Alastair and Rhian's Wedding

The highlight of our trip home was the wedding of our son Alastair to Rhian. It was a lovely day. She looked stunning with a beautiful dress and her hair up. She was accompanied by 3 page boys, 2 flower girls and 2 bridesmaids, a lovely wedding party. Alastair had 3 best men including his brother and 2 friends from university. It was a good plan as the team were able to ensure that the wedding went smoothly.

The wedding was at a beautiful Norman church on the outskirts of Oxford. From there we walked along the tow path beside the Thames to the reception.

We had all of the traditions of an English wedding, photos, speeches, food, cake and dancing.

Wearing the dress from Uganda, bought last October in Mbale

Sharing a joke with one of the best men

At the end of the evening they left for a hotel in Oxford through an archway of sparklers onto a waiting river barge.

It all made us feel a bit homesick and we would have happily stayed longer. However, the plane back was booked for Monday so we returned to Entebbe feeling a little jaded. We're now looking forward to our return home at the end of the placement in October and an opportunity to get to know our new daughter in law.

A Short Trip Home

We flew back to the UK 2 weeks ago for a short holiday including Ali and Rhi's wedding in Oxford. We had a wonderful break and the wedding was a fantastic day everyone enjoyed.

Alastair picked us up from Heathrow feeling a little jaded after our night flight. It wouldn't have been so bad but the builders opposite the flat had decided to lay the concrete floor the night before. This has to be laid down in one piece or there will be a weak line which may break but they only had an old, small, cranky and very loud concrete mixer so it took 21 hours!

We spent Saturday seeing Ali and Rhi's new flat and shopping for our wedding accessories. It was a great chance to catch up and plan for the following weekend. I would be wearing one of the Ugandan dresses I bought in Mbale last October so I needed a hat, shoes and bag to go with it. We found nearly everything including a white shirt for Glen and returned to the flat for lunch.

We travelled back to York on Saturday evening on a TRAIN! It was the first train I had been on for nearly 2 years. The journeys I make for work to Gulu, Lira, Soroti etc would be so much quicker and more comfortable if there were trains.

On Sunday we took my Mum out to the seaside at Filey for a late birthday trip. Unfortunately we chose a very cold windy day. It was lovely to see the sea and we all enjoyed a Sunday lunch on the way.

We had 3 more days in York and spent the days shopping and sorting out admin and the evenings meeting up with friends and family in and around Poppleton. We brought back 2 suitcases full of the things we want to keep and managed to squeeze most of this into the store. It's going to be a voyage of discovery when we get to unpack it all.

We enjoyed exploring York again and taking pictures of some of our favourite places.

On Thursday and Friday most people travelled down to Oxford ready for the wedding on Saturday. I arrived on Thursday to stay with an ex VSO volunteer from Gulu. It was great to catch up with what we've been doing in Uganda and Oxford respectively for the past 5 months. We went into the centre of Oxford on Thursday evening to meet up with Alastair and Rhian and several of the wedding party for a street food market in the castle area.

On Friday morning Mum and I had a tour of Oxford with the father of the bride, who had studied there. Then later in the day Glen arrived with his mother. On Friday evening we all went to a restaurant on the outskirts of Oxford for a huge family meal and planning of the big day. More on the wedding in the next blog!

Rowena the Remarkable RAV

On Saturday we returned from another of our road-trips around Uganda, this time with Glen's sister. Over the 9 days we were away we drove 1,600 km = 1,000 miles on a round trip which took us to the extreme South West of Uganda and then back via Queen Elizabeth National Park (QENP) and Fort Portal.

Once again our little RAV4 coped with everything we asked her to, including sections of murram track around Bwindi and in QENP, degraded tarmac with multiple pot holes, mud, roadworks, steep climbs and drops and animals in the road, including some elephants just outside the park!

Our only problem with the RAV on this trip was a puncture when we picked up an old piece from someone's gearbox. It was fixed in the local village in very scenic surroundings and a complete lack of the modern tool kit available to the tyre workshops in the UK.

Over the past 18 months with our RAV we've tackled:

• Stickly mud during a rain shower. This covered the tyres so that grip on the track was non-existent. Glen said afterwards that it felt as if the wheels were completed detached. 
• Roads with so many pot holes there was hardly any road at all

• Ugandan roadworks, the road is not closed, you just drive straight through the roadworks

• Kampala traffic!
• Cows, goats, elephants, bodas, bicycles and pedestrians all over the road
• The Nile ferry at Paraa. We have seen many vehicles struggle getting on and off this beast, but no problem for Rowena (and Glen!)

Our RAV4 will be 21 this year and has over 300,000 km on the clock but somehow she just keeps on going, with a lot of help from Glen and various mechanics all over Uganda. When our sons visited a year ago Alastair named her 'Rowena the Rattly RAV' but I think she deserves a better title - 'Rowena the Remarkable RAV'

Mountains in the Mist

We've been away from work and Kampala for the last 9 days as Glen's sister Barbara has been visiting and we have been touring Uganda with her. We travelled to the extreme South West near the borders with Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The scenery is beautiful in that area with mountains and forests. The area is also home to around half of the world's population of the endangered Mountain Gorillas. Several of the habituated groups live in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park. Barbara was keen to join a trekking trip to see the gorillas and we were very happy to explore a new and beautiful area.

The mountain gorillas featured in the book and film 'Gorillas in the Mist' although the gorillas followed were just across the border in Rwanda. Barbara met the gorillas and we all saw plenty of mist. We were there for 4 days and saw several glimpses of the mountains peeking out from the cloud and mist.

 View towards Mount Muhavura

 Bwindi Impenetrable National Park

Lake Mutanda

On our fourth day we travelled back down to the town of Kisoro. This is only around 10km to the Rwandan border and you can (sometimes) get a good view of the 3 volcanos that form the border, the Volcans Mulhavura, Gahinga and Sabinyo. Mount Sabinyo has 3 peaks and if you climb to the 3rd peak you can stand in Rwanda, Uganda and the DRC on the summit. Sadly we had neither the time nor the energy to do the climb as the summit is at 3634m.

 Mount Muhavura

Mount Sabinyo

The height and cloud cover keeps the temperatures in Bwindi and the Kisoro area a very comfortable 5 degrees or so lower than in Kampala. But the view on the occasional clear day must be very spectacular.