Tag Archives: South Africa

Things I look forward to….

Posted in Expat life, repatriation by

As the date fast approaches for our return to the UK I continue to put my head in the sand about us actually leaving. I love South Africa and our life here and if you follow this blog you know there are so many things I will miss (sunshine, wine, food, people, travel, wildlife, Channel 5 on the radio…)

But there is no point wallowing – we are leaving and I need to accept that. So in order to try and make things a little easier about the move home I have started to think not so much about all the things I will miss but the things I am looking forward to about being back in cold, damp, grey clean, safe, errrr, green Britain.

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So first and foremost yes I will appreciate being able to step outside my front door and simply walk. Walk whichever way I like, on my own, without thinking about whether my handbag is zipped up properly or if someone is following me. Even at night. Not only that but we won’t have to battle our way through a grill, double lock and security gates just to pop to the shops. Plus at night we can sleep without locking ourselves in a keep (which will be good for our dog, Cooper, in particular who resents being woken and dragged upstairs when we go to bed at night; I realise we could leave him downstairs and outside of the safe area but he is too precious to us to do that!).

Talking of dogs, and talking of popping to the shops, I am also looking forward to taking him with me. I am not yet sure if I will ever be confident enough to tie him up outside a shop like so many people do back home while they nip in for a pint of milk and a daily newspaper (ah yes! getting my news from a hard print copy rather than online, that will be a nice novelty too). But I like to think I will be able to take him out and about with me a lot more regularly than I can here. The Brits love dogs – they are even allowed in pubs. I will just have to remember that it’s an absolute no-no to leave any dog poo unbagged, even if he does it nice and neatly in a little bush out of the way where no-one can see it….

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And when I go to those shops I am looking forward to more choice. In all honesty, the food shopping in South Africa is fantastic and we really haven’t missed much. But there are some areas where they don’t do so well and where we in the UK seem to be world champions – like yoghurts and other desserts (so many types!), and bread. Ah, freshly baker bakers bread. And familiar brands that taste right rather than just slightly…wrong.

I am looking forward to seasons, to the smell of Autumn and the cold air of winter. To blackberries and apples off the trees. To watching our many excellent dramas or documentaries without having to download them first. Decent internet speeds. And lots more people to talk to about British politics.

There are of course many things I am not looking forward to (the rain, the lack of diversity, the expense of everything, the traffic….) but this isn’t what this post is all about so I will ignore all of those. In fact I will continue to put my head in the sand, my hands over my ears and say lalalalala for the next few months because otherwise I might just decide I’m not leaving.

And as nice as that would be for me, sadly for the reasons why we chose to go home in the first place it really isn’t an option.

Yup, the countdown is on – Blighty, here we come.

Photo credits: Green England – highlights6

Mini schnauzer – kawabata

A tale of travel, inspiration, and beautiful clothes.

Posted in Expat life, Travel by

I get contacted almost daily by people who want to write guest posts or sponsored posts for this site. In all honesty I am pretty picky – this blog isn’t a way for me to make money but to spread the message about expat life and to tell people about my book. But sometimes people contact me who I think would be a good fit and Kim was one such person. I love her inspiring story of travel and adventure, experience which eventually led her to setting up her own clothing line. It helps that I also love her clothes and can definitely see myself wearing a tunic such as the one pictured at the bottom of this blog. So please enjoy Kim’s tale of how she travelled the world, met her husband, sailed to the Caribbean and eventually set up a company called West Indies Resort Wear.

I left my home in Australia to travel the world at the ripe old age of 24.  I had graduated fashion school, and had a few years industry experience before I left, but my main goal was to work and see the world.  I didn’t want to do bar work, or fruit picking, or nannying, I wanted to find garment industry type jobs.

My first job was as a pattern maker in London, but after a few months, and with winter fast approaching that just didn’t seem interesting enough, so I started applying for jobs in the fashion industry in 3rd world countries.

It didn’t take long to land a job in Alexandria, Egypt, where I spent a year working for an enormous clothing manufacturer who was supplying cute ladies tee’s and knits to British high street stores like Top Shop.

This was my first experience of real “expat life” as the lifestyle in Egypt was so different to home, that the expat community really sought each other out for company.  There were suburbs where most of the expats lived, and there were stores, bars & restaurants targeted towards the expat community.  There was even a little supermarket in my neighborhood that catered to the expats.  I was so excited to occasionally find New Zealand cheddar cheese there.  The smallest tastes of home could get you through a whole week.

