This has been a long time coming, literally and metaphorically.

Of course I’m writing this way after these months have passed, but the feelings I have from then is still so pervacive.

George Harrison couldn’t be more right; “Here comes the sun”.

Of course in terms of the build, one of the main events has been that finally it’s stopped raining, which it felt would never happen …. again, both literally and metaphorically.

The challenge I’ve felt has been that with Mohammed and the Ol Boys, we were simply moving far too slowly, which was great for Mohammed, who seems to have engineered a job for life.

But with the end of the rains, my sense of urgency was acute and certainly wasn’t going to be satiated by the slow progress being made.

And then Maika came up with a team of builders from Ouad Laou; “Team Yasseen” and suddenly we were on super drive.

This bunch of young lads have changed the pace and energy about the

build and I can’t say how happy I am to

have them, even if that means employing from outside Loubar.

Mind you, Loubar in May, is fixated by cash crops and all able hands are out supporting that, so Malesh!

But after the rains, all passes to the farm were closed and thus I managed to negotiate a route through Saids’, our neighbour below, to bring in materials, as well as buying a new set of donkeys.

Hopefully they’ll do better than our previous team.

Much to Mohammed’s chagrin, Yassens team have made incredible progress with the build and despite a few initial

teething problems, it looks like we might be aiming at finishing this year. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me feel. Finally this dream looks as if it might be realised and along with that, so much more.

Mind you, that’s not to say that it’s all plain sailing. I employed a team of electricians/plumbers, who simply felt wrong from the start and so they proved, to be replaced by Abdelhai, who’s from Loubar

and great….. no this isn’t him, we’ll have to get his image up another time.

But what’s important is that the project is finally taking shape and I can see real progress and even an end in sight.

What’s been amazing though is that just as Yasseen’s team arrived, along with

the strictures of Ramadan, so did a perfect storm of almost everything else I was involved in.

April/May saw me finally get a new piece of consultancy work again in PNG but this time for OXFAM. It’s a very exciting and challenging consultancy, made more so by the need to juggle the time involved working on it, with being on top of the quickly evolving work in Loubar.

Thus Mondays to Fridays I worked on OXFAM WaSH in PNG and then dashed off to Loubar on Friday evening to spend the weekend coordinating the build.

But added to this was supporting Dar Finn, where I’m finally begining to feel comfortable in my involvement and we’re in the process of redeveloping the website, which means also re developing the hotel and in doing so, my finally taking a level of ownership, tens years after starting it.

How strange life is sometimes.

And of course these months were also filled with the demands of asserting rights of access to Finn and the various legal statements, interviews with social workers and demands on time and finances and time, made by lawyers.

And all of these so very important and demanding challenges, tumbled in to my lap, all at once in April/May. I can only claim to have been drowning not waving.

But as I write now, I finally feel that I have passed though that long, dark winter.

That finally I can feel the warmth of sun on my face and a growing smile in the belief that, that terrible dark time is finally behind me and that, not only have I, that inner grain that is my soul, managed to survive, but now sees with much hope, the dawning of a new and happier time.

I can’t tell you, how happy that prospect makes me feel …. though of course, we’re not quite there yet, but it feels within reach, something I couldn’t have said this time last year.

Here comes the sun, little darling.

It’s been a long cold, lonely winter,

Little Darling, it feels like years since it’s been here.

Here comes the sun.