2021 and perhaps another year or so of Covid ??

I'm still here !    Its a very odd winter; living alone and being on the Welsh level four lockdown !   I spent Christmas Day by myself for the first time in 40 or more years .... very odd indeed !    

At the moment, I go for the prescribed walk for a couple of hours each morning (unless its raining !)  I read books and the news on the internet, listen to the radio, attend meetings on Zoom (I never realised until recently its possible to get Zoom fatigue .... but I've got it !), watch the occasional DVD, stare out of the window, and go to the end of my drive to have socially distanced chats to passers-by.  

I wonder how my Kenyan friends are; Hands Around the World has more or less closed down 'for the duration' as was the phrase in WW2 .... so we are unable to put on fund-raising events; we can't send volunteers to our projects, and we receive scanty news from Africa.   We are sending money to some of our projects, and we trust our African partners to use it wisely, particularly to keep up the feeding programmes for orphans and the disabled children, but .... 

We get regular reports from them; one worrying thing is that with African schools Covid-closed, some of the teenage school-girls (orphans) have been getting food from 'boy-friends' in return for 'favours', and are now pregnant ... and possibly HIV+ also.  

I did a talk at a local church at the beginning of December (all people socially distanced and masked) and raised about £150 for HATW, which money has now gone into our Zambia food fund.  The money is so useful, but I really do wonder just how much people here can understand the way in which orphans live, and especially disabled children.   "Are there no food banks ?" I was asked;  "Why so many orphans with HIV ?"   "Don't the governments provide care ?"    Ahhh ..... (heavy sigh).

To change the subject completely, I've been spending my spare time (I have a lot of it !) in continuing with my African quilt.   Over several visits to Kisumu, I met up with my friend Lilian, who is a dressmaker, and she gave me masses of scraps of African wax prints .... and here are some of the blocks I've made so far, which I will eventually join on a plain background.

You can tell I like gaudy !

 

     

If I can remember from my mothers patchwork making days, I think most of my 'blocks' are based on what I believe is called 'nine-patch' design, but I'm varying it a bit and adding borders.

Ah well, it passes the time !