What a difference a day makes!

The Brackenhurst Centre was hit by power cuts yesterday -
or to be more correct - planned rationing of electricity,
owing to the lack of rainfall in Kenya not providing enough water for the Tana river hydro electric dams. The Daily Nation newspaper I collected on my way into the Emirates plane to Dubai last night was full of the story. So, the day I had planned to begin to get back into study mode didn't transpire.



Instead, I wandered around the grounds taking shots of some lovely birds with the Digital SLR camera I was lent - and which I am going to be mighty reluctant to return, such is the quality of pictures and the ease by which they are taken!
For any with sufficient stamina, there will be enough pictures of my (and our) Kenyan odyssey to make the Lord of the Rings trilogy seem like a 40 second advertising commercial!



My taxi driver(s!!) from Limuru were apprehensive about the traffic chaos in Nairobi, a daily hazard, but made much worse by the visit of Hillary Rodham Clinton for a trade summit, and collected me with a lot of time to spare. I was at the airport at 6 p.m. Kenyan time ( 4 p.m. BST) and my (yet again, exellent Emirates) flight didnt leave until 2330 Kenyan time. It is really odd tucking into an exquisite "light snack" of lamb curry with pilau rice, fresh veg, fresh salad, banana and chocolate dessert, excellent French red wine, whisky, coffee and cheese and biscuits when the bodyclock reads sleep-time! But I was very restrained - keeping the bread roll, butter, cheese and water for my breakfast this morning!

The descent into Dubai after 5 hours flight just showed what a difference a day makes, and what contrasts there are, even for the casual observer, in the small global environment we occupy: there was mile after mile of high luminence street and office lighting shining out in the pre-dawn darkness- the Kenyans would have loved a share of some of that yesterday, and tomorrow, and the day after...

Flying long-haul is a novel experience for me, and the on-board screen notification of boarding gates for transfer passengers alerted me to a departure to Manchester at 0755. That had not been an option when I originally booked my ticket back in January, and for the first half hour or so of my 9 hour stretch in this huge temple to the global philosophies of trade, travel and consumerism, I tried to see if I could jump on board the earlier flight - but that would have only come at the aditional cost of £50, and with no guarantee that my luggage would have accompanied me. So, instead, I am counting the minutes until EK 019 is called for departure at 1435 ( 1135 UK time). I am fortunate, I have momentarily found a quiet holding area, with a power connection to re-charge the well-travelled and full-to-the-brim laptop and "de-kenyan simmed" mobile phone. It has already been such a long day, and whilst I caught up with a couple of hours sleep on the plane, and one more here this morning, I am probably going to be a bit grumpy by the time I return home this evening after 33hrs travel door-door!

Further blog updates may follow if I can find anything interesting to write about from the caravan in the garden, which is to be my study base for the next three weeks.