Psipsina

I think I have started using the term "home" in an increasingly flexible sense lately. Is England really home for me? Or is Crete...or is Fiji, as by December I had been living there almost a year. Well, I think I can have many homes, as many as I like in fact, as long as there is a reason to call somewhere home, and it feels like home, then home it is. In this instance I was coming home to England to see my parents, my brother and a whole load of friends. I wasn't coming back to England for the weather, that's for sure. In fact, even before my arrival at Heathrow I was bracing myself for what I knew was going to be a bit of a rough start. My body was going to ... read more

This was my first trip to Samoa and I was determined to make the most of it. I was rapidly realising that even though I lived in the Pacific, visiting the many hundreds of islands in it within the next year was going to be tricky, so every opportunity had to be grabbed by the horns (so to speak). Samoa for me conjured up images of fierce warriors, tribal tattoos and, more recently, a pretty decent rugby team in the World Cup. I had this image of the ultimate Pacific experience, a quite undefined and vague concept and yet I was not disappointed; Samoa more than delivered on my vague day dreams. Before I get into the nitty gritty, maybe a little background is worthwhile to set the scene. Samoa gained its independence from New Zealand ... read more

Well, conquest may be a tad of an exaggeration but still...it was a long way to the top! After 7 months of residence in Fiji, finally, in September, I embarked on my first proper hike up a mountain. This was Mount Koroyanitu in the North West of Viti Levu. The trip was organised by the Rucksack club, an organisation that has been a lifesaver for me. Without them, I don’t think I would have seen any of Fiji at all, as with the travelling I do for work I hardly have any weekends to myself and it gets almost impossible to organise trips round Fiji itself. The Rucksack club is basically a group of people who give up their time to organise trips around the main island of Fiji and some of the nearer small islands. ... read more

I had another opportunity to visit the Marshall Islands in August for the Pacific Power Association's Annual Conference. Doesn't sound like a holiday, does it? Well, yes, it was mainly work but there was time for a little hanging around on the beach too. As there always is when you are on a pacific island! The occasion was a networking picnic - or whatever you would like to call it. The substance of the matter was that we all headed out to the other side of the atoll - the side with no roads, no houses, no people, lots of palm trees, lots of sand and lots of sparking blue clear water. For the whole day. It actually took a good 30 minutes to get around the atoll. As soon as we got there, I grabbed ... read more