An Indian Wedding

by

Earlier in the year I was able to visit my sponsor child, Amala, at Heal Village near Guntur in Andhra Pradesh. It was a joyful occasion to see what a fine young woman she had become through the love and care she received at Heal. Today I received the photographs of Amala’s wedding – so one chapter in her life has ended and a new one begins.

HEAL (Health and Education for All) ensures that all of their children are looked after through their education and into jobs or marriage.  It is a wonderful charity – especially as it takes care not to waste money so that almost all of the contributions directly impact on the children’s day-to-day lives.

Now that Amala has a family to be part of, outside of HEAL, I will be sponsoring another of HEAL’s many children; I’ve seen the huge difference this makes in turning lives around in such a poor area. Almost all of the children are orphaned and destitute before coming into HEAL’s care.

All the very best to Amala and her new husband. I hope they will be very happy together.

Amala's wedding
Amala and her husband

http://www.heal.co.uk

Catching up, Cotswolds and Cathedrals

by

I’ve been catching up with friends over the past few days.  It has been lovely to meet an old colleague from my theatre days in her home town of Cheltenham, to spend some time together driving through the Cotswold villages and on to Cirencester and Malmesbury and to finally have a chance to visit the splendidly revamped Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

Yesterday we headed – via a hasty glimpse of Gloucester Cathedral – to meet more friends in Hereford who had come over from Wales to see Mappa Mundi, explore Hereford Cathedral and have a mooch about the city. We loved Hereford Cathedral with its shrines to St Thomas of Hereford and St Ethelbert (and the recent art commissions are very well chosen) but thought the Mappa Mundi and the chained library displays were disappointing. We hadn’t intended to stay for evensong but were very glad we did when we heard the fine singing of Tallis and Grieg from the Cathedral’s choir.