Snowboarding weekend

From Feb 25-27 I went snowboarding in Meribel, France. As last year I took an overnight coach from London. Booked it with skiweekends.com. This is a fantastic deal - one day off work three days on the slopes! My boarding has improved dramatically this year. Happy to take red runs at speed and not falling over or stopping all the time!!

The weekend was booked a long time ago and I thought about not going after the traumas and drain of the trip to Sri Lanka. However I'm glad I did go - The Mountains and the boarding did me the power of good.

Sri Lanka Tsunami & School Visit

My trip to Sri Lanka!

I went to Uswathul hasana High School in Kotagoda, Nr galle, Sri Lanka. Thi sis where MKPS had sent their Shoe Boxes full of gifts. I traveled with Phil Pauley of MKPS to capture some of the sights and images of the Tsunami effected school and the region. We went to make sure we got feedback to the kids at MKPS as to how welcome their gifts were and what a great impact they made on the children there that (in many cases) had lost everything

Philip Pauley, Operations manager at Milton Keynes Prep, who traveled with me to Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is a beautiful country with wonderful sights - like this elephant! the people are all very welcoming too.

Unbelievable distruction

This is the rear of Uswathul Hasana High School. There was a classroom block that stood in the foreground. The Tsunami made it unsafe and the US marines had to take it down. The playground is littered with rubble and debris

All the boxes from Milton Keynes Prep made it and were handed out, by the teachers there, Phil Pauley and I, to the 500plus Children of Uswathul hasana High School

Sam's box went to a family who had a 4 year old boy

Lucy's box was given to a 6 year old girl who'd been orphaned.

Charlie's Box made it too!

The Kids were realy pleased with our presents

Caitlin's Three!

Caitlin's 3rd Birthday Party was on Saturday 12th Feb. We all went down to South Wales for the day and had a great time at her fancy dress party.

Cake time!

Caitlin's party was a Princes and Princesses (and Wizards and Power Rangers) Party! We had a great time.

Power Cut!

Well that was an interesting weekend! Because the kids were going to a party with Niam and Chris I didn't pick them up until 4:30 on Saturday. Which is fine, except when we got back to Ampthill there was no electricity - anywhere! It turns out the whole of mid Beds was out, about 20,000 people effected! We had a fine adventure though with the fire in the lounge and bedroom going, lots of candles and my camping stove to make tea on! Charlie discovered he could use his watch light to see by - it was that dark - which ment I was woken by a strange green circular glow advancing towards me on Sunday! Power didn't come back on until 12:30. However it was just in time for a fabulous roast pork lunch :-)