I forced myself to get out of bed this morning and took some immodium - it means a day of discomfort but at least I'd be able to get around!

We went to the tailor with the Sexton - to a posh shop for the material then to the tailor. The Sexton's English is really bad and he seemed to know even less about Madurai tailors than we did! He dragged us off to get my trousers done and when we got there, he said we could have had it done at Rev Fenn's house! I don't know, we stuck with the tailor we knew in the end - J. Ismail - and ignored the Sexton. By the time a tailor came to the vicarage we'd be back in Ramnad anyway.

By this time it was 1:30 and we got rid of him by persuading him to go home for lunch. He was supposed to go with us to buy some dhotis but we didn't trust him very much anymore. Maybe tomorrow. We then kind of wandered around looking for knives / forks / real plates (not plastic), all of which we found. Eventually. C. went to get a haircut and I tried to sell off some of the novels I bought. I was glad to see the last of Wilbur Smith's Rage - too much 'Mills and Boon' and not nearly enough rage. Don't read it. Ever. However it did use up some otherwise wasted sick-time.

I failed to sell any of them and gave them to the TTS instead.

We met up with Nic at six o'clock and went to a blind school (for girls who are blind). It was their evening prayer time (thank goodness Nic's a priest - it got us off the hook!) and we¹ sang some songs. There was one girl there who will haunt me for a very long time. She had a lovely smile and I think her eyes just hadn't developed. It was so painful to see. All the other blind girls had twinges of frowns and looks of concentration but she was calm, serene and when a frown did cross her face it was heart-rending.

So, deeply touched by this vision of sighted girls volunteering to help blind girls study - while doing their own studies at the same time - we went off to the Pandyan for dinner.

Thought Nic deserved to go before she leaves tomorrow. I ate very little and have been waiting for the floodgates to open / the dam to burst for some time now. Forget a few hours - Immodium lasts for days!