Blogs from Reading, Berkshire, England, United Kingdom, Europe

Friday night we made it through Accra's new improved security and immigration and I will agree it was alot easier than last time, the flight home was pretty uneventful which to be honest is probably the best flights :) I slept for most of it. I made it home about 7.30am just in time for out Ikea bookshelves to be delivered and then I slept in my own bed for a few more hours... bliss later in the day it snowed it started to get heavy and it was laying as well, overnight it got heavier and we had about 7inches of snow which wasnt too bad but alot of flights were cancelled at heathrow so I thanked the lord that I had come back Saturday morning and not Sunday. back to work tommorow, the weekend ... read more

If I am lucky there will be no power cuts and the runway lights will be on and this time no one will think I have a dead body in my suitcase (resus doll). Yep I am heading back to Africa, this time Ghana... I am returning to Ghana for a week, on arrival I will stay in Accra for one night and then travel to Takoradi with Gideon - my Ghanaian colleague and will meet Mike there a few days later , here at my destination my internet connection may be almost impossible therefore my blogs may be sparse. My assignment here is to provide first aid training to staff. On speaking to a volunteer coordinator at First Aid Africa earlier last year she gave me some sound advice. Teaching the population how to recognise ... read more

Many people of my age (same age as concorde - you do the math) will remember growing up watching emaciated Ethiopian children with pot bellies on the Childrens BBC Newsround program in the 1980’s and 1990’s, with songs like Feed the world and Heal the world making it big in the charts and we all did fun runs, 24hour famines and bring and buy sales to reach that Blue Peter target to send rice to these families, but as young children we always asked the same question “Dad, if they are starving why are they fat?” We now watch Lenny Henry and other comedians every March who make us laugh with their comedy and cry with their pictures of these same children and we phone and donate because we feel guilty for laughing on our comfy ... read more

I wanted to say a quick congratulations to Matt and Erin on the birth of their daughter "Sookie Violet Williams" born at 11:37am on Father's day ... read more

Goodmorning everyone, 1 hour and 20 minutes ago my plane landed and I am finally home in Twyford getting ready to go to bed and catch up on some sleep. As I arrived at the airport in Accra I was told to go to customs so that they could check my bag, just as they had in Nigeria, my thoughts were "oh god dont open it, I had to sit on it to close it in the first place" although she opened everyone elses bags she took one look at me and said - you are good, you may go. I thanked her, although fully aware of what a good girl I am :) I headed through to the departure gate, they had placed all of the BA passengers in one line and forgotten about us ... read more

last night the airport was hot, the queues were long and the air conditioning machines were pointless, I was molested (body search) by 2 immigration ladies - well at least I hope thats who they are, had my bag searched with high amusement due to the resus doll and was told off by another for having water in my bag... When Jane offered me a glass of wine in the British Airways Business Class Lounge (which was a treat because I am in economy) I was very happy in fact I could have drunk the whole bottle... we both relaxed with newspapers and listened to the Japanese events on the bbc news, it is really sad what these people are going through at the moment and I wish all the people in Japan my very best. ... read more

Leaving Kampala Airport was the usual chaos of Africa, Going through pointless scanners where no one really checks you at all. There were three flights all taking off at roughly the same time, Heathrow, Paris and Amsterdam and no one really knew where to go and people were just standing everyone looking confused! I thought stuff this and winded my way through the formed queue and walked up to the British Airways desk and off my bag went. We went through to Immigration. Mike went through with no problems - me on the other hand I was finally seeing actual security in Africa's Airports - They thought my passport was fake! they ran their fingers over the picture, they held it up to the light and called a supervisor who finally let me through. Of all ... read more