Charities in general

Did you know that a donkey sanctuary in Devon received the most donations last year for an animal charity? So far it has raised three million pounds, more than all the homeless charities contribution added up together. In fact British people give three times as much cash to help animal charities than they do people. But when the media blitz us with images of a big tragedy, like they are doing this week, we respond very well, some of the best givers on the planet, the most generous of all for the tsunami, but when we are left to our own devices its donkeys. It's the media and the big charities that deserve the most examination when it comes to saving lives ...  Read the complete review

OK so go on - ask me what I did on August Bank Holiday Monday? The answer is obvious really. I took my teddy bear to do a parachute jump for charity - what else? Seriously though, we had friends staying with us over the Bank Holiday weekend, I have this feeling we're going to be VERY popular now we live by the sea! This weekend saw my Goddaughter, Rosie aged 8, visiting with her mom and dad and another friend. At one point after having a bit of a walk round the town with mom and dad Rosie came to me and told me that she'd seen a notice advertising a parachute jump for teddy bears. Now, as you can imagine, I was somewhat sceptical and ...  Read the complete review

Having ideas is great, you wake up in the morning and think that you have come up with a solution to a problem or something that was bothering you and you feel fantastic. As I said having them is one thing but acting on them is another! I thought that the recent spate of opinions by people on their favourite thing was a wonderful idea. It was the brainchild of Jill Murphy and marked her forth year being free from cancer. I don?t know about you but I tend to use dooyoo in a certain way. I read and rate the people who read and rate me. They tend to be my friends (in a virtual sense) and those others whose work I like to read. Only very occasionally will ...  Read the complete review

This is a bit of an update on the actual expedition taken from my diary. Ariving at Hanoi airport was quite an experience with the baking heat and scary looking communist police but that was nothing to the drive into to city. The bus raced along roads crowded with motorbikes all going wherever they wanted without any kind of road rules. The countryside was stereotype asia with farmers in conical hats tending water buffalo in the rice padies, this was new and interesting at the time but would end up familliar. Hanoi itself was a mess of people and shops seemingly dumped at random on top of a mixture of buildings, traditional, french colonial and ...  Read the complete review

Giving Fishing Rods not Fish A bit of an odd title I know but it is the basis of this story, this relates to a holiday in Kenya that led to a chance meeting that led to further holidays and an ongoing adventure. With it so far? It all sounds a little breathless I know but I promise if you stick with this it will make sense and hopefully make you smile too. So to begin: In 1999 I thought we were going to America, my wife had a different view and booked us a holiday in Kenya. So that?s how it began. We had a fabulous holiday in a place called Watamu on the Kenyan coast; I will write about the hotel and travel company later in a separate article, ...  Read the complete review