Well I haven't updated my blog since I returned here from my trip back home, and now it's a whole new year so I figure I should do something about that! Besides, poor Paul is all hung over from too much beer last night so he's still trying to sleep it off lol. So I might as well use this time wisely...

Well what has happened in the last month or so, not a great deal to be honest with you. Because its the holiday season a lot of people here went home during December, and most activities, like walking and visiting the orphanage and deaf school and my Pilates classes, all stopped so its been a quieter kinda month. Although that said, it has also been an extremely quick and enjoyable month too for some reason.

One thing that we did that's new is a night scuba dive! We were so excited because the guys had made it out to be this really amazing experience. So we all get in the dive boat once we've kitted up and been briefed. Ok, now this is strange to begin with, this boat has no lights, so were in darkness. Getting to the dive site took ages because the guy at the helm couldn't really see so he had to go slower. We all had glow sticks on our tanks, so each buddy pair had a different colour from the next pair. The only problem with that was that me and Paul were purple, and there was another pair that were blue... And they all looked the same to us, so it was difficult to see who was who. Anyway we get in the water like normal, except we're all also carrying a waterproof torch too. We switch on the torches and start our descent. However it turns out the boat guy gave me only 3kg and I asked for 3.5kg, so needless to say I couldn't sink. What a struggle it was, I was so close to going back to the boat, the only thing that stopped me was that we were told that if anything happens with even one person, the whole dive group will have to surface, and I didn't want to ruin it for anyone else. I eventually started to sink, with Paul's assistance pulling me down. I also had trouble equalising. By this time we could barely see the lights of the rest if the group, and all my faffing about and panicking cost me and Paul about 50 Barr of out air! Anyway I got down eventually and we re-grouped and set off on our dive. It was chaos under there, the visibility was not great and if I wasn't constantly looking at Paul I'd lose him cos you couldn't see who's who down there. We saw a few cool things though, lots of lobster, they are normally hiding during a day dive but they came right out in the open at night. We saw a Spanish Dancer which was really beautiful. And we also saw a giant turtle, now that was incredible, completely made the dive worth doing, she was huge, but we were scaring her with our torches and she attacked one if the guys, she smashed right into his face... But he was ok, he even got pictures of the attack as it was happening lol. Poor turtle!! Anyway that was about it for the night dive.

We've been out on the boat a few more times now, what an expensive thing to run!! Worth it though. The other week we went out in search of a sand bank we'd seen in the middle of the ocean. We found it, and wow, it was beautiful, like some paradise island. It was just a small bank of sand which sticks out, but the water surrounding this piece of sand was stunning, crystal clear blue water. So we anchored up and spent the day there, snorkelling, looking for shells and fish. Then on our way back we anchored the boat up off Mbudya Island, which is probably one of the nicer islands to go if you just want to sun bathe and snorkel. The marine life there for snorkelling was astounding, I couldn't believe it. However I soon decided it was time to get out of the water and call it a day when three lionfish started following us around (lol I doubt they were actually following us but they were always there when we turned round and it was freaking me out, you don't wanna get in their way, so I've been told). But that was a fun day.

Oh I took a load of clothes and shoes, which i bought in the UK, to a little boy about 13 years old at the deaf school called Kelvin. He was extremely grateful although I fear some of it might have got taken off him even though we wrote his name on everything with black marker pen, but all I can do is hope that he did get to keep it all. One of the ladies there who is volunteering didn't appreciate what I did because she says there are more needy children than Kelvin, and also she said that because these kids have so few personal belongings, that when they suddenly get two great carrier bags full of things they don't know what to do with it all. I can see her point but I just wanted to help Kelvin, I have a bond with him and he's my little friend and I just wanted to do something nice for him. But next time I am in the UK I will get stuff for other kids, to make it fair. But we can't help them all, so in my mind if we can help one at a time then we'll be making a difference eventually.

I visited the children's cancer ward with some of the ladies just before Xmas when they had their Xmas party which was paid for by the money raised by Halliburton. The children each got to sit with Santa and got a gift and a bag of sweets/snacks and juice. Then they played music games and danced and then all the kids and parents got biscuits and crisps and juice etc and I think they really enjoyed it.

Well I can't think what else has happened so I'll move onto Xmas day. We bought tickets to go to the local pub, the George & Dragon, which is owned by an English family so they were doing a proper Xmas day starting at 1pm with champagne and wine flowing free and a 4 course meal, Santa and a raffle. It was an enjoyable evening, however it wasn't home. I still missed Xmas at home, I missed getting to help myself to a second plate of main course and various (countless) helpings of pudding, I missed that stuffed feeling I normally get by Xmas night because I've eaten too much, I missed all my family being under one roof, and I missed being Santa and handing out the gifts to everyone. It doesn't feel like it was Xmas here, but it's all over now so all I can hope is that next Xmas I can go home and it can be like normal.

It's been nice over this festive period though as Paul hasn't worked quite so much, he's had more time off and it's just been so nice to have him to myself a little more.

Ok so finally, new year. We weren't going to do anything at all. But I ended up getting last minute after party tickets for the yacht club which was from 11pm. So Paul and I chilled and had supper and just casually got ready in the apartment. The G&D is closed now for a couple weeks so we didn't really know where would be good to go for drinks before going to the yacht club so we just stayed home till 11pm. I thought we'd be sleeping by then if we stayed in the apartment but we were both still very much awake by 11pm. So we got to the yacht club about half 11, got some drinks and saw in the bells with a pretty cool firework display! Then we proceeded to drink some more lol, and did a little dancing, then went home at 3.30am. For some reason I woke up at 4am and decided it would be a good idea to get some ice cream haha. Then I went back to bed and Paul's work alarm went off at 5am, however he was out of it so I had to get up and turn it off. And now I have been awake for the past 2 hours sitting on the bed playing games on my phone, checking Facebook and writing this, while Paul is still sleeping off his sore head lol, awww poor Paul. Hopefully he'll wake up soon bright and breezy so we can do something