hope you realise I have had to give up my pre dinner drink at the local bar to catch up on my emails and blog!.............. a great sacrifice as I could feel the need for an Arak and Sprite half way through the class :o).

anyway the rest of the weekend went well. Sunday we got up again at 5.30 to get a quick walk in before heading back south towards home. Stopped at a National Park where we went on a 3 hour jeep safari in search of leopards................... saw a paw print .............. cobra snake, couple of jeckyls, eagles, water buffalo and lots of elephants ............... no leopard though. It was a nice change and then back on the road then for another 5 hours and had dinner at my favourite beach and then another hour until we got home......................... completely frazzled .............. all of us were like zombies the next day ..................... Marches weekly routine is becoming more and more appealing!!

Monday no building site as the work is pretty well completed. we dug out the old foundations last week and it is ready for the new build hopefully in 3-4 weeks time. it is being funded by a netherlands charity and local tradesman will be doing it. Dudley wants to move on and develop the community centre now to encourage the local women to produce things to sell and encourage the locals to move on and help them to help themselves. He has plans to build another community centre further down the coast in the future.

Anyway I am not sad about seeing the last of the building site. this week we have been trying to render the wall that surrounds the play area. One of the volunteers is able to do it and silly me wanted to have a go aswell ............................... thought I would learn something new .................... not so easy........................ takes a lot of practice and working with coarse sand and cement does nothing for your hands and I have now lost all my nails!!!!!

Thinking I had done my share of trying to get it to stick to the walls (using my hands and fingers at times) I thought someone else would like to have a go ....................... no one came forward so i carried on for a couple more hours and finally managed to get the hang of it albeit doesnt look entirely professional. I have now been nominated to help James finish it off ................. my hands the next day were so sore, didnt realise I was taking off some of my skin and the acid in the cement makes them even worst ............ dread to think what they are going to look like when I finish ........................ might have to resort to rubber gloves but they make your hands sweat so much .................... I know I am beginning to winge. I am going to take a photo of my efforts though as a momento.

this weekend I planned to have a nice quiet time on my own at a local spa hotel pampering myself as a christmas treat. england is playing cricket at galle this week which is about an hour away from here so all the hotels are booked and doubling their prices so I have had to cancel. I am now going up with the rest of them to a beach north of colombo and then spending sunday shopping in colombo .................. not the same. I will have to treat myself in a couple of weeks............. if I last that long. Next weekend we plan on climbing Adams Peak which means setting off on the walk at 2 am to reach the top by sun rise................... they are suppose to be beautiful sun rises. It is a well known pilgrimage site for the sri lankans and so will be quite busy, it seems the path is lit up all the way to the top.................... looking foward to that but not sure if I will have enough energy.

Well dinner has just been served so I had better go before it gets cold. Hope you all have a wonderful christmas and catch up in the new year................. I will be home before you know it!!

Take care

Rose x

• colombo
• shopping