Freezing Greetings From England

I now find myself on home ground. Needless to say there was no kissing of earth going on when we set foot back in the land of winter jackets, pavements, mobile phones, congestion, freezing weather, crowded buildings, rushing around, running late, and all kinds of cleanliness. Rather a culture shock, really. I actually haven't yet dared to remove my hat or scarf yet, for fear of freezing to death!

We ended up arriving back a day earlier than planned because something had gone wrong with the flights and without telling us they had cancelled Fyfs flight and put mine back a day. We discovered this after getting a domestic flight from Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe) to Johannasburg (South Africa) and weren't allowed on the flight that we thought we had seats reserved for!! We were pretty upset and frustrated, having left Vic Falls sooner than we wished, to find ourselves stranded for the night in Jo'burg, where there wasn't all that much for us to see or do, and by this point we were very low on cash. Jo'burg was rainy and miserable, reflecting our moods as we contemplated the end of our amazing journey and was surprisingly chilly. So we handled the crisis as only two girls can- we hit Nandos for a mega injection of junk food, and checked into a nice lodge for the night, paying approximately 20 quid each for transfers to and from the airport, bed and breakfast. Result! The place we stayed was called the Dove's Nest and we shared a twin en suite room with a TV. We spent ages getting clean in the shower room, scrubbing, shaving, brow plucking, moisturising and enjoying the luxury of not being electrocuted by the taps (will explain in later post) and then slept for 12 hours straight on a proper matress with a feather pillow and thick duvet. Duvets! How I had missed duvets!! When you're on the road for so long you become accustomed to being totally filthy and sleeping on anything. You forget how amazing it feels to be clean and all cosy in a proper bed, and how these things are taken so much for granted I felt like a princess and it was the best sleep in weeks.

In the morning we hid from the weather, and after our full English got back into those marvelous beds and watched films on telly until it was time for the taxi to take us to the airport, where we went a bit nuts in the duty free, crippled ourselves under the weight of all the booze and souvenier shopping and caught a flight from South Africa to Frankfurt, Germany. Where it was minus 3 degrees celcius, snowing, and we lamented having very little in the way of warm clothing to hand. Now we had originally planned on stopping over at Frankfurt to visit the zoo and whatnot, but after the unexpected mishap in Jo'burg, had to reschedule so at Frankfurt we just changed flights and headed straight for London Heathrow. Everyone on the flight was in dark colours and the atmosphere was decidedly miserable. It is safe to say that we were, without a doubt, the most colourful and healthy looking people on the entire plane.

London carried on the theme and was pretty nasty, too. We ripped straight into our bags to get more layers on and then got a bus to Oxford and another bus from there to Woodstock, where our work mate Ceris picked us up in her car and took us back to the farm (Zoo) at Heythrop. Back in the trailer, I was almost in tears reuniting with my snakes, who I had missed so much. I also met Ceris's new meerkat, Spud, and we get along famously. To keep warm, we had to share my housemates double bed (he was away on holiday) and in the morning stayed in our pajamas and made pancakes for breakfast, enjoying being ladies of leisure (as Fyf put it!), and running out among the flamingos, storks, swansand crowned cranes on the front lawn in on bedclothes and slippers to bring Paul and Micheal (who we work with) breakfast and coffees as they were resurfacing the monkey enclosures, mixing concrete in the unforgiving weather.

So now I am back in Cambridge, trying to sort my life out (so to speak) before returning to the farm on a full time basis in April (and a quick visit next weekend for a mates birthday). It's great to be romping with the ferrets again (though a bit cold for rolling on the floor, and Mum won't let me in the house with them), although Flossy seems to have suddenly aged and is rather frail and skinny.

As you may well have noticed, the entire tour of Africa is missing from the blog. Apologies! I will be spending the next month (though I hope it won't take that long!) filling in the blank, with words and pictures, so watch this space!

Huge thanks to everyone who has followed my adventures around the world by whatever means and supported me, and an even bigger thankyou to the many truly wonderful and interesting people who I've met along the way and who have enriched my experience so much, without you it would not have been the same and I will remember our time shared always.