getting freaky... there are LOADS of these things. I'm trying to ignore them.

Fiends Reunited

In a fit of procrastination, I recently logged on to Friends Reunited... It's not something I do often, and I soon remembered why. A girl from my form at secondary school is married with three children and... get this, owns her own hammer factory employing 25 men!! Another, rather odd girl, is engaged and has started a business with her boyfriend selling sex toys on the internet. Right. And what am I supposed to have in common with these people? I guess we're all different, and I should be grateful for that, but I was kinda freaked... I'll stick to clicking 'next blog' when I'm bored.

Everything will be alright in the end...

... and if it's not alright, it's not the end.

My lovely friend Lizzy says this all the time, and she's SO right. When things go wrong and we get stressed, we often can't remember what happened a few months down the line. At the moment life is in a state of flux... I feel unsettled, like a fish swimming round and round a familiar bowl longing to get to the river, but not knowing where to jump to. I'm back home, yet home feels elusive, like I've outgrown it. Relationships change, people move on, and life progresses, the world keeps on turning whether I'm here or not. I read the Guardian Media 100 and felt more and more frustrated that I didn't know half of the names, I'm so behind with popular trivia! Yet in all of this I know that my perspective will change, life will seem easier and I'll feel at home again soon. I just hope that day comes soon.

The little things

I'm alone, sipping red wine on the couch on Saturday night. An inadequate breeze floats in occasionally from three sash windows and it's hot and sticky. I'm tired, so exhausted that I can't imagine being chirpy ever again. I guess six months away takes its toll and I've been pretty busy since I got back (as the pix show). Luckily I have the flat to myself, two luxurious floors of quiet space just for me... I've been enjoying having my own living room again, and sleeping in my own bed. It's amazing how the little things can bring great relief. Someone just rang the doorbell, but I'm not answering. I can't think who would be here to see me at this time of night. They can wait, outside my zone of conscious thought. Tomorrow is Sunday, a day of rest, and I'm looking forward to it already.

Ooo I do like a cuppa tea

The people I lived with in Singapore thought I was really English. Every time I made a cup of tea, they'd say 'Ooo the English do like drinking tea!' I'd agree, but the joke wore a bit thin after every time boiling the kettle (and let's face it, the kettle got more use than it had ever seen before!)

Back in London some friends organised a welcome home drinks party for me. Peering through my jetlag I managed to stay awake until about 10pm, when the effect of the mojitos started getting a little too much... until, just what I needed, a good cup of tea...

Wedding 2

Lizzy's Hen Weekend

David & Jenny's Wedding

Latest photos

There's no place like home...

Well everyone, I'm back! I got into Heathrow at 6.30am this morning, and to be honest it was all rather anti-cilmatic. Having looked forward to coming back for so long, I realised that I was far too tired to feel anything at all. Instead I complained to myself about the cost of a latte in this small country, and read my book while waiting for a friend. I've been travelling so much that the change-sensitive part of my brain must have switched itself off, numbed to anything expect the most bizarre experiences. Last week I was eating salmon heads in Hong Kong, yesterday chicken feet in Holland Village, today houmous and pitta on my sofa in London. It's all a bit too much. I'm glad to be back, honestly I am, but I need to wake up before I can appreciate what that means.

Ants

Amazingly, my last two days in Chennai were spent with an old friend from London, who has just moved there. I helped her move into her new flat and provided moral support killing cockroaches in the bathroom! I felt like such an expert and took great satisfaction in throwing four ugly carcasses down the toilet. Funny how that kind of thing used to gross me out, now after a few months in Asia I'm so blasé about creepy crawlies. As long as they don't crawl on my face I don't care, I'll carry on sleeping. In fact there are ants in my bed this week and I can't figure out where they're coming from... I find them quite fascinating to look at crawling up and down my arms and across my pillow, they seem to be on a mission to who-knows-where. Actually, their destintation is perilous death if I roll over in the night. God bless them! At least I'm not a Buddhist, I'd have to save each one of them, which would mean no sleep for me.

Tsunami

We caught half an hour on the beach in Chennai (Madras), after visiting a graphic design school called Artlab. What I didn't know is that at least 4,000 people died when the tsunami hit the beach here in 2004. Most of those who died were the poor who live in fishing villages along the shore - their boats and homes were destroyed along with their loved ones, many children died. A lady told us that when the tsunami came, the first thing that happened was that the water retreated back, and of course everyone ran to see what was happening, children were estactic to see the crabs and fish on the sand where the water had receeded. Little did they know that their inquistiveness would lead to their death.

Two years later, you wouldn't know that anything had happened here. The shore is flanked with colourful new boats, many with the names of American sponsors painted on their hulls. Life continues, the sun continues to shine and fish are brought up in new nets.

The children we met said they didn't go to school, but they were happy playing and fishing with their fathers. They were fascinated by Chris' camera 'phone, and though Tamil is their first language they were adept at crying 'photo please'!