I’ve just hung up the telephone. It was Willie McPherson, he was calling me from a shipyard in the jungle city of Iquitos. This is last truly minute dot com up the Amazon. Tomorrow the ship is going to be relaunched. Amazon Hope 1 has been cut in two and an additional 10 metres has been added to the vessel. This we hope will make it even more versatile as we take health care to the remotest parts of the Amazon Rain Forest.

I’m a wee bit disappointed because I should have been with Willie on this trip, but there’s a lot going on at present and I couldn’t find the time. Tomorrow the project will be visited by HRH Princess Anne, hence Willie’s call. He tells me the shipyard is buzzing with workers trying to get the project finished before the Royal visit at 12 noon tomorrow. There are dozens of men painting and welding and in the midst of it all there is a film crew filming pictures for the STV. Amazon Heartbeat is an 8 part documentary that goes out next month all about the work of the Vine Trust in Peru. Its going to be really quite exciting. I’m told that STV have also started filming a four part follow up to the series to be broadcast next January. Its really quite literally amazing that our wee project that started out of St Andrew’s 21 years ago is now such a high profile Charity.