Leaving is such a drunk thing to do...

Thanks to everyone who came to our leaving party upstairs at Khan's. They must surely have one of the most stylish bars in town - or at least the one that looks most like the spaceship from Close Encounters!

I've posted some photos on my central america flickr photostream by the wonders of connecting my mobile to my laptop via bluetooth. Not many I'm afraid as I totally forgot about taking any. Damn, I bet you're disappointed not to see yourselves online! But Phil - if you have any let me know as you were taking lots.

It was fantastic to see you all and down a few cocktails and beers together. Our friends certainly know how to party and celebrate in a positive and life-infirming way. we are both priviliged and happy to be part of such a great community. You are all beautiful people and we'll miss you when we are away.

A big thanks to Natalie who kept the cocktail bar running under extreme popularity.

Thanks to John and St John for putting on some great tunes, to Melissa and Saskia for Georgia and Jim's birthday cake, to Mike for drawing the raffle. Congratulations to the raffle winners - does it get ore exciting than that? :)

We are now about on our way outta here to Central America via Northumberland and Manchester. We're still on Bill's mobile number until Thursday night but calls only as it has given up on texts.

Love, Bill and Georgia

Sing about this!

More purple! Purple Cats choir every Tuesday night at St Mary's Bramall Lane, Sheffield. Fantastic - fun singing and a great warm friendly vibe. Huge thanks to the Purple Cats for all your good wishes and interest and for a kind and generous response to the invitation to get involved in this venture by making donations and supporting the Bookathon. See those scones? (check back the blog, can't miss them) They're cats scones those.

I'm going to miss weekly singing - it's made a huge difference to my life, with that injection of music and just pure kind 'goodness' each week, and walking around all day with songs in your head rather than lists is a better way to go. Although no thanks for the entire day and night of nkukku nkukku sung on 2 notes - you know who you are! (Actually, it's my head and my internal voice so who am I to point the finger, and the part made sense in context... not a great all-day-song on its own however).

Check out the Purple Cats link to look for a couple of fantastic workshops this autumn with inspirational teachers, and keep an eye on concerts and linked events.

All gone bananas

The Purple Monkey has joined the role of honour in donating something for Friday night's party raffle, along with Lush, Khan's, Booja Booja and the Dram Shop - cheers all.

Countdown

Not the everlasting Channel 4 favourite but the time to when we fly. Now the Bookathon is over we are able to focus a lot more on getting ready to go and getting excited about some of the things we'll do when we arrive.

Oh, and we're even getting the chance to plan our arrival and where we'll be for the first few days. That's a handy thing to get round to. We fly in Cancun so are thinking of spending the first night in Cuidad de Cancun then go down to Tulum on the Yucatan coast the next day. I ended my last trip to Mexico there in 1999 hanging out with a guy from Germany i'd met earlier in my journey. I liked the laid-back atmosphere, the Mayan ruins and my first experience of snorkelling but the wind was irritatingly persistent. It will be interesting to see what I think of it this time. we'll only spend a night or two at Tulum before then heading to Caye Caulker, probably via Belize.

Today is a big sorting out and packing day. I'm on our attic room, Georgia in her office. We're getting our things into storage and looking forward to laying the carpet in Georgia's office. Yesterday we did a lot of shopping, including the carpet which is now laid out in our sitting room, before going over to andy and melissa's for dinner with kim. They made a fantastic curry which will probably be one of the last we have before next April.

Newcastle are currently beating West Ham 2-1 too, so far so good.

Bill

Projects benefitting from the Bookathon

We are really delighted to be able to say that the success of the bookathon means that we should be able to help to fund the following through the projects we are volunteering on in Guatemala.

The running costs of the Ix-Canaan library and internet centre, which is also used for educational sessions, at El Ramate, Peten for one year = £500.

The entire secondary school education of one child through the Child Aid supported PROBIGUA child literacy programme = £180.

To fund these was our aim in running the bookathon.

We have some further funds which we may offer to another child literacy project in the city of Grenada, Nicaragua. Georgia has made contact with this project and we will visit it during our trip.

Spare books left over at the end of the bookathon have been donated to Oxfam and the British Heart Foundation.

Bookathon Success!

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Originally uploaded by Bill Bevan

Thank you to everyone who came to the First Great Walkley Bookathon at the Walkley Community Centre, Fir Street and made it such a success!

Thousands of books were donated by the people of Walkley, friends and employees of the Peak District National Park Authority. Two long sets of tables ran the full length of the hall weighed down with fiction and non-fiction priced at 50p, £1 and £2. The stage became the bargain counter of 20p books.


The Cafe Crew at work while browsing a book or two

The cafe was stacked full of cakes, biscuits, scones and jam all kindly made for the event.


Happy shoppers enjoy tea and cakes

Hundreds of people went away with bags and boxes of books. It was great to see so many happy people rifling through the tables of books and finding plenty to take away and read.



Thank you to everyone who helped, donated, baked, made jam, bought or had a cuppa and a cake! You have all contributed to the child literacy projects in Guatemala.

Special thanks to:
The Cafe Crew - Andy, Melissa and Saskia - who made the cake display look so good and worked hard to keep up with brewing drinks and serving cakes.

The Book Sellers - Sarah A, Sarah C, Jill, Paul, Sue, Jessica and Stella - who filled bags and boxes, took money and enthused so much about books with buyers.

The Community Centre Trustee - Sam Charlesworth - whose enthusiasm and hard work made the event happen.

Beanies Wholefoods, Levitts Convenience Store and Zooby's Cafe who donated tea, coffee, milk, soya milk and soft drinks for the cafe.

Without you all the bookathon would not have been such a success.


Mark eyes up another box of books

See more photos on my flickr stream

Big Thanks...

Wonderful great big thanks to those who have helped in our fundraising efforts.

Lush, Sheffield and to BoojaBooja for their enthusiastic support and donations.

Beanies, Levitts Convenience Store and Zooby's for their contributions of fairtrade tea, coffee, organic milk, soya milk, biscuits and no-sugar fruit squash to the Bookathon cafe.

To the many people who have baked cakes, scones and biscuits or donated homemade jam for the cafe.

And to Sam Charlesworth of the Walkley Community Centre committee for all her enthusians, help and support. Check out this great community centre here - www.firstreet.org.uk

Thank you!