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Expat life in Egypt was great in terms of earning hard currency and having very little expenses, so I saved a lot of money for my future travels, but it was not an easy life.  As a young single woman, in a Muslim country harassment was a part of my daily life.  Even at work I was stared and jeered at.  After my year there, I was desperate to leave.  Looking back I think that I could have lasted longer, if I had have gone away more regularly to get my western world sanity back.

After Egypt I travelled for a while again, and then found myself as Head Designer at Billabong in Jeffreys Bay, South Africa.  This was another world entirely, but way more similar to Australia.  As South Africa had been such a closed world for so many years of apartheid, the biggest initial adjustment was just trying to understand what people were saying.  I was not familiar with the South African accent at all, so for the first 2 weeks I barely understood what anyone was saying.  Yes, they were speaking English, but there were so many Afrikaans words and slang mixed in, that I really battled to understand.

I ended up meeting my future husband and living in South Africa for 5 years.  I loved my job at Billabong, which was so challenging, and gave me a lot of opportunities to travel.  Here I am in China, where they sent me to visit factories…

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After my husband & I met, we started to look for some sort of adventure to do together.  We were camping one weekend, and one of us had bought an adventure magazine with us.  In it was a story about a young couple who bought a boat and went sailing to the Caribbean.  As I had done a lot of sailing with my family as a child, and I read a lot of books about amazing solo sailors, I had always thought I would LOVE to go sailing but knew it wasn’t something I would do alone.  When my then boyfriend read the article, put the magazine down and said “lets buy a boat and go sailing to the Caribbean” my jaw hit the tent floor !  We hurriedly packed up our campsite and rushed back to “town” to see if we could find a boating magazine and see how much boats cost !

2 years later, we were halfway across the Atlantic Ocean.  We had saved our money, bought a boat, learnt how to sail, learnt how to navigate, done some boat deliveries with other people to get experience, provisioned our boat and set sail on the biggest adventure of our lives.  Here we are on our tiny boat mid-Atlantic…

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It took a total of 55 days at sea to get to the Caribbean, and when we finally dropped anchor off the island of Tobago we were exhausted.  We stayed put for 6 months!  Eventually the hurricane season ended and we headed north to the more developed islands, we got jobs, got married, saved money again and had dreams of sailing the Pacific.  However I got pregnant and we had our first daughter.  That changed everything.  I couldn’t go get a job, as I didn’t want to leave our child in Caribbean daycare so young, so I started looking for things to buy and sell.  I imported some beautiful baskets from Africa, and I started making beaded jewelry on the boat, which I sold to different resort boutiques as we sailed around.  Eventually my good friend who had been the Production manager at Billabong when I was there said, “when are you going to stop fiddling around making jewelry and start your own label?”.

That was an “aha” moment for me, and the beginning of West Indies Wear.  I flew to India where I found the most amazing pure cotton fabrics, and I designed the first collection on an overnight train to Delhi.  Once the samples arrived with me back in the Caribbean, my husband, daughter & I would dinghy all around the island looking for good places for the photo shoot.  Here we are in the dinghy….

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We sailed between the islands, visiting resorts and introducing the collection to the different buyers.  12 years on, and West Indies Wear is still going strong.  We have moved back home to Australia now, had 2 more babies, built our own little house with an adorable design studio and we are back to dreaming of our next boat, and next adventure.

West Indies Wear is inspired by tropical island travel, so we use vibrant Caribbean colors and feature beachy, on-trend prints like sea stars, coral, palm trees, pineapples and tropical flowers.  Here is a photo of my little sister Amy wearing our number one seller… the Starfish Tunic.

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Kim Van Loo is an Australian fashion designer, who started West Indies Resort Wear, whilst sailing the Caribbean islands. She currently lives at home in Australia with her husband and three children, but travels several times a year to USA to show her new collections at trade shows and catch up with all of her buyers.

 

I’ve never ridden a bus alone – and other expat child woes

Posted in children, Expat life by

The question of whether it’s good for a child to take them to live overseas is one that has vexed many writers and caused many an argument in expat groups over the years. I have written about it myself and am of the view that while every child and every situation is different, overall the jury is still out on this issue.

