I've got a couple of Japanese apple trees in my garden. Last evening as I was taking the dogs out for their final constitutional I flashed a torch at the trees and a flurry of fruit bats took off. Big beasts they were too. This seemed to indicate that the fruit was ripe and we'd have to move quickly before all was lost. So today our refuge children came to the house after school and descended upon the trees like locusts. The poor old bats will have paltry pickings tonight.This has been a good week for volunteers and there's definitely an international flavour about the place. Marie Vollmer joined us from Germany last Tuesday and after the initial shock of the end of the monsoon rains seems to have settled in very well. She's off to Hetauda tomorrow to work with the hostel girls and most importantly to "be there" for them. Alex Hunter, the potter (www.alex-hunter.com) came in on Thursday and was bowled over (forgive the pun) by Saturday's children's show. I said to him that he'd have to throw some pretty amazing pots to follow Nick and Sue's performance as volunteers. Somehow from initial meeting I've a feeling he will. We've also been joined by Australian Linda Beasley who has come to live in Nepal. Linda is a keen mosaic artist and will help shoulder the burden of running the mosaic studio, preparing designs, teaching and all in all making a success of it. Alex, Linda and I had a meeting today to discuss the forthcoming art workshop that we'll be running for former circus girls, starting next week. Such meetings are very exciting; no one has done this kind of thing before.
