Our Halloween stay on Caer Blanco is finished, and we said a sad but rousing farewell last night – with music from Diamanda Gustafson – and then an impromptu set from Gwen Carillon, which allowed us all to dance for another hour!
And we had fireworks too just because we wanted to.
It was a marvellous end to what has been a fantastic project – with an amazing range of people being involved – the designers who landscaped and furnished the sim and the castle, the musicians and djs who played for our entertainment, the storytellers and Maar Auer, who has made a wonderful machinima about the island, the team who organised the events and above all, Reacher Rau and his team who made the whole thing possible and Rascal Blanco, whose original concept it was.
Very soon we shall be publishing here the details of the money that was raised for the Phelisanong Clinic in Lesotho.
But you will be able to find out more about the clinic – and to donate to the project to extend the clinic – by visiting the Meta Makeover exhibition hall on Northpoint, as we have decided to continue to feature the clinic display (and donation point) to the end of the year.
And if you want to learn more about the country of Lesotho and the problems it is facing, where more than one in five of the population are HIV positive, you can read about it here in a special feature – Lesotho Aid Diary – on the BBC.
Over the next six months, the BBC will follow the lives of seven people from the community of St Rodrigue, 40km south of the capital, Maseru, as they struggle to live with the HIV crisis. And over the next six months too, Prim Perfect and Meta Makeover will be endeavouring to raise money to extend Phelisanong Clinic so that it can continue to serve the community.
Prim Perfect 