Helen

I know, it's been ages since my last post and there are probably heaps of exciting things that I can't remember any more so I will just write about the biggest one...

I started my new job at the Botanic Gardens at the end of Jan. It's perhaps not the most exciting job in the world, but the Botanics is a cool place to work - great atmosphere, good people, tea breaks (I missed them in the profit driven world of insurance!), a fantastic view of Edinburgh from my window in the herbarium and a trip to Cameroon.

Yes that's right, I've just got back from a week in Cameroon where I went to a conference on taxonomy of African plants. An overseas conference without having to present anything - pretty lucky!

While there was a lot of time spent in lecture theatres, we did get a field trip out of the city on Wednesday and had Saturday looking round before coming home. Yaounde was about 30 degrees and really hazy from dust that blows down from the Sahara. It's not the most scenic town with open drains and piles of rubbish everywhere, but was definitely interesting.
I'll put some pictures up soon (I feel like I always say that but don't quite get around to it...)
It was great to meet people from all over the world and I made some friends from Sweden and Portugal (always useful for a visit...) as well as from Kew in London. All the African people I met were really excited to know it was my first visit to Africa which was cool.
They speak French in Cameroon so I got to practise again. Not having used it for a year it was a bit rusty which made bartering at the market a challenge!

On Wednesday we went out of town to an inselberg which is an isolated steep granite mountain often with remnant raingforest on the top. Our one wasn't quite so spectactular and had cultivated bananas and manioc at the bottom while further up the vegetation had been burnt so we were walking up in ash. Was interesting though, although the lunch was left behind which put a bit of a dampener on things!

Ah, so much to write about and so many pics to post. Let's see how far I get!

Here is my flatmate Elaine, our friend Roisin and me at the Great Scottish Santa Run. Over 2500 people dressed as Santa running about a km round Princes Street gardens to Christmas Carols!

I have finished my job at the insurance company, thank goodness. I really wasn't cut out for that, way too stressful! I'm looking forward to starting at the Botanic Gardens in mid Jan. Pressed plants are so much more appealing than irate people who haven't got their pension money.

I went to Ireland for 3 days with my Elaine and stayed with her family. Couldn't see much because of the thick fog, my flights were a bit delayed but I was lucky and missed the worst of it. Elaine assured me that Ireland was pretty, but as she kept of gesturing to fields that were invisible through the fog, I had to take her word for it! We did have a good day in Belfast though, with a mini pub tour and an extended political taxi tour around the Protestant and Catholic parts, including the 'Peace Wall' (which they were still building up) between the two areas of town. It was really interesting, the guy who took us on the tour used to be part of the IRA and told us lots about it - it was a bit disconcerting when he started his sentence 'when I was in jail...' but it was only for driving a van full of explosives... I remember studying the 'Troubles' at school but wasn't that interested. This was really interesting, what with him taking the tour and Elaine telling stories as well, it made it real.

From Ireland I went to London, met Mike and we stayed at Colin's for the night before going down to our Aunty's for Christmas. It was great having Christmas with all the cousins and on Boxing day we had a historic moment when all of the cousins on my mum's side were in the same room at the same time!

Mike and I came up to Edinburgh for a week of Hogmanay parties. I reckon the reason they have 4 days of events is becuase then hopefully at least one won't be rained off! The New Year's Street party was cancelled because of gale force winds so we had our first ever new year's inside in a pub. No beach parties here! It was a good night but my favourite was the torchlight procession on the 29th. Hundreds of people carrying flaming torches through town, followed by a big bonfire where a viking ship was burned, then fireworks. Then a friend of a friend's birthday party - was a good night.

Mike left last week after my friend Norma took us on a tiki-tour through some really nice glens and mountains.

That's about it, that I can think of at the moment. Hope you all had a good New Year's, and are enjoying the weather (if it's picking up a bit!). I'm missing wandering to the dairy in shorts and bare feet at the moment! I ran down to the beach the other day, but it wasn't the same - it was gray and cold!

1. I've got a job at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. In the herbarium. Excellent.
2. I've got a new mountain bike and went up on the hills at the weekend - there was ice on the puddles (some quite thick) and I learnt not to change direction on an ice-covered wooden bridge. Luckily there was a railing or my biking buddy would have ended up in the drink as I skidded off...
3. It snowed just a little today, only about 10 mins though.
4. I had my first ever mulled wine at the Christmas market.
5. Rode the ferris wheel, the helter-skelter and the carosel at the winter festival.
6. Only 6 more days of Pensions - fantastic.
7. We have a real Christmas tree in our flat, and had a Christmas party at the weekend. It doesn't really feel like Christmas, feels more like a story-book Christmas!

