thisismusic

I love my new lens! I am particularly impressed with myself over the Heron photo.

My new lens arrives today. Sigma 120-400 APO OS HSM DG. There are few things more exciting than a new lens. Fast cars, lose women, skydiving, pft. Give me a sigma 800mm prime any day. I spent a lot of time checking reviews, price comparisons etc. Everywhere I’ve checked, the 120-400 gets fantastic reviews. It’s been compared to the canon 100-400 IS L series and some reviewers actually prefer it, which is quite exciting. The canon costs about £600 more, and is one of the most popular pro-level telephoto lenses for wildlife photography, because it’s pretty amazing.

I also bought a 2x Sigma APO EX DG teleconverter which I’m looking forward to testing out. I’m selling my sigma 70-300 APO DG. It’s a great lens for the price, but the better I get at taking photos the more I notice the limitations of using a cheaper lens. It tends to produce fairly soft images a lot of the time, and fully extended you’ve got to go to at least f/11 to get a half-decent image or the bokeh seems to almost creep into the focused areas. Going to f/11 or smaller obviously means the lens slows down a lot and it doesn’t have OS so camera shake becomes a big issue. I always find myself having to tweak the sharpness of images I take with it in CS3 using nik filters, and that inevitably means a grainier image. Also, the bokeh can be a little naff at some apertures.

I’ve got two aquariums selling on ebay too. I am crossing my fingers that I get a decent price for them because I would actually like another new lens but I can only afford one if those two aquariums add up to £300. Then I have to decide whether to get a macro or a wide angle.

There’s the sigma 105 EX DG Macro, which looks like the best option for the money that I might possibly have. Tamron and Tokina make good alternatives though. I’ve always wanted a good quality macro with 1:1 reproduction. I have a lens reverser which is fun but a nightmare to use because focusing has to be done manually and you have no aperture control. I also have magnifying filters that screw into my lenses but of course you lose a fair bit of image quality and they tend to cause vignetting. Fun to play with, but no good for serious macro photography. The alternative would be to get an old fully manual lens with good quality optics for £100ish and attach that to a lens reverser. I’d get aperture control that way, but no AF or metering.

I do have a wide angle lens, the canon EF-S 18-55 IS, but it’s not that great and I’ve always desperately wanted a top notch lens for landscape work. The 18-55 IS is much improved over the non-IS version (which I had) with better optics, and the non-IS had some big chromatic aberration issues, but the IS could be a lot sharper with better colour reproduction. Mind you I think most of the EF-S lenses are a little shy of the mark for serious photography. I’ve been looking at the Tokina 12-24 PRO DX or the Sigma 10-20 EX DG HSM, both of which look really good. The Tokina is perhaps a little better but more expensive too. The trouble is I would then have to replace my polariser and get a new filter ring for my plate filters. The ring would be cheap, the polariser wouldn’t. Which reminds me, I need a new ND grad filter because mine is quite badly scratched. That’s what you get for using resin plates over glass I guess. I also need a 77mm UV filter to go with the new sigma. I could get a Hoya 77mm for £9 but is it worth going a bit pricier and spending £25 on a Hoya HMC version seeing as I’m putting it on a good quality lens? Photography is such a bloody expensive hobby, Jesus. In fact one issue I have always had with canon is that they sell lens hoods separately from lenses. Even if you go out and spend £1200 on an L series lens, you still have to buy the hood separately. They start at about £25 from Jessops for a cheap bit of plastic. I think it’s shameful. There are plenty of cheaper lenses out there, that are every bit as good as L series lenses and don’t try to con you out of an extra £25. Of course, if you go on ebay, you can get lens hoods from about £5 including P&P, but it’s the principle damn it!

Now... I do have a beautiful Mamiya 645 that I could sell for about £200-£300. But that would probably break my heart. Also it was a gift and I’m not sure if the person who gave it to me would expect me to give it back if I’m not using it because it’s kinda their camera. But, if I got enough from the aquariums for a good wide angle and then £200-£300 from the Mamiya, I could get some good filters and a speedlite 270 EX. I found using fill-flash when taking portraits of vervets was quite handy to bring out the detail on their faces, but the built-in flash is of course a bit naff.

