A good start to the day!

Before I was properly awake this morning (half-way through the porridge and only one cup of coffee ...) a very cheerful voice on the 'phone from our local medical centre - do we want a set of baby-scales to take to The Gambia?  They'll try to find some other first-aid stuff such as wound dressings too. A great start to the day!
 We've recently started to correspond with a chap who designs book covers - he's bought the first in the Malinding series (Empty Bananas) and he'll see how to improve on my homemade efforts ...
 We have more spectacles to pick up from the Salvation Army meeting house - thanks, Stuart, we've not forgotten.
 Been away from home for a few days and managed to write another 5k words for the latest book; still a long way to go!
 So, as the sun is shining we've decided to get the bikes out and go for a ride ...

Packing time again.

All being well we will soon escape the rain and head for Gambian sunshine. Thomas Cook again helped us to find a great deal, which means we can visit our West African projects. Our funds are down a little so we won't be taking on any new work but we're going to make sure that we keep promises made last time. The clinics and schools, together with the on-going medical care we've already embarked on will continue to be supported. As I've mentioned before, the hardest part of this job is saying 'no' to somebody who really needs help. Whenever that happens we try to find another charity which may be able to help. Over the past years we've found who we can trust ...
 We're waiting for TC's final decision on extra baggage but we do have room for more medical tackle - reading glasses, wound dressings, Paracetamol and so on. Talking about drugs we've had a problem obtaining out anti-malarials this year. For the last fifteen years or so we've toddled along to our local surgery, been checked over by a nurse, been given a prescription and received our tablets from a pharmacy; done in a day. This year the travel clinic has closed. We put in a request for a prescription - received a 'phone call - 'That's not the way we do it! Go to your pharmacy and ask to be examined there.' We made an appointment. The Pharmacist seemed to be surprised but took full medical history, put in a request to the surgery. His request was refused - he hadn't filled in the right form. He didn't know about this new form and the surgery didn't offer him one. He consulted the other pharmacists he knew; 'What form?'
 Back he went to the surgery - they had the form! He called me, we filled the form in - all the information requested was already in the medical records held by the surgery ... we're waiting the stipulated 48 hours to find out if this time we're lucky. Comment fails me - perhaps you can guess what I'm thinking?

The sun shines but I go to work!

You might think that at my age I'd have more sense! Still, there's another book to be finished. In it Ed's eldest son, Ed-Lamin, has finished Uni in England and has settled down to live happily ever after with Jane, his beautiful girlfriend. There was a General Election six months ago but the people of England were either too lazy to vote or too disillusioned to care. So, as a result, an extremist party - the Purity People's Party - gained power and set about ridding the country of 'undesirable aliens' by rounding them up into concentration camps. Ed-Lamin is captured by manages to escape by  -  well, that would be telling and I need you to buy the book and support GOES! Anyway, it may or may not end happily!
 So, that's why I've spent a sunny day indoors. The pile of reading glasses donated by kind people in Cheshire for use by short-sighted people in West Africa grows - more please. We're not sure that we'll be able to take heavy stuff like reference books out this time because we've not heard from Thomas Cook about an extra baggage allowance yet. Fingers crossed. Light stuff we can manage in our pockets - mobile phones (always welcome), memory sticks, spectacles and such like, please !

100% means every penny!

There has been a lot of publicity recently about charitable funds being used to provide people who should have known better with luxuries such as first class flights and the like.
Every penny that is given to GOES is used to benefit needy people in The Gambia. Every pair of reading glasses we receive goes first to a clinic then to someone with fading eyesight. We promise you that any donation given to GOES is used exactly as we promise. We pay our own way. We pay for our flights, accommodation and food. We travel about by local taxi. In addition we tithe our income to the charity.
Thanks for your time - just wanted to make things clear!
Best wishes,
Tom.

Chance conversations

It's always worthwhile mentioning The Gambia when chatting to people. Today, for instance, I mentioned our work with GOES and found that the lady attending to my poorly toes is a member of a charity which funds medical work all over the world - including The Gambia. I looked at their wbsite, FMS - Festival Medical Services - so I've registered with them. Who knows what comes from a few words?
Joyce is riding her bike in a fund-raising cycle ride: about 20 miles on Sunday. She hopes to feed the GOES bank account before we go out again in December.
The first batch of Poems and Prose from VRWG sold well and we're hoping to have the next edition on sale in time for Christmas - wonderful presents!
The collection of old reading glasses is growing well, we could do with a few more old mobile 'phones, hint, hint!