Well, not back from school, really, but "back from a school", as in, the first school Toby wrote to has responded, and it was a bit like Christmas! The Kindergarten class from Hunters Hill Public School, together with their teacher, Mme Benrimoj, have sent Toby a whole stack of drawings, of rainbow lorikeets, the Harbour Bridge, Sydney Opera House, kangaroos and other things. 

Toby says: "I liked all the pictures, and I liked what they wrote. My best pictures were the rainbow lorikeets, but I liked all the other ones, too. Thank you for all your letters, I love learning about the world! Bye, Toby"

Apologies for the delay in posting the raffle results! First of all, a massive, massive thank you, the raffle raised over £80 for ShelterBox, and both Toby and I are super-grateful! Secondly, we have to admit to a tiny bit of shenanigans in the draw - you see, Toby's Daddy won a glass pendant, and I think he was looking forward to *some* glass leaving the house, so he withdrew from the draw, and the pendant was raffled off again. Some people won more than one thing, this is because everybody was entered once for every £1 they donated, so if you donated £5, your name was on five slips on paper, you got ten slips of paper if you donated £10, etc.

So here, without further ado, the winners:

Packs of 5 greeting cards go to: Holly U., Davina, and Katrin
Ammonite pendants go to: Katrin, Davina and Ally N. (from Daddy's work)
Fossils go to: Davina, Katrin, James C., and Nicky F.

...and since that result looked a bit wonky, we found three more fossils and two more glassy pendants, and the three fossils go to Matt W. (from Daddy's work), and Alex and Steph from Taekwondo, and glassy pendants go to Andrea from Daddy's work, and Megan from Taekwondo.

I promise that everything was mixed well, and Toby did a good rummage! Thank you so much again for entering!!! Now, it remains to be seen who will be right about the very last address to be found........only 37 to go!

A couple of weeks ago, Toby received his response from Austria, which included a recipe for a famous Austrian cake, Sachertorte. Well, today, we got round to baking it, and here's the result! It worked really well...must look at more culinary adventures around the globe!

Toby would be the first to admit that he's a lucky boy (yes, he really would!) But he would say so even more emphatically after we started embarking on this project. So how do you explain to a five-year-old what it is like to be hungry, to be without education, without a home, to be suffering from the aftermath from a natural disaster - especially if your own experience of most of the above is only second-hand?

Toby loves books, and we have found a few that have explored the topics we needed to look at. ShelterBox have brought out a few excellent books - three to date, with a fourth in the pipeline, explaining what it is like to live through an earthquake, a tsunami, and a flood.

There is also a series called "Children's True Stories: Natural Disasters", which encompasses six books, all of which cover topics we encountered on our journey. These are aimed at slightly older children, but served us very well.

Obviously, none of these books are cheery, but a few people have asked how Toby is learning about the countries he is writing to - this is one of the ways. I promise I'll share books about celebrations, too!

You can get the ShelterBox books here: http://www.shelterboxshop.org.uk/category/books

As you might know, Toby is trying to raise money for ShelterBox, a charity which brings emergency aid to those in need, all over the world. To do so, he decided to hold a raffle. We decided on the rules together, and I tried to phrase them "all official", so here goes:

1) The prizes are:
- three packs of 5 note cards and envelopes, printed by Toby (and Mummy) with an ammonite, drawn and cut by Toby (3 prizes of 5 note cards each);
- four ammonites (two ammonites and two imprints, actually), found by Toby on a fossil unting trip to Port Mulgrave last week (four prizes, one ammonite each);
- three handmade glass ammonite pendants, made by Toby's Mummy (three prizes, one pendant each).
We will be adding a few more prizes as we think of them.

2) Each entry is £1. You can either donate at http://www.justgiving.com/writingtotheworld, or pay us in person (if we see you). For each £1 you spend, you get to guess one country (i.e. if you donate £5, you can enter five country names. The objective is to guess the last country that we will get a contact for. You can enter the names of countries directly on the JustGiving page, or use the Contact page on the website to let us know.

3) The raffle will run for ten days only, until midnight 23rd of August. After this point, all prizes will be raffled off. Then, at the end of the project, we will contact everybody who guessed the right country, and Toby will write you a personal "well done and thank you" letter.

