A brief trip to Oslo

Tags

Oslo, Travel, Traveling solo, Winter

I’m always happy to see snow! 🌨🌺 As long as I’m warm, that is.

I was about to say this was the first time I went to Oslo by myself, then I remembered I did take a work trip there in August last year. It was a 24 hours in-and-out trip, I get better at navigating the public transport each time 🤔 The trains, the tram, the bus, the apps! So proud of myself!

Read more.

A snowy weekend in Oslo made me long for a sunny safari

Winter doesn’t seem to want to go away, it’s got me thinking of sunnier climes in the tropics and jungle safaris.

I spent the weekend in Oslo and it was snowing quite heavily, I wasn’t ready! I love snow and all, and everything just looks so beautiful. My bones, however, just don’t agree! So of course I piled on a zillion layers.

It’s not so easy to look fabulous under 4 layers of wool, you can’t even strut your stuff or sashay in the snow! It’s a good thing that wintery land is a beautiful place, it makes up for the cold. But I truly feel I was born to sashay and be sunny, so here’s to warmer weather, please come back soon!

Five years later…

Dear Friends,

I’ve thought about you often in the past five years. During the time I spent reading your blogs and lovely writing, I felt that I grew to know you and that you were more that on-screen acquaintances I had never met. Carrie Rubin, Sandee, Daphnee, Noeleen, The Hook, Daniel, Cecilia, and many others. I’ve pictured you in my mind’s eye, imagined the streets along which you walk. I hope you’ve kept well, I hope you’ve had good fortune these past five years.

The years gone by have been a series of changing seasons for me. Out of what I thought was loss, I found good fortune. In what I imagined to be the palm of despair, I was touched by divine love. I grew. I nourished and I was nourished. My spirit was aglow, I thrived. My heart sung, and I sung. And I glowed. And when I couldn’t sing alone, I sought a choir of voices, and together we made music that soared our hearts to the heavens. And then good fortune found me, and I knew that He makes all things beautiful in His time. And my heart sung.

How have you been? I hope you’ve had good fortune!

No strings attached

Sometimes I’ll take a really long time to come to my blog, or WP in general, and when I do, I’ll usually just read some people’s posts then be gone till the next solar eclipse.

When you find that I’ve  spent a lot of time catching up on my reading of your blogs and have liked and commented on a zillion of your posts, please don’t feel obliged to come to my blog and read this or like that, chances are you may find nothing new. I just like reading your work, no strings attached. Okay? Happy New Year!

That said, thanks for stopping by. Now get back to your writing, reading or procrastination. 🙂

Game Park 3. Or 0.5

Tags

a few lines a day, Fiction, Short Story, Writing

A blast of the cow horn rung out, filling the forest air with eeriness. She knew what it meant and her heart thumped in terror and despair. Pursue left and I’ll go right, was the signal of the horn. They were onto her, and they were close. That they were now hunting her down as they did game, complete with the cow horns that village hunters used, terrified her even more.

Quickening her pace with what little strength she had left, she continued to run with a single objective: to get as far away from her pursuers as she could. She could hear them whistle as they signalled their locations to one another. The wind and sweat from her forehead blinded her, and she stumbled upon the undergrowth as she ran. Everything was blurred, the shrubs left scratches on her arms and feet as she brushed them away and her feet were sore from running barefoot. She barely noticed the pain as she sprinted through the forest. Her mind kept returning to the events that had led her here.

Game Park 2

By now, the rain was falling in bucketfuls. Namuli paused for breath under the thick branches of some trees, but she wanted to find a more suitable spot. Running on, she soon came to a gamers lodge. Hesitant, she stopped to study it it from a distance. The porch was overgrown with ferns, and the front yard with wild flowers. Some of the window panes had fallen out and she could see puddles of rain water collecting on the verandah from a leak in the iron sheet roofing.

She drew closer, wondering if an unused cabin was a safe place to wait out the rain or not. She didn’t have much choice anyway. This would have to do. She quickened her pace and approached the front door. On tiptoe, she went up the three steps that led to the entrance, and reached out to turn the knob. Suddenly, she stopped short. There were voices coming from inside. Quickly, she backtracked her steps, crouching at a window farthest from the door.

