Thomas Cook ltd fails.

Thanks, Thomas Cook, for all the flights, more or less on time, for all the help GOES received with generous extra baggage and all the donations from staff at our local travel shop, and for the interest you showed in our work. We'll miss you.

Good Intentions :-)

Greetings :-)

Life has been busy for a few months - celebrating 60 years of marriage takes a while! We will continue to support the excellent clinic at Mandinari village on the south bank of the river, and contributing support for an equally excellent nursery school on the outskirts of Serekunda town. We haven't forgotten GOES but we have decided to modify our attempts to help everyone all the time!
Our celebrations actually raised some very kind donations, which we used to restock the medecine cuboard at the clinic and replace some roofing at the school - you know who you are, thank you.

Another time-occupier has been age-proofing the house and garden. Steps seem steeper these days, and walking can be a wobbly affair. We were refused a Blue Badge, which would have been helpful, but we now have a Rollator walking device and the local bus service is excellent.

We've fitted grab rails at the doors and over the bath, and extra hand rails on the stairs. Next job is the replace the front and back doors - and we'll make some modifications to the back yard. We had fitted some wild flowers and butterfly bushes, and insect hotels --- we can't walk there now and birds have eaten all the apples and butterflies have feasted on the figs. Goblin Market - J loathed that poem long before we became a wilderness.ch

The Malinding books, which I enjoyed writing (with the thought that they might help finance GOES) have proved to be unreadable failures (Proof? Nobody bought them), but the friends of GOES rallied round and helped support our tithes.

Life in our eighties is good - we have slowed down, we're listening to the 5th Test Match on R4 as I write this - and I've put my glass of alcohol-free Pinot in some safe place somewhere - it's a small house but I manage to lose lots of things, including most of my socks, the Stone-age flint scraper that inspired part of the Girl on Wheels story, and my fountain pen. Still, I've got time to find them now. Did I celebrate discovering my treasured but mis-placed 1958 copy of The Chatto Book of Modern Poetry? Must find the faux-wine and celebrate ...