HAVE you ever had the feeling that events are conspiring against you? Because I've got that feeling at the moment.

I flew out of Delhi last Thursday to Colombo in Sri Lanka just for a little bit of a break, a day or two 'off the record' so to speak.

Bill, a good friend of mine, was coming out from Blackburn and we were going to have a good time, look round the island and take in all the beauty spots. And me, well I was hoping I would get some food that I could recognise, food that didn't look as though it would crawl off my plate at any moment.

But alas t'was not to be. For at two o'clock on Saturday morning Bill called to say he 'couldn't breathe.'

A call to the manager. "Have you a doctor?" "Oh yes madame, but it will take a short while," he said. So I ask: "Is there a hospital close by?" '"Yes madame, the Navaloka ,shall we come up for Sir and bring a wheelchair?"

Ten minutes later we were at the hospital and a doctor was giving Bill oxygen, while I at the same time was being asked for my credit card in order to cover the hospital fees.

The speed and the treatment was spot on, he was in intensive care for two days and monitored every half hour. Now I couldn't absolutely say for sure, but his recovery took a definite turn for the better when he found out how much it was going to cost.

The doctor said: "Much better if Sir was to go home." So I thought "Well Margo, methinks you had better go with him just in case." So we began the long journey back to Blackburn but we were both very glad that he was going to be OK and that I was there.

WELL I shall be in Islamabad on Sunday -- 'no rest for the wicked.' I knew that I should have put more than my foot in the Ganges.

I suppose that I have been very lucky; my life hasn't been a bit dull, hard at times, very hard but never boring. And I often think of that old saying 'the only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth' and I am sure that most divorces are caused not by infidelity but by sheer boredom.

If you want things to happen you have to face the fact that no-one is going to come along, knock on your door and say to you "Now here's an exciting thing, do you want to do it?"

Oh no! The truth is if you want to win the raffle you have got to buy a ticket.

And sadly I think the same thing applies to the people who are lonely; sitting in, feeling that no-one loves you or even cares, is not the answer.

No matter how difficult it is, you have to try, join a club, a class, have a row with someone, but get back into the mainstream, back into life. For loneliness begets loneliness so you have to make the effort; it's worth it in the long run.

AT Sri Lanka Airport everyone had to pay to enter and I thought what a cheek, but on reflection, perhaps it wasn't such a bad idea. It cost 60 pence each but that small amount kept at least six men employed, one selling the tickets and the others collecting them.

There's no unemployment pay, men keeping their families and their pride, so all in all, not a bad deal.

I REALLY enjoyed India. Everyone took a serious pride in his or her jobs, even though the job was no great shakes. Just before I left I called in a chemist's shop and asked "Do you have anything for dry skin please?"

The young man replied very seriously "But has madame tried a towel?" Well there's just no answer to that is there?

Till next week