And the Madness ends!

Yesterday was our 13th wedding anniversary. We actually celebrated a couple of weeks ago when Mel's mum was visiting. We had a really nice staycation at the Shangri La. When I was explaining to Matilda that Mel and I would be staying away for the night to celebrate our wedding anniversary, her response was "I wanna come too! I've never been to a wedding before!" I explained that it wasn't an actual wedding but celebrating the day we were married. I suggested that we go out for lunch on the actual day to celebrate. And yesterday was that day and we had lunch at one of our favourite restaurants.

And so to the "Madness". This past 18 months has been the crazy busiest time I have known. It started just before we broke up for the Christmas holidays in 2015 when Mel said "I'm going out at lunchtime but I'll be back". I though "ok, whatever. You go out for lunch every Friday". I didn't think much more about it until I was walking to class after lunch. I ran into Mel on my way and she said "we need to talk". It sounded serious and I was immediately thinking about would could be wrong. We walked into Mel's classroom and she held out something in her hand. As I got closer, I could see it was a pregnancy tester. And it was pink! I looked up and said "fuck!" We had a quick chat but class was starting so I had to go. As I walked into class, all I could hear in my mind was "Fuck! What the fuck? Holy shit!" etc.. You get the general idea. I assume this was all in my mind because no-one said "oi, stop swearing!"

Anyhow, it took a while for us to get used to the idea of another baby. The last trimester was pretty difficult for Mel (and we would find out later that she developed hernia at this time). As usual, the last few weeks of term was manicly busy and this was compounded by having to pack our gear to move out of our apartment. We didn't want to move but our landlords (who live next door) wanted their parents to move in. They were very good about it and luckily we were to take over the lease on an apartment close to school from a colleague who was leaving Singapore . The building we moved to is literally a 5 minute walk to school and, as it was built in the 1980s, is very spacious. We have two great balconies; one looking over a forested area with loads of bird life and the other looking due west so we regularly see magnificent sunsets. And the moon as well:)

Once school finished, we had to finish packing before we headed to Bali for a week or so to recharge. The original plan was to go in early July to meet up with Mel's mum & dad and her sister & family. But with Flynn due for late July those plans had to be revised and we went as soon as we could. The timing wasn't fantastic as the day after we got back was moving day! It was a nice holiday though and it was cool to watch Matilda release a turtle hatchling back into the ocean.

After moving, we started to get ourselves unpacked and sorted. It was a slowish process as Mel was struggling a bit. And of course, by the end of July our little guy was ready to put in an appearance. Mel and I headed to the hospital on the evening of 31 July. After lots of hard work from Mel, Flynn showed up around 1:50am on 1 August. We were very lucky to have Mel's mum staying with us for a few weeks, which made the transition a little easier. Especially for Matilda. Flynn's arrival meant that I missed the first couple of days at school. In some ways it was good as I didn't have to sit through dry, boring stuff. It did mean that I was a little bit behind where I wanted to be in terms of preparation. Oh well.

This year at school was busy as usual, but different because of the broken sleep for first term. It was a bit of a struggle at times but once we were home from Bali after the October holidays, Flynn settled into a nice sleep routine and Mel and I started to catch up on our missed sleep. Our trip to Bali ended up being good after a rocky start. We had booked a villa on Air BnB. When we arrived we found the place not really matching the photos. The place was tired looking and there was mould on the curtains and underneath the wall paper. The bathroom basin drained straight on to the floor which was really dangerous. The place was generally not clean and there was a wasp nest in the kitchen area. The pool was nice though and if it had been Mel & I by ourselves, we might have stayed. But with two little kids it wasn't ok.

We got in touch with the owner with no success. We had to go through AirBnB's conflict resolution process and I have to say they were really helpful and we ended getting our money back less the one night we stayed at the place. Luckily there was a decent hotel across the road so we spent two nights there before we found another villa that was more honest. The last four days were reasonably relaxing which was cool.

