Wednesday 4th February 2026

There are wall clocks in the lounge and the two bedrooms in the apartment. Yesterday when the maintenance guy was here, I noticed that the clock in the spare bedroom wasn't working, so I asked him for a battery. He came back with one almost immediately - like magic! This morning, I woke up and looked at the clock in my bedroom, which had been working fine when I woke up the previous morning, but had now stopped - and guess what - there was no battery in it!

I think that little story pretty much sums up the standard of the Maintenance Department here, but let's just be generous and call them 'resourceful'! It certainly got my day off with a chuckle, and what a beautiful morning it was on Independence Day here in Sri Lanka. I had only had one hour-long meeting yesterday afternoon, and it was clearly such an overwhelming, exhausting experience that I was rewarded with a day off today, but I was going to make the most of it!

Madam Sandra had invited me to take a trip with her and her uncle Palitha (85 in April!) to the 'Nomadic School in Reflecting Life', which is similar to what we would classify as a 'Forest School'. I had been there twice before, but this time Wasantha, who runs the place, showed us round and took us on a walk through the jungle, which was absolutely fabulous. We came back to a very pleasant lunch, then returned to Kurunegala, where I had on online Tea Leaf meeting at 16:00.

What had been a rather wonderful day ended with an evening barbecue at Madam Sandra's home, which was very entertaining as 3 of Ravi's old schoolfriends were there, and they had some very funny stories to tell about their time at the Royal International School. It was fun being with them and I very much enjoyed everyone's company this evening. Madam Sandra's brother gave me a lift back to my apartment and I ended up having another very early night.

Today's photographs were all taken at my lovely trip to the jungle.











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