#also does she really expect us to believe there is no coffee anywhere in Wales

[ingravinoveritas]

Firstly i dont think she adjusted since moving to the UK what do u think?

And secondly this post feels that its all about her again like and the character is based on her in real life but the project was longed talk about in 2017 as michael said on the Graham norton show to which michael was with Sarah at that point. It's again trying to be the centre of attention again and stay irrelevant just cos she not getting it from michael

What ur thoughts on this recent of post of Al

So, apologies that it took me all week to answer this--I feel like the entirety of the month of February has just caught up with me, which essentially feels like a lot of tiredness hitting all at once.

I did see this on Monday, however, and I just...am again at something of a loss. I got a bit down on myself over my response to her Insta story from the first preview of Nye and thinking I was overreacting/reading too much into things...and then this happens.

The first thing I would say is that I agree with you that AL is making it all about her again. The post itself comes across as PR, which it likely was because Georgia also shared the same clip that day--albeit with a caption that was actually about Michael/centered on the show. And the contrast becomes even more stark when you look at this post from Caroline Sheen. Caroline is Michael's cousin and she had a small role in The Way, and her post is much more personal and essentially what you would expect from someone who is close to someone in the production. Which subsequently makes AL's post look even more like PR in comparison.

But I think what irritates me the most about Anna's post is that it's yet another instance of her making a dig at Wales. Talking of patterns as I tend to do, she did this previously in September of last year (the #FromManhattantoTonypandy hashtag), and in both of these cases it's her reminding everyone of where she lived before, and likely where she still wishes she lived. In thinking of your initial question, AL may have adjusted to Wales in some ways, but it's clearly not where she belongs or thinks she belongs. I've written previously on my blog about her likely thinking she would be living the celebrity life in New York or London, and Wales was almost certainly a place she didn't even know existed until Michael. So this entire post feels like it's tinged with passive-aggressive resentment as a result.

Let me be clear: In no way do I think that moving to a new country is an easy thing, and it is more than understandable that someone might not love every single thing about the place in which they live, especially if they are an outsider coming from a completely different culture. But the thing is, The Way is literally about Wales. It is entirely focused on Welsh identity and history, and it is a project into which Michael has poured a tremendous amount of his passion and energy and time, which speaks to what you mentioned about him talking about this since 2017.

Why, then, would you make such a snarky comment on a post promoting a show so centered on Wales? That your own partner directed, no less? At best, it comes across as thoughtless and self-centered, and at worst, as deliberately disrespectful.

I can also fully understand why Michael put out a tweet of his own promoting the second episode less than an hour after Anna posted that story. If we are to say that Georgia is a good representative for David on social media--which she arguably is, most of the time--then Anna, by contrast, is the worst possible representative for Michael. And a post like the one above only further highlights how mismatched and wrong for each other they truly are. I also think it's pained him to refrain from tweeting for this long, and now he finally has a reason to start again, for which both we and Michael can be thankful.

So yes, those are my thoughts on AL's story from earlier this week. Glad to hear from my followers as well about your reactions to this. Thank you for writing in! x

[jessiewre]

Day 30

Mon 3rd Feb

I went to the restaurant in the morning while Phil tried to snooze a bit more and after a few coffees, the guy from the hotel came over to tell me that the manager of Soft Power had arrived to meet me. Took me a little by surprise but its amazing how much effort the people make here to reach out to us. Like at the football coaching the day before, they are so friendly and welcoming to us. Agre, the manager of SP, told me about the charity and that 20 years previously, it had been set up by one English girl called Hannah who had been travelling in Uganda and felt that she needed to do something about all the poverty and children in need everywhere (honestly, they are everywhere). She started off trying to make small changes, then cut a long story short, it became an organisation on a small scale to help bring education and other services to the communities - and now its grown into something much bigger.

They have pre-schools, funding & suppport for disabled children who are shunned by society and often their own families, education for adults, they build schools, decorate existing ones, renovate them - I’ll share a link to their website but the list goes on. Reminds me of that phrase, something like ‘If you think you’re too small to make a difference, try sharing a bed with a mosquito’. One person can positively change 1000’s of lives.

I can’t imagine Hannah thought she’’d end up creating such a large successful organisation that has helped so many.

Agre said we would be welcome to visit the next day to volunteer in their pre-school and so we arranged for us to meet there the next morning.

We then had a bit of a lazy day, as we’d planned.

Lunch was at the Black Lantern (vege curry for me & Moroccan wrap for Phil). I went a bit crazy on the chilli sauce and the rice got a bit lively, but was nice. Sat by the pool for a bit and watched monkeys grooming each other bein’ dead cute. After delaying it for aaaaaages (we stayed in Jinja for 6 nights instead of 3...) we finally decided to bite the bullet and move onto Nairobi the next day, despite our apprehension about going there (we heard it’s nickname was ‘Nairobbery’).

Phil decided he’d go for a run and like a good lad, he’d combine it with going to get our coach tickets from Jinja. Well this was an absolute RESULT for me cos I could not be arsed to do it so shout out to Phil for cracking on with that one and being my loyal servant once again.

