May Be In Mombasa

In 1971 my first extended time outside UK was in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, for 5 months before I returned home to get married. July can be cold at 5,000 feet elevation, so my memories include woodsmoke, jacaranda and the dark silvery song of a nocturnal bird. Bathing one night in the concrete floored bathroom I met a moth with a wingspan of 6-8 inches and curiosity to match. I don't think my light was shining that brightly.

In May 2007 all I saw of Nairobi was the airport en route to Mombasa, down on the coast. Actually my group was staying north of Mombasa in an ocean-side hotel drenched with seasonal rain. The wind was quite high, the Indian Ocean breakers roaring constantly as they hit the reef edge. My room had mosquito nets, thank goodness, as Mombasa is close to the equator. Surprisingly, the lizards were nearly as bold as the moth.

One afternoon a tribe of monkeys moved across the compound atop the palms. I was amazed to see one leap several metres, landing on a much lower palm branch on his next tree. Clever or stupid? Reckless or finely judged? He made it, so it's your call.

Old Mombasa was fascinating, even on a rainy late afternoon after a visit to Baraka FM, a station serving both the Christian and Muslim communities in the name of Jesus Christ. From their offices there's a great view over the shipping lanes.

Did the Journeys Stop?

No. I'm still travelling both for work and for pleasure. It's just that this blog is neglected. I repent and promise myself again to get to writing. Taking up from April, the next big journey after the walk round Arundel was to Singapore for my work. Despite the horribly long air journey, I enjoy Singapore. The warm, damp air reminds me of Seychelles, where wife and I spent our earliest married years. We took our firstborn at 9-weeks old and our second son was born there. After the air, that similarities end. Singapore has a reputation for being a controlled society. The end result is a clean, crowded, safe-feeling, prosperous, and--yes--regulated society. A Swedish colleague and I walked from our hotel into town to eat. The traffic flowed, drivers obeyed traffic signals. The pavements were crowded with young people looking healthy, well off and enjoying themselves. We heard that the Christian church in Singapore is thriving. I'm glad that the prosperity is being moderated by spiritual growth. Materialism, like a nuclear reactor, needs moderating with other, spiritual influences to avoid melt down. Local TV was fun. In Thailand once I saw a cooking programme on preparing rats. My stomach turned when I saw a dozen tails hanging over the side of the wok. In Singapore I was caught up with a TV soap whose daily tensions grew in the fertile soil of loves gained and lost, flirtations with dishonesty and manipulation, a son watching his father regret infidelity and longing for his parents to be reconciled. I was sorry to leave.

Arundel is in the top ten

This last week has brought some Spring-like weather to West Sussex. Sunday last, wife and I drove into Central London to visit oldest son and his wife. We walked though St James Park, with hundreds of others, and enjoyed the sunshine and keen wind. It turns out they had visited Arundel two weeks earlier to walk along the river and through the Duke's estate, as wife and I reported in our last posting. Saturday night wife and I were at the Black Rabbit with two American friends, with whom we'd just seen Amazing Grace, the film celebrating William Wilberforce's struggle to outlaw slavery. For wife it was the third meal at the Black Rabbit that week! Multiple dining medal to be struck and passed over, no doubt.

Success on Sunday

Wife and I walked just over 5 miles Sunday afternoon, guided by the GPS. We started at Arundel, West Sussex, parking the car on the road to the Black Rabbit pub, then walking alongside the river Arun to it. The path was pretty muddy. Then on the paved road to South Stoke, beyond which we breasted one hill, then on down to the river bank again. The Duke of Norfolk's estate is walled, but The Monarch's Way traverses it from Arundel itself to the gate in the wall where we joined it. The GPS was tracking us quite well, but overlaying the track on a digital map at home showed us walking along the middle of the river just before the climb to the top of the estate. We're good, but not that good. It was a windy, overcast day, but that section of the South Downs is lovely. We promised ourselves a visit in summer. Light was failing now, but it was an easy walk downhill to Swanbourne Lake. The water fowl were grumbling about things and across the valley some teenage boys competed to be loudest. We needed the compass once, again in woodland; the torch several times as we came down off the Downs; the printed map pretty often. GPS handhelds seem to be fine in open areas but get far less precise in our kind of territory.