"Lillie"

You may recall we have mentioned Lillie, a girl/young lady (I never know what to call people these days!!) who is a design student on placement with Via Design which is owned by Janet whose house we are renting. Lillie has been here since we have been here and more - in fact 5 months in total but she is off on her journey home this Friday - boo hoo.

Lillie goes to Mumbai this Friday and stays in Pune and then flies home next Monday.

We'll miss Lillie. She has been good fun to be with and we have enjoyed having her around. The kids love her and Sarah and I have really enjoyed her time with her too. She been a real help for Sarah to feel ' a normal Westerner' out here with chats and coffee's and girlie night with Es too.

To say bye to Lillie they (not me!) all went out to the Raintree Cafe which has been set up in a 75-year-old family bungalow. It has various contemporary design and craft products, boutiques, glass furniture and accessories. There is also a cafe - of course!! At least some of us were working. In fact whilst the chicks and Josh were at Raintree, I was sitting in a stuffy restaurant with Raj talking about his plans for the Fishermen Trust for next year!! This was exciting too I hasten to add!

We also had some good friends over for a meal last night. Some of you know Sreeni who we brought to the UK a couple of Christmas's ago. He is now married and they have a gorgeous daughter called Hannah (see previous blog pics of the dedication).

I cooked them Shepherds pie as people who have been to the UK seem to love English grub like that. Amuda not too impressed but she had a curry as well beautifully cooked by Sheila (our home help lady!) closely watched by Es. It was a real art watching her cook a curry. No Pataks sauces going on here I can tell you...

Rob (my trainer friend form the UK) arrives next Friday!! Argghhhh. Now this is scary as Rob coming out has always been seen by us as the 'beginning of the end' out here. Rob is here for a week and him and I are training various groups and then Tina (his wife) and the 3 kids come a week later (11th?) for a further 2 weeks, then they go home and we have a weekend free and my brother comes from China for 10 days and then a few more days and we leave for home!! Oh my goodness. My guts are churning as I write this!!

My biggest challenge now is preparation for all the training we have to do. The first training starts next Saturday and then a full weekend the week after and then the training with the corporates the week after that - our contact has been talking to people at Tesco, Hewlett Packard and Microsoft over here and they will be coming to the training it seems!!

The training I have to prepare for now is:

Developing, safeguarding and promoting your values and mission
Team roles of the Board and staff members
Setting plans and monitoring them
Managing and supporting for staff
Models for reporting Being an effective leader
Being open, honest and accountable
Organisational principles
Developing, safeguarding and promoting your values and mission
Networking and partnerships & Developing projects & planning

There's a heck of a lot to prepare for and only a week to do it in!! Add to this I have just been asked to speak at 2 Church's on Sunday (am and pm) and I'm needing some time. Better stop blogging right now......!!