But one thing I can say is that there are many hidden costs for our children to this life – especially when it comes to preteens and teenagers. Hidden costs that aren’t necessarily deal-breakers, but that can have an effect on the kids and should be taken into consideration. Some of these things are the reasons why people move home or even send their children to board at home if they don’t have the chance to move.

What sort of thing am I talking about? Well, the sort of thing that most kids their age (I am talking really about the 11-18 age group here) simply take for granted: being able to walk to a friend’s house, riding their bike safely in the street, going to the cinema alone and yes, riding a public bus.

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Before I go on I should say that I am mainly talking about children from so-called “Western” countries living in so-called “developing world” countries, or other places where hopping on your local bus isn’t really an everyday occurence. I realise this is not every expat and that even some “developing” world countries are as safe as houses so this info doesn’t apply to all. Take what you will and chuck the rest!

So, what about those of us who DO live in a country where it probably isn’t advisable for a child to even walk round the corner to their friend’s house? Well in all honesty this is one of the  reasons why I’m looking forward to returning soon to our home country.

There are so many advantages of living in a country like South Africa but personal safety isn’t one of them. We are lucky and our house is just round the corner from a large shopping mall which includes several large supermarkets. Even so, while I am happy walking round there in the daylight, I would never allow my daughters (aged 11 and 9) to go there on their own. Some may say this is paranoid, after all, you see very small children wondering around alone all over the place here (including very close to very busy roads).

But when you look at the crime stats you realise that, paranoia or not, it’s always better to err on the side of caution.

At her age, back in the UK, my eldest daughter would probably not only be walking to her friends’ houses on her own but taking the bus into town and “hanging around the shops” or whatever it is youngsters do these days. Here, the only public transport we use (apart from planes) is Uber. And I wouldn’t feel comfortable putting her into a car on her own with a stranger, Uber driver or not.

As for bikes, any cycling we do is all under controlled conditions – on specific trails with good security generally. Biking alone on the city roads brings with it double danger – stranger danger as well as road traffic danger. Again, one look at the appalling statistics for road deaths and you know I am not being over-cautious.

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So while all her contemporaries are starting to gain their freedom, getting out and about with their friends, learning how to be responsible and look after themselves, she is stuck with me organising everything for her, driving her everywhere or arranging lifts, and condemning her to living as an Elementary-school aged child for years to come. It’s tough.

Leaving my children alone at home is also fraught with difficulties. Although we live in a secure house on a secure compound, there are things to think about here that wouldn’t be part of our lives at all back home. What if the electric fence alarm goes off? Do we lock them in for safety’s sake or leave them an easy way to get out in an emergency? And what if – heaven forbid – someone did break in while they were at home on their own? Not only that but dealing with emergencies isn’t quite as straightforward as it is in our home country of the UK. Were one of the children to fall down our very hard, uncarpeted stairs and need to get to A & E it wouldn’t be a case of simply dialling 999 and waiting for the ambulance to turn up. No, it’s all a little more complicated here and I barely trust myself to work it out let alone a couple of pre-teens.

So all in all, living here does without a doubt curtail their freedom. They are still at the age, and we are still at the stage, where it isn’t really a biggie. They’ll both catch up pretty quickly when we get home, just like they will (I hope!) with their maths and spelling.

But with every year that passes I fear they will feel this slightly strange, boxed off life more and more. We all know there are many, many compensations of living here but there does come a point where you have to weigh everything up and decide whether it’s still working for all the family.

We will be back in the UK (semi?) permanently from July, where I intend my children will start living their lives to the full by taking themselves off places alone, using the local bus service, getting trains on their own and doing normal, ordinary things that they can’t here like going to the cinema without an accompanying adult. I know they will miss many things about South Africa, as we all will. But giving up their freedom won’t be one of them.

Photos: Big Red Bus – Tim Spouge, Girls with popcorn – Kymberly Janisch

Two worlds

Posted in Expat life, South Africa by

I learned something new the other day – there are hand signals used by people here in South Africa who want to catch a taxi on the road side. I got this from my helper, Sannah, who comes in to clean our house twice a week. I can’t even remember how or why we got on to the subject but apparently if you whirl your hand in a circle it means you want to go to Mamelodi (one of the main residential areas in the city), pointing upwards means “town” and downwards means you are asking them to stop so you can find out where they are going.

