Sixth update

Lovely, peaceful day today! Autumn stayed overnight. I woke at about 6am and Autumn woke about 6.30. Eb lasted antil after 7 which was great. Katrina arrived at about 11am and we headed to 'Bloom' ...a little oasis in Cambodia There we enjoyed a morning together before Paul picked Katrina up and they headed off to have a dangerous mole removed from Paul's chest. Bloom is an amazing cake shop that we wen to last time we were here for my birthday in 2010. They take women from the street and teach them the skill of cake decorating....and boy what skill it is. They are extraordinarily talented. Ruth, from Brisbane, who....along with her family have started Bloom has a heart to help these women. One of Katrina's 'girls' is now cleared of the Mothers Heart program and is actually a manager there! What a success story. We are photographing that girl and her daughter (who just turned 1) later today. Tez this is for you.....I asked Katrina about placing many women in the offices rather than outside in the community. This will be a bit long winded I think but Katrina's program is one of only 5 organisations in Cambodia that equip the women to go back into a community. Her feeling is very strongly that if she were to house them at the offices she would become like an orphanage or 'home' for these mums. It doesn't teach them how to live normal life and it means that staff would need to be trained and paid to stay on site to care for them. She actually started out on that road - she even received funding - and then pulled out. The more research she does the more she sees her 'model' as being the right one for these women. She now has 5 women who have 'graduated' from her program and are living normal lives in a community and working. How amazing is that? She is totally against orphanages and sees foster care as the way forward rather than having babies and children stuck in orphanages. I hope that all makes sense. I am starting to see how right her thinking is - I just needed to adjust my vision to meet hers and now I'm a total convert. Now for the rest of our day. Eb started to really show major signs of tiredness at Bloom so we grabbed the tuk tuk (lee, autumn, Eb and I) and we headed to do a couple of things for Lee then left Lee to do some shopping and we went in and I managed to get Eb a 2 hour....much needed sleep. We then went with the Gliddons, to the FCC for dinner. Gorgeous old place (Foreign Correspondence Club - for all the reporters many years ago to get together). It overlooks the river. We then went for a stroll along the river on a very warm and balmy evening. So that was our day off! Another day with photography tomorrow! All our love xxx