A couple of weeks ago I went to the official dedication of the new building that we built at the scout campsite as part of the Project Nepal experience. It was really lovely to see everyone again and I will post some further pics of the building on my Project Nepal web page. The main structure is finished but it still needs work on the interior and landscaping.

This is a pic of me next to the stone in the building that I carved my initials on. You can’t see them but they are there honest!

We had a lovely evening with a fab meal and talk by Doug Scott, the mountaineer who set up Community Action Nepal the charity we worked with , who showed us some of his pics of mountains. We also saw the videos that were made of both the build in the UK – over the 12 months of the project- and the build in Nepal – over the 2 weeks we were in the village. That was just brilliant to see and brought back so many memories. It was a very emotional moment. I am very glad that I was able to go given all that happened last summer and it was such an amazing experience. It was so good in so many ways – re-affirming my faith in myself and my restored health, the fact that I managed all the very hard physical work given the state of my mobility a few years ago, and just brilliant fun as well.

There is another project planned which will start later this year – I would love to be involved in some way but don’t know if I would be able to go to Nepal with them again. Lots of things are still very up in the air with job and future plans so can’t really make any definite arrangements for Oct 2010 at this point but hopefully I can help with the project anyway.

As well as the success of the project in terms of the building we did there were some lovely outcomes that no-one expected. We were saying at the evening that there definitely must have been something in the water out there in Nepal as three romances came out of the project  , two between project participants and one between one of the project members and one of the Nepalese team who looked after us out there. Kim went back to Nepal in Feb and married Bijou and she is now waiting for his visa to be sorted so he can come to the UK.

There were also two weddings, one just before and one soon after (and that couple now have a baby on the way!) I think that the reason why all of this happened is that when you are halfway round the world away from all the people you love you realise what is important in your life and what you want to hang on to. It is lovely that there was so much happiness from the project.

Things have been busy at work but my full time students have finished – they bought me some lovely presents which was very kind of them.

They know me very well and bought me some very nice wine and the most enormous glasses to drink it from.

We are away this weekend at Ashby de La Zouche Castle with the re-enactment group – I am nearly done with the packing for this and we will be there till Monday evening. Hopefully we will have some good weather as it has rained really badly most of the week here!

Hope you all have a fun Bank Holiday!

Apologies for the lack of posts recently. Have been back from Nepal for a while but returned to various technical issues including lack of PC and Internet and since those have been fixed have been trying to find time to put together a summary of my trip including whittling down the 800 odd pics I took to a selection for this blog. I have finally done it so please visit the page – it will take a couple of minutes to load as there are about 50 pics on it. Unfortunately I have had to change my site theme so that you can see the link to the new page – don’t like this one as much but will work on it.

What was it like? Very much as I imagined it to be – I have read so much about the country and seen so many pics that much was as I expected. Was not expecting such lovely hotels and restaurants – a lot of it was much more sophisticated and we had swimming pools and lovely food when we were in Kathmandu and Pokhara as well as the roughing it in the village.

The work was as hard as I had expected and it was very, very hot but we coped and I am very proud of myself for being able to do this project. Two years ago I had major health problems that meant I was walking with a stick and in considerable pain so the fact that I went at all makes me very pleased. I would also like to thank my Mum and lovely children who supported me so much in wanting to make the trip. You are all fab and I really, really missed you while I was away.

Life changing experience no – don’t want life to change any more have had enough changes for a while! Life affirming yes – very much so, have come back stronger, physically and mentally and knowing that I was able to do something really special.

I will leave you with a few recent pics – one from graduation this year with my students – my last as the Foundation Course leader as I have gone part-time for this year.

 The next is my lovely kids again – this was taken on a recent night out. They are still so supportive and have been so wonderful this year.

 We went to a friend’s wedding reception on Sunday – congratulations to Nick and Clare from the Team Falchion re-enactment group. We had a great time and this is me and my lovely kids in our medieval costumes as it was a fancy dress event.

Promise that there will be regular updates from now on – as long as my internet does not die again!