Sitting here on my porch, at the Ghion Hotel, Bahirdar, in Ethiopia. I'm trying to write a blog, but struggling. I'm sitting in one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to, from here I can see flower filled gardens, the thatched round house that's a bar, and, beyond, the waters of Lake Tana.

"Life is like a toilet roll, the nearer the end you get, the faster it goes" I read that somewhere just recently, and it appears to have lodged in my brain, now I hope I've still got a fair bit of roll left, at least a third or so, but it's so true, time flies past now, and I can't believe that I haven't done a blog since last august!

As a parent and having visited our projects in Egypt and Ethiopia, I realise the lifestyle our children lead in the UK is somewhat different to those led by children in developing countries, particularly when it comes to household chores and levels of responsibility.

In the Debre Zeit area of Ethiopia there are a staggering 76,000 working donkeys. Many suffer harness wounds caused through ill-fitting tack and excessive loads.

I reckon that one of the most common phrases in our language must involve the word 'tea'. "Shall I put the kettle on?", "Fancy a cuppa?", "Make a brew" we say, and do it without much thought really, some of us continually throughout the day.

Now sitting in my hotel room in Delhi, writing up reports, and getting ready to travel by road to Sikar, in Rajasthan tomorrow (around 7 hours in a Tata car) with one of my favourite people, the taxi driver Sadagi. I'm going up there to run a two week harness making course for the local donkey owners, whose present harness causes massive wounds to the donkeys, not only inflicting the animals with what must be agonising pain, but also putting them in a position where they actually die, often from tetanus.