Keith in Sri Lanka

Today marked the 60th and final day of our amazing 2-months visit to Sri Lanka. We had a rather rushed breakfast, as we were being picked up at 09:00 by a friend of Ragu's to take us to the airport. Everything went very smoothly, with the quickest check-in I have experienced there (in the past I have had to endure long queues). The flight took off almost an hour late, but that's not unusual, and it actually made up the time, as we landed back at Heathrow just before 19:30. We had decided to get a transfer home to Bath, and our friend Ahmed, who is a taxi driver, was there to meet us. After such a long journey to Heathrow, it made sense not to wait for another 2-3 hours to get a coach back from the Heathrow Coach Station (which I have done previously, and is a bit of a killer in terms of exhaustion). We had a very relaxed ride home with Ahmed, and got back to our flat a mere 18.5 hours after leaving Colombo Swimming Club this morning! It seems strange writing my final blog entry...

This was our final full day in Sri Lanka, and we were keen to relax as much as possible ahead of tomorrow's 11-hour flight home. We had a leisurely breakfast, then Valerie went for a long swim, whilst I completed yesterday's blog and my diary, and also rearranged my luggage in preparation for tomorrow's journey. I was keen to buy a present that we had seen at One Galle Face for someone, so we took a tuk-tuk there, with our first lady driver during these past 2 months. We didn't spend too long at One Galle Face before taking another tuk-tuk to Marino Mall, where we did some final Christmas shopping, before enjoying a coffee and cake overlooking the Indian Ocean - on an extremely hot day. We got a final tuk-tuk back to Colombo Swimming Club and sat outside having a drink and eating some devilled cashew nuts, which we both agreed were one of the most delicious snacks that we had encountered during our time out here. Balraj Arunasalam from the Rotary Club Colombo West arriv...

We were pretty tired today, so we slept in for much longer than usual, and then had a leisurely breakfast around 09:30. Valerie had hoped to go swimming before breakfast, but she was just too tired this morning. After breakfast, we relaxed for a while in the downstairs lobby area, and I completed yesterday's blog, and wrote a couple of thank you cards for today's visits. We were due at Aruni's place for lunch at 11:30, but we eventually got there around 12:15. It was lovely to see Aruni and her husband Babu, and to meet the new addition to their family, a baby boy named Yeshwanth, who was born on 9th October. We also met Aruni's mother, who has been staying with them for the past 5 months, and is a big help to her. We had a lovely lunch, the highlight of which was some amazing 'buttered chicken', and Babu had to go to work then, but we spent a long time chatting with Aruni through the afternoon. Ragu arrived to pick us up, and it was nice for him to see Aruni, a...