Thursday 30th January 2025

Today has turned out to be my last day in Nuwara Eliya, and what a relaxing day it was, as I was able to get up a bit later for a 09:00 breakfast, before getting on with packing up all my stuff. I do seem to have accumulated rather a lot of stuff over the past 5 years that I have been coming out to Sri Lanka, so I anticipate a 'downsizing' exercise at some point in the near future, although I will almost certainly be leaving more here than I take home with me.

Whilst I was packing, I was very touched to receive a note from Yad inviting me out for lunch to acknowledge 5 years spent supporting Tea Leaf, and to say goodbye until next year, although I hope to see Yad again at Vino and Thila's wedding in Hatton on 10th February. We met at Pizza Hut at 13:00, with Jana, Sutharshan, and Miggy joining us. I enjoyed chatting with them about Tea Leaf and the Cookstove Project, and I have to say that the pizza was excellent!

After lunch, Yad, Jana, and Miggy went one way towards Blackpool, and I walked into town with Sutharshan. I went to Bale Bazaar to buy a couple of gifts at Jude's market stall, and to say goodbye to Raheem. He went shopping with me to get a vesti and a shirt for the wedding (ensuring I got a very good price for them) and he then drove me back up to Sky Heaven, where I completed my packing, just in time to go out for a last dinner in town with Isabelle.

We sat down at The Grand Thai Restaurant at The Grand Hotel, but were advised that there was a large booked party arriving, and we would have to wait more than an hour for our food, so we moved upstairs to The Magnolia Restaurant, where the wait was shorter, and we enjoyed a very pleasant dinner. I walked back up the hill to Sky Heaven with Isabelle for the last time, and we said our goodbyes, as I will be up much earlier for breakfast tomorrow morning than her.

Today's photos are taken after our lovely meal out at The Grand Hotel this evening, and on our walk back to Sky Heaven.








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