The morning was a blur – I sent a quick email to everyone explaining my decision to leave for a week to help out in Sri Lanka and was flooded with emails from my work colleagues all offering help and support. It was a nice gesture by my company. team. I also had the task of obtaining visas for the deployed team and a telephone call to the Sri Lankan High Commission filled me with dread: it appeared that my promise from the visa section that all would be ok had not in fact, been ok. The helpful chap that MapAction had been dealing with and who I had a lengthy chat on Saturday and Sunday was now on leave and was not contactable and no record of my visa application could be found.

I had to start the submission process again but due to the urgency of the deployment it took a long chat before the agreed that they would contact Colombo direct to confirm the deployment of the second NGO team. With this on my mind I quickly raced over to the main house and prepared for the Sky News interview.

My interview with Sky News was fun and interesting though it did take too long for my liking. I had too much to do in terms of preparatory work and needed to fly out first thing tomorrow morning. Still, any PR for ESRI (UK) Ltd and MapAction would be welcome. During this time of my interview I was busy collecting the licenses and dongles, while Dan Sparrow helped me disconnect myself from the work load as he gallantly took over.

By 2pm I was shattered and still hadn’t chased up the visa application. Better do so quickly, I thought and dialled the number and was patched through another different staff member – who was also helpful but couldn’t answer my questions on the visa status. It was not until 3pm that I had confirmation that they had agreement for us to go and that we should get to the commission to have our passports endorsed. I quickly explained that no-one could present themselves at the commission in two hours!