Blogs from Seychelles, Africa - page 8

Having added a music feature to Social Seychelles, I decided to waste yet more time downloading free open source software Audacity so that the other one and I could spend a Saturday night hard drinking, hard smoking and mixing tunes man. Well, the other one did the donkey work, I advised from the sofa and did the hard work thinking of DJ names - as I have previously said, this is critical. My current little known DJ name, DJ Mashed Potato (don't ask) was discarded on account of there being two of us (DJ Mashed Potato and Gravy - I don't think so). After a wide ranging internet search we came up with DJs Hulla & Baloo. You heard it here first. It's at this point our parents and friends sigh and suggest perhaps we need ... read more

A natural procrastinator, the other one kept pestering me about when I was going to launch Social Seychelles, with me finding a variety of excuses that it wasn't quite ready until my 'well what if I don't get enough people or what if people are rude or write in different languages and are rude?' led him to prod me hard with a big stick. And it's not like I'm going to make any money from it. You'd think I was a perfectionist the way I was carrying on. Really. In the end it was all a bit damp squib like, like accidently setting up the network, I accidently launched the site by telling people about it in a haphazard way. I then tried to add strategy by joining lots of Facebook groups related to the Seychelles ... read more

Chores to be done? Avoiding staring at your social network obsessing over the numbers of new members joining? Then get away from it all. What better to do on a Saturday afternoon then run 8km round the world's reputedly smallest capital, Victoria in the Seychelles. At 3pm, the heat of the afternoon, woo hoo. Most people settled for the 4km race but no it was twice round the town for yours truly at 8km (trying to convince that I had 'retained my tip top marathon condition'). Given that I had the ignominy of coming last in the women's race, I think the only thing I barely managed to retain was my dignity. Still beats cleaning gecko poo. And watching Social Seychelles do not very much. paradisepromised.wordpress.com... read more

Last year, perhaps by twist of fate, we decided to take advantage of the theatre wonderland on our London doorstep and do more than the once a year trip that we seemed to make to go see some 'culcha'. So we saw Patrick Stewart and Ian Mckellen in Waiting for Godot, Romeo and Juliet at the Globe, The Cherry Orchard at the Old Vic, Madame Butterfly at the English National Opera, Eonnagatta with Sylvie Guillem and the American Ballet Theatre doing Le Corsaire at Sadlers Wells, and for good measure The Killers and 2 Many DJ's at the O2 and Brixton Academy respectively. Here, the only bit of culture we've come across was the recent school production of Frankenstein. Enthusiastic kids, fake blood, cheesy Rocky Horror style numbers, hands that seem to move on their own, ... read more

I thought they were ringing as they'd heard how wonderful Social Seychelles was and wanted to hire me on the spot. Instead, the man appeared to be telling me that they'd overbooked our flight and would we mind changing? Thankfully, the swap would be to an earlier rather than later flight but would entail a night in Johannesberg. Hmmm. I enquired as to the hotel we'd get to stay in (after all if the hotel is posh enough you could be anywhere right?). They told me the hotel and I looked it up on the internet and it looked v nice with a pool so I said yes Air Seychelles that would be lovely, I'll just check with my husband first. The other one asked, is it a nice hotel? I said yes. Job done. paradisepromised.wordpress.com ... read more

Having been promised a phone call from Air Seychelles the next day to confirm everything, I find myself calling them to find out what was happening. I'm told that the flights are confirmed but they're just waiting to hear about the accommodation and that they'd call me the next day. The next day is the day before we're due to leave. Its 3.30pm, their office shuts at 4pm and I still haven't heard from them. So I call them, they say they'll call back. They do, just before 4pm. Guess what, oops there go my bloomers, it seems that the hotel we were told we'd stay in, we're not staying in. The four star has now become a three star. While not a hotel snob at all (see our Kenya/Uganda travels or Portsmouth and Newcastle homes ... read more

Thanks to N we arrive at the airport on time and are pleasantly surprised to discover we've been granted access to Air Seychelles' Premier Lounge. It ain't a 4 star hotel but as they say it's better than a poke in the eye. It has a TV, free breakfast and a copy of the UK's Daily Mail. I pick it up desperate enough for UK news to set aside my usual abhorrence of its right leaning, rabble rousing style of journalism and just as quickly discard it again as pictures of Samantha Cameron (at least a decade old) modelling in her mate's flat count as news it seems; my prejudices are vindicated. But lo! What is this I spy? A magazine offering the ultimate thrill. Food porn... Hurriedly, I grab it. Turning its pages, my pupils ... read more

The premier treatment ends alas at the airport gate as we join our fellow peasants in economy. I muse over the fact that people are prepared to pay huge amounts of money (but hey they subsidise my travel) to sit in a slightly more comfy part of the aircraft where the only thing separating them from people like me is a natty little curtain. Surely, people clever enough to build hulking machines that fly in the sky can devise something better? Come on business class people, arise and revolt, demand better flying conditions. Oops sorry, forgot, that's what the people behind the curtain are meant to do but then Sky TV happened. paradisepromised.wordpress.com ... read more

Listening to the other one's jibber jabber, him having called me with nothing much to say (I expect just a thinly veiled excuse to check I'd fed and watered myself like some forlorn Tamogochi, stuck as I am to the internet these days) I felt a small splash on my shoulder. Then a few more. Seeing as last I knew our house had a roof this was a little troubling. In what seems to be perfectly reasonable 21st century behaviour, I secured the safety of my laptop ok first. Then I set out like truffle hunting pig to check out the problem. My quest took me to the loft upstairs where I identified what I think is technically called a drip drip sound. Time waiting for no man, I despatched myself next door to the landlord's ... read more

Flying via Mauritius, we were at the airport long enough to gawp at the shop windows selling Hugo Boss and Diesel (branded clothes wow!), queue at an exceedingly slow transfer desk and go straight to the gate where we boarded our plane to Joburg. Restless, with little energy for reading I instead wasted a good fours of my life watching Shallow Hal (not once did I laugh did I) and some film about Amelia Earhart. Directed by Mira Nair, you'd think great story, stars like Hilary Swank, Ewan McGregor, Richard Gere and Christopher Ecclestone, it's got to be good. You'd think. Presumably South African Airways was as underwhelmed as I was as they didn't even bother to ensure that the film was finished by the time the plane landed, naturally assuming that anyone still watching would ... read more