Mabel's Out!

Mabel: Nairobi, Kenya

Sparkles: Meesden, UK

Distance: 10,722km

Most families have a star, a fairy, or an angel at the top of their Christmas tree. Growing up, my family had Sparkles. While the name Sparkles may sound as though it could belong to a fairy or an angel, Sparkles is actually a troll. A small troll with bright green eyes and electric blue hair. Like many family traditions, the reason for Sparkles prominent place on the tree is lost in the haze of time (although one of my sisters will no doubt remember, the one that is the reliable information source of half-remembered teddy bear's names and semi-forgotten holidays).

When I moved to Africa I was given my own Christmas troll: Mabel. Mabel comes out of the drawer every December 1st and has seen some pretty incredible adventures over the years. She has spent a morning in Ngorogoro crater on safari, an afternoon in the vineyards of Stellenbosch, and nights camping on a car roof under Botswanan skies.

This year her coming out of the drawer coincided with another Christmas tradition: the annual viewing of Love, Actually with girlfriends. The girls I started this with now sadly live on a different continent (10,677km away, to be precise), but in the past nine months in Nairobi I have found some excellent substitutes.

And now Mabel and I have five days until we are on a plane back to the UK to see Sparkles. I'm not going to lie, she's pretty excited.