Second go at writing this. Five minutes ago I’d settled down, typed the title, and bang the power went off. Only twenty four minutes of battery left, so hasty switch to my work laptop (which hasn’t quite made it all the way to work yet…) which has 90% battery for three hours or so. Welcome back to Addis. Now I’m on a timescale…

The Welcome

I returned to the clinic on Friday morning. As soon as Sister Aster saw me she leapt towards me and with much hugging and kissing she used lots of words to do with peace, health and praise to God. I replied, got it all wrong, and she chuckled at my Amharic incompetence. Never mind – I resume Amharic lessons next week; fluency beckons. A similar reaction from Tigist, then an equally happy if slightly less effusive (although developed-country-appropriate) welcome from Audra, the Nurse Practitioner from the USA who has been standing in for me. After I’d reassured them that I’m well, my family is well, my grandchildren are well, my mother is well, and that yes I’d had a great time and yes I’ll bring in some photos, I settled down to see a few patients. I then had time to talk to Audra about the patient with diarrhoea she had cared for last week who had needed twice daily intravenous injections of ciprofloxacin (if you’re a non-medic, it’s an antibiotic for bowel bugs; if you’re a medic – no I don’t know why either) after which was coffee time. Normally we go down to the SIM guesthouse dining room and have coffee with all the staff, but today I was ushered into the clinic meeting room. All the nurses arrived, the clinic assistant turned up (despite being on leave), the cleaner came in, and a massive cake with brightly coloured icing (white, red and green – made me feel kinda Irish) was triumphantly presented to me which I had to cut whilst they all, smiling and giggling, took my photograph. We sat and ate cake and drank coffee and chatted about the time I had been away. Never have I experienced such a welcome – the UK should start doing this; you’d have happier (if less productive) staff.

The Umbrella

I suppose holidays often have a defining moment or a common thread that runs through them that helps you remember. Like the time we went to Cyprus and had a ridiculous little under-powered Tata hire car that would either go up hills or have air conditioning but never both at the same time. Well this time it was my umbrella. Two days after arriving in the UK we visited Bill and Rachel in London (old friends from our Westminster Chapel days), and I needed to buy some cuff links. “You needed cuff links?” I hear you ask. Long story there that I won’t bore you with. Anyway, we located a branch of T.M. Lewin, a Jermyn Street gentlemen’s shirt company. It’s the sort of shop where smartly dressed young men and women with tape measures draped around their necks call you “sir” a lot whilst trying to measure your collar size and arm length. If you buy something they’ll wrap it in tissue paper and put it in the classiest carrier bag you’ve ever seen. Cuff links and dress shirt studs were appropriated, when I noticed some umbrellas. As we were returning to Addis in the rainy season my pathetic little umbrella that folds up into almost nothing was never going to survive, so I needed a decent, sturdy umbrella. Big, but not one of those huge golfing umbrellas you get free at medical conferences with drug names on. No, I needed a strong, classy umbrella. A man’s umbrella. I picked one up, opened it, closed it, and thought “yeah, that’ll fit in my big suit case”. (Wrong). Happy with my purchase off we went into the warm, sunny, dry and absolutely not raining streets of London. Ten million people and only one of them is carrying an umbrella.

It wouldn’t fit in any of our suit cases for transport to Addis, so here I was with an umbrella I would have to carry everywhere and not lose. (I’m good at losing things – that’s why I have new sunglasses). It didn’t rain in St Albans, but it did in Norwich. We visited the Sainsburys Centre in the University of East Anglia to ogle at some unusual art (the trailer piled high with cardboard boxes was certainly unusual) and as we arrived the heavens opened in an Addis sort of way. Umbrella christened! After three days in Norfolk visiting mum and sister a problem loomed – to see Beth and Paul we were flying to Scotland on EasyJet with only hand luggage. All our big suitcases (four of them by now – we’d shopped til we dropped) were to be left at Stansted airport “left luggage”. I could leave the brolly there, but it would literally cost more than it was worth. It looks like an offensive weapon, so I was unsure if EasyJet would allow it in the cabin. Ah well, nothing to do but try. It was scanned and x-rayed and once they were sure there were no Ricin pellets in the tip or a Steed-like sword hidden inside (“The Avengers”) I was allowed to take it on board. Well that was fun. Try putting a long heavy-ish umbrella in the overhead locker while other people are doing the same thing with cases and bags. It fell out and nearly impaled someone. I almost impaled myself once. And Chris. However, I was happy in the knowledge that of all the places to go in the UK where you’d need an umbrella Scotland was top of the list. It would surely rain. It didn’t. We had lovely weather and explored some great castles one of which was seriously spooky. The return trip to Stansted involved more near-fatal accidents with overhead lockers but everyone in the plane survived.

Opening the curtains next morning in the hotel I remarked “what a lovely sunny day!” “Good job you brought an umbrella then…” smirked Chris.

Our day in Northamptonshire visiting Chris’s step-mum involved a fun few hours cycling round a lake collecting geocaches (Google it) and the only thing coming out of the sky was a delta winged Vulcan bomber accompanied by a small squadron of WW2 Spitfires connected to some local air show.

It did rain in Cheltenham but not until after we had spent a lovely day in a farm park with James, Beatrice and little Elijah. The following day a sense of smug self-satisfaction accompanied me as I walked into the centre of Cheltenham to do more shopping under the shade of my large umbrella, Chris trotting along at my side with only her Gortex jacket for protection.

Our final stop was in Southampton to see Aaron and Hana. We wanted to go to their church in the evening which is a 10 minute walk away. Would it rain? Who knows? Better take my umbrella… However going into town the next day to sort out my new prescription sunglasses (there’s a story there as well) showers punctuated the walk so I was happily dry. A beautiful rainbow made it all worthwhile. Chris’s delayed birthday present from Aaron and Hana was a trip into the New Forest to a fabulous teashop with dozens of quirkily named teas for a cream tea (e.g. a Russian blend was labelled “Putin the pot”). Although how you can call eating a scone with yoghurt and honey a “cream” tea is a mystery. Aaron and I had cream. Of course.

All good things come to an end and on Wednesday last week we headed back to Heathrow to discover that stacking cases on an airport trolley along with a large umbrella is a challenge – it keeps falling off. An Ethiopian Airlines check-in desk attendant scrutinised my now treasured possession (we’ve been through so much together including more sarcasm from Chris than I’ve heard in all our married life before) and expressed doubts as to whether I would be allowed to take it into the cabin. Not to be deterred, I found a way of surreptitiously holding an umbrella halfway up my arm behind my cabin baggage to try and hide it. Through security. Through the x-ray scanners. To the departure gate. Cleverly I distracted the flight attendant with my boarding card and I made it to my seat with umbrella in hand. Into the overhead locker (impaling no-one – I’m getting good at this now) and I settle down to another cramped night unable to sleep but confident in the knowledge that against all the odds I was successfully bringing an umbrella suitable for an Ethiopian rainy season into the country. Win.