Trip to Nepal postponed

Hi guys
 
Sadly we had to postpone our trip to Nepal.  What started as a Mayday protest has now turned into 100,000 angry Maoist supporters in the streets of Kathmandu, protesting against a similar number of riot police and army, with a very tense situation.  Violence has broken out in Humla, with a number of people seriously wounded.  In the meantime, most offices are closed, shops are closed, there is no travel allowed in the country, and it's impossible to get any work done.  So we have had to postpone the trip, and hopefully I will be heading out for July instead.  Whatever about heading myself into that situation, we cannot bring 5 volunteers and an 11 month old baby into such a highly charged and potentially dangerous situation.
 
Our ceili has also been postponed - we just don't have enough time to do a good job on this, so I've decided to postpone it until we can do it right.  The lead times to get media, the event licence, sponsorshop, PR, and all the other elements in place, are longer than we had allowed, so no point in going ahead with a half-baked event.  We are hoping to do something for the Galway Races instead, and our flag day will go ahead as before on 7th June in Galway, so we will do something else to support that. 
 
Everything else is going well - we are very busy on our Irish Aid application, and I had a positive meeting with a philantropist, so I'm hoping that we can get one or two philantropists on board this year.  I was also told that i am one of the finalists in the Vodafone World of Difference programme, so I had my telephone interview today, and will hear on Tuesday if I've made it down to the last 12!  If I was one of the four winners, it would make such a huge difference to me and to the organisation!  So fingers crossed on that.
 
I also decided to book a last minute break when our trip got cancelled - I've been working very long hours now for a very long time, so while the diary is unexpectedly clear, I'm going to skip over to Turkey for a week in the son with baby Donagh, so I'm really looking forward to the break!
 
So I hope that peace is restored soon to Nepal, and that the deadlock can be broken, and that the country draws back from the edge, and gets back to work and to delivering a brighter future for its 28 million people.
 
Have a lovely weekend everyone!
 
Lots of love
Nicky
XXX