Although not doing as much travelling for school this year, I still got to Saigon for a very cool conference on IT in education, Hong Kong for an IB workshop and of course my trip to Bali with the Year 10 Geographers. These were all cool, but it's always hard to be away from Mel, Matilda and Flynn. We managed some family trips too, getting to Bali in October, NZ for Christmas and Penang in March.

Adding to the 'madness' was my decision to start an MEd. programme through Waikato University. The course is offered through the uni's Centre for Global Studies in Education. The people in charge are former Geography teachers and the course, while not Geography focused, definitely has a geographic slant to it, which is what made it attractive to me. It started really well and I got an 'A' for my first assignment. The second half was more challenging in terms of trying to pay enough attention while still managing all the school stuff and spending time with Mel & the kids. I found it quite a struggle over the last few weeks. I got there in the end but I'm not sure about my grade:(

It was so cool to wake up this morning and not have to got to school. Both Flynn and Matilda slept well and it was around 8am when we woke up. Not a massive sleep in, but as anyone with young kids would agree, pretty nice:) We have about seven weeks off now. We'll be hitting Bali in early July to meet up with Mel's mum & dad and her sister's family. Towards the end of July we'll in Saigon for a couple nights before 6 days on the beach near Hoi An. Really looking forward to both trips, as well as just hanging out at home.

Ciao!

Luang Prabang

Laos, and Luang Prabang in particular, are places I have long wanted to visit. We made it these holidays and we were very excited to be going.

The old town part of Luang Prabang is a world heritage area. Having been to Hoi An in Vietnam, I was interested to see how the area had coped with 20 years of being listed as a world heritage area.

Our hotel was the Belle Rive, which looks over the Mekong River. It is three beautiful old buildings, with lots of teak. The furniture, floors and trims were all teak. It was situated in the old part of town which meant we could pretty much walk everywhere.

It was the hottest part of the year which meant the temperatures were hitting the high 30s/low 40s during the afternoon. The evenings and mornings were quite chilly, dropping down to around 15. Basically we spent the mornings out visiting temples and other places, had lunch then went back to the hotel to chill out in the air conditioning until the late afternoon.

The temples in Luang Prabang look superficially like Thai temples. However the colours and decorations were a little more subtle as opposed to the garish colours in Thailand.

The temples are all working temples in that they have monks living there. Every morning there is something of a procession, as the monks walk through the streets to collect alms from the townspeople. What is kind of sad is that it has become a scene of conflict between the monks, townspeople and tourists. It's to the point where there are signs in lots of places asking that people be respectful towards the monks.

The other thing about our trip was the haze. March and April are when the farmers burn off the rice stubble left behind after harvesting. Because was hotter and drier than usual, the haze was horrendous, consistently sitting over 100 on the PSI scale. This was another reason to chill out in the hotel in the afternoon as the haze became worse as the day wore on. It was a shame, because the countryside would have really beautiful in clearer weather.

Perhaps one positive of the hot, dry weather is that the bougainvillea were flowering strongly. Which made for very colourful scenes along the streets and pleased Matilda no end.

I should point out that I started writing this post in April and as usual, didn't get around to finishing it. So now that I have started again, I can't really remember exactly what I was going to say. Never mind. Anyhoo, here are some more photos of Luang Prabang's old town. Enjoy:)

Myanmar

Visiting ancient places has always given me a feeling of … I’m not sure exactly. Excitement isn’t the right word, nor is interesting. Hmm … maybe fascination is a better word? Anyhoo, I have been fortunate enough to visit places such as the Great Wall & Ming Dynasty tombs in China and Angkor Wat in Cambodia (twice!).

Being sandwiched between India and China, South East Asia tends to be forgotten, despite the fascinating history of the area. I have been fortunate to have visited almost all the ASEAN countries and last week I finally made it to Bagan in Myanmar.

There are so many temples, pagodas and shrines on the plain in the area it seems as though someone has scattered a bucket of them. It is noticeable as you drive around, but more so when you get up high. Many of them are quite small but there are several large ones that are very much worth visiting. And although they are very old (perhaps 800-1000 years in some cases), there are some that are still functioning.

