Shopping today and a bit of gardening -

How does it feel? Strange – little or no work for Rotary although I did get out the Thanks for life newsletter to get things going on the Crocus front

No World Cup on TV

Beginning to consider projects I might do in the years to come in the poorer parts of the world.

Spent the day clearing up papers and tidying the office before enjoying the sunshine and thinking about the holiday next week.

Only one more event before Handover – not ready to prepare anything for Avalon yet. As usual I wrote these things at the last minute

Then off shopping for a new TV and chairs for the caravan.

The evening was a splendid meeting at Chelwood when Linda attended her last meeting as an Honorary member and I gave my report on Montreal as well as my thanks to the club for supporting me this past two years.

It was also handover and Richard provided an excellent summary in written form of the clubs activities which considering organising conference and WSB was quite remarkable. Well done to all concerned

Made use of the sunshine too and did some gardening

Evening trip down to Charleton Horethorne for dinner with the Sherborne Castles club. We were made very welcome as we always are and I was presented with a cheque for £2000 for Polio! Great company at dinner with Rose the Inner Wheel chair elect and Tina wife of  the club secretary. A super night and my last official meeting as DG although I am out on Friday to Avalon and their Presidents night

Slept like a log!

Restful day enjoying the sunshine and feeling sorry for the lawns.

Drove down to Robin and Wendys ahead of them taking us to Taunton’s Presidents Night at Park House the beautiful home of President Don and his wife Rosemary. A lovely evening to relax and enjoy the comapny with a harp laying during dinner.

Slept at the Browns which was a real blessing as we would have been in trouble driving home due to jet lag.

Finally collected by our son at Bristol and dropped off  home late morning.

Watched some footie on TV- can’t even remember what it was!

Rested as best we could and managed ot stay up till 10 pm before sleep overtook us

We wandered back to the hotel via Chinatown but soon had to run for a cab as a storm broke and we were in danger of travelling home soaking wet.

Off to the airport at 4 30 pm for the overnight flight, Linda managed to leave her coat behind!

We met up with several other RIBI people at the airport which is the most chaotic place I can imagine – almost 3rd world. David Hodge became 65 as we queued for the plane so a rousing chorus of many of the passengers broke out.

A tedious overnight flight took us back to London for early morning

The main event of the morning was Dolly Parton who sang 9 to 5 of course then told us of her amazing charity providing 1m books a year to underprivileged children. She was awarded a Paul Harris Fellowship by John Germ and told him not to pin it on her as she might fly around the stadium!! She was very amusing and ended her piece with many thanks to Rotary and another song called TRY.

In the afternoon after a bit of shopping in the House of Friendship we went back to the hotel before returning for the final session. While resting on the bed watching the World Cup we experienced an earthquake! The news bulletins put it at 5.5 on the Richter scale so the room really did shake about , but no damage which was just as well as we were 12 floors up!

The final ceremony was special and the first time we have seen one as we missed both LA and Birmingham. It opened with a session from Russel Watson who was very well received and ended with Circ de Soleil! then Russell Watson came back on and sang Auld Lang Syne with us.

Dinner in the evening in the main tourist area with Peter, Greg and Brian plus wives. and a walk back part way to our hotel.