I'm leaving on a jet plane..

Its finally here. I'm off to India tomorrow!

Well, I say finally - its rather sprung out from the bushes at me as time has gone so quickly over the last few months. The past three very stessful weeks in particular have flown by. But work is now done and dusted and a millions miles from my thoughts.

Took today off for last minute preparations and a bit of quality time with Toby. Think I'm sorted and packed.

Not sure how to prepare mentally for this trip. Don't want to turn into a sobbing wreck but also don't want to walk round with an inappropriate grin on my face the whole time. But I am so very excited!

I'll be updating a travel pod for this trip which you can find linked at the side of this blog or by clicking here.

See you on the other side!
belle x

India preparations

I'm getting increasingly excited but also panicky about the India trip - we leave on Sat 24th Feb and there's so much to do beforehand!

I'm currently in the middle of getting all my jabs which has been more tricky than expected as the nearest place I can get my rabies and cholera is Cambridge so I've been shooting down there after work on a Weds for the last few weeks.

Unfortunately rabies and Hep B require you to have 3 doses (i.e. 3 separate injections for each) and you can't have them in the same arm so my left is Hep B and my right is my rabies arm - both are very sore though!

Have just got a Hindi course from the library to learn a few basic phrases and hoping that will help me to concentrate on the positive aspects of the trip and away from the disease aspects! Other than that my Visa application has been sent off and medical forms to follow shortly so the main things are almost sorted. Phew! Will keep you updated before the off...

The chosen one

By some awesome act of God I've been selected to go to India with the charity WaterAid on behalf of the Environment Agency.

Only 1 person gets picked out of hundreds, nay thousands, of applicants from throughout England and Wales. And thats me!!

Amazing.

What an opportunity - definitely something I've always wanted to do (and now I'm even getting it all paid for by my employers).

Unreal.

Diversity Week

Dangerous things these 'try a new thing' days at work.

Sooo tempted to get another tattoo.

Toby says I'm not allowed :(

This is Jennys latest, its says Freedom:

Three years!

Today is our three year wedding anniversary. Since leather is the traditional gift - yuck - we decided to shun tradition and go to our friends performance evening (called Pint of Poetry and a Dash of Drama) at Charters (wonderful floating pub). But not only go and watch, perform too!

We made a piece from a Rosie Thomas song called "I let myself fall" with Belle sining and Toby playing his viola as a response. The words are:

I let myself fall, I let myself fall, I let myself fall
In love with you
There's no turning back, There's no turning back, There's no turning
back
Since I let myself fall in love with you
Now I picture things, Now I picture things, Wedding bells and
wedding rings
Since I let myself fall in love with you

According to an old rhyme "Marry in September's shine so that your life is rich and fine", thats certainly been true so far. Here's looking forward to many more happy anniversaries
With love, b & t xx

Bhangra & Kayaking

Went Bhangra dancing on Saturday, it's amazing! So much fun, definately something we'll keep doing. Very sweetly an old Indian couple came up and told us we dance like Indian people - no bigger compliment.


Went kayaking on Sunday. Gots to get us one of these things...we've been saying it for years but probably need to get a bigger car first!

Edinburgh Fringe Festival Pt 2

Wow.

Seriously, wow. It was AMAZING!

We saw so much stuff it would be too hard to list let alone explain and describe so I asked people for their highlights:

• Toby loved seeing Russell Howard again in his own stand up & at various other times throughout the festival.
• Belle's highlight was seeing 'Street Life' by Renegade Theatre (Germany) - it was an amazing mixture of street dance, live music and digital graffiti. The fact that it was held in a beautiful old church just gave it such a great atmosphere. At £12 a ticket it was probably our most expensive event but so worth it and everyone loved it. Chuffed.
• Mum loved it all and was glad we were able to fit in a walking tour of Edinburgh and the Auld Reekie tour which was pretty gruesome and scary. Being out and about in the street with a variety of performers doing their thing is so fun and thankfully the rain held off for most of it! A group of young guys called Out of the Blue were one of the best acts we saw doing a-cappella versions of pop & rock songs, very animated!
  

We ate well, drank well (Chocolate Soup, amazing), sang along, gasped, laughed and even fitted in quite a bit of dancing! Sitting on the grass in the sunshine underneath a beautiful weeping willow watching the last performance of the 'The Elephant Tree' was a welcome rest and a nice chance to reflect on all that was going on around us.

If you get the chance to go I definitely recommend it - I know that I'll be going again and again in future. A few tips for survival:

1. Get a programme from the website in advance, it's worth paying the small fee to prepare as you need an idea of what you want to see and where they are, some venues are far apart and there are lots of very steep hills in Edinburgh!!
2. Take a bottle of water an umbrella everywhere you go.
3. The Free Fringe was ace and we had some of our best laughs here so definitely worth investigating and get there early as smaller venues get very busy.
4. Sleep well in preparation, we started most days at 9am and were still out on the tiles sipping cocktails at 4am (some of the best jazz didn’t start til 3am!)
5. Don't panic. Its no fun if you’re rushing from venue to venue & getting stressed. Catch a bus/cab if you need to but mostly leave yourself plenty of time for mooching and relaxing in-between performances.