We happened to be in Bagan in time for the full moon, which is an auspicious time for buddhists. The day of the full moon was a public holiday and there were large crowds of Burmese people at some of the temples. In the carparks were many small trucks packed to the gunnels with people, with their belongings piled on the roofs. It was interesting to see, though my daughter Matilda become a little tired of the attention she attracted from local people.

Bagan is an amazing place and I would love to go back at some point. A balloon flight over the temples would be and taking the boat from Mandalay would be very cool.

A Holiday in Cambodia

One of the biggest motivating factors for my wife & I moving to Singapore was to be able to travel easily to lots of places. We had lived in Japan & Thailand before moving to New Zealand (where Mel is from) to be closer to family. While in Japan & Thailand we did quite a bit traveling to places Korea, the US, the Philippines, Thailand, as well as the UK. This is not to say we didn’t travel internationally while we were in NZ. We visited the Pacific island nations of Samoa & Tonga, as well as Australia (where I am from) to visit family. We also went to Singapore and Cambodia. It was on this trip that we felt we could definitely live in Singapore.

Sunset at Angkor

We went to Cambodia to see the ruins of Angkor Wat. Visiting the ruins around Siem Reap was simply amazing and I was always very keen to return. The opportunity to go back to Siem Reap came up this year. My parents were coming to visit us in Singapore in our school holidays. We suggested that we go to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat and they were keen.

Obviously I wanted to see Angkor, the Bayon and other places while we were in Cambodia. But I was also very interested to see how the area had changed in the six years since had visited. I am a geography teacher and one of the ‘big ideas’ we talk about in geography is change.

So, how had the area changed? Well Siem Reap has definitely grown. The town is more built up and there are many more hotels; including several that have been left incomplete. It follows that there are more people around, both Cambodian & foreigners. Although I don’t know the exact figures yet, I met someone who works in tourism in Siem Reap who told me that a few years ago, Siem Reap received around 1000000 visitors per year. Now the area is receiving that many in a season (i.e. a 3-4 month period).

The traffic seemed busier with more cars, as well as the ubiquitous motorcycles and tuk tuks. Sadly, there was definitely a lot more rubbish lying around, especially in the outskirts of Siem Reap. I wonder if the proliferation of rubbish is a product of a lack of education? Going back to Siem Reap has led me to start thinking about taking a group of students to visit Siem Reap to do research on how the tourism industry has affected the town and surrounding area.

"Big Faces" at the Bayon

Another strong motivation for traveling is to expose our daughter to new places and cultures so she understands that there are many different places with different people who believe in different things. Although Matilda is not yet three years old, she has been to Thailand three times, Vietnam, Japan and now Cambodia. She is quite an accomplished traveller. She loves going on aeroplanes and was very excited to see the “big faces” of the Bayon as I have a large photograph of them in our living room. While my mum & I were doing an early morning tour with a photographer, Mel took Matilda to see Angkor Wat & the Bayon, which she was delighted with. We also bought her a Cambodian flag to add to her collection.

A Trip to Vietnam - Part 1

We decided to chill out for a few days after school before we headed off to Vietnam. Our plan was to spend two nights in Saigon before heading up to Hoi An via Da Nang. It was exciting to go back to Vietnam after three and a half years. Mel and Tilda hadn't been before so it was exciting for them too.

The flight to Saigon is only an hour and a half which is cool. It was good to get out of Singapore for a bit because the smog was getting worse each day. The smog was being caused by bush fires in Sumatra and unfortunately the wind direction meant that the smoke was being blown directly over southern Malaysia and Singapore. I felt for those who were stuck there because it got really bad while we were away. We were keeping an eye on the situation online and the pictures we saw were pretty bad. According to the National Environment Agency the PSI reading was over 400 which meant it was hazardous to health.

The other thing about clear air was it made for good photography. I love photography and I love taking photos from planes because it gives you a perspective you don't usually get to see. I guess it looks like a really big map, which feeds my other passion, geography. Although it was a little cloudy but I managed to get a couple of good, geogeeky shots:)

Smog at Changi as we taxi to the runway

New motorway being built through rice padis

Confluence & meander in the Mekong Delta

I was going to write more and put in some more photos but I can't do what I want and I'm getting pissed off so I'm going to leave it there for the moment. I will try to add more tomorrow.

