Approaching The Finishing Line

John blogs …

Easy start to the day, more catching up of blog and photo editing – not so many left to delete or crop now. Pleased to have kept on top of this during the exchange.

Autographs of Sri Lanka cricket team

Jenny went for lunch with her hosts whilst the rest of us met up at Cinnamon Grand with our Sri Lanka cricket team shirts in the hope of getting autographs. This had been set up beforehand by Adam and Nadira – many thanks – and we were all pretty excited about this, though none of us had ever done it before. Pens and shirts in hand we pounced! Forming a barrier that the players couldn’t get through before boarding their coach to take them to a practice. Most of them were very polite and gracious about being bombarded by us. Thankyou. We plan to auction these for good causes when we return home.

Mount Lavinia beach in Colombo

Then a quick couple of slices of pizza from the Food Hall, then Claire left us to return the laptop, sort photos and meet a distinguished Sri Lankan photographer, whilst the three of us went to Mount Lavinia beach for a couple of hours. The second oldest hotel after the Galle Face Hotel, it still retains an elegance from colonial days. Onto the beach for a beer and relax but the waves were too strong to go in. Jenny joined us there and the girls had a swim in the pool which they said was the best pool they’d been to during their time here.

Thanks and presenting gifts to Suresh

Home to change before the GSE Alumni farewell dinner. A lovely evening and a chance to meet some of our hosts and friends that we’d made during this exchange. A Chinese meal was preceded by a few words and speeches from Imthiaz (District Governor), Suresh (GSE Chair) and myself. I presented Suresh with cricket shirt, cricket book, signed photograph and ceramic bowl as thankyou gifts from the whole team and spent the rest of the evening in easy conversations. It was really great to see so many familiar faces. Imthiaz sends best wishes to Chris and Steph Fairhead and gave high praise to the team for 'being the best from the UK in many years'. Well done team.

And suddenly it’s all over … well not quite … there’s tomorrow’s flight to endure and the anxiety of getting everyone home safely.

A final photo for Imthiaz's blog

We’re all looking really forward to seeing our wives/partners and there are hopes from a couple of the girls that the long absence may even prompt marriage proposals. Watch this space.

The team are meeting again in about 10 days to plan our presentation at our District Conference and they’ll also be involved in sharing their experiences at various Club meetings over the next few months. We’ve the GSE evaluations still to complete and we may get to add some more reflections as time goes on.

Until then, thanks for following us and if you’re not already part of the Rotary family why not contact your local club (there’s only 33000 of them around the globe) to find out more!