On an aesthetic note, I wish I had bought the black version of the EOS 400D instead of the silver one. It’d look so much nicer with the vertical grip and my new lens.

WHY IS PHOTOGRAPHY SO EXPENSIVE?!

I remember last year the day I arrived in Africa. I'd never really... been anywhere. France, Austria, Belgium, the only difference from England is the language really. Everything is so safe, so western. I stepped out of Joburg airport into a cold day but there wasn't a cloud in the sky. I got into a taxi and went to the hotel I had booked. I barely slept a minute that night. I was scared I had made the wrong choice, scared that I had paid for 3 months in Africa and it would be awful and lonely and difficult.

The next day I took a taxi to the bus station in Joburg. I suppose it sounds stupid saying it, but I was just your typical naive Englishman abroad and suddenly I was one white face amongst a sea of black ones. It wasn't scary, I didn't feel unsafe, simply out of my element, overwhelmed by the odd beauty of Johannesburg, and it is a beautiful city in a strange way. People came over to me and opened cases of stolen sunglasses to sell me, and eventually I got onto the bus to Tzaneen. I saw a pick up truck with the back end almost grinding against the wheels with 20 feet of luggage piled onto it, and 20 feet is not an exaggeration, it was an architectural anomaly.

It was much warmer up north, in fact it was 14c warmer. I got into the combi with a couple of other volunteers and the volunteer coordinators drove us to the VMF. After a brief tour of tent village, we went up to the cottage. The cottage has electricity, a DVD player, computer with an internet connection and a cash bar. I went to bed as soon as I could, still feeling out of place, worried that I had made the wrong choice. It wasn't until I guess my third day when I started to feel like I had done the right thing by going there. That was the day Taryn and I talked properly for the first time.

A few days afterwards when I had come to know people a little, had spent some time in with the monkeys, I changed so quickly. I suddenly had self confidence. Every symptom of my anxiety vanished. I drank, I laughed, I even played the guitar and sang in front of people which I hadn't done in 7 years. I fell in love with friends, with Taryn, with Africa, with the monkeys. I remembered when I was little and would watch every nature documentary and dream of being in Africa and seeing elephants and lions and monkeys and giraffes. And I saw them, I saw them with my own eyes at the foundation, at places I drove past in the combi, at Kruger Park. I dreamt almost every night that I was in the UK back at my job and I woke up each morning almost weeping with joy at the sound of monkeys screeching, at the feel of the sun burning through the nylon of the tent, at the simple fact that I was there and not in England.

I made friendships that I could never have imagined the beauty of, I saw places that touched a part of my mind that had been asleep or had given up for 20 years. I met children who looked at me with an openness and hope that I've never seen before. I stood in burning heat, dripping sweat with a monkey on my shoulder, grooming me like I was her favourite man in the world. I cried for the monkeys that we couldn't save, I cried for the people I loved who had to leave. I felt happiness that overwhelmed me, that I would never have imagined I was capable of feeling. The days that I was unhappy there, were better than the days I was happy in England.

I remember my first experience of that saying "everything in Africa bites". I slit my thumb wide open on a blade of grass. Even the fucking grass there bites when it's dry and sharp like a razor blade. Everything bites or stings or scratches. Except the shongolongas, all they do is exude cyanide, wash your hands and you're fine.

I remember the first rains, pounding down on the metal roof of the cottage, splashing through it to the eco-loo. I remember standing in the rain laughing and the lightning flashing overhead, the thunder roaring and cracking and booming around me.

I remember the peace though, the peace in my mind and the perfect calmness of a kind I have never known in my life. I remember the powerful piercing look in the eyes of those monkeys when they stare into your eyes for the first time and decide what they think of you. That's what I miss the most, strange though it might sound. I miss they way they looked at me. That moment when I knew, when I could see in their eyes that they had decided to trust me, and let me come close to them, scratch them behind the ear and relax as they groomed me. I remember the babies clinging to me for safety. I remember caring about those monkeys more than I could explain, and feeling a kinship and friendship with them that I've never felt before and wanting to do whatever I could do make their lives what they ought to be.

