Sorry for the delay in writing, but lots has been happening! Some good, some bad but that really is the order of things over here. So, to start with the good. New Hope is the same as ever…..the kids are great and I’m getting back into the swing of things. I did my Santa Claus bit and handed out shoes to the barefoot……photos to follow. The water is slowly receding and things are returning to normal for us, but not necessarily for the locals. The rice...

Well, I'm finally here and I have to say it's been a bit of a shock. The flooding is really bad and as the plane came in over the province all I could see was water with the odd tree poking out here and there. Anyway, back to the beginning. I flew out of Gatwick late on Tuesday, had a 2 hour layover in Dubai then flew on to Bangkok. Emirates proved to be every bit as good as Singapore Air and I wiled away the hours watching The Wrestler (not too sure about it...

Firstly, I wuld like to pointout that I've managed to crawl out of bed to write this as I have a ful/cold type thing and am feeling shocking. No swine flu comments please as they don't have it over here yet. The mayhem that is rice collection day at New Hope occurred on Friday and I must tell you of the boy who made me say "Ah bless" and that doesn't happen very often!! All the rice had been collected and there were a few stragglers left as well as a...

Apologies for the delay in writing, but I haven't been on the internet much of late. I also now can't remember what I've done in the last couple of weeks so this may be a bit haphazard and all over the place! The main event was Jillian leaving. She was a sobbing wreck and didn't want to go, having been here for the last 12 weeks. New Hope remains the same as ever, except I have now opened Sherry's Boutique. There was a van load of donated toiletries, books, ...

I would like to begin by apologising to anyone who viewed my site last time as you have probably seen all the temple photos before!! However I am slightly peeved that it only seems to be uploading every third picture. Anyway, enough complaining. We left at 0500 on Sunday to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat and I had high hopes as last time it was very disappointing. Well, quite honestly I should have stayed in bed as it was much the same as previously. One minu...