Later

Tone

It's the end of the year!

I can't believe that the school year is done, but I'm glad it is. Term Four was a bit of an epic at 11 weeks long. It was quite different to last term in NZ. In NZ, once the senior kids had left everything wound down nicely until the last day which was the highlight of the year. It was always a teacher only day. BBQ bacon & eggs for brekky, washed down with a cold ale or 10. Faculties put on skits to mock each other and senior management, which was always fun. Here, things actually seemed to ramp up as we moved through May into June. I'm not used to writing reports in Term Four! I'm fairly sure that I have never been this tired before. We finished the year with a free-flow beer & wine/bbq buffet night at the Hyatt. Funny night. Some people were feeling seedier than others in the morning:) I should point out that it wasn't me as I had to take Tilda to gymnastics in the morning.

Mel, Nat & me at the Hyatt. Good night!

The year has been pretty hard in lots of ways. I guess moving your family from one country to another is always going to be challenging. However, I've really enjoyed it. School here is easier in most ways compared with Fraser. I loved working at Fraser but the challenging kids there were on a whole other level compared to the kids I work with now. And I just saw a good example of this on Facebook. A colleague at Fraser posted that he had confiscated a ladder off a kid at school today! Made me giggle:)

Even though the holidays have just started, I'm actually excited for the next academic year. I really think we're on the verge of something very good and this coming year will make or break us. A little daunting to be sure, but I'm looking forward to it. I'll be teaching all the Geography classes which is cool.

But back to the holidays! We are heading off to Vietnam tomorrow afternoon which is exciting for Mel as she's not been before. We're looking forward to some time by the beach and checking out the old town of Hoi An.

Hopefully I will have more to say when we get back.

Tone

In Kuala Lumpur

Middle weekend of the first term holidays. I am in KL to do some training for IB Geography. Even though it's during the holidays, I'm excited because hopefully I'll be able to cross some I's and dot some T's.

A few of us flew up to Malaysia yesterday morning. Very early morning! Got picked up at 5:20am so I was up at 4:30. Mel's sister and family are staying with us and Matilda is super excited to see her cousins Zoe & Emma. So she didn't want to go to sleep. Wouldn't be too much of a problem normally but she is sleeping in our room. I probably got to sleep around 1am!

Part of our programme involved going to visit our sister school in Putrjaya which is 30 or so km south of KL. As per usual with Air Asia, our flight left Singapore 45 mins late which threw our timing out. We didn't get as much time as we would've liked watching lessons at Purajaya. What I did see was great though. I think I have a clearer idea of where we we'll be in 2-3 years time. And that is exciting!

We got a taxi up to KL after we finished at Putrjaya. We planned to leave at 3pm and asked to have a couple of taxi there at that time. One turned up and took a couple of us to the airport. The next one didn't want to take the rest of us to KL. Too far? Not sure! Eventually we got a couple of taxis to turn up. It was interesting to see the country side. It was kind of weird seeing lots of open space instead of lots of high rise buildings.

We got to the hotel in KL around 4:30pm. As we were checking in one of the guys realised he had lost his passport! Such a pain, but he was able to get a replacement from the British Consulate which has eased his stress somewhat.

The hotel is really nice and I have a good a view of Petronas Towers from my room which is cool. In case you don't know,  these buildings used to be the tallest in the world before Taipei 101 and the new one in Dubai.

I started this post in KL but the training was very intense and I never got around to finishing. So I'm doing it now back in Singapore. As I said the IB training was intense. So much information to digest! It was really good though. There were a few other teachers in our group that are in a similar position to me - new to the IB system and actually teaching the course. It was great to swap experiences and ideas.

I was concerned about being behind in terms of how much we had covered. I'm not quite as far behind as I thought, which is good. But I am behind and we will have to catch up somehow. I do feel more confident about things now and I think I will be able to make some of the lost ground.