4) Winners for the ten-day raffle will be posted on this blog on 24th of August, and we will contact you if we know how to!

Toby's Mum and Dad will pay for postage of prizes, so all money will go direct to ShelterBox.
Please note: This is not a fair raffle. We are finding new contacts every day, and so, strictly speaking, the longer you wait, the better your chances are. However, even if "your country" gets found during the ten days the competition runs, you will still be entered into the raffle, so it doesn't matter. We will add further prizes as we think of them. People who are helping us with countries are allowed to enter, but please don't hold back countries just because you want a letter from Toby ;). It's in the spirit of raising money for charity :)

Hints and tips: To choose a country, check out the map on the homepage, and/or the list of countries. Please note: there are dark horses in there - I have written to embassies, schools, university departments - anything could happen! Every single country on the list has at least one potential lead, even if it is a "wild card" email. Similarly, countries not on the list (and red on the map) may enter the pot again, if a contact doesn't come off.

This morning, we came across two countries with interesting flags. Apparently, the parrot on the flag of Dominica (left) is sometimes shown in blue, and sometimes in purple. And when it's purple, it's the only flag in the whole world to have purple on it! And the Papua New Guinea flag (right) was designed by a 15-year-old school girl, but that was in 1971, so she's a grown-up now. It shows a raggiana bird of paradise, and the Southern Cross. That's a star formation, but we can't see it, because we're north of the equator!

Today, I could colour in Monaco and Tonga on Toby's map. You probably won't have noticed, unless you're eagle-eyed, but there are no less than 25 "Microstates" part of the UN (that's states with a non-sea area of less that 1000 square km. So far, we have managed to unearth addresses for 8 of them. That's not bad going. But it means that, for at least 25 countries (and quite possibly a few more!) you won't notice the map changing much......for Toby, however, each "mini country" (as he calls them) is a little personal victory. We talked about it, driving through a forest near our home, and decided: "To find people from some countries is like looking for a green leaf in this forest. It's super-easy. Other countries, it's like looking for a white flower. There are some, but you have to look. Other countries, it's like looking for a red flower....really tricky. And some countries, it's like looking for a giraffe!" So, wish us luck looking for "giraffes" near Sheffield, UK...or for people who can help Toby cover the "Microstates"!

This morning, Toby hit the half way mark of his challenge - 97 out of 194 UN countries covered. He has, in fact, written 110 letters, doubling up on some countries, and adding a couple not on the list. Fittingly, the letter that took him to the half way mark did go "half way around the world", to Palau, where the Director of Education Administration, Emery Wenty, has already sent Toby some pictures - here's one of them. 

(As an aside, I think he's planning on taking up diving as soon as he's old enough!)

Today, we got a veritable flood of addresses, thanks to African Parks (http://www.african-parks.org) who responded - without exception - to my emails. What was interesting for Toby to find out was the remoteness....first, we got "the nearest post box is two hours' drive away" (Rwanda), then, tonight, an email came from Chad, explaining that there is no post box within a day's drive, but that the letter would get posted at the earliest opportunity. This followed hot on the heels of advice we got a couple of days ago, addressing letters to a third person, because picking it up from the post office would require showing the passport (and it would then have to go on a long drive to the village where its recipient lives!).

So, of course, we had to measure how far our nearest post box is. The answer? 29 Toby steps, or 23 Mummy steps - and this is what it looks like. We don't mind waiting for post - our way to the post box must be among the easiest anywhere!

We have a great deal to thank a large number of charities, with aid workers from at least six or seven different ones helping Toby achieve his goal. When Toby realised that many, many people he wrote to were a) living in countries where the price of postage was prohibitive, and b) good people from all over the world who have made it their mission to help, he wanted to know what he could do to help. That's when we, together, decided to try and fundraise for ShelterBox - and you can read more about that on the "Sponsor Toby" page. 

Then, Toby wrote his letter to Malawi, where five pigs are currently looking for sponsors. The pigs will be run as part of a "piggery" at a school, giving young people skills to find work after leaving school. Well, you can read Toby's letter here: http://www.writingtotheworld.com/malawi.html ... and meet Lucy!