Keith in Sri Lanka

I left my home in Bath just after 14:00 yesterday afternoon, and took a Flexibus coach to Heathrow Airport, with my direct flight to Colombo taking off shortly before 21:00. It was a 10-hour flight and landed just before 12:30 Sri Lankan time. It was okay as long-haul flights go, but after the evening meal, when everyone tried to go to sleep, it was weird being woken up at 04:30 UK time to have a breakfast that I really felt unable to eat so early in the morning. Arriving at 12:30 Sri Lankan time was only 07:00 UK time, so I had been on the go so-to-speak for 17 hours by then, with just short bursts of sleep on the plane. I was met by Gayashan, my driver for the trip to Norwood, and we left Colombo Airport just before 14:00, with a 5-hour journey (that included a short stop for food) ahead of us. The weather got steadily worse, so tough driving conditions for  Gayashan, but we arrived at Daya's home in Norwood shortly before 19:00. 19:00 Sri Lankan time was only 14:30 in the UK, so...

I have reached the final day, so there are a mixture of emotions; a deep sense of satisfaction for a job that even I think has been very well done this year; a lingering sadness that I am leaving behind a country that I have grown to love so much; a mighty sense of relief that I have a direct flight from Colombo to London Heathrow; and much happiness to be returning to Val and the family after such a long time away, with great anticipation of a relaxed time together in beautiful Croatia. I was up early and had my final breakfast at the Colombo Swimming Club, which has been a delightful place to spend my final days in Sri Lanka for a number of years now, as there is a relaxed familiarity about the place from spending so much time here. I booked a transfer to the airport, then set about packing up my things, which didn't take long, as I had already spent a long time sorting out my luggage before I came to stay in Colombo. I was picked up at 10:00 to go to the airport and everything w...

It was my last full day here in Colombo, and I was on a mission this morning to find beach towels. That may sound a bit bizarre, but when I asked my granddaughter, Isabella, what she would like me to bring back from Sri Lanka this time, she asked me for a nice beach towel, and I hadn't found any up until now. I googled beach towels in Colombo and found towels.lk, which is a shop in the busy wholesale area of Pettah in Colombo, so that was where I headed. To say that Pettah is a busy trading area would be the understatement of the year, as I have never been anywhere so crowded in all my years in Sri Lanka, and it took me some time to find the towel shop, but I got there in the end. I am disappointed that I failed to take photographs of the Pettah experience, but I was rather relieved to escape in the end, as it was all a bit too much for me, although the sights, the sound, the smells etc. were absolutely incredible. I made my way to meet my good friend Aruni and her son, Yash, for l...

This was my second morning at Colombo Swimming Club, and I enjoyed a relaxed morning lying in with a late breakfast, then completed yesterday's blog and diary before Ragu came to pick me up at noon to take me to his cousin Kisho's home for lunch, with Daya and Vino joining us, today being Vino's actual 25th birthday. It was a Poya Day today, so my plans to get some beers in to go with our lunch were scuppered, and I just took some chocolate as a gift instead. We were almost at Kisho's place when we heard a loud explosion and Ragu and I both thought that a tyre had burst, but when we got out of the car the tyres were all fine. We found out that the air conditioning unit had blown, and Ragu then made a few phone calls to see if he would be able to get it fixed later today. Kisho's place was just around the corner, so Daya had come to help, and I walked to the apartment, with Ragu and Daya bringing the car, which was still fine to drive. Kisho, his wife, Kanchu, and th...

I had a bit of a longer sleep and a lovely relaxed breakfast at Colombo Swimming Club before heading off in a tuk-tuk to do some final shopping at One Galle Face Mall, where my only disappointment was to find the shop that had always stocked a small selection of Susie Watkins pottery had closed down since I visited last year, which will be disappointing news for my very good friend, Barbara Fox, as I have got her some amazing bargains from there over the years! I'm not a great fan of shopping malls, but today was quite good, as there were lots of small market stalls on two of the floors, so I enjoyed them a lot. After my final shopping spree, I took a tuk-tuk to Fairview Hotel where Daya had planned a surprise 'High Tea' birthday party for Vino (who is 25 tomorrow). I think Vino was genuinely very surprised when she arrived and it was a lovely family occasion, with her father and sister were able to join us as well. We had a brief walk down to the Indian Ocean, which was lo...

I left Kurunegala at 08:00 this morning after one final breakfast at Razeena's next door! I felt a great sense of satisfaction as I left - a recognition of a job well done, which Tim commented on in yesterday's blog. He said that: 'It sounds as if this part of your visit has been really successful', which indeed it has been, but no less so than the first half of my visit this time, where I had an extremely productive time this year working in three of the Tea Leaf Trust Centres. The two types of voluntary work that I do in Sri Lanka are a huge contrast. My generic skills working in education over the past 45 years, including my leadership and management skills, serve me very well working with the Tamil people at the Tea Leaf Centres in the Hill Country, whereas that skill set is even more ideally suited to supporting the majority Sinhalese people at the Royal International School in Kurunegala, and both settings are very important to me. As Yohan drove me to Colombo, ar...