Last days at Durrell

Hiya,

So it's getting to be the end of the road for me here at Durrell. Sadly the job that I accepted fell through so it's back to the original plan meaning that I am sadly having to elave here indefinitely on the 24th November. I have loved every single second of being here and I honestly believe its changed my life in so many fantastic ways. I have met some amazing people and made wonderful friends, all of whom I will miss terribly but I know I will see again soon. I have had such a wonderful opportunity to learn from Durrell and to see and work with animals and people I never even dreamed possible. May feels like such a long time ago and yet these past 6 months have flown by and I wish I could have stayed here for longer but I take comfort in knowing that I get to see all of my friends and family back home and I know that in a few years time I'll be back in this part of the world :) It's hard to narrow it down or try to list the myriad wonderful things I've experienced here but here's a small taste - in case you've forgotten - of the things I've done since I got here...

1) Met Lee Durrell (my workmates got her to sign a Gerald Durrell book for me for leaving gift - it's the most amazing thing!)
2)Saw David Attenborough in the flesh and he said "hi" to me :)))))))))))))
3) Got to work with the staff and animals at Durrell and learn from some of the best in the business
4) Got offered a job with Durrell and was trained as a keeper
5) Got to go to amazing Jersey events like Battle of the Flowers, the Battle of Britain Air Show, Bonfire Night, the ITEX walk etc.
6) Made wonderful life-long friends with staff and students :) :) :)
Coming to the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust has truly been the best decision I have ever made and I am grateful every day that I had the guts to go for it and that you guys all supported me. I'll miss this place like crazy and if you any of you get the chance to visit then I completely and whole-heartedly recommend it :) and for those of you who might be reading this who are still there - thankyou so much for making it so amazing - Jersey wouldn't have been one tenth as good if not for all of you and I know you'll all have an equally amazing experience :)



miss all of you

xxx

Party like it's your birthday...

Hey hey :)

So I am now officially writing to you as a 20-year-old ! woop woop ! No longer a silly, imature teenager but a fully-grown adult lady living on her own in another country with a job offer and everything - huzzah!!!

Don't get too excited though cause I really haven't changed a jot - i still love bubbles, i still laugh everytime I see a pheasant running ( and yes, I'm chuckling out loud right now thinking about it) and I still get overly excited whenever I see kinder surprises.

So in order to celebrate the big 2-0 we went out twice! On the thursday evening we went out for pizza and then to The Royal in time for the pub quiz ( a thursday tradition we've had for some months now). We never win but we've steadily improved since we started and I have no doubt that by the time the others have left they'll have won at least once! It was really, really fun and a great way to celebrate with friends :)

This not actually a picture from my birthday - its just another night we went out for dinner - but once again I don't have any photographic evidence and this is basically the same so whatever. It's of Jess, Terry and I :)

Picture from the same night:  Kate, Lorna, Ruth and Pria - all looking stunning :)

On the saturday night I woke up to my flatmate having got up, on her weekend, to make me pancakes which was an awesome start to the day ! I had work but then afterwards we got all dolled up and headed into town with friends and people from work for a birthday/leaving do :)

So all up it was a pretty amazing way to shake of those pesky teen years even though I missed all of you back home and wish I could have shared the celebrations with you as well :)

xx

Remember, remember the 5th of November

Hi everyone :)

So I went to my first proper Bonfire Night :)  I know we went to one when I was here in '98 but I'm pretty sure that wasn't a proper one as I don't remember it really being that big and I was 5 - so it should've seemed like it was the size of the sun or something by comparison !

But anyway, we didn't actually go on the monday 5th but on the saturday night they held a Guy Fawkes celebration on St. Martins commons and my friends Pria and Terry and I decided to brave the cold weather and go. It had been raining fairly solidly all day and we were a bit concerned that it wouldn't go ahead but we checked before we set out and decided to go and it was fantastic. We'd seen the bonfire being built over the previous couple of weeks and knew it was going to be massive but it was so different lit up and it was amazing!

[Sorry I don't have access to any of the photos from it at the moment but I'll try and get them and I'll do an edit when I do so you can see :) ]

The Bonfire itself was probably the size of our entire family room and about 11/2 stories high. On the top of it they'd built a castle and hung a dummy from a rope outside of it - a bit grim, but also very cool :)

There were loads of stalls set up selling mulled wine and food and all the usual things and they had fire jugglers and fire eaters that performed and were really good. We wandered about and had a look at everything and ate delcious food and drank wine and generally had a nice time and then they had a fireworks display to finish the night. The fireworks were way better than I expected considering it was just put on my a parish in Jersey and I love fireworks anyway so it was a really nice way to end the evening. After the fireworks we walked home and as we were walking we could see the fireworks that some of the houses and the other parishes were setting off and we watched them as we went.

Sorry again for the lack of photos in what was a fairly visual-based event but they were taken on someone elses camera and I didnt think to get them...but I'll try and update ASAP :)

xx toodle-pip

This is Halloween...

Hey hey :)

So as most of you know Halloween is pretty much my favourite holiday of all and so this year we decided to throw a halloween party at our house and dress up and make cookies and all the usual jazz :)

I figure most of you will have at some point witnessed the beautiful frenzy of me organising fancy dress constumes but if not you should know that I go somewhat mental. I love dressing up - always have, always will - I trace it back to renting disney outfits from the toy library as a child and the (almost) excessive number of fancy dress parties I went to in my formative years. So it should come as no suprise that I took control of the situation and told everybody in no uncertain terms that if they didn't get dressed up properly they wouldn't be allowed in. To my delight everyone put in a mammoth effort (possibly out of respect or maybe just because there's very little else to do of a wednesday night in jersey and we had beer) and it was fantastic :)

So here we are in all our glory...


