I can not believe it is 2014! Where is the time going?! It's hard to believe that Christmas was only last month, it feels as if it was decades ago. I am only just getting round to writing this because it has been a very hectic past month with many crazy events for me to update you on in another blog.

On the 19th of December myself and Roberta took the ten hour journey to the small village of Kaihura, near Fort Portal, where we planned to spend my birthday and our festive season. When I woke up on my birthday morning, the 20th of December, the girls at the house had decorated the place with balloons and had my presents waiting for me to open. It was very strange just having a few bits and bobs to open, but you can tell your priorities have changed when some of your favourite presents are a mug and some body wash. They then prepared a mountain of pancakes with pretty much any topping you could imagine, perfectly ruining our bikini bodies for later on in the day.
After we had devoured breakfast, pulled on our swimming costumes and I had a few phone calls from home, we set off for Kyaninga Lodge (a gazillion star hotel that costs $380 a night to stay there.. We weren't staying there just to clarify) near the crater lakes. When we arrived I was blown away. Set at the top of a cliff side was the most beautiful place I have ever seen. I felt like a Kardashian walking up the steps to the hotel reception which overlooked onto the most spectacular view of the crater lakes. The pool of the hotel was glistening in the sun and was sat in a wooden, terraced balcony which looked out onto lush green mountains surrounding a valley where lay a calm lake. Unfortunately though I am not a Kardashian, so we went down to the bottom of the hotel where lay a floating platform on the lake where we spent the day sunbathing and jumping into the lake. It was one of the most stunning places I have ever been and such a unique way to spend my birthday (I mean it was hot for starters). We finished the day off with a big night out in Fort Portal which included lots of drinks and a delicious birthday cake. Chocolate of course.

I was pretty worried about spending Christmas Day away from my family and home and it was very strange not having the usual festivity leading up to the day, but I had the most wonderful Christmas ever.
After spending Christmas Eve eating crisps and watching Elf, it finally started to feel like Christmas. I normally watch that film every year with my parents and a curry, so it was quite bizarre being 4,000 miles away from them with no vegetable and paneer mahkani in front of me, but it was just as good all the same
We all woke up on Christmas morning like giddy little kippers. Jodie had spent days cutting up bed sheets and sewing them in Santa sacks for us all and we had sneakily slipped gifts into each others. There weren't many presents to open and once again I got over excited at my gifts which were mainly a toy rhino and my favourite Ugandan soda - priorities? Breakfast for us consisted of a massive English fry up: scrambled eggs, beans, fried bread and meat for the meat eaters. It was the best breakfast I had had in over 4 months.
After all that excitement we headed over to Home Again Orphanage where we had planned plenty of games for the children, including sack races, tug of war and water fights (it wasn't supposed to be a water fight but a friendly game of toss the water balloon turned ugly). It is safe to say that the kids throughly enjoyed the games, I have not heard so much laughter in ages. And to be honest, I haven't had so much fun in ages. Imagine primary school sports day, but this time with actual sun and the happiest children you could imagine. It was wonderful.
It was also a very greedy day for us. Don't be jealous, but we had two Christmas dinners! The first one was very African and involved matoke, chapati, spaghetti, cabbage and rice, very random but so tasty. We ate it in the orphanage with the children and whilst I was eating it (with my hands because there was no cutlery) I realised that there is no where else I would rather be than in the orphanage with such happy, friendly, funny children.
Of course we had to have a traditional British Christmas dinner as well. It was no Samantha Hope's Christmas dinner but it was very good to say we had no oven. We even managed to get some Jamie Oliver stuffing sent over from home for it. Delicious!

I was very worried about how I would spend Christmas and we contemplated many different ideas such as Zanzibar, hiring a villa or in Kampala. But choosing to spend it at Home Again orphanage was definitely the best way. It was hard to feel homesick from my family when I was surrounded by children who were also away from theirs. The smiles on their faces and laughter in the air made a wonderful environment and it is safe to say that if I had spent it any other way, I would not have enjoyed myself half as much.