Photos - instalment one

As promised I have lots of photos, and since I've managed to get through four months of this blog without any apparent security problems I've decided to start posting photos of myself. Anyway, I'm going to start from the very beginning, the last major social event in Afghanistan before I left for NZ was a farewell party for the lovely Kai. Kai works with Beth, who Amanda and Immy met in Liberia, so the first photo is of Beth and I enjoying the spectacle of Kai and Matt dancing. The next photo is of Kai dancing with a selection of lovely ladies including myself, Beth and to the right of Kai is Paula, who works with Beth and Kai. My favorite little dog in Kabul (I have to add the qualifier "little" here because I don't want my two favorite big dogs in Kabul to be offended) is Tootsie, who lives with Kai and his fantastic housemates. So here is a shot of Tootsie and I hanging out on the stairs. Tootsie can do tricks, which just goes to show how little there is to do to entertain oneself around here, Kai spent his free time teaching Tootsie to jump through a hoop. Then it was time to head for NZ, with a quick stop in Dubai for a lovely dinner at a Japanese restaurant with Lawrence, an old family friend who recently moved to Dubai, along with Kai (also on his way out, but in his case for good), and a few colleagues from my human rights team in Afghanistan, including the very funny Scott from up north in Mazar-e-Sharif and the very lovely Rupert who got stuck with Kandahar as a duty station.

Then I got to New Zealand, heading straight over to Waiheke, and on the first evening Theresa and Tom were having a "Love Boat" cruise around the island. I loved their outfits! The other shots from the Love Boat are of Wayne and Rhys. The weather was perfect and the Love Boat cruise merged seamlessly into a big BBQ for close friends and family at the house my parents had rented. I was more than a little bit jet-lagged, but the excitment of having so many of my family members in once place at one time was enough to keep me up for much longer than would ever be possible otherwise.

Some of favorite shots from the BBQ are of a group of my male cousins around the BBQ, a shot of me with my Grandmother, a lovely photo of my sister with her bridesmaid, our cousin Christina and Christina's mother, our beautiful aunt Delwynne. Here they are...

Okay, the other photos don't seem to want to appear today. I'll leave it here and post more in the weekend.