Emily's first music festival

It's been ages since I blogged again, and the poor excuse is that I've been off on holiday again... To Malawi this time, for what was basically 3 little holidays back to back. Travelling with a group of 4 girls, we started off at the Lake of Stars music festival, I've never thought of myself as a festival-type, but with guaranteed sunshine and a chilled African atmosphere I loved dancing barefoot on the beach of Lake Malawi til 3 o'clock in the morning for 3 days.

To recover we retreated to the beach resort of Cape Maclear for snorkelling,kayaking, and yet more eating and drinking. After lots of lazing around it was time for some exercise and to give our livers a break, so we headed to the mountains of the Zomba plateau for some hiking. We made it up the highest peak, 2,900 metres, and the views were breathtaking. I guess it's not surprising that a continent the size of Africa is pretty diverse, but it never ceases to amaze me that in a few days you can travel from sandy beaches and bright blue fish, to pine trees, lakes and mountains. Zomba felt more like North America than stereotypical Africa.

Back at work now, and after 8 months I supported my colleagues to submit our first funding bid today! I'm not terribly optimistic about the bid but the project idea is good so I'm planning to look for other funders next week, in between entertaining Sarah Caddy who arrives from England this afternoon. I'm really looking forward to another chance to show off Livingstone, and also hoping that she's brought lots of goodies from home!