A Funny Old Week…..

I arrived back in Freetown with my niece a week ago today after a short break in the UK, it’s been a bit of a strange week……some good, some not so good……

The journey was mostly really good – I usually prefer to travel alone, but this time I travelled with Carla (my niece). We had over 5 hours to wait for our connecting flight in Casablanca, as it was Carla’s birthday we shared cakes and coffee while I sang happy birthday……repeatedly. I like Casablanca airport, it’s cheaper than most and the cakes are lovely! Carla kindly let me sit next to the window for both flights, we had a nice young man alongside us for the first flight who joined in with us when we said grace before eating our meal. The lady next to Carla on the second flight wasn’t quite so nice and dumped her bags and her smelly feet under the seat in front of Carla, in Carla’s space – but Carla managed to hold her tongue…I’m not sure I could have been so gracious.

Part of my morning routine is feeding the chickens, we have: Marjory, Deirdre, Mabel, Ethel, Gladys, Eeny, Meenie, Miney, Mo, Bernard, Snap, Crackle, Pop, Bang, Sprout, Spud and Augustus. Augustus is the biggest cockerel I have ever seen and he doesn’t like me, he really doesn’t like me. He tries to intimidate me, when I’m facing him he’s not so bad, but as soon as I turn my back he attacks me. I’m not proud to admit that he scares me!

I have a bit of a problem with my eyes, my eyelids and undereyes are really itchy and a bit scaly from where I keep rubbing them – the eyes themselves are ok, but the surrounding skin is red and swollen and not very pretty. My favourite doctor in the world, Dr Koroma, has prescribed me some tablets that I have to take three times a day so hopefully whatever it is will clear up soon, I had the same thing in September, but it cleared up on it’s own accord that time after a couple of weeks.

The weather is odd for November. I’ve always found November and March to be the hottest months, so I was bracing myself for some serious heat, but it’s much cooler this year. We have had a lot of storms, thunder, lightning, rain, wind – the whole shebang – fortunately mostly at nights so it’s not affected work.

I was saddened to find out that some of our sponsored boys played truant to go to the beach, putting their sponsorship in jeopardy – I’m sure their sponsors aren’t going to be impressed to hear about it. For two of the students it’s their last year in school and they are working towards their end of school exams – they need all the time in school they can get and any missed schooling will affect their chance of passing the exams. I’m so sad to learn that for these few boys their education isn’t as important to them as I thought it was.

We’ve enjoyed catching up with ‘our kids’ and finding out what they are all up to. It was lovely to see Baby Freecall looking so healthy and happy. We’ve been able to help them buy a mattress for Aunty and Freecall. Aunty wants to start a small business selling various items from a portable box so she doesn’t have to keep asking us for money and can become self sufficient. The startup cost will be around £75 – if anyone is interested in helping let me know!!

At the moment we are preparing for our team of volunteers who arrive on Sunday to help with our mission – exciting!!

Here Comes Trouble!



This is Trouble - he's going to be my guard dog!



Kittens

Honey with her 5 kittens, aren't they lovely?

Pregnant Puss

This is my mouse catcher Honey. She's been putting on a lot of weight recently and I had hoped that she was just getting fat, I've had to accept that she is pregnant and that we're going to hear the patter of tiny paws soon.

I've been trying to work out when she is due - the internet tells me that the gestation period for cats is around 65 days. Sometime around the 2nd or 3rd week in November she was making an awful racket that I'm told meant she was in season - so bad that I relented one night and let her out.....she must've gone hand found herself a Tom. By my reckoning she is due right about now!!

RIP Kiwi

Bob called early this morning to tell me that my cat Kiwi has died. He was up late last night and she seemed ok when he went to bed, but when he got up at 05:30 she wasn't waiting for him in her usual place, so he called for her and when she didn't come running like she usually does he went looking and he found her dead by her bed. I've had her 11 years and I feel so sad that I won't see her again for another cuddle.

All is going well here in Freetown - we've been preparing for the next team and are going to take a couple of days out. Jill is going to the beach in Sussex and I'm going to visit an orphanage in the provinces.

I'm especially excited about the next team as Bob (my husband) will be one of the team members, it'll be his first time in Sierra Leone and I'm so looking forward to him finally coming here.

More Ramblings

I've been trying to decide what to do work wise. I've been seeing a recruitancy consultant about my options, getting my CV up to date and going over interview techniques etc. I think I know now what I want to do, but I don't want to say too much just yet in case it doesn't work out. I'm going to try to get some part time temp work in the meantime so that I can cover the bills, but still keep some time free for training.

As I said in a previous post, my cat Jiffi died on 2nd September. We took her to a place called Cremate-A-Pet in Winchester and arranged for her to have an individual cremation. The chap who runs Cremate-A-Pet, Peter Winfield was very sympathetic and made the while thing easy for us. I was able to pick up Jiffi's ashes three days later. I think we are going to scatter her ashes in the fields where she used to go hunting for mice.

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At the weekend I attended a Mission Direct training day for their speakers network. Now I'm fully armed to go to speaking engagements for Mission Direct. It was really nice too, because the rest of the staff team I lived with in Sierra Leone earlier this year were there - it was good to have the chance to catch up with them.

I've had my phone upgraded to a Samsung Tokka. It looks and feels nice. This is my third Samsung in a row and I much prefer them to any other make of phone. This one has a full touch screen, which will take some getting used to. It has a 5 meg camera, the shots it takes are very clear and it has a gadgety thing called 'Smile Shot' ...... focus on someone and the camera waits until it detects that they are smiling until it takes the photo, it's a nice touch.

Also posted on minklemar.com

Bye Bye Jiffi

I'm so sad.......our cat Jiffi died this morning. Bob woke me up at about 6 to tell me that Jiffi had gone, but when we checked again she was still just about alive. As we sat with her giving her a stroke she took her final breath and died.

This photo was taken last week when she was already quite poorly, but as you can see she was still such a pretty little thing.

Bye bye Jif xx

Also posted on minklemar.com
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Jiffi

Unfortunately one of my cats, Jiffi, is on her last legs. I don't know how old she is, as she was a rescue cat and the shelter I got her from didn't have many details for her. They reckoned that she was between 6 and 8 years old when she came to live with me around 10 years ago....so that'd make her about 16 to 18ish. She's still eating, but she's struggling to get around and spends most of the day sleeping and has lost all of her energy. She's lost a lot of weight too.....there's nothing of her now. I'm dreading getting up one morning to find her taking her final sleep, but I think it's going to happen soon. That'll leave me with just Kiwi, my black cat, because my Jack Russell lives with my Dad now. Jiffi is such a lovely cat, she's very affectionate and loves cuddles - I'm going to miss her a lot when she's gone. She has the loudest purr I've ever heard on a cat - she's still purring even now, I can hear her as I'm typing this!

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Also posted on minklemar.com

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