Happiness can sneak in through a window you didn’t realise you had left open….

Francis, the smiley IT guy in the Ministry was trusted with my precious but poorly laptop today. I must admit to being highly sceptical that anything good would come out of this and when I saw him attacking the back of it with a precision screw driver ….well…. was this one high risk decision too far??? A couple of hours later I was presented with my laptop, now working and with the spare hard drive fitted (thanks to my incredible foresight(!!!! didnt back anything up) and Adam’s ability to magic a spare one from nowhere at the last minute). However, Francis tried and failed to retrieve my files so the tiny cloud in the silver lining is that the damaged hard drive will be coming back to the UK with me in the vain hope that my photos and documents can be resurrected!!!

So the proverb for today on the BBC World Service is the title of this blog, submitted by a lady called Isatu of Freetown! To be honest the only thing that gets through the netting and bars covering my windows, is rain (sometimes) and the occasional mosquito, but I suppose she didn’t mean it lierally! Didn’t I mention the bars? All windows have them, I assume so you can leave the windows open without fear of theft. However, some creative thieves use rods and coat hangers to extract items and so its best to leave things out of ‘fishing distance’.

However Isatu was right, I didn’t think such joy could be gained out of the fixing of an inanimate object. Although offering to marry Francis was probably showing my gratitude too much!

The only photo I have of an open window is with my much missed cat (Scuzzy) staring out over the Oxfordshire countryside, when he first moved with Pauline and Lawrence. He is probably wondering where the hell I'd disappeared to and is what this strange place... a bit like me when I first arrived in Freetown.