The Bakers’ Summer Party has become something of an institution; every summer since 1996 we’ve had such a gathering in our home for old friends and new to get together and enjoy food, fun and music!

Of course, we didn’t have summer parties in 2005 or 2007 as we were in Benin then (and what’s the point of celebrating the nice warm weather there?!) Click here to see a post about the 2006 summer party.

It has become the norm of late to have a BOUNCY CASTLE for the party - lots of fun for kids of all sizes! Here are some party pics:

Another tradition has been live jazz in the garden whenever possible. This year, we had a jazz quartet with Gary Wood on trumpet, Fergus Milne on trombone and yours truly on piano. We were then joined by the legendary Michael Meadowcroft on clarinet, who Rob met and played with in Benin. (Michael, formerly a Liberal MP, even appears in Wikipedia! Have a look here).

This year we beat our summer party world record! Not in number (although 92 guests was very close) but in age range. The eldest guest - “Auntie Grace” is 96 years old whereas the youngest was Toby, who is about one year old. Here they are:

So an age range of 95 years. Wow! We’re planning to have a Summer Party next year, probably in June. Watch this space…

The other day, Eddie Arthur asked me if whether I would be continuing to blog whilst back in the UK. The answer is YES!

I decided to take August off blogging as we were on holiday for most of the time and I NEVER take my laptop on holiday with me! Now September is here, there’ll be new posts on reverse culture shock, Baker activities, African memories and future plans, not forgetting Trivia Question of the Week

Watch this space. New post with photos coming very soon!

No not me, silly. My Dad!

We made it back to England just in time to celebrate his 70th birthday. Incredible - where have the years gone? Although he’s technically retired after around 40 years as a Baptist Minister, Dad still preaches once or twice a month and enjoys walking, sudokus and extra strong mints!

We had a lovely tea there and it was good to see my ‘almost brother’ Clive Rahn, to whom we bequeathed a Beninese zem shirt, which he liked very much:

As a special treat, we took Dad to this prom concert at the Royal Albert Hall last Monday evening, which he enjoyed. Beethoven’s 5th was monumental, but Elliott Carter’s oboe concerto was a tad modern for his liking.

Finally, to help Dad celebrate his big day, we gave him this apt badge to cheer him up:

That’s all for now. The blog is officially ‘on holiday’ for the whole of August, so there will be no new posts until September. However, there are plenty of archives you can browse through…

Other News…

* We just got back from the Keswick Convention, which was an excellent time of physical and spiritual refreshment.
* The kids are at ‘Fusion’ this week, which is our church’s holiday club. Lots of fun (including a TARDIS in the shape of a garden shed!!)
* SUMMER PARTY this Saturday. Drop me a line if you’d like to come and haven’t told us yet.
* Off to Derbyshire next week.

That’s about it for now. Thanks for reading.

Yes, the Bakers are back in England and COLD!!!

Here we are arriving at Heathrow Airport a week ago:

Although we are home, it doesn’t quite feel like it yet. We do feel like strangers in this country, even though it’s our own. The biggest shock has been the temperature -around 15 degrees Celcius lower than what we have been used to. In fact, on the first night, Ruth came into our bedroom wearing gloves and a woolly hat and has had a hot water bottle most nights since!!!

The journey home went very smoothly, although at pre check-in the morning of our departure we found our cases were all a couple of kilos overweight so we had to take stuff out or face hefty fines! Thankfully, we’re shipping some stuff back, so what we removed was simply added to the shipping consignment.

On the way out of the airport, we got to wait in the salle d’honneur, the president’s lounge for dignitaries! (top left picture below). This was due to our friend Mathieu Assogba, whose pop video Rob appeared in (see it here). (NB we didn’t ask for this privilege but didn’t feel like turning it down either!) Very nice, though, and air-conditioned. However, once we’d left there, we had to join the queue with everyone else!

The other pictures on this collage are (TR) our plane (well, a similar one anyway - to take a photo of ours we’d have had to miss it!!) Then (BL) Ruth on the plane with her cousin Rachel, who came to visit for our last 2 weeks and was a tremendous help with packing and keeping the kids entertained. Finally (BR) Lois, Mads and Micah on the plane. All three kids had their hair plaited African style before we left, but have taken it out now. Here they are back in our new home in Bedfordshire:

Thanks for reading! Summer party 2nd August if you’re around…

…because they now have the whole Bible in their own language for the first time ever. Remember this bloke I recently posted.

