Update

Aw crap, nearly a month since my last post. Seems I've not done anything stupid enough to warrant writing about lately. Still, an update's probably in order, so short and sweet:

I'm in Oxford, England visiting my parents.

Cara's in Aberdeen, Scotland building a drystone wall. Not exactly intentionally. She signed up to volunteer for a week with the National Trust, thinking she'd be helping to plant a garden. Instead, she's building a wall. Sadly, it's also snowing up there. I don't know how she's doing, actually, since she's remote enough that she has no internet access and no cell phone reception. For the next few days, therefore, I can only hope that she's surviving the experience and that she hasn't run away without me to some warmer climate (she's been talking a lot lately about a return trip to South Africa).

Backtracking slightly: we had a very interesting, though cold, time in Portugal (hence the recent interest in SA Take Two). We arrived in the UK on March 9th, then went almost immediately to a lovely bed and breakfast in a tiny village called Lee on the North coast of Devon. We spent a week doing hard labour in exchange for room and board, actually a very nice change from a somewhat indolent and luxurious year.

Here's a picture of Cara undertaking the world's largest weeding job. See that field? It used to be covered in 10 year's worth of brambles. Now it's not.



Once Cara's done the Papillon thing up North, we'll both be heading back to Devon to clean a horse stable, again in exchange for room and board. Chris, take note.

Then, on the 23rd of April, we'll be starting a cross-country walk across the very narrowest portion of the UK possible. No doubt I'll find something to write about then.