Marie and Emily get well oiled

In Romania they use burnt old engine oil to preserve fences. Emily used up most of our supply on herself.
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First meeting of the ACM parking ticket

Minutes taken, to be published forthwith.

Actually, this is three Methodists trying to put money in a Romanian parking meter in the middle of Brasov!!

Marie last entry is wrong!!

We are not going to McDonald's....oh no!

Concerns grow about Kevin

Just ordered dinner after waiting 45 mins for waitress. It is pouring with rain we are in the middle of Brasov square. Waitress announced 45 min wait for food. We're off to Mc Donalds.

George and Avram send a message home.

Dean and Steve enjoyed working with Avram and George last year, here they send a message home to Kevin's Tata(that's Father in Romanian).

It's a pity Steve and Dean are not here this year.

Ladders and old engine oil

Colin can't get DIY insurance and has been told not to work on ladders!

Lunchtime on day 2 of Shed Building.

Phil and Kevin made eight of the nine roof trusses, hopefully they can be finished and put in place tomorrow.
Another coffee break and plenty of chainsaw activity until we ran out of petrol. But not as much sunshine as previous days.
A good day so far.

Caption Competition

Suggestions please for a suitable caption!

Random Pics from Sunday evening

Fork Handles ......Four Candles!!!!

Patrick was encouraged to jump by his big sisiter

but he ingnored her.......again!

Raul, son of Avram and Natalia, daughter of George,

two lovely children.

 and finally....

Marie's two lovely children, helping to shop on Sunday afternoon,

found these deck chairs outside the BricoStore too tempting!!

Does this need any explanation?

Cheese in what?

What to eat?

Patrick got busy with the Shed this afternoon!

Patrick enjoyed being with the lads, Phil, Kevin George and Avram even though it was very hot this afternoon.

And he never hit his thumb with the hammer!!!

This is the progress on the Store Shed at 4:30pm having started on site at 7am this morning.
 
A good days work.....and nice coffee and cake from Simone!!

And Jane helped Colin fit a burglar alarm.

Colin was asked to bring a Burglar Alarm complete with cable, sensors and Battery. This is being fitted at the Mission House near Sorin's House in Tarlengeni.

We thought they might have difficulty letting him through Customs etc at the Airport with 'dodgy' stuff in his bags.

Today Jane was Colins apprentice!!

that's Jane up a ladder!!

This is the best burglar alarm Jane has ever fitted, that's cos it's the only one she has ever fitted!!

Busy building the Shed at the church.

Its 12:30 on our first Shed building day and this is the progress so far. Phil and Kevin arrived at Georges house at 7:10 five miles from the Centre and long before Colin had even got up.

Don't tell the rest of the team but we had a natter and nice cup of coffee made by Simone before loading wood and tools and going down the road to the site.

Simone later brought more coffee and lovely homemade cake(not Lemon drizzle), again, don't tell the others.

George is seen swinging his Chainsaw up a rickety ladder.

Health Safety.....don't think so!
By the way its still hot here.

Colin meets a lady!

In rare moment of good fortune Colin met a young lady who was entranced by his charm and struck dumb by his humour.

At Church, inside and outside!

This is the morning congregation at the Church in Zizin at 11am this morning when we arrived as guests, they had already been in their service since 9am. Now there's an idea, services that last over two and half hours. By the way, ladies sat on one side and men on the other!!

Daniel helped with the interpretation as Kevin brought greetings from church at home!

Sorry about having to turn your head round to see this pic, but after the service we went outside at the back of the church to see the foundations of the Church Store shed that Phil and Kevin will be helping George and Avram to build.

Here we are debating whether it should be a pitched or sloping roof, hence the 'pose'.

and finally this morning at Church.....

we would think of this group back home as the Church Council!! We are stood on the foundation of the new shed.....watch this space all week.

Soon we are off to the BricoStore to get some building materials, and then out with Daniel and Ema for meal near Bran Castle.

See you later.

Football, football, football.

