Week 1

So by the end of last week we were all packed up, and had said goodbye to most people we knew… all that was left was to said goodbye to the wonderful Wolverton and our lovely house. It seems like so long ago. This photo wasn’t actually taken the morning we left, but in the last couple of weeks. A rainbow over our house!

• 3 bags for the hold. No more than 60kg (well perhaps a few kg over). Check.
• 4 pieces of hand luggage. (Stretching the handbag/ camera bag rule and hoping no one enforced the 7kg limit). Check.
• 1 “Freya bag” of items to declare to VAT return people. Check.
• 1 sob story ready to (successfully) mitigate risk of paying £56/kg excess baggage. Check.
• Last minute calls made. No international roaming in Myanmar. Check

 

The adventure begins… it was raining in London… and 14 hours and another continent later it was still raining… except a lot harder, a lot longer and a lot more frequently. The general theme of the week has been rain. Fortunately, as demonstrated by myself, we were greeted with his and hers matching umbrellas, which have been exceedingly useful, even if I managed to break the handle off mine by using it as a walking stick to go up some slippery steps. I am standing in front of our house for this week and next.

   

Ant vs largish spider. Ant 1: Spider 0.

We have so far not been very snappy with the camera, I suppose we have 2 years to take tourist photos and it is wet the whole time so not great conditions… however here are a couple of local scenes. A view of Yangon from a restaurant on the 20th floor of a tall building and St Augustine’s Catholic church. There are obviously many many Buddhist temples, photos of which shall abound at some point as some of them are incredibly beautiful, however we have also seen more Catholic churches than might be expected: St Augustine's, St John’s and St Anthony’s.

  

First day of work. New bag (with new laptop in it) and new flip flops. This is my dream work location as when inside homes and offices you can’t wear shoes so you can either go barefoot or slide around tiled/ wooden floors in socks. For anyone who knows me it will be obvious what I do, and if not, I ask the question why one would be wearing socks when it is 30 degrees centigrade outside.

Whilst I am at work Ant has been busy tending to the house, washing clothes and preparing food for the working wife. He went to the “Orange” super market and bought some aubergines. I was of course amused that it was an “orange” super market.

That’s all for now. Over and out.

Testing Testing…

This is a small test to see if I can blog in this way (offline on windows live writer and then replicating at an internet source). The attached photo is frozen icing Ant and Sarah from our wedding meringues. Crafted by Hils we kept them in the freezer, but thought our tenants may not appreciate them as much as we did. They seem to have done quite well during their 2.5yr freezer stint, although perhaps Ant’s hair turned a little pink?

Shipped out

Our pile of things to be shipped has now been shipped… to a store in the UK, where it will wait until we get our visas sorted and then will be shipped onto Yangon.

Hopefully we will have somewhere to live by the time it arrives?!

 

In to store

The last few days have been very busy, sorting through everything we own, deciding what to take, ship, store, chuck or give away. Today was storage day. At 8.45 the big van pulled up and it took 3 men the best part of 5 hours to wrap, box and pack into 3 large crates almost everything we own. I thought I might be a bit sad about it all, but actually it is nice to know it should be safe in Bedford or wherever it will be living and it will be like Christmas gone crazy whenever we come back and un wrap it all. When I am sure we will wonder why on earth we bothered to store most of it.

Good bye… piles of stuff… shelves of books, lovely sewing box, huge pans, photos of fun places, garage of junk… so long… farewell

Hello huge removal van with 3 empty crates. Actually not so empty in this photo as the top of our dining table seems to already be wedged in.

Hils and I pretended to be packers for a while. Until we were told off for placing plates flat in the box. Apparently the professionals place them on their side, thus reducing the risk of breakage in transit. Now we know. As the packing continued Ant busied himself paying the parking ticket he got after parking his car in front of a one hour parking sign for 2 days in an attempt to sell it. I suspect perhaps the parking fine was greater than the cost of putting an add on line.

All boxed up and ready to go… but ooops the pew doesn't fit in a crate. Apparently this means it gets to spend a couple of years with other oversized furniture. Lucky pew.

Off it all goes… all that remains are the white goods, Ant, me, and by the looks of the photo half a giant Nutella pretzel I bought him to cheer him up.

oh yes… that and a room upstairs that looks like a bomb hit it. Next task is to sort that out before the shippers come on Tuesday.

Here’s to minimalist living.

Paperwork

There seems to be a lot of paperwork involved in deconstructing ones life in the UK. Paperwork and endless hours spent in telephone queues listening to rubbish music.

