A good day to you all and hope all is well with everyone.

New Hope seems to be ticking along nicely, but I will be very thankful when Kerry is back at the weekend.I've had a few visitors whilst she's been away and the results of the Sherry/Sith tour has been really great (even though I do say so myself!!)

The first visitors were two ladies, one from Canada who is a Rotarian and does lots of charity work for Cambodia, and her friend from Australia.We showed them our classy establishment and gave them a tour of the slum village that we are based in.The Canadian lady was looking to maybe work with New Hope in some way.The next day when I turned up to school in the afternoon the Australian lady was waiting for me and asked to speak to me………………I thought I was in trouble, like being back at school.Anyway, far from it.She was so impressed with everything we are trying to do that she turned up with a donation of $500 cash!I couldn't believe it and it was perfect timing as we had run out of cash and the doctor needed medicine.

The other visitors were a group who were taking a look at numerous projects around Siem Reap, hoping to add one to their volunteer travel placements.The company is SAGA, which is huge in the UK and could bring in lots of revenue as well as volunteers with a huge range of professional and life skills.The main guy was from Folkestone, not too far from where I live and he took a bit of a shine to me!So I did my best to be girly and play up to it (No, I don't think it helped) and we found out today that we have been chosen which is brilliant news.

Rosanne and I were supposed to go to a wedding of a staff member in Battambang on Sunday, but unfortunately I had a bout of the squits.Not conducive to sitting in a truck for 4 hours, then attending a 48 hour wedding before heading back on Monday evening, so we didn't go.We did however visit a pagoda and get blessed by a monk.It was quite a surreal experience.First we sat on stools with our backs to him and he prayed a Dharma and threw water over us, then he blessed some fine red wool which he tied around our wrists.His hands were shaking as they are not allowed to touch women.Finally he and another monk asked for our e mail addresses as they are both studying English and wanted to practice with us!!!!

We were somewhat disconcerted when a local Khmer asked us if we were married as the red wool can also symbolize this as well as good luck.Rosanne has already asked for a divorce…………………………….