Jennie H

In November I will be going to Nepal and am raising funds to send out there to renovate and decorate a school in a peasant farming community.... read more

Friday 21st - Sunday 23rd We drive through Salima, a prosperous looking town on the west side of Lake Malawi to Cool Runnings, a site opening onto the sand in Monkey Bay. We're right on the beach by the lake, which looks like a sea, stretching to the horizon with gentle waves lapping on the sand. To the left is the fishing village where the men mend their nets; to the right women do their washing in the lake and spread things to dry on the sand. More boys than girls splash in the water, though some do, and four of them came to chat to me. Aged 15 to 21 they say they're not ready to marry yet, unlike the village girls who marry at this age. Two of the girls are at Secondary school, ... read more

We took turns to help the cooks, Sinai and Kinessa, two women from the local village, with the lunchtime meal for all the workers. I was ok at chopping onions and tomatoes, and then went with one of the women to the borehole 500 yards away. We waited our turn and pumped the lever up and down to fill the large bucket, then Kinessa helped put it on my head. I had a small scarf to twist into a circle to hold it steady, which wasn't nearly big enough. The village woemn can carry water this way, often without holding the bucket, but i needed to hold it. Water was slopping down my back, and once water starts slopping, it's difficult to keep it steady. Other village woemn ran out of their houses to laugh at ... read more

8th September to 29th September It is my first Aid Camp International trip, and it won't be my last. This is Aid Camp's first time in Malawi too, and they are working with the Landirani Trust (a local Non Governmental Organisation supporting orphans) to build a Community Building Chidren's Centre (CBCC) about 30 km from Lilongwe. The Centre has been built using a newly recognised method of construction, 'rammed earth' which is actually a traditional method. Brick-made buildings have been used for a while, but brickmaking uses a lot of wood for firing the bricks and deforestation is becoming a problem. Brick-built houses use only one thickness of brick, which is not very stable, and does not keep out the cold or the heat. 'Rammed earth' is done by ramming earth of a certain damp consistency ... read more

Correction: Imentioned I was reading 1984, when in fact it was Animal Farm as you'll know from the quote i gave. I intended to reread 1984, having just bought 1948, a rhyming spoof, but as i downloaded the complete works of Orwell onto the Kindle, i started them alphabetically, and read Animal farm instead. Friday 27th July to Friday 3rd August Spent a very happy week, though with a little more rain, situated between Rye and Hastings near the East Sussex coast at Pett. This week is completely differnt from the previous few weeks. a family holiday in a large comfortable house with a huge garden, hillocked and burrowed by rabbits and surrounded by woods. The children, aged one to 11 play on the tyres hanging from a tree and explore the woods. We visit Rye ... read more

Tuesday 24th Daisy and I packed up and left Brooklands Farm in Happy Valley (I think it's called that, a picture of it was named so in the local pub), leaving the hens to pick the site clean of breakfast crumbs. We went to Polzeath beach for another afternoon of North-Star-by-the-Sea - sun, sand and surfing, before leaving to get back to Plymouth to drop Daisy off. We had five lovely days in Port Isaac and both want to go back there next year. Daisy went off to a social engagement and her mother, Sam, and i walked round to the Barbican to catch the evening sun - like Padstow, only bigger and less crowded, at this time of the evening at least. Wednesday 25th 9.50pm - I'm sitting outside the van in a campsite at ... read more

Monday 16th Stayed three hours in Selbourne but saw lettle of the town - blogging in Oliver's cafe and buying cut-price strawberries in the Co-op. Leaving there i travelled along the A3081 and the A30 which gave me beautiful views over the rolling Dorset countryside. Stayed the night in a pub in the country near Abbotsbury; two pubs in Burton Bradstock had refused to let me park overnight in their car park and a passing fisherman suggested I park at his wife's pub, 15 miles along the coast road. Tuesday 17th I drove to the cliff above Eype beach and had breakfast in the sun, for possibly the first time this trip. Stopped in Honiton for supplies - yet another historic market town - the country seems littered with them, but i suppose every town of ... read more

Monday 9th this was a touristy day - the full works at Cheddar Gorge, open-top guided bus tour, a look round two caves, a museum and a walk up Jacob's Ladder and the viewing platform, along one side of the Gorge, down, over the road and up the other side. All this afdter dancing the previous evening and having four hours sleep. The Gorge is fascinating. The caves have links with jenolan Caves, which I'm sure I've been to in Australia, and the Gorge itself inspired Tolkien when he visited here on his honeymoon. The Gorge was formed by the ice cap on the Mendips melting each summer which caused a torrent to rage through the landscape carving Britain's highest inland cliffs. The caves beneath are also fascinating, self-guided with a slightly whimsical audio set. I ... read more

Wed 4th Set off from London along the A25, my preferred route, so much prettier than the M25 with towns strewn with charity shps and cafes. This takes so long that i have to get back on the motorway to get to Southampton in time. I meet a friend for a meal at Shamrock Quay, then find a campsite on the way to Salisbury. It looks rural and faces a lovely evening sky, but is audibly close to the M27. Thurs 5th The morning was sunny enough to have me sitting in the field finishing yesterday's paper. The soap opera that is Barclay's Bank Libor scandal sends me to but today's instalment which I raed in a cafe in Salisbury. I hope i pick up the culture by osmosis, all I saw of the town was ... read more

29th June 2012 It's seven in the evening and I'm already as pissed as a fart, and I haven't got to the main arena yet. I arrived early this afternoon at the Hop Farm festival in Kent and spent an hour or so, buying a campervan ticket (I'd just got a camping one), and trying to park near a tree, out of the wind, but in the sun. I thought I'd managed it after moving four times, and i was just struggling to put the makeshift awning up in a high wind when a steward arrived and told me I was parked in the fire lane and had to move again. I gave up the awning idea and just used the windbreak, though that needed guy ropes to stay up. I was soon joined by some ... read more