ING have donated forty of these small table football games all in un-assembled in boxes. We have been asked to put them all together by Wednesday as that is International Childrens Day, and there is going to be a 'bit of a do' here!

So....three down, thirty eight to go.
Competitive pitch building, current score Kevin and Jane two, Phil, ably assisted by Emily and Patch one. Instructions read nil.

Best team won!

Quote of the day from our youngest team member and a Man Utd fan..'The best team won tonight'

Thanks Daniel and Ema for letting us watch the Champions League Final in your flat. Though the commentary was in Romanian, it was obvious even to Colin that Patrick was indeed correct with his quote.

Good night all!

Big job breaking out!

This is the moment when Daniel and George told us they wanted Phil and I to help build a 7x4metre Store Shed next to the Church in Zizin, with a pitched roof.  

We plan to start work on Monday morning soon after 7am. My dad would be really pleased to be up that early.

By the way.....its really very hot here!

Boys are tooled up

Kevin, Avram and Daniel are ready to go. We are just checking out what needs to be done next week.

Patrick teaches Kev a card game

Patrick thinks he has to pay £20 to watch the match tonight, last of his spending money, will he?
Kevin lost the game, what a surprise. Patrick displaying card shark skills beyond his years!
Marie

Colin and his battery!!

Colin nervously has to open his hand baggage to show the security man that he is carrying rather a large burglar alarm battery, he was not arrested and all is well.

It's late and dark!

Are we nearly there yet?
At 3:30am we all 'hit the sack' having arrived safely.
The flights were good, even the four hour wait in Schipol seemed to go quite quickly. Playing cards, newspapers, pizzas, coffee and an interesting conversation with young Afrikaans guy en route from Sth Africa to Cork, all helped to pass the time.
Liz met us at Bucharest airport in the minibus. Once we had managed to clamber in (broken side sliding door) over the seats from the front we were on our way.
Quite a surprise to see so many cars and lorries on the roads after midnight.
Patrick found it all too much, as you can see, and wins the prize for being the first team member to be heard snoring, and we all thought that award might have gone to Colin!!
Not sure what time everyone we will emerge from their beds this morning?

Tulips in Amsterdam!!

As we got off the plane, we joked about who would be the first person to see a Dutch windmill and tulips in Amsterdam Airport!

Now we have to wait a while for our flight to Bucharest.

And this picture show us what really look like!

Airport check in

So we managed to Check-in at the Airport without too much difficulty. Despite carrying cables, batteries and other interesting items for fitting a burglar in Romania, we got past the rather joyless 'operative' at the desk.
All we need now is plane from KLM to pull up outside the departure gate and no ash clouds in the sky.
Goodbye Manchester!!

Back to Romania

So here we are again.....'blogging the blog' and preparing to fly out to Romania for an 8 day trip.

We fly on Friday May 27th from Manchester to Amsterdam and then on to Bucharest. We shall have a four hour wait in Amsterdam and hope to arrive in Bucharest at midnight. Then we have a 3 hour drive to Sacele and our accomodation, so it will be a long day.

Sadly my Dad and Steve will not be with me this year, but I will be in good company. Our team is Phil Calcutt, Colin Skelton, Marie Tierney and her two children Emily and Patrick, and last but  not at all least, my wonderful wife Jane.


We hope to make best use of our skills and abilities whilst in Romania working with the Roma people. If you need reminding of the work then click on this website for the background to FAST and the amazing way they are making a difference to peoples lives.     http://www.fastcharity.ro/

THANKS TO ALL those who helped with fundraising during the last few weeks in many different ways. We have gathered together just £2500 from Altrincham, including Marie's Royal Wedding Afternoon Tea, a sponsored Walk, Church Quiz Nights, and Steve's Calendars, Saturday Cafe and many other efforts, all really appreciated.

We shall also be able to donate to FAST another £2500 which was given in memory of my Mum who died unexpectantly at the end of April. (A wonderful tribute to a very special person and I know that these donations will make a difference.)

You might want to scroll through this blog to see the kind of work we got up to last year!!