Christopher Mulenga of Friends of the Street Children (FOSC) in Kitwe sent me these photographs of work on the borehole at the Kawama site in Kitwe, Zambia.  The pump was no longer working and the borehole had clogged up, which meant that FOSC was paying very expensive water bills, making vegetable gardening less worthwhile. Romilly’s supporters had provided funds to clean out the borehole and replace the pump.  Subsequent investigations showed that the well needed to be re drilled and so this was what was agreed, and successfully carried out.  Now the children are producing their own vegetables, thanks to Romilly’s generous supporters.

The boys inspect the work.

Badgered Knee Thwarts Charity Walk.

I remember my mother often saying that she had to badger me to get me to do things. I always wondered what she really meant. I had said that having done the GR10 and the HRP, I would do the third of the Atlantic to Mediterranean walks, the GR11 which runs along the south side of the range, to raise funds for Romilly.  It is supposed to be very beautiful covering extremes of landscape from desert to high mountain.

My plans were scuppered when one night, walking the dog, I heard a smallish, I thought from the rapid clip, clip noise of claws on tarmac, animal hurtling down the road towards me. I could only see a short distance in front of me when this motion-blurred shape rocketed out of the gloom. It was so fast that I had no time to dodge. It crashed into my right knee, lifting, so it felt, my knee cap from the rest of the knee. The creature did not pause or grunt or show any sign that it had hit anything but clippety clipped into the night without change of pace. Some of you will be thinking that I must have very low knees. I prefer to think that it was a very big badger.  Anyway instead of getting me to do something it had the reverse effect because I had to put off the walk. But come to think of it that was often the effect of my mother’s badgering.

I’m hoping that I’ll be able to carry out a long distance walk or cycle trip, perhaps in Britain this time, to raise funds for Romilly in 2014, and I hope that some of you will want to join me for a day or two.