Jess as a Zombie chav

 

Lorna as the Mad Hatter

Terry as Jack Skellington

Ruth as a bat

Kate as a Roy Lichtenstein painting



Me as a calaveras (mexican sugar skull)

Mariska as a butterfly and Pria as Corpse Bride

 

Beached Az

Hey, so I was super-duper jealous of you guys and your  nice weather and your sunny days and whatnot so I decided to go to the nicest beach in Jersey to make myself feel better. So I grabbed my thongs and my sunnies and headed on down to Plemont Bay with my friends Pria and Terry for a bit of sun and surf. Unfortunately for me, in my haste I had forgotten that I do in fact live in the UK now, and that it is actually well on the way to winter - and it turned out to be one of the coldest days I (and especially my feet) have ever had to endure.
The weather lately has been mostly fog and cold and a bit miserable but yesterday and today have been clear and bright and flipping freezing! It was 12 degrees max yesterday and there was a pretty strong wind and it ended up not being an overly successful trip to the beach itself as we spent most of the time inside the cafe eating delicious food and pancakes and looking at the tide come in until there was indeed no beach at all.
So maybe it wont make you jealous or make you wish you were here, freezing your arses off with me and getting your hair stuck to your face with the sea-spray and your having your feet turn blue but it was a lot of fun and I had a great day besides :)

missing you all,
not long to go now!!
xx

New Digs - can ya dig it?

So I have now officially moved into what is to be (hopefully) my last abode whilst I'm in Jersey. It's called The Stables and it's basically a house on a riding stables property where students/keepers from Durrell live. It's a 10 minute walk to work each morning, I can see pretty horsies from my bedroom window, I get a bunk bed, the landlady is nice and best of all I get to move in with my good friend Lorna :) yays all round :)  

 

Other exciting news this week is that a baby Gorilla was born yesterday morning to Kahili and Badongo and is our first gorilla birth at Durrell for many years - I went and saw them yesterday and the baby is soooo cute !!!



Also, mum and dad I think you'd be super proud of me cause I also spent some time the other day in the lab learning form Lorna - mostly doing bioveterinary science - so we did gram stains, faecal flotations, some parasitology and bacteriology of samples and yesterday I helped separate out plasma from blood samples. The lab smells like my childhood- it's awesome :) :)

Lorna looking at the sample

Bacilli found on a Chough gram stain

Lorna let me keep it :) :) 

Bye for now,

xxKim

Battle of Britain Air Display

Hi All :)

I've just returned home from a really cool event which happens annually here in Jersey - the Jersey International Air Display. Celebrating it's 50th year this year, there is both a static and an aerial display of warbirds, modern military aircraft, helicopters and the famous RAF aerial acrobatics team The Red Arrows.
I didn't really know what to expect at the display, having never been to an airshow before (with the exception of the Redbull Air Race which totally doesn't count) but I was really, really impressed with the way it was run and the displays that they had. I was most interested in the and they had a Lancaster bomber and a Spitfire which were absolutely wonderful - you really can't understand what they're like until you see them in action and the pilots did a fantastic job.
Personally, I thought it was incredible to see them flying over the bay and Elizabeth Castle and it really helped me to viualise what it could have been like during the war to hear the sound of those planes going past and to know what they meant. They had speakers set up all along the bay with commentary and just before they came out they played the famous wartime speech by Winston Churchill and explained that while more German planes were actually shot down by Hurricanes than by Spitfires the Spitfire became a symbol of hope to the British people and made them believe that with the weapons and the soliders that they had that it was possible to win the war.

The RAF Spitfire

The Avro Lancaster - the most numerous and successful bomber of those used in WW2 and the only one still flying today.

The display also featured newer planes including the RAF Hawk, flown by the Red Arrows, which also did a solo display, and the Saab Viggen, Saab Tunnan and Saab 105, all new planes from the Swedish Airforce. While these aircraft aren't exactly my cup of tea there was no denying the skill involved in flying them and the pilots did some amazing things which made me nervous just watching them! The Saab planes all flew into the main display area in formation - which apparently has never been done before at an airshow and is very impressive - I guess since they're all different aircraft that's particularly difficult? or something? I don't know I'm not an expert but everyone sounded super impressed by it and it looked pretty darn cool :)

The Viggen on the left, the 105 on top and the Tunnan in front

The Hawk

The other super awesome display they had was a Broussard aircraft - a large french utility plane, which had a tiny electric plane, called a Cri Cri, attached to the top of it. The planes flew together for a couple of loops around the bay and then the smaller plane took off from on top of the other one! crazy! It was the first time this has been done in Britain since 1939. Awesome.


The Broussard and the Cri Cri still attached (the little line at the top the Cri Cri's tail

Be free !!!

And finally, the moment most people had been waiting for The Red Arrows closed the show with some of the best flying I have ever seen in my life, including that which I've seen on TV. The Red Arrows are the Acrobatic Squad of the RAF and are used for fly-overs and displays in almost all major ceremonies in Great Britain including the Jubilee celebrations and the Olympic Ceremony. They normally fly in a formation with 9 aircraft however last year, sadly, they lost two members of the team in two unrelated accidents and have been flying with seven aircraft for this season.

 

I was only there for a couple of hours but it was definitely worth going to and I really enjoyed it - it's really impossible to understand the skill of those pilots until you see them in action cause you just can't comprehend how fast, loud and high they are until you see it. So I'm gonna go watch Topgun but I'll leave you with the obligatory adorable animal pictures I know you all want to see :)

Otto the bat - and he's happy to see you!

Logan and the as-yet-unnamed Golden Lion baby :)

 

 

Ta Ta xx