Maybe some of this goes a little bit towards explaining why I have to go back, why I am desperate to go back, why I am so in love with that place and why I have spent a year dreaming of nothing but being back there again and why nothing, absolutely nothing will stop me from going back.

Only just over a month until I leave the UK. There’s so much to do in that time. Seeing Jen this weekend, Tattoo the weekend after, possibly seeing Jo the weekend after that (haven’t asked her yet), then seeing Jen the weekend after that I hope, then I’m going to the Lake District the weekend after for wild camping on top of Scafell Pike with Adam, then the weekend after that I am somehow squeezing in a goodbye party at work, a visit to friends in Bristol and a family goodbye party then flying out to Africa on the Sunday.

It somehow only dawned on me recently that leaving the UK this time is going to be very different to last time. I feel like I’ll be leaving a lot more behind than I did last time. There are friends that I’ll miss dotted around the country, but some of them I know I’ll be seeing at the foundation. I’ll miss Jen too, that’s going to be a bit of a sad goodbye. I get on really well with my parents these days and I’ll miss them too. Three years... wow.

I’m excited though. I’m going to drive up to the foundation instead of getting the bus. I’ve got my route all planned out, N1 to Polokwane (standard route from Pretoria) then detouring through Agatha Forest area and maybe stopping at the Coach House Hotel before going through Letaba and finally arriving at the foundation. Driving means I can stop wherever I want to take photos, hopefully shoot some nice landscapes. It also means I’ll arrive on time, and my hire car won’t break down, the bus might well do.

Only problem at the moment is that I don’t want to risk booking any flights until I get my visa, and of course flight costs are gradually creeping up. At the moment the cheapest option is flying via Tel Aviv... hm.

I’ve also found a place where I can get my tip / home shipped out to South Africa for a reasonable price. So everything is going according to plan... so far.

Also, I am loving google earth, it’s amazing for finding places to visit and places to stay in South Africa. I’ve found so many lodges, B&Bs and self-catering cottages all along the coast and plenty amongst the Drakensbergs, as well as a few game reserves with hiking routes.

This is an African Rock Python (Python sebae).

Thanks to darwinsneezed for the photo. He took it shortly after Dave and one of the volunteers wrestled it off Snooze (one of the VMF’s dogs) a few months back. It’s about 13ft long which means it’s not fully grown yet. Even at 13ft though they have big sharp teeth and have plenty enough strength to squeeze the life out of an adult human.

The usual adult size is 16ft but they’ve been known to hit 20ft. They are bad tempered, aggressive, eat any living thing that they can possibly catch, and are confirmed man-eaters, though there’s only a handful of reported cases. Mostly those cases involve children, but there’s one or two that managed to get an adult human down them. They were probably slightly short and skinny adults though.

So a while ago, Josie emailed me to let me know that the role they had in mind for me (educational officer and census of wild vervet troops) might be replaced by something else depending on what needs doing when I arrive. I was quite happy with that, and figured I’d wait and see what needs doing when I get there and get stuck in.

Last week I emailed Josie to let her know my exact return date (should be flying on Dec 13^th). She emailed back last night saying “Thanks for letting us know your dates. Can’t wait till you get here to look after top section!” I can’t tell you how happy that made me, because top section includes Goliath enclosure.

Everyone has their favourite place on the foundation, their favourite enclosure, favourite monkeys. I think I can say though, without any bias, that Goliath enclosure is by far the best place in the entire WORLD to be, and any suggestion otherwise would make you a liar and a communist. It’s a beautiful enclosure with a huge fig tree in the middle, some impressive termite mounds and some of the most amazing monkeys on the foundation. There’s angry Babu who eventually became my good friend, Shmeagol (fun police) who I got on with straight away, and who stuck up for me when Tigger (RIP) had a go at me. Halo who fell in love with me the moment we met, Adoonsie who is a proper little hero after a horrific life of torture and abuse before the VMF rescued him. Fatty Poof (Bebe) who is one of the sweetest most affectionate monkeys I’ve ever met, Dotty who is mad but lovely. I remember each time I went over there, the chorus of hellos from all the girls, swooning over me because I’m a high ranked male haha.

