I was looking back through a diary that I kept whilst I was teaching at a summer school in rural Nigeria in 1998 yesterday. We had found that the students had many misconceptions about England (as expected!) and of course we had misconceptions about Nigeria too, it was a learning experience on both sides that's for sure. We had asked the pupils to write a short essay on their thoughts on what living in England was like, and I found a piece written by a 13 year old girl, which is just lovely:

My name is Ezinne Mba. I am living at Unwana in Afikpo LGA Ebonyi State. I am 13 years old. While I think that England is different to Nigeria is because the white people from England look very smooth and walk as fast as a hare. England is cold and is a paradise, and their flag is quite different from ours. Another thing is because they do not wash their clothes by themselves and do not travel by ten toes [on foot] but travel by aeroplane and their hair is as long as a tail, and England is as beautiful as an angel and their body is smooth as an egg. England is a big country and everything in England is cheaper than ours, for example like rice, beans, tomato, clothes and so on. Our money is in Naira and theirs is in Dollars.

I remember the class had a really good conversation about the differences between where we lived; wages, cost of living, housing, education etc. That whole Nigerian experience was just amazing. I met some amazing people including some who had never seen white people before, saw some wonderous things, ate some...interesting food.

Now I'm getting itchy feet again. Need to plan the next thing! Suggestions on a postcard please!

I spent a lovely weekend doing countryside things, specifically, seeing my dad and my sister on board her houseboat, currently moored near Bath. She had invited us up for a barbeque, and what a barbeque it was! We had burgers, bratwurst sausages (the best kind), and three types of kebab, not forgetting corn on the cob and a lovely salad (healthy options so we didn't feel so bad about wolfing all that meat down!). Just when we thought we had finished, we had to try and make room for toasted marshmallows, which I managed to do quite successfully, even if I do say so myself.

Hearing some of the 'landlubbers' comments as they walked past was quite funny, "Ooooh look, they're having a barbeque on that one!" Yes, we can hear you! My sister told us about a time when a family looked into the boat and one said to another "Wow, they've even got bread and butter!" Woooooow. It's amazing that people treat the boaties as if they are unable to hear anything that is said on land, even worse, that they could well be an entirely new species, albeit one that 'even eats bread and butter'! Ah well, they don't know what they are missing!

I was still thinking about this when we drove through Putney later that night on the way back to the ghetto. Some young cretin and his mates were spraying graffiti on a brick wall, using a rather dull orange colour (which barely showed up, by the way) at only 8:30pm, still daylight at the time of year, with barely a care in the world. You would have thought that they would have chosen a contrasting colour, dull orange really doesn't get the job done, and if they got caught (which they wouldn't as no one seemed to be taking a blind bit of notice) would it all really have been worth it?

Looking forward to getting out of the city for good....

I'll start off with the bad, because it's always best to get that out of the way first isn't it? Is the whole world going mad or is it just me? (Some of you don't need to answer that).

The British Police are in hot water over three separate incidents: pushing an innocent man over during the G20 protests, who later died of a heart attack; a PC who died when he crashed into a house whilst calling the station to say he be late to a meeting; and the other one who was speeding with no lights or sirens and killed a beautiful young girl with her whole life ahead of her....the list goes on.

Meanwhile Silvio Berlusconi, Italian Prime Minister, is rapidly taking Prince Philip's place as pronouncer of stupid and inappropriate remarks, when he reportedly told the 17,000 made homeless by the recent earthquake to look on sleeping in tents as a 'camping weekend'. Sometimes I just wish people would take a look at the REAL lives people lead sometimes, instead of looking out from their ivory towers and making stupid flippant remarks.

In the US, a mentally ill and severely depressed mother shoots her son dead and then kills herself in a shooting range. Shocking and so sad.

So what's the good then? Well, it seems more local and personal. Friends getting married, friends having babies, Romalidays coming up, new friends and old, going for walks with the dog and smelling the new green things growing in the woods, sunny and warm days, not getting home in the dark. You take it where you can find, it don't you!

And the ugly? That's just me. I need more sleep and I'm definitely planning to get it over the long weekend!