Chiffon cake for birthdays

Somewhere along the track in our family, we changed from the fun novelty cake for our birthdays to a chocolate chip chiffon cake, which is sort of like a huge sponge cake only better.  Mum would make some sort of boiled frosting for the cake (and now my sister does).  It is delicious, especially with icecream and /or cream.  I am on a diet at present, but will have a treat when my birthday comes along in September.

Church

When we went to church as small children.  The services would go on for a very long time.  I usually had to sit in church for the music and testimonies and so on.  Then we could go and sit in the car and play with our match box cars, or something.

We would lock the doors and the African kids would come and press their noses up against the window of the car to watch us.  I found it threatening.  They would call our mzungu, mzungu - meaning white person.  We wanted to call back to them black person, black person, and to stare them down, but it never seemed to make any difference.  When I was in Madagascar, people, especially children and young men, would call out after us, Vazaha, vazaha, which means white person in Malagasy.  If we were walking down the narrow alley ways to church.  I didn't like that much, either.

Church is difficult just now and has been for a long time.  All I want is a community of people who will love and accept me, and whom I can share life with - and who know how horrible it can be for a single person to go home for Sunday lunch on their own. 

Safari time

Going for a drive in Kenya was always a bit of an adventure.  Especially when I got my new glasses so I could actually see the animals that were being pointed out to me.  We often saw monkeys, zebra, giraffe, and antelope. 

That is one thing my father instilled in me.  A love of the outdoors.  I don't like long drives on freeways any more - Madagascar cured me of that, (and my illness).  But I love the memory of the family drives we went on during school holidays.