All around Goliath are ant nests that spew flying ants in the rainy season which are like sweets for monkeys. There are huge millipedes, the odd cobra, little black scorpions hiding under rocks, a five-foot water monitor lives up there somewhere, and there’s the foot of firewatch hill. It's a perfect little patch of Africa. There’s some nice secluded spots half-way up, where you can sit and watch the sun set. Looking out past the enclosure you can see the Drakensbergs in the distance.

I always think of Deala when I think of Goliath. You know those perfect moments every now and again where you feel utterly happy, fulfilled? I was in her and Tiny's intro-cage, raking and cleaning, with her sat on my shoulder and grooming me. It was about 32c with the sun beating down and I stood up straight and wiped the sweat from my forehead. I leaned on my rake for a moment, staring out at the Drakensbergs and the huge expanse of green farmland between us and the mountains and felt like nothing in the world could’ve made me happier at that moment.

81 days to go!

Here is a lovely photo of Bundu (kudos to the armed and dangerous darwinsneezed who took it)



I can't believe how huge he is now. He's one of the babies who came in whilst I was out there last year. I don't think he'll remember me, but I'm crossing my fingers. I spent two months with him and we were pretty close. I'll be seeing him again in 3 months!

I spent today sending very friendly and polite messages to someone via youtube who was bad-mouthing the VMF. He was having a go at CARE (a Baboon sanctuary run by the crazy and amazing Rita Miljo) and accused her of taking a Baboon baby away from it's mother purely so that volunteers could play with it. I've not been to CARE nor have I met Rita but I know her by reputation and through people who have spent time there. She is utterly dedicated to her animals and would NEVER do anything that went against the best care for them. If she took a baby away from the mother, there would be a very good reason for it.

In spite of the fact that he has never been to the VMF, he went on to accuse the VMF of doing similar things and saying that human interaction goes on with the juveniles far longer than necessary. It's frustrating coming up against that kind of ignorance, but it's something that I suppose you have to face all the time in wildlife conservation. There is absolutely no way that the VMF would take a baby away from their mother without good reason. It happened once during my stay there, and it was a last resort. A female had injured her baby by chewing on it's ear and arms because she was stressed within the troop she was part of. The baby was patched up and given back to mum who kept doing the same thing. The baby was becoming more and more weak, stressed and sick by the hour and there was no alternative but to separate the two permanently. It's a big decision and a difficult one, and not a decision that is taken lightly.

He also seemed to think that raising a vervet orphan to 6 months would be about right, and then it could be left to fend for itself with an adult surrogate. Rehabilitating an orphaned vervet is a long, complicated, difficult process. If you remove people from the equation too soon, they become depressed, which leads to stress, which leads to weakening of the immune system, which leads to illnesses. They need human contact for a long time, they rely on it and when they're ready, we wean them off us. I'm not going to pretend for a second, that going in with year-old juvenile vervets and playing with them is anything less than a spectacular and wonderful experience, I love every second of it, but it's also very important to their development and mental well-being.

Arthur always taught everyone that there is one rule to live by at the foundation "the monkeys come first". That's a rule I believe in quite strongly, whether I'm at home or in the UK.

I'm gonna start crossing off the days on my calendar I think...

Three months to go! I'm getting all my paperwork sorted for my visa. I need a police check to confirm that I'm not some kind of international drug-smuggler or hoodlum, a radiologist report confirming that I won't be bringing tuberculosis with me when I go to Africa, proof that I can afford to be there for three years and one or two other bits of paper.

I've been doing a lot of walking lately around the more isolated bits of countryside near by. I'm becoming quite the expert at finding and tracking wild deer. I tracked a family group of Roe deer today, it was pretty amazing. I found where they had slept, found fresh tracks and poop, and found them a few minutes later. There was a large male with horns, a couple of older females and two little ones which must have been born this year. I followed them for about half a mile then headed off elsewhere.

I've been trying to work out what to take with me when I go. When I leave, that's kind of... it. I don't live here anymore. Besides my parents are selling the house and moving to France, so I can't leave anything for storage here. Everything's going on ebay or to the charity shop. What little I have left will come with me. That'll be cameras, laptop, a few DVDs and some clothes. Cram all that into my carry case and anything that doesn't fit will have to go.

