The Best Laid Plans.......

The last time Malcolm laid some vinyl is was some nice, thick, ‘Cushion floor’ – a quality floor covering that was comfortable to walk on, particularly on cold mornings. So what has he put down in the lounge here? The best vinyl money can buy in Kisoro. Something that is little more than wallpaper for floors – not much stronger than a vinyl table cloth. It has a square pattern, except the squares aren’t exactly squares, and the parallel lines aren’t exactly parallel (as he found out when trying to match up the joins). However, it does have a couple of key advantages:

- it is warmer on the feet than bare concrete
- at £1 a square metre it is about 1/16th of the price of ‘Cushion floor’ in the UK
- and it only has to last us 2 years

It has been an exciting week for the Diocese. One of the promises made by Uganda’s President was that he would buy all Bishop’s in the country a new car, and last week the Bishop went to pick it up from Kampala. Although a car is a luxury item here with few Ugandans being able to afford one, it is an essential item for the Bishop. The Diocese is extensive with many of the roads mountain tracks, and already he has had to make a return trip to Kampala (over 600 miles return) for a meeting to select a Bishop for a neighbouring Diocese. When the Bishop arrived with the car there was a reception and food for special guests from the Local Council and Diocese.

Malcolm has continued to investigate the payments made to the Diocese by individual parishes, with a view to doing some training for church treasurers on basic book-keeping. Irene has been spending most of her time meeting the Vocational Training Centre students, and is planning to start some basic business training for them next week. She has also been spending some time at the Potter’s Village orphanage doing some ‘tailoring’ (sewing mattress covers etc).

The weather continues to be ’changeable’ – one minute being bright and fresh, to be quickly followed by a thunder storm. A couple of weeks ago we had hail storms with quite large stones – although we understand they were mere pebbles compared to some storms here.


Postscript on earlier blogs:
1. Egg box. Following the catastrophe with eggs mentioned on 3rd September, an emergency relief parcel was received from our son of our very own ‘Happy Eggs’ egg box – this made Irene very happy.
2. Cake. Despite the disastrous coffee cake made by Malcolm (17th September) he has had another go. This time, a Fruit Cake using dried fruit left for us by Jodie (24th September) and eggs carried home in the new ‘Happy Eggs’ egg box. It was intended for tea when the Mother’s Union coordinator and Bishop’s wife planned to see Irene. The bad news is the tea had to be postponed – the good news is more cake for us!!!!!
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