Friday 29th November 2019

I had a more relaxing day today after the excitement of Gobi and Kavi’s wedding yesterday, as I felt very tired today. It has been an exhilarating 3 months, but also quite exhausting and I find myself looking forward to returning home more than ever now, although I know I will miss Sri Lanka enormously.

I had a relaxing morning at the Guest House, then in the afternoon, I went to the Tea Leaf Vision School in Maskeliya and worked there for a little while. I gave them the ‘Welcome’ banner I had made for them and Daya helped me put it up in the entrance. All too soon, it was time to say my final goodbyes to all the staff there. I have enjoyed my trips to Maskeliya very much and it is certainly somewhere I am looking forward to returning to next time I come to Sri Lanka.

I left in a tuk-tuk with Daya in order to go home with him to meet his family and have a bit of food. We ate something called iddly, which Daya told me was a favourite meal for him. They reminded me a little bit of dumplings and were served with chatni and dahl, which I love. It was a delicious meal and it was lovely to visit Daya’s home, as I can now picture him there when I am back at home in Bath.

From Daya's home, I took a tuk-tuk to River View Nature Resort, where I am staying for the next couple of nights. It is in a beautiful location, right beside a fast-flowing river, which I could see from a small balcony off my room. I could also hear it all the time I was in my room, which I found very relaxing. It is certainly a lovely place to stay for my final weekend here in Sri Lanka and I will include some photographs of it tomorrow.









Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saturday 5th October 2024

Image
It's my fifth trip to Sri Lanka, but on this occasion I am at last joined by my wife, Valerie, and it will be lovely not to be on my own this time. We flew out of London Heathrow Airport one hour late at 22:30 UK time on Friday, and after a rather excruciating eleven hour flight, we eventually landed at Colombo Airport just after 13:30 Sri Lankan time on Saturday. I slept for a few hours on the journey, but Valerie struggled to get any sleep at all. Sandra Wanduragala met us at Colombo Airport, and we drove into Colombo for a couple of hours - meeting up with her daughter, Selena, at the Good Market, which we really enjoyed and would love to go back to. We then went back to Selena's home, where it was good to be able to freshen up a little bit, and enjoy a nice cup of tea, before our driver, Rohan drove us to Kurunegala, where we will be based for the next two months. Arriving in Kurunegala, we met up with my good friend Tharika and her daughter, Evinka, to have dinner at Sri B...
Read more

Tuesday 27th February 2024

Image
There isn't too much to report on for this first of two full days in Colombo, so today's blog will be very different, as it will be an attempt to tell you a little bit about 'my story' and why Blackpool has a special significance for me in my life. Each one of us has our own story, and many of you reading this blog will be aware of some of mine, but for others it may come as a bit of a surprise, as I don't often share it, although it is quite a fascinating one. My story today begins with the torn photograph below: As you can probably tell, this is a very old photograph (and not the clearest, sadly) taken at the wedding of Thomas Ryan (born on 27th April 1871) to his first wife Bridget in 1901. This photograph is taken outside the family farmstead in Coolnadown, near Emly, in County Tipperary in Ireland. Thomas (the tallest guy, third from the left in the picture) is my grandfather. To the left of him is Patrick Ryan (my great grandfather) who was 79 in the 1901 cens...
Read more

Thursday 10th October 2024

Image
We were due to move across to the Junior Department today, but they were still heavily involved with their concert performances, so we were back in the Pre-Primary Department for one final day, with a much lighter programme. In fact, we started with one of the Upper Kintergarten classes performing a Class Assembly in the auditorium on the top floor of the building, which was delightful. They even got us to give out some awards to the children. At the end of yesterday's concert performance in the Town Hall, and at the end of the Class Assembly this morning, everyone stood for the Sri Lankan national anthem. I don't know if it is the longest national anthem in the world, but it must be high up there. The children certainly sang it with gusto, and their enthusiasm was quite infectious. I think having us around is really quite a novelty for them, and we are warmly greeted wherever we go in the school. There were queues of people wanting to say goodbye to us at the end of the day - ...
Read more