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It was like a secret that I had been let in on, like a code that only some people in this country understood. I was fascinated – but also a little embarassed that I didn’t know this already. Taking a minibus-taxi is something that the vast majority of people in this country have to do if they want to get anywhere and many spend long periods  (including waiting by the side of the road at certain times of the day) simply getting to work or home.

But the reason I didn’t know about the hand signals is because I will never use one of these taxis. I have a car and on those occasions when I don’t want to drive we can use Uber. For most people however both a car and Uber are simply out of their price range and instead they have to rely on the packed, hot, uncomfortable and often pretty dangerous minibusses that are used as taxis here. And if you want to know how dangerous, just don’t ever try and get ahead of one at a red-light. These guys mean business.

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Anyway all of this got me thinking – that although we often talk about living in our expat bubbles, how hard we find it to make friends with local people and to integrate, the two worlds here aren’t really between “us” (expats) and “them” (South Africans). Really, it is between us with money and jobs and cars and warm homes and security – and everyone else. We aren’t South African but in so many ways we have more in common with those locals who drive cars, send their kids to private schools, shop in the same supermarkets we do, go on holiday and basically live in “our world” than we – or they – do with everyone else.

It isn’t just South Africa of course but globally there are two completely separate worlds and I suspect few of us really ever gets to see the “other”. Sure, we go on tours and peak into homes and eat meals in downtown restaurants or sit and chat with the people who clean our homes and cut our grass. We listen to the radio and talk about politics with anyone who will listen and try and understand what it means to feel so hopeless about the state of your country that you haven’t voted in more than 20 years.

But we can’t understand it, not really, because we haven’t lived it. I don’t know what it feels like to live hand to mouth with no back up. To not know how long your job will last and if you lose it whether you will ever get another one. To fear that your children won’t ever get a job when they grow up or, worse, that they won’t survive long enough to grow up. To never have seen the sea in your own country or an elephant in the wild when you live in Africa.

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So when we talk about “understanding” a country I don’t think many of us will ever really understand what life is like for (in the case of South Africa, at least) the majority of the people who live there. We can scratch the surface, we can do our best and we can keep trying but in the end the two worlds are so far apart I suspect we will never be anything but brief visitors to the other side.

To finish, another short tale. I started a discussion on a local expat Facebook page the other day about how much we should tip the people who help carry our shopping and guard our cars. Most people agreed roughly what we tip, which amounted to between 5 and 20 Rand depending what they had done for you (for perspective that is around 30p – £1). I don’t know what the local South Africans tip but hopefully if enough of us give a little each day then some of these people can at least afford to buy food.

But as well as discussing the amount we give we talked about how it made us feel. Yes I don’t particularly like following someone to my car as he (it is almost always a he here) pushes my trolley (“Princess syndrome”) and the guards that stand behind you and “guide” you out of your parking spot – often into the path of an oncoming car – drive me nuts. However, it isn’t about us and it isn’t about our feelings. Ultimately we are paying people to do a job and I can be pretty sure that most people would rather get paid for doing SOMETHING than to beg or steal.

So even though we can’t ever really know what it feels like to live on the “other side”, I think most of us can guess how hard it probably is. If all you do to help is pay as many people as possible to work for you in one way or another then you are doing something at least.

Two worlds – I wonder if there will ever be one?

 

Photo credits: Hand Signals – John Karwoski, Taxi ride – Rafiq Sarlie

Driving the Garden Route – from shining sea to shining sea

Posted in Expat life, South Africa, Travel by

It’s that quintissential South African holiday – the one everyone wants to do, on everyone’s bucket list. Not just us expats but tourists too, judging by the number of coachs and British pensioners we met along the way. But there is a reason for it being so popular and hopefully this photo-blog can convey some of that reason. For this is one of the more beautiful parts of the country with sea on one side, mountain on the other. And along the way beaches and baboons, wineries and waves. Welcome to the Garden Route.

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Our first stop was Jeffrey’s Bay after flying in to Port Elizabeth and picking up a car. Jeffrey’s Bay is best known as a top surfing destination. I would love to have spent more time there and watched the surfing – it certainly looked pretty spectacular. As it was we were there for an afternoon and enjoyed the beach as well as relaxing in our hotel with our wonderful friends we travelled with – a Swedish family who also live in Pretoria.

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The next morning we headed westwards towards Kynsna, stopping on the way at Storms River Mouth were we hiked up to the bridges spanning the inlet. It was a beautiful sunny day, perfect for a walk – which we made sure was child-friendly (eg not too long). On the return back to the car we bumped into the children’s school counsellor and her family – you never go far in South Africa without seeing someone you know!