Myanmar Burma

The countdown is on.

On the 3rd August the 2 of us will be moving to a city with 2 names in a country with 2 names on a contract of 2 years. I thought a map might be a helpful place to start as apparently not everyone knows exactly where this land can be found.

Actually I think the 2 name thing depends on who you are… and perhaps some politics too (which I think wise to steer well clear of here). So, we have bought a one way ticket (yikes) to Yangon, Myanmar… but it is perhaps more commonly referred to as Rangoon, Burma in the UK.

I have not written on this blog for some time, and so some effort on my part may be required to get back into it… especially as I am possibly going to one of the worst places in the world for internet connectivity. However, as I am not on the book of face it seems as good a place as any to jot down any (non politically contentious) rambles and keep anyone who might be vaguely interested up to date with the life and travels of the telford-geers as we head off on our little adventure in the tropics.

Anthony sent me this photo today, entitled "My arrangement - the poppies didn't like it inside"
Love it that he is doing a bit of flower arranging in my absence
Very sad to be missing our little garden at this time of year

African Renaissance

Another Dakar outing was to the African Renaissance monument. Here are some facts according to wikipedia:

• It is 49m tall, making it the largest statue in the world outside Asia and the former Soviet Union.
• It was built by the North Koreans (random... more on that below).
• It cost over $27 million (USD)... one could very well question why money is being spent on this when there are malnourished munchkins and people dying of malaria... but I suppose that question can be asked of all governments. UK included (we don't have malaria... but there are hungry kids).
• It is located on top one of the twin hills in Dakar known as Collines Des Mamelles (or Hills of Breasts as they would be referred to in English).
  

As you can see it really is quite something.

Just in case we needed proof that the North Koreans were involved... we actually met one. This was SO exciting. We saw some Asian types operating a large crane and cleaning/ painting the statue. Hilary the brave/ mad went and spoke to one of them. He seemed not to really speak English but did confirm he was from Pyongyang. It was SO exciting we just had to take photographs to prove our 1st meeting with a real life North Korean. It would be interesting to know what he makes of Senegal... and the big statue... and the breast like hills... and whether he still loves the dear and great leaders... and whether he would rather North Korea or Senegal... oh the questions...
This is the list of Heads of State attending the (most likely lavish) opening ceremony... DRC, Zimbabwe, Cote D'Ivore, Gabon... mmm something seems a bit wrong about all of this...

Big Fish

Before Spearsy's wedding we enjoyed a trip to the big fish restaurant in Dakar.
The attached photos amuse me. Mostly because the plates were actually shared between lots of people... but the photos tell a different story!

Wedding Day!

At the hotel... all ready for the Spearsy-Sophie wedding
The best men - Pete and Arthur

The church at 4pm (official start of wedding ceremony). The people on the left hand side are the amazing choir... so as you can see very few guests were on time! Of course us pasty faces arrived far too early... I think it all got going properly around 4.45!

I didn't do a good job of photographing the bride and groom. This is coming out of the church, where they were surrounded by a fantabulous brass band... a real celebration. Spearsy was draped in traditional necklaces at this point (I think).

After the church ceremony there was obligatory attendance for the Bride, Groom and A list guests at the B list reception. The 2 tiered reception approach is an interesting one. Basically Bride and Goom show up there for about 30min and then leave the B listers to celebrate all night whilst the A listers headed for the fancy restaurant!

Pete and Misty were not quite sure what to do with themselves...
Anthony on the other hand enjoyed playing with the orange "jewel" table decorations...
Me and Marthe
Then it was off to the A-list party... Mr Geer was very pleased with himself
The MOST incredible wedding cake ever...
Deserts to end all deserts
Me and Anthony with the most lovely Habib and Habib's deuxième wife. Habib is Alex's loyal driver and is super nice, and actually I was quite distressed he had taken a 2nd wide since seeing him last. The 1st wife has 7 or 9 children... poor thing... left at home whilst wife number 2 gets to go out to the fancy parteeee.

Heathrow - Lisbon

The adventure begins at Heathrow... Ant and I travelling with more bags than ever before. Laden with sugar almonds and solar lamps for Spearsy's nuptuals...

Striking it lucky on arrival in Lisbon... as we were delayed by multiple hours we were given boarding passes... for the next day... and then vouchers for a night in Lisbon! The excitement was overwhealming.



Anthony tries to escape me... but of course failed


Hils and "Orange" enjoying Sangria in the town... how civilised