One of the best things about being an expat is meeting like minded people. The people in our group were really interesting. Mostly from the UK with a couple of Kiwis and Canadians thrown in, they're teaching in places like Mumbai, Shanghai, Singapore, Australia and even NZ. One of the Kiwi guys works at St Peter's College in Cambridge and had joined the NZGS just as I was leaving so it was good to catch up with him and hear how things were going back in Hamilton.

This post is taking a long time! First week of term is finished now. Mercifully, it's a short week because today is a public holiday for Hari Raya Haji which celebrates the end of the Hajj. Today is going to be a lazy day I think. I was hoping for a sleep in but Tilda decided she should wake up at 5:30 this morning. To be fair, she has a little cold so I can't really blame her. 

The first week was pretty good though tiring. Quite a bit of stuff to get through before the Christmas holidays. It's an 8 week term which is great but it creates a fair amount of pressure. I guess we'll get there though. We're not planning to go back to Australia or NZ this Christmas. Moving here and getting set up was an expensive exercise. We're not destitute or anything but catching up will take time. Mel was excited yesterday because she got her first pay since starting work:)

I can't think of anything else to say right now so I'll be off.

Ciao
Tone

Nearly there!

Into the second to last week before the holidays. People are tired, grumpy and starting to get sick. I went home early last Friday. And not to go to the pub! Taught my first 2 periods then went home to bed. I felt better in the evening and on Saturday I was better again, though not 100%. Met up with a couple of blokes from work to watch the footy. I was feeling a bit sad after Collingwood lost the night before but a few sherbets and a cracking game of footy helped ease the pain a little.

I've not got much more to say at the moment so I'm going to put a few pictures in. Lazy, but there you go:)

The first one I took yesterday on the way to

school. It was raining very heavily and the amount of water on the road & in the drains was amazing. This is a drain running into another drain.

The next couple are of Tilda trying to walk around in my sandals. She tried so hard and got frustrated because she couldn't do it. Very determined little girl! Note that she has her own sandals on as well:)

The last couple are from my classroom. At the start of the year the said "what do you need for your room?" I said, "a world map. A big one!" Yesterday, after 6 weeks of waiting, I got my big world map. I had to show it off to my fellow Geography geek Nicole. Then I felt compelled to show off my whole map wall. It was deemed "impressive, but needing more NZ". So a photo of my NZ wall was necessary:) Enjoy!

Ciao,

TONE

3 Weeks to go!

So there's only 3 weeks until the end of Term 1. Everyone is pretty knackered as it's been a pretty full on term and we're all looking forward to the holidays. As I said in a previous post, the school is still sorting out systems and such. It's kind of frustrating in a way but I think this year was always going to be like this. I don't mind too much because I reckon the positives out-weigh the negatives.

Mel's mum & dad arrived on Wednesday night. Mel is happy to see them. So is Tilda as she has more people to show off to:) She is quite the chatterbox now. I think she is getting frustrated at times because she is trying so hard to communicate but isn't sure about how to get the message across. At the same time it seems that everyday she is learning new words. I suspect in a year or so that we won't be able to get a word in edgeways! She's been really chirpy over the last 3 or 4 days which is great as she had new teeth arriving which was very painful for her.

Mel's sister and family are coming to visit as well. They arrive in a couple of weeks. They're staying at hotels mostly, including the Marina Bay Sands which is very flash! Mel is looking forward to that as it'll will cool for Zoe & Emma to see Tilda. She loves them so much and gets so excited when she sees them. The girls have seen pictures of the pool at our condo and are looking forward to swimming in it:)

Mel is starting work at school in couple of weeks. She is picking up a 0.5 load of Business Studies classes. She's quite excited to be earning some money and using her brain again:) School is happy because it releases some of the senior management team from part of their teaching load and that will give them time to work on systems etc..

