Thanks for waiting

At last, I've finished the book. A complete re-write and an exercise in how to delay a publishing deadline. It'll be late, I'm afraid. Probably by a couple of weeks because I'll still have to refine the editing but at least the material is in there. It won't be structured like the diary and I have taken more than a few literary liberties to enhance the reading of it but I'm pleased with the result. I learned a lot too - the background research helped me understand a few things I thought I knew but didn't.

Croatia was a magical and humbling experience. I was over there on behalf of the service with twenty-odd other paramedics, EMT's and officers to take part in the training programme we were demonstrating to the people of the town and to make a documentary-type video diary about it (that's another hobby I have, film-making). Here's a link showing their local newpaper's story about our town square demonstration alongside their ambulance service (in white uniforms!). I'm in the photo somewhere but you'll have to guess whereabouts :-)

http://www.posavskahrvatska.hr/Novost.aspx?kat=18&id=18_20071005111441

I loved every minute of it and the people were so generous and kind. Those people endured hardships beyond our imagination during the Baltic conflict, One person told me they had suffered up to 100 rocket-propelled grenades exploding on their town square every single day. The hospital still has bullet holes in the walls and chunks missing from the structure where shells had landed.

We also went into Bosnia, which was eerie. I filmed the shattered houses and abandoned land. Very few people returned to their homes after the war. They never felt safe enough in that country after the ethnic cleansing that went on. Whole families were murdered in their homes, before being burned as the aggressor army razed the houses to the ground. There is evidence of the atrocities everywhere. Needless to say, we did not wear uniform in Bosnia. In fact, I almost got arrested when I was filming at the border. It's illegal but I didn't know that until I was told by one of our party. Luckily I wasn't seen by the mean gun-toting border guards.

I have dozens of photographs from the trip and great memories. I made a lot of new friends and will definitely be going back again next year.

I'm back and with the book on its way, I can get back to posting the backlog of stuff that's been waiting to be written (typed). Thanks for hanging in there!

Xf