When I finish at the VMF in three years I want to do a degree in primatology or something related. Either in South Africa or Canada. South Africa for obvious reasons. Also I love Pretoria and I like the idea of going to uni there, but I'm visiting a friend in Cape Town in December, so I'll see what I think of it there. Canada because Canada is THE place for studying primatology. The universities there have some of the top primatologists in the world. Uni of Calgary apparently has an amazing BSc programme in primatology. Afterwards... I like the idea of doing proper field research somewhere into primate communication. I love the idea of learning the language of a completely different animal. I already know a few words and signs of Vervet Monkey language. It's amazing actually putting it to use too, when you suddenly stand back and realise that you've just spoken to a monkey in their own language, and they've spoken back to you. I know how to say "hello" I know how to say "I'm scared" I know to say "OMG a leopard!" and I know how to say "you've irritated me" and I know how to say "I'm about to kick your arse" amongst other bits and bobs.

After that I'd like to support different primate conservation projects and get some experience of working hands on with all kinds of different primates.

I keep having dreams about being back at the foundation. It's hard to describe what an amazing place it is to people who've not been there. You have these stunning views of rainforests in the distance, the Drakensberg mountains, and stunning blue skies, with the sun burning down on you, baking the landscape. In the evening the sky starts to turn gold and the monkeys climb up into the trees and they watch the sun setting on the horizon. During the summer after the first rains come, everything turns the most amazing shimmering green, with patches of bright colour where flowers and fruits emerge. The sky turns purple at night when there are lightning storms. You wake up every morning to the sound of several hundred monkeys letting you know that they're pretty sure it's breakfast time. You're surrounded by amazing people who love primates and conservation. And there's wildlife just everywhere. There are little blue waxbills, elegant cape doves, swallows with huge sweeping tails. Now and again huge silhouettes of some unknown bird appears in the sky. Maybe a maribou stork. There are snakes, lizards, scorpions, spiders. Everything is amazing in some way. Even the giant millepedes. They're an evolutionary miracle. The oldest fossil record for a land-dwelling animal was for a centipede dated 428 million years ago. That's before the dinosaurs even existed and they're still around today.

I got so much out of my time at the foundation before, I feel like that place has given me so much and I want to give as much back as I can. Some people do seem to go out there with the feeling that the foundation somehow owes them something, because they've paid the foundation in order to be there. That's not how it works though. The opportunity to go there is a privilege, you're being given the chance to make a difference and do some good in the world. Whether you're giving first aid to a monkey or washing food bowls, you're doing something worthwhile. Ultimately the foundation is a conservation project and you go there to work and contribute. That's the way I always saw it.

On the possible extinction of Manatees...

"I think it's just indecent if humanity, through our actions or through our neglect, should cast into oblivion an intricately perfect piece of evolutionary engineering millions of years in the making. I think that somehow we have to do better than that."

I love Stephen Fry. Wonder if I can get him out to the foundation somehow...

I saw my friend JoJo last night to say goodbye. She’s probably just landing in Joburg at the moment on her way to a. We only met about 2 months ago but we’ve become really close friends.

We were talking last night and got onto the subject of anti depressants because of this song we were talking about. She’s never been on them but I was on them years ago now and because of stuff in the song that related to them I was saying how when I was on Venlafaxine I got horrendous withdrawal after I stopped taking it. Anyway, just out of curiosity, I looked it up on Wikipedia and the entry linked through to something called “selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor withdrawal dysfunction”.

I was quite shocked. I spent months with all these awful side effects like muscle tremors and spasms, dizziness, weird feelings of being given electric shocks in my brain, horrific dreams and various others. My consultant psych even wrote a letter about it to some medical board or council. Turns out there’s this well documented medical condition and that Venlafaxine (especially if you’re on a high dose which I was) is one of the worst for causing it and I was like that for months.

I went off on a bit of an angry rant about it to JoJo who just sat there and listened for a while then said “Dan you’re so pretty. Do you want to play brick a brack online?” haha <3

I’m off to the Isle of Wight this weekend to visit the Beanelet, also known as baby Sophie, newest addition to the family. What relation is my cousin’s daughter to me? I am considering attempting to kidnap her and raise her as a monkey-child.

