Earlier this year, Brian Lister of Biscuit Publishing asked us if Cornwell Internet would help out in a fundraising venture. Biscuit regularly runs competitions to discover the best new writing, but now he wanted to do something a little different. He planned to hold a poetry competition on the usual lines, but with the entry fees going to a charity which brings children from Chernobyl for a holiday in Britain. We agreed that, like Biscuit’s printer and typesetter, we would donate the work involved in running this competition on Biscuit’s website.

Today Brian invited us to join him and the children on a visit to Beamish Open Air Museum:

So we’ve taken this morning off to go to Beamish, which is always a pleasure. And the group of children seemed to be enjoying themselves, but they took a break from their picnic to thank us – by performing a song for us (to the tune of a music track on their interpreter’s telephone)! It’s a novel experience to receive a thankyou serenade, but a very pleasant one, and if I didn’t understand the song itself, I understood the ‘Spasibo – thankyou!’ which followed it.