Week Beginning 27th April 2009 Happy Birthday Dad for 30th and hope you had a safe trip back to Blighty from Thailand. Congratulations Lisa and Bradley with arrival of second-born Hettie Lilymina in NZ. Our landline telephone is working again!! Some things never change wherever you happen to be: we still have a cup of tea in bed at 6.30 a.m; we have egg on toast (alternate days for scrambled/poached) followed by peanut butter on toast for breakfast; w...

Sunday 19th April Well an eventful day when we decided to take a stroll along the road to Mirande - about an hour's walk. As usual along the way everyone greeted us, smiled and shook our hands and some spoke to us. A tree had fallen across the road in the night so some people were cutting it up and stacking the branches - no doubt for repairing or building their bush houses. Further along the road we met a few more people, one of whom was wearing a parrot on his...

Week beginning 13.04.09 (Holiday Week) We travelled to Madang in a PMV (Public Motor Vehicle). It was a 15 seater but 21 people made the 11 hour journey. In Goroka it picked up some passengers and took one to her settlement home and we all waited while she packed, said a tearful (long) goodbye to her family and came aboard with her baby and a toddler. The PMV stopped fairly frequently for refreshments, toilet breaks (behind a bush) and altogether it was a go...

Easter Sunday Happy Easter everyone. Just a quick update as access to internet has been difficult for some weeks now2. At the moment we're in Madang, having travelled down here on Thursday to stay with freinds for a few days. The journey took about 11 hours with no leg room - even for us - a travel bag on our lap the whole journey, no toilets to stop at and getting hotter and hotter as we approached Madang. We're enjoying a few days of comparitive luxury with r...

Week beginning 30th March 2009 Some snippets!People collect old drink cans as they get money back for them. We put ours out on the veranda in a plastic bag and the old man who does the garden was delighted - he smiled from ear to ear and shook our hands and was really made up. We have to drink more coke! The boys and the old people in the town scavenge for discarded cans. They flatten them with bare feet which looks painful but we did see a crafty lad throw his ...