I got a letter today. Possibly the most important letter of my life.

It reads...

This letter serves to confirm that Daniel Grove will be volunteering and will be resident at the Vervet Monkey Foundation, Plot 35, California, Letsitele in Tzaneen, from December 2009 for 3 years. Daniel will be using his skills to help us continue our work with wildlife conservation.

Suddenly it all feels much more real, and less like a distant dream. I can’t begin to explain how excited I am about it. It’s a huge change, from working behind a desk in smart clothes, organising conferences, to living in a tipi in the African bush amongst monkeys, wearing shorts tshirt and flipflops every day.

I’ve got one or two ideas for projects I can take on out there to help the foundation. I’m investing in a flashy HD camcorder that can film underwater. I’ll set up a youtube channel to promote the VMF. Youtube have a specific set up for NPO’s which I need to look into.

Al and I were talking about setting up some kind of internet cafe through the Primate Handshake, where we fully kit out a big cabin with XO laptops. We could even put a photo printer in there in fact. It’s just a vague idea at the moment but I think it could be pretty useful for the foundation, if the vols pay x rand per hour / photo they print. I feel like I can’t do enough for the foundation, with them giving me the placement. I just want to come up with more and more ideas and ways of helping them in the work they’re doing. The work that I’ll be doing soon in fact.

Hellen and I were also talking about some kind of art project, maybe selling photographs & paintings and the proceeds going towards the VMF. I think the education centre is going to have a shop in it, so it could work out well.

I’ve been trying to plan long term, thinking about what I’d like to do after my 3 year visa expires. I’m wondering about studying at University of Pretoria or Cape Town, doing a course in primatology or veterinary medicine. It’d put me in a position to better support the foundation and do a whole host of other things. Maybe even set up my own wildlife rescue centre.

Either way, I want to stay in Africa permanently. The world is such a huge place and 28 years in England is plenty thank you very much.

When I get back it’ll be December, which means rainy season and summer. Everything will be green, the monkeys will be giving birth left, right and centre, there’ll be dramatic lightning storms and it’ll be about 35c every day. Absolutely perfect.

I was thinking about my daughter. No I don't have a daughter, no I haven't got anyone pregnant. I was thinking about her anyway. Wondering if I will ever get to meet her, what she'll be like. I found myself wondering what kind of music she'd like, whether she'd like to dance or be too shy. What her favourite crisps would be. I wonder if she'd get embarrassed when I give her a hug and a kiss, or whether she'd smile and glow. I wonder what she would do with her life, who would love her, who she would love. I wonder what her home would be like when she was old enough to have her own. I wonder if she'd spend ages agonising over whether she was buying the right sofa, or if she'd be confident and purposeful. I wonder whether we would get on well, if we'd be close or not after she moves out. I wonder if she would love the things that I love, or just put up with me loving them because I'm her dad.

I really hope I get to meet her one day.

Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of the 7/7 bombings in London. It was somewhat overshadowed though, by Michael Jackson’s funeral. I say that merely as a statement of observation, not a criticism. He was a human being and his family have lost a brother, son and father. I think people should remember that and maybe show a little more humanity.

I remember when the 7/7 bombings happened, seeing it on the news for the first time. It wasn’t scary. A lot of us have grown up with news stories of the IRA blowing up bits of London and Manchester. I remember tedious hours sat outside museums on school trips because of bomb-scare evacuations. It doesn’t frighten me; instead it frustrates me and pisses me off. I think the British and particularly the English have this mentality (and I have it too) where we each think of London as “my city”. I suppose that's true for anyone when thinking about their capital city. I saw the bombings and thought, “look what they’ve done to my city, to my people.” It hurt us all to some greater or lesser degree, because really it was directed at everyone who lives in this country, not just the people who died.

The world is full of awful and deplorable people, beliefs and acts. It is also full of people of integrity, courage, compassion and intense kindness, but people seem to have so much anger about them these days. It’s such a great shame because people are capable of such beauty.

