So this is November . . . ?

It is hard to imagine cold rainy England with all the Christmas lights up and the shops full of spangley stuff. We have to remember it’s cold there when we are struggling with missing rubbing mossie repellent on 4 times a day, pollution, language barriers, cockroaches, unsafe car travel and missing everyone. It helps!

We just can't stop him from loving everything mechanical - motorbikes, tuk-tuks, cars. Now he's even got his new girlfriend biking!

Look - he can walk . . .
All by himself! It's amazing!
Since last week, Joseph has just taken off.
He's loving his new found freedom and
getting up to all sorts of mischief.

Fancy a holiday with a 4 poster bed?

We have moved into our home. Hooray. It is owned by a muslim antique dealer, so although it is smallish, it is really beautifully kitted out – lots of tasteful woodwork and furniture - doors with lattice work above and amazing four poster beds. It’s right on the main street, in the quiet, crumbling 600 year old fort area of the town, so Joe and I can jump out onto our doorstep for wanders and company whenever we want. Our Tuk Tuk travel has been greatly reduced, so that's more peaceful! It’s also really nice to be able to make a cup of tea
Our narrow, long lounge whenever we want it. UHT
milk though.

We even managed to get a decent oven and washing machine
(which currently makes a bid for freedom when we switch it on)

Antique dining room en-semble

We had our house help start. On day 1 I had to resist the urge all day to give her a big hug as I was so grateful for her help with cleaning the house so that we could unpack. On day 2 (yesterday) I started to get frustrated that she does things differently to me, and is just a presence in the house – so we are never alone, and she doesn’t really get things clean. My feet are literally black at the end of the day from the floors. I am going to give her a lesson in floor scrubbing. The good thing is, she wants me to tell her how I like things done. She cooked us dinner too. Can’t complain.

Tiny balcony overlooking
- erm, well not much really.

I have found a great Sinhala teacher and started lessons. "Kohomede" – means "How are you?". "Hondaiy" – means "fine". Good eh? It’s a zinch!! Do you think it will take me long to learn how to say "well I'm really hacked off about being eaten alive by mosquitoes, whilst swatting hordes of flies in the sweltering heat - and by the way, how come it's done nothing but rain here, in this "sun-soaked paradise", since we arrived?" (With a perfect smile on my face of course).

On Friday I bumped into a University friend, Rosie, who I had lost touch with after University. She’d been living in Birkenhead since then, but we met at the beach in Sri Lanka! She lives here too, 6 hours away, but we will meet up regularly I think.

Some of Mike's photos here. Looks like he's been busy taking photos instead of getting on with building things (only kidding!).

A water tower . . . !

Laying a new water main to a new housing estate in the south west.

A house - to be supplied by the water main and a new water tower.

Joseph's been adopted by our friends/ Mike's
colleague's children. This is their youngest, Joy,
aged 6, giving him a cuddle.


We are so fortunate to have the only gorgeous hotel, just across the road from our house. Sadly it's high western prices and they won't let us use their pool, but their coffee, cake and ambience are worth the price once in a while.

One of our most helpful friends is Niluk, our regular tuk-tuk driver. He completely loves Joseph and adores cuddling him, and asks us if he can carry him whenever he's asleep. Poor old Niluk's getting broody . . . got to find him a wife now . . .




Next week we have been asked to down tools and literally head for the hills as it's Presidential Election week. Some of Mike’s colleagues are off to Singapore and the Maldives! We want to make the most of a week in Sri Lanka, so are heading for the hills, tea plantations and ancient cities. So we won’t write more for a couple of weeks, but the next blog should have some good photos!

It's been tricky getting onto the internet for the last 5 days in a row, so blog posting may continue to be sporadic. We'll try and post photos here, but they take ages to upload on slow connections. Thankfully Mike's got to Colombo to post this one.