Madagascar, it's not quite London!

I've been lucky enough to spend 2 months in Madagascar so here's a post about the amazing time I had there, before the normal service is resumed about all things London.
The first 6 weeks were spent on a charity school building project in a remote area of south east Madagascar.  We were camping with no running water and no electricity but it was all worth it to complete a secondary school for the area, their first but hopefully not their last.
We stayed in a beautiful area and took on the challenge of construction work by hand with good humour, even surviving a passing cyclone, luckily we were only the edge of it! We saw poverty and hard lives and really admired the approach of Malagasy people who always try to make the best of whatever is thrown at them. The charity who organise the volunteering projects is Azafady which is doing really good work in this under developed part of the world.

Here are some photos of our work and the surrounding beauty:

Our challenge!

Making the floor by hand

The local market

Beautiful countryside near our village



Lake in Fort Dauphin

A beach just for us!

Fort Dauphin

A beautiful country

After 6 weeks hard work building the school, I was off on my travels to see some more of the island, particularly the unique wildlife - the fabulous lemurs and chameleons. I also got to see the golden web of the spiders whose silk is used to make the extraordinary golden cape currently in the Victoria and Albert Museum London.

How to chose a few photos to show you this wonderful island and its wildlife? Well, here goes, my favourite lemurs and chameleons:

Ring tail leumurs

Sifaka lemur

Indri lemur

Baby brown lemur

Curly tail chameleon





It was a magical trip and I have so many great memories but it was still great to be back in London and to try and catch up with all the things that had happened in those 2 months.

Bye for now

Sue

www.itsyourlondon.co.uk

@itsyourlondon 

Leaving London!

I'm going to be away for several weeks now so just wanted to wish you all a very happy 2012.

This is shaping up to be a great year for London with the Royal Jubilee and then the Olympics and Paralympics so watch out for lots of blogs from March onwards.

Bye for now,
Sue
www.itsyourlondon.co.uk
@itsyourlondon

A Winter Wonderland in London this Christmas!

Christmas time in London is great fun with loads of thing to do and see. One of our favourites is Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park so we took some friends who had not been before to enjoy an evening of Christmas cheer.  They couldn't work out what Winter Wonderland was from our description - is it a theme park, is it a Christmas market, it is a food market, is for kids or adults?  Well, it's all of these and it takes up a huge space right in the middle of Hyde Park!

You enter through a massive arch through which you can just see the beginings of the fun fair in the distance.  The first section is made up of several alleyways of Christmas market chalets but the best thing here is the talking and singing moose!  I've attached a video but in case that doesn't work for you, there's a photo as well.  I hope the video runs for you as he is wonderful and one of my highlights.  (If it doesn't download right away, come back to it)

You can linger for ages checking out all the gifts in the chalets of the market section as it is  extensive and tempting. Once through with shopping you are surrounded by food stalls and into the fun fair. There's everything from the old fashioned but beautiful helter skelter and big wheel, to incredibly fast whirling things, all looking very festive, to dreadfully scary rides that were too fast to take a photo of and I have know idea how people were not sick on them but it seemed fun was being had!  The roller coaster was popular, looking a little slower than the super fast rides but still resulted in a good few screams.

There are some traditions about Christmas ghost stories so there was the obligatory haunted house with a huge violin playing skeleton outside. On the cuter side, I loved the snowman, the sweets and the massive balloon

We managed to eat and drink our way round the whole experience, tasting the warming mulled wine and by the time we got to the burgers one friend was so hungry he ordered two, making the stall holder so excited that he shouted for all to hear 'he's going for 2'!  There were stalls full of churros and chocolate, candy floss, any type of grilled sausage and colourful sweets.
We almost went for the ice skating but after a wonderful dry evening, the rain started to come down so we escaped to a nearby pub to keep dry and warm. 

 

We're all going again next year and perhaps someone will be brave enough to try the scary rides but I don't think it will be me!

Bye for now,

Sue

www.itsyourlondon.co.uk

@itsyourlondon

More gorgeous London Chrismas lights!

There are so many fabulous Christmas lights in London this year I just had to put up another selection for you!  I still have some lights left to visit, so there could even be part 3...

Not quite fitting the heading of lights, but very Christmassy none the less, were the sights on show this Saturday in Trafalgar Square where I stumbled upon a massive Santa gathering! Hundreds of Santa were streaming out of the tube stations and off the buses to hang out together, sing songs, do congas and (shock - horror!) drink beer!  Everyone was having such fun it was infectious, although the tourists who had come to check out the Olympic clock were rather bemused. They kept asking 'why'? It seems the only answer was to have fun...

Nearby Covent Garden always looks beautiful at Christmas and I was eager to see if the giant reindeer was there again. Yes, he was although he had set up camp round the other side of the piazza. I missed the real ones who had been there during the day but I love this chap with his proper red nose!  There was also an intriguing and beautifully lit chalet which turned out to house a digital installation work by Martha Fiennes called Nativity. The market sections were decorated with enormous baubles and the whole area looked wonderfully festive, as I'd hoped.

Regent Street is a posh shopping street but they have a habit of putting up the most commercial lights with product placement to the fore. This year, however, they have been more restrained and have some lovely lights about sledges and elfs!

All the big shopping areas in London are great for lights, festive window dressing and decorated trees - even skating rinks!   Here is the last set of photos showing: the window at Selfridges, the tree at Whiteleys;  and the skating rink at Westfield Shepherds Bush.

I hope you've enjoyed more Christmas in London!

Bye for now,
Sue
www.itsyourlondon.co.uk
@itsyourlondon