Tuesday 20th February 2024

I was picked up by the school minibus at 06:30 this morning for the long journey back to Nuwara Eliya, as Sandra was coming too, with Agatha and Yohan, and their daughter Sohaliya. It took around 4 hours, although I slept through quite a bit of the journey, as I was so tired. I had a wonderful time in Kurunegala, but I felt ready to come home to Nuwara Eliya just for one night before heading off to Tea Leaf Centre Bagawantalawa tomorrow morning.

I want to thank everyone who has left me comments on my blog, but also let you know that unless you sign them, I have no clue who has left them. I had two comments today, and I don't know if they were sent by the same person, so please let me know if you sent me a comment today, and I will try to send a message back to you somehow. I only have a few more days of writing my blog now, which is great, as it gets to be a bit of a chore after doing it for over 50 days now.

I was dropped off in Blackpool, and it felt very empty, as  almost everyone has gone to Maskeliya. I sorted out all my stuff before heading into Nuwara Eliya to get my hair cut and do a bit of shopping. Meena was very busy today, so she asked me if I minded getting my dinner in town today, as she was too busy to cook this evening, which of course was fine by me. It will come as no surprise to you that I ended up at The Grand Hotel for a late lunch before heading back.

I had a very quiet evening in, and although Kurunegala was a wonderful experience, the only real negative thing was the fact that I am now covered in mosquito bites, which were incredibly itchy tonight, and left me regretting not heeding Tharika's advice to bring some mosquito repellent with me. I would love to return to Kurunegala at some point, but next time I will be much better prepared for the mosquitoes, as I just couldn't stop scratching this evening.

I didn't take any photographs today, so I will leave you with some of my highlights from the last 10 days in Kurunegala, which has been one of my best weeks out here. 































                                       


Comments

  1. CharlesFebruary 21, 2024 at 12:05 AM

    Gosh, you are stretching yourself by setting off again after such a short interval!
    How about you giving yourself a break from the blog until you return from Bogawantalawa?
    Maybe you are referring to two other comments on yesterday's offering, but my edition shows provides names for two contributors ...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Friday 16th February 2024

Image
It was my final day in the Pre-Primary Department of the Royal International School today, which was kind of sad, as they have been so welcoming, and I have had the most amazing time there. Miss Agatha and Miss Tharika run a very tight team that manages 902 children from Toddlers to Nursery to Lower Kindergarten (LKG) to Upper Kindergarten (UKG) extraordinarily well, and which provides an excellent foundation for these pupils' learning journey. I had a wonderful morning where I was observing Number lessons with the UKG Co-ordinator and the English Co-ordinator (seeing the level of English in the Number lessons). In almost all the lessons, the quality of the teaching was exceptionally high, with the attention to detail - and in particular with the resources they had prepared - quite incredible. And apart from all of that, it was great fun, which is, in my opinion what learning should be for children. I had a nerve-wracking afternoon, as I had to deliver a session on time management
Read more

Wednesday 14th February 2024

Image
My younger granddaughter Esther is 5 years old today, so I messaged her 10-year-old sister Isabella to ask her to wish her a 'Happy Birthday' from me. It was much less of a crazy day today, with a morning filled with lesson observations - this time observing English lessons in the Upper KinderGarten (UKG) classes, which is the equivalent year to Reception, so I could imagine Esther being at school with the children I was with all morning today. It was really useful today to watch the teaching of English to the 5-year-olds, whose level of understanding is already very impressive. As with the Tea Leaf Centres, it is a fully immersive system, so everything is conducted in English, and it is impressive how much English these 5-year-olds already know, in the same way that the progress Tea Leaf students make through the one-year full-time English Diploma is also extremely impressive. If you have been reading my blog, you may remember that Erica, who I had a wonderful weekend with in
Read more

Saturday 6th January 2024

Image
I would say that this was easily my most enjoyable day so far, but it got rather spoiled this evening when I handled an extremely frustrating situation very badly. Let's focus on the good part of the day, because it really was a pleasure to work with Miggy and Stephanie all day, as we went in search of accommodation for Stephanie from next Tuesday 9th January, that we could also recommend to future volunteers who are working with Tea Leaf Trust in the Nuwara Eliya area. We visited 10 different Guest Houses between 10:00 and 16:00, with a brief stop for a delicious buffet lunch (that only cost 500LKR - a round   £1.25 -  per head) in b etween. We found some very suitable accommodation to suit a range of budgets in a variety of locations, but there was one place that was exceptional, where we returned at the end of the day to make a booking for Stephanie, who will go there at the same time as Isabelle, a new volunteer, next Tuesday. Our ideal accommodation (and I would happily stay t
Read more