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The views in the Storms River area were stunning. I thought this photo was a bit reminiscent of Thailand or China.

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There’s nothing like being by the sea for relaxation and rejuvenation – especially when you live like we do so far from the coast, in Pretoria!

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Later the same day we stopped at another beach in the magnificent Tsitsikamma national park. This one was just endless sand and blue sea and sky…..

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….the sea was a little cold to swim in though, but luckily there was also a lagoon which was warm enough for the braver members of our group to get wet in.

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We spent three nights in Kynsna in this fabulous house on Thesen Island – pefect for two families to share. We had four bedrooms, a fully equipped kitchen, a large sitting/dining area, a brai area outside with tables and chairs and even a pool.

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The views from the house were also stunning – especially in the evening when the sun went down.

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Ever since moving to South Africa in 2015 I have been looking for one of these fellas. Turns out they are a seciality of Kynsna so we were particularly pleased to find one on our garden path one afternoon! (in case you weren’t sure, it’s a chameleon!).

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Our only dud of the whole holiday was an elephant walking experience. We had booked it online and thought it would be a lot more interactive and educational than it was. It turned out we shared three elephants with a large group of pensioners and got to hold the trunk of one elephant for about 30 seconds each. It was not a great experience and was quite costly.

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We did enjoy feeding them at the end though.

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After our disappointing elephant experience we headed to Plettenberg Bay for lunch and more beach/sea fun. For those who can cope with the cold sea water (note: not me).

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Ah those sunsets!

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We left Kynsna and turned inland, heading towards the Swartberg Pass. On the way we stopped at one of the many wineries found in the area and enjoyed a wee tipple and some nice lunch. There was no end of delicious food on this holiday.

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The pass was quite a drive taking us up high on zig-zag roads with fabulous views our across the Klein Karoo.

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The requisite brown notice.

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The views coming down into the Karoo were if anything even more beautiful.

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We spent that night in Prince Albert, a stunning location with amazing light where I feasted on the local spciality of Karoo lamb. But the heat was high while we were there and it felt like a bit of an oven until the rain broke in the night. I would love to go back and experience the town and region on a cooler day.

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Leaving Prince Albert we headed to Mossel Bay where we were staying with my second cousin and family. One of the things that amused us in Mossel Bay was these little dassies (also known as rock hydraxes) which were so friendly you could almost stroke them. I say almost – I tried and got a nibble on my finger from one of the babies for my efforts!

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The next morning we headed to a site just outside Mossel Bay to try out dune boarding! This is apparently one of the best places to do this in South Africa – not only is the big dune there (Dragon Dune) apparently the highest in the country, it is also apparently the “right” sort of sand because it comes from the river not the sea. Which apparently makes it faster. Which is a good thing!

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What was great about the experience is that everyone could join in, from the youngest member in our group (aged 7) to the oldest (me! – my husband decided against it due to a dodgy ankle and together with my cousin was main photographer).

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Having never snow-boarded I had no idea what to expect but apparently it wasn’t exactly the same as doing it on snow. Nevertheless I think those who had boarded before got the hang of it slightly faster than those who hadn’t.

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The second part of the morning saw us flying down the taller dunes on our bellies. Which was great fun – until you had to walk up again. Which was like a month’s worth of work-outs in one go! Totally worth it though.

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After two nights in Mossel Bay, which ended with a fun night out at a local fish restaurant where Afrikaaners danced to country and western songs, it was time for the last leg of our journey and our last night – in Cape Town.

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This was our little house over on the eastern edge of the city near to yet more of my relatives, who we spent another excellent evening with. I got my daughter to pose in the window to make it look a bit spooky and ghosty…..

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Sadly it was time to say goodbye and after a final breakfast and walk in Kalk Bay we were off to the airport and back to Pretoria. I’m not sure yet if we will make it back to Cape Town before we leave South Africa for good but one thing’s for sure – we will return one day.

So that was our trip – a lot of fun and I only wish we had had more time. How about you – any good trips recently? Have you driven the Garden Route? Does it tempt you?

 

 

Learning to live with the New Normal.

