DAY 65 (Friday 23 September 2011)

It’s “Big Brew” day.  We still had to work as normal, but at 1000 hrs for an hour it was like an extended tea break, we were went to the basketball court where it was being held, the tea was free, but the food you had to pay for.  The Gurkha wives had cooked the main food, and the majority of the British wives had done the cakes.  We had to pay NRS150 for a plate of food, but if you wanted both lots of food you had to pay twice.  The girls who were taking the money for the food were being quite cheeky, if you gave them NRS200, they would ask for you to donate the extra NRS50 to the charity, needless to say, they only got the NRS150 out of me, sorry, but I though it was a cheek to ask anyway.

There were a couple of other stalls there too, there was clothing (second hand stuff), bric-a-brac, a tinned food stall, drinks (soft drinks) and stuffed toy stall.  The tinned food stall didn’t stand a chance, all their stock was gone within that hour, so there was nothing left for the afternoon session of the “Big Brew” where there was also going to be a raffle and tombola stall and some games, this was all to start at 1430hrs when the day was officially opened by the HMA Ambassador John Tucknott. 

As the afternoon was opened to the Staff, LECs and the housekeepers (known as ‘Diddy’s’) there were loads of people around, the HMA cut the tape with a KUKRI (nepali sword) and the gates were opened, well it was like a jumble sale rush, the Nepali women could have quite easily knocked people out of their way as they rushed to the clothing stall, and the tombola stall didn’t stand a chance against them too, I think the tombola managed to last for all of 15minutes before everything was gone.

The raffle was held later on and there were some really good prizes that were donated by local shops, one shop a jewellery shop donated a gold ring with a diamond and blue sapphire worth NRS 11,000, just shy of £100, there were spa treatments, restaurants had donated vouchers, clothing stores had donated Saris, there were just loads of stuff, unfortunately as is normally the case I didn’t win anything. 

The afternoon ended at 1700hrs so that was a good time to go home, besides the heavens had opened, so it was a good time to call it a day too, which I did and went home.

It’s an early night for me tonight as I have to be up at 0515hrs to get ready to meet up with BK, Steve Williams and one other as we are the bike support for those out of my lot who are going to be running in the KATHMANDU MARATHON, however, they are only doing the Half Marathon as they are still in training for their EVEREST MARATHON.