We settled our bill but turned out that we didn’t have enough for the final night - so they said we could move to a dorm for half the price. It was nice of them to offer this considering it was already 5pm - but considering they weren’t going to be able to sell our private tent and moving us would mean extra sheets for them - I personally think they should have just give us the private tent at the dorm price - but WHATEVER, we ended up with a private room anyway as was just the two of us in the dorm. So jokes on them really.

Obviously Jimi joined Phil on his run as they are true Jinja running pals now, and they went via Jimi’s house to get something so Phil met Jimi’s pigs & ones called Jessica apparently! Couldn’t work out if that was a wind up or not...I sat in the restaurant overlooking the Nile, listening to a proper annoying English guy talk about himself super loudly, saying he’s been to over 100 countries and Wales and Scotland don’t even count in his list blah blah blaaaaaaaaaahhh.

We went BACK to the NRE place next foor for dinner AGAIN (ya know, masala fries place) and it was burger night (CALM DOWN JIMI) so Jimi got a Kula Shaker burger but put WAY too much chilli sauce on. He was struggling big time and trying to wipe his tongue with napkins to get the chilli off which was jokes. I had a healthy Greek salad...with normal chips (eww they had run out of masala fries ffs) and Phil had a VEGE BURGER MMMM ORIGINAL.

Going on a run seems to make Phil believe that he must drink 20 beers afterwards, so the Nile Specials were flowing. On the walk back at 11pm, we got chatting to a shopkeeper of a little shack. He was friendly and chatty, and he told us about the cultural differences, like with food and drink, you don’t ask if someone would like any - You just give it to them, so they don’t have to admit that they want it. It now made sense when we offered to buy people a drink they would be weird about it!

We chatted to him for over an hour in the end and he did seem like a nice guy, but its tricky when someone has ingrained sexist views and doesn’t seem to realise the problem.

I’m cutting a long story short - but he said that men are the King of the family and they should be because they provide and produce everything. I mentioned that they do not produce the children and he said yes but women are ‘a box’ (Yes he said women are a BOX. At this point I began to laugh as I was about to BOX him in the face, but then I realised I was only a box and had no arms). So yeah, apparently women’s job is to push out the child but the husband is always the head of the house.

Yawn.

He was saying that men have to provide everything that the woman and children need and that the kitchen is the woman’s place. I understand the theory of this and sometimes this is literally just a fact, sometimes men go to work and earn the money, and then women do all the cooking. But he was saying it like it was a fact of life, there was no other option, and this was how it had to be. So I asked him about all the women I see everywhere in Uganda who are now working, and therefore are providing money for the family ie. doing mens work, does this mean the men are also doing ‘women’s work’ to balance it out, like cooking and housework. But he basically said No.

Ok cool, sounds fair mate.

I told him about women earning more than their partners in the UK sometimes (cough cough #iamlegend) and that if the couple has respect for each other and they share, then it is no problem. To his credit, he didn’t disagree with this and said that Respect was the most important thing in a relationship.

He also said though, that if a woman in Uganda gets too much money and opportunity and experiences, then she’ll leave her man for a richer one cos her eyes will wander.

Why do some men still think that women’s lives are just there to fit around them and their egos? If someone doesn’t want their partner to do well in their career cos it makes them feel bad about themselves, then they have serious issues that they need to deal with. Women around the world seem to be having to do a bit of everything to get by - create LIFE (that whole casual giving birth thing), feeding their babies with their own bodies, deal with all the household chores, AND earn money.

And what is with the pressure that the world is putting on men all the time?? In Uganda and SO many other places, men are under ridiculous amounts pressure - from society and therefore themselves too - to provide all the money, pay a huge dowry to get married, be super strong in every way etc etc.

Yeah, so the world has a long way to go before we are anywhere near equality...and like the guy said, it all starts with respect eh...

(I must add that I am not the best example of a the suffering women I’m speaking about, and neither is Phil one of these men expecting that his box’s life has to fit around his. But I’m speaking about the women and men who are not as privileged as us)

Moving on - I quietly mentioned to Phil that I wanted to head back soon - the street was getting very quiet, and plus we needed to be on time for volunteering the next morning - but Phil was too deep into his beer journey and wouldn’t take the hint. So I said quite loudly that I was going to head back. So naturally he said ‘Ok one more beer for the road!’

By the way, the ‘road’ was approximately a 1 minute walk.

I knew he wouldn’t finish the beer (10 years in you learn these things) and I also knew that our monies were low, but trying to suggest maybe he did not need that beer did not go down very well (maybe something else I should have learnt in the last decade).

When back at the dorm, I took this nearly full beer and hid it outside for jokes, then told Phil to hurry up to go brush our teeth. He took aaaages as was obviously looking for his beer (god I’m funny), but when he came out, he found it on the side and pretended he knew it was there. I asked him why he’d taken so long, and he was like ‘Uh well I was looking for you actually’. LOL.

We quietly got ready for bed as there were dorms either side of our room with an open ceiling, but we shouldn’t have bothered as an hour later people appeared in the other rooms and were chatting SO loud that they woke us up. OMG I realised one of them was the annoying English guy from earlier and the other was a loud American. Who by the way had also been to over 100 countries wow how about nobody cares love.

Phil tried sshh-ing them but it didn’t work so eventually Phil shouted SHUUTT UPP!

And they totally did. Maybe drunk Phil does have his uses.