Happy Easter

And Bengali/Nepali/Tamil/Khmer New Year. Are there any others? If anyone understands the relation between all these new years I'd love to know.

Whatever the occasion, I'm feeling quite festive. I had friends over for an accidental passover meal on Thursday. Lamb was only cooked because of an enticing tv advert. But it worked out well.

Yesterday I went to a Good Friday service at a church that I've just visited once before. It was a nice service but quite morbid. The sermon was on 'Jesus death and ours' and the preacher was an older guy who talked on about how he wonders what his death will be like. Hmm.

And today I'm going on holiday to Paris from today until Tuesday. Yay! It's my first trip anywhere since coming to London which means I'm far behind other expat friends who seem to take a European 'city break' once a month. I guess I'll find out how much French I've absorbed from working with Congolese people for the last couple of years.

I'm leaving instructions for Winter to finish before I get back. It's been been really cold again this week. I've calculated that half of the year is a write-off in the UK due to miserable weather.

Travel Sickness

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has entered the UK. It doesn't really worry me. But it will mean fielding even more questions from nervous parents visiting the farm where I work.

One mum gave me a confused look today when I struggled not to giggle while answering. People, if you're unsure of the difference between 'avian' and 'aviation' then please just call it 'bird flu'.

Defrosting

I've changed. The temperature has gone above 10 degrees for the first time in ages and I feel like it's Summer.

Over the last few months I've got used to cold. I stopped wearing fiddly things like gloves, scarves and beanies and I started to look down on the 'tourists' who walk around central London dressed for the Arctic. It's the same pointless smugness I feel when I pass Hare Krishna singers and mentally correct their pronunciation.

But I'm not as tough as I like to think. I could handle the cold when I had to. But I tended not to leave the house unless it was absolutely necessary. Winter made me very antisocial.

The maximum temperature tomorrow will be 13 degrees. In Sydney that would be cold. In Hong Kong it would warrant a 'Cold Weather Warning'. But I'm coming out of hibernation.

Propaganda

I'm loving the Commonwealth games but the BBC coverage has me reaching for the mute button. My annoyance reached a peak this evening when they played a section of Australian commentary just to laugh at how worked up the commentator became. Thank goodness for the more composed BBC coverage with lines like 'Scotland are just having the meet of their... uh... lives'.

Muting the coverage wouldn't be a total fix however. I still wouldn't be able to see the events in which British countries don't win any medals. And I haven't seen an overall medal tally so far. I am fighting the censorship by including an abbreviated gold medal tally below:

Australia: 42
England: 18
Scotland: 8
Wales: 1
Isle of Man: 1

I was shocked when I searched out the overall tally on the internet. The only tally which is shown on the BBC (repeatedly) is the men's swimming tally. This may have something to do with the fact that Australia has only won one gold.

Hmmm. I had no idea I was so patriotic.

Spring

There has been an obvious dichotomy at the farm lately:

With the arrival of Spring, a lot of baby animals have started to arrive. Super cute. My favourites so far are the baby quail.


At the same time, little people are not so lovely. One of the kids in the youth program was involved in a stabbing a couple of weeks ago. This week another kid stole a bag belonging to one of my new students, the second theft recently. Luckily the whole thing was caught on CCTV camera and the stuff was retrieved.