I know, I haven't written anything for ages and ages. I can't really be bothered, whenever I'm on the internet I'm applying for jobs! Which is what I'm doing now as well. The last job I applied for had 90 applicants! That's hard out. I'm still doing my insurance job which will be until Christmas. Then in the new year I'm hoping that an interesting, permanent job comes along. I've started volunteering at the Botanic Gardens once a week - cataloguing the rare Scottish plants in the herbarium. It is basically data entry but I get to look at all the specimens (which should keep all those employers who say that I have no UK experience quiet and I'm a plant nerd so it's interesting!).

In other, more exciting news, it's getting cold and dark! There's a bit of daylight as I bike to work but by 4pm when I finish it's dark! Getting colder too. There was a bit of snow on the Pentland Hills (close to Edinburgh) this morning, just a frost in town though. It's getting harder to motivate to do exercise but luckily my flatmate is a runner so we're up in the dark twice a week complaining our way round town for 1/2 an hr.

Yesterday, some mates and I went mountain biking in the Pentlands - my toes were numb before we left town and by the time we finished by entire feet were numb - weird feeling to walk around! Note: cotton socks just don't cut it. It was cool though, we biked out along the river through the autumn leaves then up into the hills where there was deep mud and soggy grass. It was great but a bit strange biking home all covered with mud through the Christmas shoppers on the way home! I keep meaning to take my camera, yesterday would've been great , but I forget. I'm still riding my £30 bike with shocks (and some of the gears) just for show, but I have been in the bike shops test riding...

One of the girls is going to introduce me to Scottish winter hillwalking. She asked if I'd used crampons and ice axes before! Apparently she's going to start me off on an easy hill that won't put me off. I'll let you know...

My birthday was good, went biking ( I sense a theme...) and to the fireworks display. I was about to put a photo in but it's on my camera, not my usb, which I don't have with me, sorry.

I also went down to London a couple of weeks ago, just to hang out with people I'd known for longer than a couple of months. I did go to an exhibition at the Natural History Museum, but that was one afternoon out of 4 days. So what did I do the rest of the time? Well my cousin and I watched the first 18 episodes of Prison Break (quite good going I think), he didn't have the last 6 so we are saving them for Christmas. I met up with Colin and we spent the afternoon in the pub then the evening in a different pub. I saw an old school friend, Jo and her husband for tea and we had a cousin get together as well. It was a very relaxing holiday...

So not long til my bro comes over for a visit, and Christmas. I'm going to Ireland for a couple of days to stay with my flatmate and her family, and the winter festival is starting next week here - iceskating, ferris wheel, etc...should be good.

Great scenery and the top of my first munro.

The foggy, boggy start to the day (this summit wasn't the top of the munro, it was the start of the walk)

I've just climbed my first 2 munros. A munro is a Scottish mountain that's above 3000ft (914m). There are 284 of them and if you want to climb them all, you are a 'munro-bagger'. So I've only got 283 to go...hmm I don't think I'll be a munro-bagger, they seem to be a bit single minded and fanatical!
I went away this weekend with the hillwalking (=tramping) club at work. 4 of us went (1 munro bagger and two others and me). We went up north, staying in a hostel. It was cool, a converted railway station in the middle of no-where, so on Sat morning we just had to go outside to catch the train to the start of the walk. How cool is that? The train dropped us in an even more remote spot (at the station that features in 'Trainspotting' when the guys decide to go walking) and we walked back to the hostel.

Started off in a bit of fog and bog but day fined up and we had fantastic views of the highlands. The munros were just next to each other so it was down one and up the other, then down to home. Sounds a bit easier than it was, there was lots of steep rocky bits and muddy peat bog!
After 9 hrs tea tasted good!

This morning our munro-bagger was keen to go off and climb another one while the rest of us were hobbling around a bit, so we left him to it and went Mt biking instead. We weren't exactly brimming with energy so we cruised around the easy track a couple of times in the pouring rain (it is Scotland - you can't expect 2 fine days in a row) before retiring to the cafe for hot food where we watched videos of foolhardy downhillers risking their lives in the name of a good time!

Here's me. On the left I am standing by a loch, pretending it's still summer by wearing jandals.
On the right I am standing on a big pile of dead people. It's a cairn for plague victims (in the same village as the old tree). The plaque says "Here lie victims of the great plague of the 14th century. Taken here on a sledge drawn by a white horse, led by an old woman"

Here's the 5000 yr old tree. I know it's not very tall, but it was wide, well it used to be wide. Sorry I forgot to rotate the pic on the left. It used to be heaps wider than this but still, 5000 yrs old, how cool!

Hmmm, this looks like trouble... Did I really agree to rafting down the river on lilos?

It actually looks narrower and faster than it was - it was cool! And we didn't need to call the ambulance once! The feet did take a hammering though - airbeds have a tendancy to fold up and tip your legs off. And yes it was raining as well - it is Scotland afterall.