Sunday 18th January 2026

As far as Sundays go, this was an extremely relaxing one, and it got off to a great start with a very chilled morning at Daya's. I left there around 11, as Ragu drove me to Dreamspace in Hatton, on his way home with Daya to Colombo, where Daya was going to give wedding invitations to his uncles and cousins. My job was to help Donald produce a couple of promotional videos for a Public Speaking course and a Robotics course, which was very enjoyable.

Kawya, Ladushan's wife, was already at Dreamspace taking a Robotics class with a group of young lads, and Ladushan joined us afterwards, as we went on to Ladushan's family home for lunch. This was mainly because he has recently been in hospital with an, as yet, undiagnosed heart problem, for which he needs to receive further tests, and we wanted to check up on him to see how he was and to extend our best wishes to him for a speedy recovery to good health.

Spending time with families here is such a special experience, as it never just seems to be mum, dad, and the kids. You have uncles, aunties, cousins (who are often more like brothers and sisters, as in Daya's families), and friends and neighbours dropping in and out all the time. At Daya's this morning, there were too many people to note them all down, and at Donald's this afternoon, there were his parents, his sister's family and Ladushan and Kawya with me, of course.

I returned to Norwood by tuk-tuk - it was a very pleasant 20-minute journey, and I spent the late afternoon and the evening with Daya's family, and particularly with his youngest cousin/sister, Chinu, and her daughter, Deepthisha, who was very keen to show me some of her dance moves. She showed me videos of various family occasions where everyone was on the dance floor - young and old - all enjoying dancing to the great music that you get here.

Today's photographs show us making promotional videos at Dreamspace, my time at Donald's family home, where I had the most delicious lunch (some of the best food I have eaten in Sri Lanka has been in Donald's mother's kitchen), and a lovely one of Chinu and Deepthisha.










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