Posted in Brexit, EU, expat, The world, US elections by

Phew! What a week. I don’t know about you but I feel like I’ve gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson over these past few days, with news coming at me from every direction. There was the travel ban in America, the huge protests against Trump being invited on a state visit in the UK, and then there was the Brexit debates and vote in London. It just seems like every time I check the news something else has happened….

But somehow, with all this going on, we have to learn to carry on.

In all honesty, I am finding it inceasingly difficult to focus on anything. I have plenty of work and am in the middle of an essay-writing course with a view to increasing the amount of freelance work I do. I also have this blog to keep up! Never mind all the normal, daily routine work like shopping and dog-walking that you can’t just forget about. But on the other hand there is Facebook and Twitter and another check of the latest news and before I know it half the day has gone. I also find my mood swings all over the place with the increasingly worrying information we are getting on a daily, nay hourly, basis.

But I know it’s just going to keep on coming so somehow we have to find a way to live with this new normal. And one of the ways I have been doing it is talking to people who have been surviving for years, decades even, in the sort of uncertain political environment that we in the UK and the US (and other stable democracies) perhaps haven’t ever had to contemplate. In particular, I spent last weekend in Harare visiting with relatives.

For those that don’t know (which hopefully is few of you!), Zimbabwe has been living under Robert Mugabe for more than 35 years. I am not about to go into a plotted history of the country and its politics – especially as, to my shame, I am actually pretty ignorant as to exactly what is happening in that country despite living righ next door and having relatives there. But if you are interested to learn more, here is a link.

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Trying not to get crushed in Zimbabwe

However, what is true is that life in Zimbabwe has become increasingly difficult for many of its nationals and change still seems elusive. It is that lack of WHEN things will improve that I think is the hardest to deal with – many people can cope with difficulties if they know it is for a limited time. If nothing else, contigency planning is easier when you have an idea how many months, years or even decades you are planning for.

It obviously isn’t easy and there aren’t any simple rules but it certainly seems that trying to get involved, in one way or another, in any opposition to the ruling government can make you feel a lot more positive. Just to feel like you are DOING something can certainly lift your spirits. How much you are actually able to do will of course depend on where you are and your particular situation – but in the UK and the US we are still in a position to be able to petition, march, write, donate and share information pretty widely. Hopefully all of those things will continue.

Otherwise, distraction is a great way to deal wth whatever is going on around you – epecially when you feel so helpless to change it. Change does and will come – we only have to look at history to know that we won’t stagnate in this situation forever. But it may be slow, a lot slower than we would want – so in the meantime we need to find ways to cope with the wait. Whether that be writing or crafting or sewing or baking or even burying yourself in work, it is always going to be healthy to take your minds off things for periods of times.

Getting together with like-minded friends is another thing that can really help when you are feeling despondent. As an expat I do sometimes feel quite isolated from everything going on in my home country, especially as I am surrounded by American expats so the news of Trump does tend to dominate. But every so often I get together with another sympathetic British friend who reassures me that no, I am not alone in feeling like this (I know the internet and Facebook in particular is another way to bring people together but there is nothing like a proper, face-to-face get together).

Finally the other thing that really helps me is what this blog is really all about – which is that many people, in many countries have been living with these uncertainties for years and whatever happens we will still almost certainly remain some of the most privileged people in the world just by dint of our passports. Although I speak about Zimbabwe, South Africa also has been going through interesting political times with a difficult and unpopular government, student riots, allegations of corruption right to the top of government…..

But I look around me and people are getting on with their lives. They are shopping and cooking and drinking wine and selling mobile phone cases at traffic lights and sweeping leaves and walking dogs and going to business meetings….in other words, life goes on. It is frustrating, incredibly frustrating, when you feel that you can’t do anything to bring about the immediate change that you crave but actually what you do need to be doing is living.

Now I am going to take my own advice and go and make a cup of tea. Please let me know your thoughts – these are interesting times.

Happy New Year and a Monkey in a Toilet

Posted in Africa, Expat life by

I realise things have been a bit quiet around here….but what with Christmas, travelling and now trying to catch up on all the work that has been sadly neglected for the past few weeks I have been pretty busy. I hope to get back to the blog asap and have some nice interviews and ideas brewing but in the meantime I wanted to do two things. First wish you a

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And secondly just share a little taster of our travels over the holiday period – one of those unexpected moments that will hopefully make you smile as much as it did me:

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Yes – that is a monkey with his head stuck in a toilet!

I hope you all enjoyed your breaks (if you got one….) and see you soon x