A working Saturday in the life of Cat – a sneak preview.

Tags

Africa, Avo cado, Banana plants, Garden, gardening, Growing up, neighbourhood, paw-paw, Pharmacy, pharmacy work, Uganda

This is a view from the window of a little hotel where myself and a few other colleagues are holding a workshop, and coming up with a draft for a pharmaceutical sector strategic plan for the next 5 or so years. Yawn inducing, I know, especially since it’s Saturday.

Attention spans are waning as you can see. I really don’t blame us. Yapping for hours on end about objectives, strategies and key performance indicators can have that effect. We take a tea/coffee break when this happens. Then we just keep going for seconds until the hotel staff relieve us by clearing the snack table, which is not pictured here for obvious reasons. We don’t want to look like a bunch of people that meet up to eat tons of food while pretending to get a little work done, um, just in case this obvious reason is not so obvious to you.

All the yapping has taken its toll, member in yellow replenishes energy supplies with cake.

This work is a continuation of last weekend’s work, Friday to Sunday. Why weekends? Because it’s the time we set aside to do work that’s not really our day job. It’s work that needs doing, and we are members of the Pharmaceutical Society, so the onus falls upon us. The more interested members among us, that is. You may call it voluntary work.

A little background: pharmacy is not that well-developed in Uganda, so we set times as members of various committees on the afore-mentioned society , meet, decide what needs doing and improving, map a way forward, formulate regulations and bye-laws, compile our recommendations and send them to/meet policy makers. I like thinking of it as being a part of history-making, in some small way. A change-maker. Yeah, grandiose, that’s me.

This rooster keeps crowing. It’s nice background music to our work, I prefer it to the hum of the projector.

Nice rooster, eh? Also here, banana plant (leaf, really), paw-paw tree, mango tree, avo cado tree. Clockwise, that is.

I dream – it’s the only right thing to do

Tags

Dream, Dreamer, Gloria Steinem, Haruki Murakam, Melina Marchetta, Stephen King, T.E. Lawrence

This post is prompted by a comment exchange with a blogger whose writing I like, but  whose blog I rarely show up to, as I’m subscribed to her posts by email – that should redeem me, right? —> anneschilde.wordpress.com

Anyway, in answer to a question of mine, she expressed that she’s planning to publish her book as an e-book, but dreams about having it published traditionally. I headed out to find some quotes on ‘dreaming’, and truly, when do you take out the time to thank God and/or Tim Berners-Lee for the inter-webs? I came up with lots, and these left me feeling pretty inspired – and probably more accident prone.

“I dream. Sometimes I think that’s the only right thing to do.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“All (wo)men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”
― T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph

“Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all is a form of planning.”
― Gloria Steinem

“Promise me you’ll never stop dreaming.”
― Melina Marchetta, Looking for Alibrandi

It’s probably pretty obvious by now that I live with my head in the clouds. I’m a dreamer. It’s the only way to be.

“And people who don’t dream, who don’t have any kind of imaginative life, they must… they must go nuts. I can’t imagine that.”
― Stephen King

That sunset

Tags

African sunset, Kampala, Nature, Sunset, Uganda

So, that glowing, orange, African sky I rave about in my header above? You do know it’s real, right? I’m not just speaking artistically. It is very real, and I don’t have to catch a plane to get it. I live in a most beautiful corner of the world.

A mild case of ADD and wild life

Tags

ADD, Attention Deficit Disorder, Blogging, Dinosaurs, Lonely Planet, Social networking, Trip Advisor, Uganda, Writing

This poor blog had recently gone the way of the dinosaur, so to speak. I found myself dropping by less and less frequently, and when I did, my visits were limited to the reader. I’ve finally diagnosed myself with a mild case of blogging ADD. I seem to always be on the look out for new things that pique my interest and take up all my time. Yes, I just may be the queen of procrastination, and what with all this social networking, there is always something to grab and hold onto your attention if you’ve got a mobile device and an Internet connection – and are willing. I’m guilty of being too willing, that’s my crime.

 

Gorilla mother and child. Uganda is one of few places you can find these.

My latest interest is tours and travel.