Well here we are in Honiara. And what a dump it is. Makes chelson meadow look tidy. The roads are very dusty and polluted due to the rubbish cars they drive around, and everyone spits red phlegm on the street from chewing Bettel (pronounced beetle) nut. We are staying in accomodation slightly away from the high street, on Mbokonavera road, in Zome accomodation. Here we are paying 300 SBD a night (about 20 quid) for an ensuite room, which is very tidy but we do have some pet ants as everything is made from wood. Will walks me to the hospital every morning for an 8am start, past hundreds of children on their way to school. We get smiled at a lot and talked to as being white is a novelty in our area, but everyone is very friendly. The only people that don't talk to us are those who cannot speak english, as they see it as shameful that they can't. I am enjoying my time at the hospital, it is totally different from derriford in every way, i can't even start to explain (so i won't). I meet will at the hospital at 2pm then we either go into town or up to the Honiara hotel where they have a big swimming pool. at the moment it is too humid to do too much during the day, we have done a bit of sightseeing but it is very tiring being so hot. Its about 31 degrees during the day (no wind) and 26 at night, but we have a very good fan in our room, i even get cold at night. Yesterday we had our first diving lesson in the swimming pool, will was very good at it but my ears were hurting so im not sure how good i'll be once out in the sea, as i only managed about 2 metres! We are not eating very much at the moment, its actually too hot to feel that hungry, we tend to eat out about once a day, costs about 3 pounds. we have done a bit of cooking but all the food we know is imported therefore it can be quite pricey even to cook. we went to a barbeque with all the other english people to a mans house last night, he is a chef from the cook islands and we tasted some local dishes such as squid and sea bugs. this was our first experience of local food as all the restaurants sell american-style food or asian cuisine, and it was very nice, i surprised myself! we will not be able to do many posts on here as the connection is very slow, will probably not be able to upload any photos for a while. also we will wait until we have good tans to put pictures on here - we have had clouds most days so not much progress so far! Anyway we must go - have to have a bit of lunch before i go into the hospital. Will is playing football with the Doctors team this afternoon which should be interesting :)

Lots of love vikki and will xx