Khmelnytskyi to home

On the day that President Zelenskiy visited the UK and thanked the British people for their support, it seems appropriate to head the blog with this photo of the Ukraine flag, which one of our Trawden friends and supporters spotted in the tiny village of Appletreewick in the Yorkshire Dales.

It was minus 11 when we left Khmelnitskyi and it took about half an hour to defrost the van. But the day was beautiful and, as we headed closer to Lviv, the snow got deeper and the sky was the clearest blue...
We stopped off at the Wheels of Victory garage in Ternopil and exchanged the borrowed van with windscreen wipers that didn't work, for the trusty Polish van, "Bogdan" - we have recently been made aware that the vans have names!
Bogdan needs some repairs to his steering but these will need to wait until he returns to Poland. This is because his owner, Tomasz (Paszki dla Ukrainy), travelled from Krakow to Lviv in a vehicle that he donated to the military and needed a van to travel home in.

Also, today, Tomasz brought over a giant generator that he has donated to the Botanical Gardens of Lviv. These gardens are closed to the public because of the war, we assume, but power for heating is required to keep the rare plants alive over the freezing winter. This may seem like a less needy requirement than some but, when the war is over, people will want, and need, to do those things that were previously important to them, whether it be going to museums, art galleries or gardens.

We are having a longer than usual break from aid runs 5 days, albeit other things are planned - because our next aid run will be a little different, involving new people and organisations. We think that this will be another positive development, which Bob will elucidate on tomorrow. We hope to be setting off next Tuesday morning to Kharkiv.

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