Sunday 19th January 2025

It was great fun having some of Tea Leaf's senior staff members staying with us at Sky Heaven, and we enjoyed sitting together for breakfast around 09:00. We then got ready to go to the Mariners' Restaurant, by Lake Gregory, where there was a get-together for senior staff at Tea Leaf to enjoy spending a day relaxing at a lovely venue (despite the awful weather). We were due there at 10:30, but the tuk-tuks were rather late arriving, so we didn't get there until after 11:00. 

It was rather fortuitous that we were delayed, because just as we were leaving Gav arrived at Sky Heaven. He is doing a sponsored walk from the northernmost point to the southernmost point of Sri Lanka, and is staying 3 nights at Sky Heaven, with Nuwara Eliya being roughly half-way through his Sri Lankan adventure. It was a pleasure to meet him, and he could have come with us, but he needed a hot shower, and some time to rest before he joined us later on in the day.

Many of the other Tea Leaf staff were already there when we arrived, and it was lovely for me to catch up with a few that I hadn't yet seen. Everyone chatted for a while, with many playing pool, before we gathered to watch Magic Kumara, a magician who had been booked as today's entertainment. He treated us to a whole raft of magic tricks, but his style of delivery was very amusing, and his poker-faced assistant, who didn't crack a smile the whole time, was hilarious!

After the excitement of Magic Kumara, we had a fabulous lunch, then simply chilled out for the remainder of the afternoon. Gav eventually arrived, and I ended up accompanying him, as Krishan drove us to Yad's house in Blackpool to pick up some of his stuff, including his laptop, that I had collected for him in Colombo a couple of weeks ago. As I am going to Tea Leaf Centre Bogawantalawa tomorrow for the week, I will not be around to see him, but he will be well looked after.

Donald has edited the interview he filmed with me last Sunday (12th January) and he has now uploaded it onto his YouTube platform. I think he did a great job of it, and the link to listen to it is below:

https://youtu.be/ZhOBmuQYtc0?si=5sKY5MfUOA2aOCEH

All of today's photos are from our excellent day at Mariner's Restaurant.









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