My mind tends to be quite disorganised. I find it difficult to concentrate on things a lot of the time without getting distracted and losing whatever train of thought I happen to be on, before blindly leaping to another one, usually without noticing. I’ll be sat there at work, putting together a conference programme or something thinking “ok so that paper I had from the Naval University of Gdynia could go here and then... I wonder what it’d be like to be an oyster. Or you know, some other kind of semi-gelatinous shellfish.” And bang, the next 15 minutes are wasted as I sit here imagining I’m an oyster.*

Oysters aside, I think part of the reason I love photography is because for whatever reason, I can focus on it completely and everything else is just a faint hum in the background. I can look through the lens and start thinking about composure, lighting, movement, white balance, ISO speeds, apertures and shutter speeds and I’m utterly focused on it, nothing else seems to get in the way.

It’s escapism I suppose. That’s how it started really. When I was little I had this book about the Amazon and there was a beautiful photograph of a section of flooded forest at sunset. I used to lie in bed at night and stare at that photograph, imagining I was there. I could look at it and disappear into it.

It also amazes me sometimes how, when I take photos of people I know, I sometimes look at them and get the feeling that I’ve captured something about myself as much as I’ve captured something about them. I know it probably all sounds a bit pretentious, but there are a couple of photos I’ve taken over the past year that when I look at them, I think to myself, “you can tell I love them by the way I’ve taken this photo”.  Sometimes I think I don’t really know how I feel about someone until I’ve photographed them. In fact I’m sure of it.

*I actually took ten minutes in the middle of writing this to imagine I was an oyster, and it only ended because I got eaten by a crab.

Love this photo so much

Look what I made! Dreadlocks!







It took almost 8 hours and several glasses of wine, but they look pretty awesome!

I have been in such a funk lately. There seems to have been a steady stream of bad news from back home, interspersed with bad news that is kind of hilarious. I had a good long Talk with Ian and Lorna both on Friday. They’re home at the moment so I got all the news.

Dave was walking past the Goliath enclosure the other day in an impromptu change to his daily routine, and it’s lucky that he was. He heard a blood-curdling scream of terror and pain from somewhere in the bush. He went off to investigate but couldn’t find the source of the noise. Luckily, Casey (one of the dogs) was with him. Dave said to her “find!” and she quickly led him off into the grass to find Snoozy (one of the other dogs) with a 12 foot python wrapped around her! Dave and another volunteer wrestled the python off Snooze and then four of them man-handled it off to a cage in sickbay for collection by Emille (runs the local bush-bar) later on, who agreed to release it on his property. When Lorna told me the other day, I burst into fits of laughter. Dave used to joke about snooze being in “python position” when she was fast asleep in the bush somewhere, as though she was lying there waiting to be eaten.

Here's Dave and Sami with the python after Snooze's rescue:

Mr Monks (very big adult male) escaped from his enclosure the other day got a little too amorous with one of the female volunteers. It is mating season after all. I love Monks, he’s a very good-natured monkey really but he can be rather over-affectionate.

Lorna also told me that a hippo has moved in next door to the foundation! They can hear it honking away at night, and she’s convinced it’s been onto the foundation at least once after dark, to take a dip in the dam. Hippos are one of the most dangerous animals in Africa, and Lorna’s too scared to sleep in her cabin, which is away from all the other volunteer cabins in case she gets attacked by a hippo in the night haha. I was convinced for a couple of weeks when I was out there, that a Leopard was coming onto the foundation at night, and I tried to track it down a couple of times. In retrospect that probably wouldn’t have ended very well. It turned out that the tracks were made by a vast behemoth of a guard dog that I think belongs to Sami, which is a good thing I suppose.

Deela is still alright... kind of. She got badly hurt a few weeks ago but she’s healed up really well. Ian said she’s having problems using the injured leg though. It’s awful enough losing Gedafie, I hope Deela will be alright. The last time I went in with her, she left an almost perfect hand print on the back of my tshirt. I cut it out and it’s in my wallet. I emailed a photo of it to Michaela who’s turning it into a tattoo for me.

When I was talking to Lorna she kept saying I should just say screw the visa and the money and go back now. It’s so tempting, it really is but I want to do all of this properly so that once I’m there, I know everything is sorted and in place for the next 3 years. I won’t have to worry about money or being arrested and deported. It is hard being away though. Very hard. It’s May already though, and not long until my birthday. I’m thinking of having a big party and trying to get Hellen and Hilde to come to the UK for a weekend. Or I could combine my birthday with the VMF beach BBQ that I’m planning to organise. Hm...

