Saturday 5th October 2024

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 Bajra Dosai, where I enjoyed a cheese and onion dosai, and Valerie had a rather spicy biriani dish. It has been lovely to introduce her to key people like Sandra and Tharika today, as I have been talking about these people for some time now, and it is good for her to be able to finally meet people in person that she has only heard about from me so far.

We didn't get to the apartment where we are staying in Kurunegala until 21:30, and we both felt pretty exhausted by then. It was also very dark by then, and although the apartment itself looks lovely, and is extremely conveniently situated for the Royal International School, where we will be helping out over the next two months, we weren't able to see what sort of environment we were living in, although I know it will be a very pleasant one!

I am changing the way I do my blog this time, as I have put myself under too much pressure previously by trying to write my blog (and my daily diary) before the end of each day. This time I am making it easier for myself by writing it each day for the day before, so that I can fit it in whenever I have a few moments during the day, and not be trying to complete it each night before I go to sleep!

The photos element of my blog remains the same with each entry accompanied by some photographs that fit in with the text, so today's photos are of our relaxing time with Sandra and her family at The Good Market, and our evening meal with Tharika and her daughter, Evinka.