Search This Blog

Manya's Blog!

Manya's retirement

Wishing All My Friends and Acquaintances A Very Happy and Holy Christmas!

Midsummer already!

I have been paying attention to the heatwave warnings, so I am resting today. Having woken with the dawn chorus, I listened to an audiobook for a while and dozed off again. I've only recently discovered that the human voice makes me drop off to sleep better than yoga, relaxing poses, or calming music. That probably explains why I was in danger of dropping off to sleep during university lectures, long ago! My alarm is set for 7.30am because my latest tablets must be taken half an hour before my morning cup of tea. My mysteriously low iron count has meant blood tests, a colonoscopy, and advice to improve my diet. Now, after a year's investigations, I have been put on a three-month course of iron! My brother phoned from France, and I felt guilty that it was ten o'clock, so I got up and consulted the list of jobs that grows longer every day. The garden work job list is more than ten items! However, I am proud to say that the most important task, mending the back...

Manya's Blog

Hello! Welcome to my new blog! Do you remember me? Fundraising for homes for HIV orphans? Opening the Rainbow Home, and the Boys' Home for leprosy affected children, so that they could go to school like normal children? The monthly newsletters? The trips to the beach and the zoo with the Prem Nivas children? Living with the children as teacher and 'auntie'.? And if your memories go further back, to your supporting me when I did my bike ride to raise funds for leprosy treatment in 1994, and went out to work in India after I retired. It is a long time since I regularly wrote a blog. Tonight I have been looking back posts I wrote when I was volunteering for Brighter Future. I was surprised that they were still on my computer. It was so nice to see the pictures of the children we gave a homes to, and the adults we were able to take into our hospice. We started with 5 children and soon had three homes with 100 infected orphans. Some of the children are still in touch...

Some things I remember of my childhood.

I am so pleased to tell you that I am now an 'indie author'! And I have sold 57 books! A month or two ago, I had no idea what "indie" meant. Now I know it stands for 'independent'! 'Independent' in this case, means not supported for editing, proofreading, marketing, advice, etc. No one to hold your hand! Recently, however, Amazon, through its USA site, has been offering these specialist services to authors, including me, as bundles from £500 to £5000. AI offered its services too, but I declined, saying that I wanted to write my book myself! I am, however, personally very independent, usually referred to as 'stubborn', not through choice, but by necessity. My family had been bombed out when they were living in Ilford, east of London. Mummy, my brother, 2-year-old Richard, and I were out posting a letter when the 'doodlebug' went through our house in August 1941. I was four. Mummy and Daddy rescued a couple of rugs, a sideb...