Ben and Sreet came for the weekend. I didn’t realise how clever Ben is. He took 5 A-levels and passed them all. He’s not gone to Uni yet because he wants to do some more travelling. So he’s currently working as a baker. He gets up at 4:45 each morning, puts on his baker’s hat and then bakes bread for the nation. He’s my hero.

I called the foundation tonight. I guess I was just missing home a lot and needed to hear a friendly voice. I spoke to Chris then Ian and then Lorna. When Lorna got on the phone, she went off to a quiet corner somewhere so she could say a few things in private.

When I think about going home at the end of the year, I always find myself thinkinkg of Gedafie. Of all the monkeys at the foundation, she was one of the two monkeys I was closest to - her and Deela. Deela and I had this incredible connection - her intuitiveness as to my moods was second to none, human or monkey. She always knew instantly whether I was happy, sad, angry, and she would react in just the right way. I was the same with her, I knew her mood instantly and we had such a closeness.

With Gedafie I think she felt closer to me than anyone else there at the time. I loved being with her, she was always so gentle and she felt safe and protected by me. A lot of my spare time on days off or after work was spent dozing under the shade netting of her enclosure with her cuddled up against me. She was easily scared because she was completely blind and relied a great deal on human touch. She was the most popular monkey on the foundation because of her love of people. I found out tonight that she had to be put to sleep two days ago.

I'm not really sure what to say about it. There are plenty of reasons to go back to South Africa. Not least because it's my home, but Gedafie has always been the monkey that I think about going back to. When I thought about my first day back, I used to imagine going up on firewatch hill and looking at the view, then I'd imagine going straight down to Gedafie's enclosure and there was no doubt in my mind that she would remember me instantly, that she would come over as she always did, reaching out and feeling her way towards me, climbing up to my waist and waiting for me to hold her against my stomach and talking softly to her.

This doesn't change any of my plans. South Africa is my home and I'm going back but... Arthur has gone and now Gedafie too. It's utterly heart breaking, and so frustrating that I can't be there. I would have given anything to have held her as she was put to sleep, just to be sure that she was in arms she knew were safe.

I am loving this spectacular spring weather. The warmth and sunshine, the promise of shorts and flipflops coming out in the not too distant future haha. I’ve been in a bit of a morose state the last couple of weeks but I think the sunshine is dragging me out of it.

I have my own official vervet monkey foundation email address! I’m going to start doing some more fundraising stuff to keep myself busy for the foundation over the next six months. It’s odd, I look at the calendar and think “gah, November is ages away!” then I look at the date today and can’t believe it’s almost May already. Ian’s on his way back there soon. I know it’s a bit selfish but I’m glad he’s had to wait until now for his visa, because it means that when I get back, he’ll still be there for another 5 or 6 months. I’ll miss him being around when we all get together.

Things have been changing back home a lot in the time I’ve been away. Vic and Ryan (two of the long termers) have left which is quite gutting. One of the main things I was looking forward to about going back there was seeing them again. I’ll see them at Lisa’s wedding, but it would’ve been good to work with them again. Almost everything I know about vervets is down to them. How to handle them, how to check for signs of illness or injury, how to track them, how to give out the right attitude towards them, how to understand their behaviours, how to identify individuals... everything. Even which plants are useful in the bush for medicine, food or insect repellent, how to deal with the police in South Africa when they pull you over.

I’ve started putting everything I own on ebay. I’ve made about £50 in the last 24 hours. I also have another plan to raise some fairly big chunks of money, but I’m not sure how well it’ll work out. Basically, buying and selling photographic equipment through ebay and other online sites, second hand shops etc. I know enough about it to know what I’m doing and where I can make the money, but it’s tricky nonetheless.

Also, hopefully going to be getting my first tattoo sometime in the next few weeks. I’d been umming and ahhing about it, then had a chat with Sarita and now my mind is settled. I’m going to get Michaela to design it for me from a photo because she’s quite the incredible artist. This is one of her sketches that she did at the VMF of me playing with JJ: