Sunsets and Blue Blood

Over the past week I have seen some amazing sunsets and been fortunate to meet lots of lovely new people which thinking about "normal" lives we don't do that often as we tend to stay in the same environment. Firstly I met some very interesting people in the resort of Manana last weekend - possibly a very distant cousin who had an Ulster Smiley in his family tree and then this last week in Kuching with the global delegates. The study tour began at 8.30 am and it was amazing how far everyone had come for such a short time. I think the furthest was Samantha who had come from darkest Peru and it had taken 40 hours to get there. There were representatives from India, Israel, Thailand, Uzbekistan, China, Myanmar, Indonesia, London, Iran, Singapore etc... and they all seemed to be so interesting and interested in our ELTD project. We had to do quite a few presentations and then there was a visit to some schools and a few focus groups with mentors, teachers and education officials. Of course the ambience was helped by the charm of Kuching and we went out for a lovely meal together overlooking the waterfront. So all in all it was a very pleasant week - full of chat about everyone else's project and plans for the future which gives me an idea of how huge the British Council actually is.

The only other interesting thing of note is that Andrew discovered via Ancestry that both of us are direct descendants of Robert the Bruce. He is Andrew's 22nd Great grandfather by his grandmother and my 21st Great grandfather by my grandmother. So as Patrick pointed out, everyone can probably trace themselves back to royalty if they go far enough back and I expect are millions of us related to him but still it gave us both a slight thrill which didn't last that long and there is not much more we can do with the information is there?! So with my veins running with blue blood I continue to keep working and I am thrilled to announce that the resource book is now at the printers and there has been yet another weekend spent doing the very last formatting etc...It will be ready for the book launch in 2 weeks time.

Kuching from the 12th Floor of the Hilton