I can't believe it's been almost a month since the last post - apologies to anyone out there who's still listening. Still under a bit of deadline pressure here at work, so will take the liberty of using another guest blog (one I prepared earlier!)

I borrowed it from Aminatta Forna, from an interview in the Bristol Review of Books, Spring 2011. I hope they don't mind. It just resonated with me!

‘An essential difference between poverty and wealth is choice. Here we choose what we want to eat. In Sierra Leone there is no choice. In our village, people eat once, not three times, a day. Some days, not at all. On my last visit we had guests – NGO workers come to visit our projects – we wanted to feed them knowing there would be no food available elsewhere. But a python had slipped into the henhouse and devoured all but three of the adult birds. We tried to buy a chicken from someone  in the village, but nobody had one to sell. I am the wealthiest person in the village by far, but it makes no difference. I could not simply step out to the supermarket.

In the end we found a chicken, I can’t remember how, and cooked it with rice – one large dish shared by everyone. The visitors arrived and we were pleased. One was from the UK. When the food was served he said he didn’t eat meat and requested a vegetarian meal. It was his first time in the country and he wasn’t a bad person, he simply took choice for granted.

In one half of the world food is about life. In the other half, food is about lifestyle. In Britain, people are gluten or lactose intolerant, require a vegetarian, vegan or macrobiotic diet. We want coriander in December . Food is about choice. I love those choices as much as the next person, but I am increasingly aware of the costs and the contrast in the way the two worlds live. I wonder  how future generations will think when they look back at us, for such excesses surely cannot continue.’

Aminatta Forna is a broadcaster and novelist, born in Glasgow, and raised between Sierra Leone, her father’s country, and the UK. She is active in the Rogbonko Project, bringing education, agriculture and health to her family’s village. Her latest book, The Memory of Love, has been shortlisted for the Orange Prize 2011.


Thank you Aminatta, and good luck with the Rogbonko Project.

To wick or not to wick ...

...is the question at the moment.

Whether to suffer the slings and arrows of the adventure shops and clean up on all the end of summer bargains in the travelwear department - or just to make do with what I have.

Like everything else, the technology involved in travelling clothes is mind-boggling. I can buy a shirt that is no-crease, lightweight, designed to wick the sweat discretely away from the body (where to? Do I walk around dripping?), deflects the deadly UV rays, and has a collar specially designed not to flop so as to give maximum protection to the back of my neck.

Oh, and is easy to wash and quick-drying.

If I can afford it.

Or I could just buy a few cheap cotton summer tops with long sleeves, which I could presumably wear on subsequent occasions that don't involve extremes of heat and sand.

It's hard isn't it?

It feels important not to build  any unnecessary suffering into a trip that already has quite a potential in that direction, but on the other hand, I don't plan to make a habit of this sort of thing, so it's not that I'm going to need all of these special features in the future.

And I don't have loads of cash to spare.

At the moment my decision is to go with what the locals wear - long-sleeves, loose and cotton as far as I can tell from the pictures.

I did splash out a bit on a new pair of boots, because the feet are important, and I'm not even going to stint on the technological socks (much wicking, cushioning and lack of seams involved) even though they are eye-wateringly expensive. Except for the pair that I got at Aldi, which have all the techno stuff, and are also deodorised. Charmingly they come complete with instructions for use. I didn't keep the label but I do remember the warning  that even though they are deodorised, you do still need to wash them. I'm guessing they're popular with teenage boys - or is that a cruel stereotype?

Oh, and a quick update on training as I haven't been around for a while.

1. Still cycling daily to work - and actually miss it when I don't do as much. (Who'd have thought it?)
2. Did 2 seven and a half mile walks 2 weeks ago with Jonno (Hallo Jonno). Lovely. One in the Cotswolds, and one in the Wye valley.
3. Did my own little miini-triathlon on Holiday Monday: swim in the lovely Portishead outdoor pool (more than 1/4 mile), a walk along the beach, then back home for an hour's serious digging in the allotment.
4. Another walk coming up on Monday - hooray!