This is what the t-shirts looked like at the Dedication Ceremony of the Lokpa Bible, on 17th May 2008 in Gahounga, central Benin. The words are taken from Joshua 1:8, the whole of which says:

“Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.
Then you will be prosperous and successful.”

I couldn’t be there for the ceremony, but my colleague, Marianne, was there and took plenty of great photos and also this video of the ladies singing:

Great music for the occasion, which is almost bound to be the case in this part of the world. Here are some more musical photos. TL: some traditional floor-standing drums, TR: a lady playing metal castanets, BL: a gourd shaker (with shells, buttons or beads on a net around the outside) and BR:the pressure drum - ubiquitous in northern Benin and Togo - (also known as the talking drum or armpit drum), which changes pitch as you squeeze it:

I got hold of a copy of the Lokpa Bible the other day and had a look through.

Nice! Want to see what it looks like inside. Here you go, have a butchers:

(Extract from John 9 & 10. The picture refers to the Good Shepherd)

Thanks for reading!

…but maybe not quite like this one:

This is Le Marché Dantɔkpa, which means beside the water … and it is!
It is purportedly the largest covered market in the whole of West Africa. I can vouch for that; every time I go I take a similar route around the market but never quite see the same stalls!

It can be a tad dangerous at Dantɔkpa (remember this post), so take as few valuables as possible and be aware of people around you. Even taking photos can be risky, and sometimes annoys folk. That said, I managed to sneak some with a small camera recently, so here are a few of them:

(Thanks to Joanna McNeil for the loan of said camera.)

Oh, and the mystery meat I recently posted (here) was, in fact RAT! Yes, it’s quite a delicacy here, thought I’ve never tried it! So, that’s Dantɔkpa - not quite the same as a market back home, but nonetheless a very rich and vibrant place to visit.

Now onto the world market thing…I was transcribing the words of a Fɔn song used in a local church the other day, and it began like this:

Gleta we gbɛ fí nyi loooo
Axi jijɛ wɛ ayihɔn eee lɔ nyi
O mǐ die ma kǎ lɛ tuwun
O hwɛnu ɖe wɛ gǎn naxo do

Have a listen and follow along: fon-market-song-extract.mp3

Nice, eh? I love all her inflections and folky rubato. Here’s what it means: Life down here is like a field (looooo), the world is like a market which comes to life too. And so, we do not know at what moment the hour will chime.

It’s basically a statement on human mortality and that, as life begins, so it ends and we must be ready for when we meet our maker.
Bit different from Kendrick, don’t you think?!?

Q: What is the most common bird in the world (there are around 50 billion of them on the planet)?

Answer to last week’s question: The second longest river in Britain is the Thames (pronounced tems), which is 215 miles long. Interestingly, the Thames is called the River Isis in Oxford when it passes through Oxford.

…Land Rover!

Oops! Thankfully, the mechanic spotted in it in time - before we were obliged to travel ‘Fred Flintstone’ style! However, he did say he merely tugged on the passenger seat and it came out, floor and all!!! Here it is from the another angle (you can even see one of the tyres through the hole) :

The old Disco has had a good innings, being 18 years old already, so I suppose it’s not done too badly, given the amount of dirt and grime it has to drive through here. Mind you, the floor problem can’t have been helped by shenanigans such as this, but it was great fun:

The mechanic’s doing a good job and has already completely replaced the driver’s side floor and it starting on the passenger side on Monday.

Once that’s done, there’s only one thing left…TO SELL IT!!!
(any offers?!? It’s a good car really, honest).

It’s that time of year when the flame trees (or flamboyants in French) start to bloom. And what a stunning sight they are:

These are only in bloom for a few weeks, so make the most of this impressive spectacle while it lasts! Interestingly, their blooms don’t seem as impressive in the south of Togo/Benin (where they are often only 50% red and the rest still green). The one above was taken in Atakpame, towards the north of Togo.

I first fell in love with the flame tree when I lived in La Réunion, where it is one of the national symbols. I’m not an expert in arborology, but the ones here in Benin look the same as the delonix regia of Reunion, which actually originate from Madagascar.

Matt Murdock, a missionary friend in northern Benin, recently commented on them in this blog post too.

Thanks for reading!

Here’s some tasty meat for sale at Dantokpa Market in Cotonou. Who can tell me which animal was it when it was alive?

(NB Not to be confused with the ear & snout I mentioned in this post)