Wouldn’t this postcard make a nice 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle? I am moving into a “jigsaw doing” phase and so as I look through my postcard collection I think “jigsaw”.

I am guessing that this is a photo of my husband taken in 1936 near Bangor Northern Ireland.

Ian’s maternal grandfather was an enthusiastic photographer and we are fortunate to have family photographs from those early years.

Can you see a resemblance with this photo taken 40+ years later?

One of the themes in my postcard collecting is Doorways.

It’s interesting that this postcard was postmarked Siasconset, which is on the opposite side of the Island from where the pictured doorway would be located. But it’s a small island so I’ll forgive the discrepancy.

The format of the postcard reflects its dating – i.e. a white border surrounding the picture. The postmark is dated Aug 1962. The purple Liberty stamp also reflects an early 1960’s date.

The Tsavo Inn was a halfway point on the drive from Nairobi to Mombasa. I remember that halfway point for all the weaver birds busy weaving their nests.

This postcard is dated slightly after the first time I went to Kenya. I first traveled to Kenya in 1964. It was rather a spur of the moment decision on my part. My mother was in Kenya as part of a vacation trip from Nepal where she was serving in the Peace Corps. I was in Berkeley California sort of at a loose end before starting graduate studies. My memory is beginning to blur as to the exact sequence of events here but anyhow I thought “why don’t I join my mother in her travels?” So I did just that. I flew from San Francisco to East Africa. I was booked to fly to Dar es Salaam but the plane stopped in Nairobi and I got off – sounds crazy now but such things were possible then. My suitcase went on to Dar es Salaam. Eventually my suitcase and I were reunited but that’s another story in itself.

So there I was in Nairobi. It was night time. My memory is a bit hazy here but I took some sort of official transport into town and booked into the New Stanley. I think by this point a friendly stranger come to my aid – a mother and son? This is really bizarre but I think she shared her room with me at the New Stanley Hotel. A couple of days later I was walking down Kenyatta Avenue and I spotted my mother and her friends on the opposite side of the street. Needless to say she was surprised to see me!

Main Bazaar , No. 2, Aden

Aden at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula – a stopping point for steamships going to and from India from Great Britain.