Let's sow the seeds of change!

Today is my last day in England. I leave for Delhi tomorrow and will be in Udaipur by Wednesday afternoon. The foundation stone ceremony takes place this coming Friday, and I will be updating the blog regularly from India, particularly after the celebrations to mark the laying of the foundation stone.

Thank you all for your support to date - we hope you'll continue to drop in on us, because now the blog will be becoming much more active, with pictures and many updates as building work on the hospital commences.

Hamish, who many of you already know, arrives in India next Sunday and will be joining me in Udaipur. Sadly he cannot be there for Friday's ceremony as he is currently in Tibet, making his way to Delhi via Kathmandhu. But we spoke on the phone yesterday and he too is looking forward to seeing the site of our planned hospital, and to meeting Deepak and all the other people who are working so hard in India to make this project work. We are also being joined by another English friend of Hamish's, who wants to work with us on the project, so I hope that all our UK fans will watch this space!

I know that both Deepak and I feel the same way about the distance we have come in such a short time, and now that building can commence, we are starting to fulfill a dream that my father was also part of in the last few months of his life. Indeed, none of this would have been possible without Paul, because he gave me the motivation to go ahead with this project. Deepak has also given most of his spare time to putting arrangements in place and I have just been busy fund-raising and for that I must thank my donors to date.

We must also thank my husband, Vivian, because although at the time, we could not see the silver lining to the huge cloud that enveloped us, it was his illness in India last November that brought all of us together for this project.

For any of you that already know my gardening blog, you'll know that my personal motto is "Let's Sow the Seeds of Change" and that's what we're hoping to do in rural Rajasthan.