It's our wedding anniversary today - four years. If I'm honest, it seems like longer than that, it seems like we've been married for ever (I mean that in a good way)...
Our usual anniversary ritual of:
day off
Cotswold Wildlife Park (probably)
meal out in Oxford
obviously wasn't possible. Heather did cook for me though, which was lovely.
She's great, my wife.
At one of the conferences about IT in developing countries that Genesis has attended, he learned how to crimp heads onto ethernet cables. This isn't a practice I've ever given any thought to. However, we have five machines to get online, and a big box of cable, so it's time to learn...
We had a few false starts, mostly concerned with the order the eight wires should be placed into the head. Unfortuntely, if you get that wrong, that's that head done for, and it's off with yer 'ed:
Fairly early on in our stay in Buea, we came a cross a shop that sold cheap spirits. We call it the grumpy shop, because they're never that friendly in there, I think it's because they have a concrete floor and they think they're all that. Amongst the cheap booze was a bottle of Whisky for CFA2,000 - two quid. Obviously such a drink is not going to be the smoothest, but it intrigued me, so on Saturday I bought a bottle.
Here's some photos of my football induction that were taken, just to emphasise what an arse I made of myself.
I spoke too soon when I mentioned playing football every Sunday a month ago. For various reasons, I haven't played since, until this week. This Sunday, we finally made it down again, but turned up late, so I only got to play about half the second half. The second 'half' was about ten minutes long...
We've finally managed to sort out transferring money from our UK accounts to HINT's Cameroonian account. We've made several attempts at electronic transfers, one of which I sent in May, and we finally resolved last week! Just the four months then...
Another transfer that Hev sent arrived pretty quickly, so we sent a second, larger amount by the same method, and it took less than three days! See banks, you can do it when you try...
In this part of Cameroon, the school system is based on the British system, meaning that the academic year starts at the same time (which I think is pretty mean, because the kids get their 'summer' holiday in the middle of the rainy season. Sad Face.)
So the school year started a few weeks a ago. There seems to be a severe lack of text books on school, and I think children are sometimes expected to supply their own. This is a big problem, because the text books can be very expensive.
Last week, Heather went with Marceline to buy material and get measured for a couple of African outfits - so she can be a Proper African Lady, what with her hair and everything. We were due to pick them up on Saturday, and while anticipating this over the week, the subject of me getting a suit made came up.
I'd wondered if it would be possible to have a suit tailored while I was here, as I figured it would be cheaper than in England. I've always wanted to have a suit tailored, as I don't much like the tapered trousers that seem to come with every suit, regardless of style:
There was a lot of spring cleaning type activity at the house this morning (and whisper it quietly, but the weather is improving...) So in this spirit of renewal, I thought I'd launch the re-design of the site today. I know it's not stunning, but I've gone for a 'less is more' philosophy (because less definitely loads faster, and we're on a slow connection here...)
This isn't just a cosmetic make-over, but a complete code rebuild, top to bottom, so if you encounter any problems, please let me know. I've tested it as well as I can, so naturally, I'll have missed something...
I haven't posted for a while, the reason being that I haven't done anything, as I've had a stinking cold, and have mostly been hanging around the house in my pygamas, or shuffling zombie-like (everybody together - uuuuueergh) up to the office, to sit in front of my machine, unable to string together a coherent...
But enought whinging. Still nothing to report though, (apart from Hev's nylon hair transplant, which I shan't dwell on), so instead here's some questions, and I want ANSWERS people: