Back in Butare

I'm back in my old house in Butare before heading off to Bukavu in the morning. I've been gone three weeks. I had a wonderful Easter weekend in Utrecht and Amsterdam with friends Sophie (from Belgium) and Shirini (England) who drove up and flew over to join me. We all met at Schipol airport and then drove to Utrecht.


Nicky, Sophie, and Shirini at Schipol

From there I went over to England for a few days, first to Devon, to a rather remote cottage somewhere between South Molton and Barnstaple. The sun shone the afternoon we arrived, and after that it was nothing but cold rain for the next three days. Thank goodness the house had central heating!

Remote cottage in Devon

Friday was a successful shopping day at Selfridges and John Lewis in central London thanks to my determined cousin Julia, and Saturday it was suddenly a warm sunny spring day with blossoms in abundance, and I enjoyed wandering around the shops in Muswell Hill basking in anonymity before catching the evening flight to Nairobi. On to Kigali this morning, and down to Butare this afternoon. My old rooms are very bare, and without the cats I feel very sad.

Internet access in Bukavu will be far less frequent, and apparently the gmail address is difficult to access - much better to use Yahoo. It looks like I won't be able to post photos very often - we shall see! I shall have to see about changing the name of the blog now, too.