Coffee, champagne and dog food

We had a morning of household tasks - washing, changing money, going to the market and cooking. Bob made a good attempt at borsch - vegetarian, of course, so probably not authentic! Yesterday, I made Ukrainian-style pancakes - rolled up with a ricotta-like cheese and stewed cherries, served cold. They were very good, so I'm told!

After lunch we met our friend, Franklin, for coffee. He's moving to Kharkiv next week because he doesn't think it's sufficient to make cakes in Lviv and send them, stacked in vehicles, to be distributed to soldiers. He would prefer to be cooking for soldiers directly, in one way or another. We will keep in touch with him to find out how.

We then went with Franklin to our neighbouring aid storage facility - in the basement of a kebab shop. It was Franklin who introduced us to the couple who run it. They were going to open their own cafe but, when the war started, they didn't think it would do very well so they decided to collect and distribute humanitarian aid instead. When we went down to the basement, they said, "Have a glass of champagne!' They were with friends, celebrating Biden's surprise visit to Kyiv, just days ahead of the anniversary of Russia's brutal, illegal invasion, and therefore "of huge symbolic importance..."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/20/this-is-a-part-of-history-kyiv-citizens-delighted-by-joe-biden-surprise-visit

We will be able to fill our van completely with aid that we'll collect tomorrow afternoon, plus two large bags of dried dog food that we bought with the recent surprise donation from an elderly man outside a supermarket. Everywhere we go there are dogs, either strays or belonging to people in bomb-destroyed villages, who are barely able to support themselves, let alone their animals. We also hear stories of people who buy food for pets ahead of themselves. So we will give the dog food to our contact in Kharkiv, to divide up and take to the villages with our other aid.

Speaking of dog food, Bob spent most of the rest of the day, trying to find a storage facility for 20 tonnes of animal food coming from a charity in Germany. He succeeded in this and will elucidate tomorrow.

We've had a good response to our request for donations for buying books for children in Ivanivka school, Chernihiv - nearly £300 so far.

If you can help, please donate in the usual way:

1. Open PayPal and, when asked for name of payee or email, enter trawden4ukraine@hotmail.com. 

2. Use the collection box in Trawden community shop...still think this might be a challenge for our American and Canadian friends.....but who knows with Biden having crossed the ocean...





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