The process has been a bit stressful in some ways as we have had to hire a maid, or 'helper' as they're called in Singapore. We looked at childcare but it was very expensive, which is a pain. The Singaporean government are telling people they need to have more babies, but it costs too much. I spoke to a couple of the women at school and they said it's far cheaper to hire a full-time, live-in helper. We weren't that keen to have someone live in. Pretty much all apartments in condos have maid quarters - a small toilet/shower room & a very small sleeping area. We use ours as storage space so it's pretty full. Having someone live in also means that I can't get about without a shirt:)

We interviewed a few people. The first 3 came together and although they seemed nice, didn't really convince us. The following weekend we interviewed 3 more. The first was really nice and Mel & I felt comfortable with her. The second had been advertised as a "simple girl" and simple she was. I felt really bad for her because she didn't understand the directions that Mel gave her and I had to walk down the road to find her. We were just about to give up when came across her in a 7-11. We weren't confident that we could trust her to look after Matilda properly and counted her out. The third woman was nice and seemed competent but not quite as good as Lorie (the first one.

So we called Lorie and told her we were keen to hire her. And this is when the stress arose. Her previous employer wouldn't sign a form we needed. The agency wanted us to pay $600 or they'd send Lorie back to the Philippines. Lorie was very keen to work for us and would look for work elsewhere (mainly because she'd have basically 2 days a week off as opposed to usual 1 most employers allow. In the end it all worked out and Lorie is starting tomorrow.

The process was very instructive in a way. A lot of employers and all the agencies treat the domestic workers very poorly. They are treated like a commodity. In fact, one agency that Mel spoke to actually used the analogy of "buying goods". The conditions that some employer impose on their helpers are almost draconian. One day off a month, no cell phone, no contact with people outside the family. The list goes on.

I'm looking forward to the holidays. We don't have any huge plans as Blair & Rose will be here and I'm off the Malaysia for a few days over the middle weekend. There are a group of us from school going to visit our sister school in Putrajaya just outside Kuala Lumpur. They opened a few years ago and are doing quite well. They set up a 1:1 MacBook programme which has been successful. Our school is planning the same thing so we're going to see how it works. Then we have a 3 day IB training course in KL. I'm really looking forward to the course because I think it will answer some questions I have about the IB Geography course. I'm au fait with the content because geography is geography but there is lots I don't know about the nuts & bolts of teaching an IB course. After that it's a week chilling at home:)

Today I'm meeting the some of the lads from work at bar in town. Time for a few quiets and some sport without our good ladies and kids. There's some rugby on (NZ vSA) and more importantly, Collingwood are playing the Eagles in the 2nd semi-final. I think this will be a pretty tight game. Looking forward to it:) Go Pies!!

Later

TONE

Two weeks in.

We have a long weekend this weekend. I think it's to celebrate the end of Ramadan. Gotta love multi-cutural inclusiveness:) The extra day off came at a good time for me. The teaching staff have been at school since the 1st of August. The kids started on the 13th. I had some training over the weekend before that, which was great but tiring - 8:30 - 4:30 for 3 days. So yesterday was the second day off for me in 2 weeks.

The training was for the International Baccalaureate Diploma course for a subject called Environmental Systems & Society. It's a really interesting subject and kind of fits the degree I did. I learned a lot! But I'm sure there was some stuff that went in one ear and out the other:) It was great to meet some other teachers from the international school circuit and talk about how stuff works in the various schools.

Monday was the first day for the kids at school. I'm the Grade 12 Homeroom teacher and I was excited to meet the kids. It was interesting. Quite a few of the 23 in Grade 12 were what I would call "too cool for school". There were 2 groups that had a bit of attitude - some Korean boys and another group of girls.

Each homeroom teacher has a support teacher. Holly and I did a couple of "get to know you" activities and watched quite carefully. We were content to let them go so we could see how interacted with each other, as well as how they responded to both of us. Suffice to say, we weren't that impressed with what we saw. In my mind I was seeing a reasonably tough year with these guys.

We had another homeroom session ion the afternoon. I had been to watch the Grade 12's in a couple of their other sessions and had spoken to some of the other teachers, as well as senior management. Although it was generally positive, there were a few negatives so I decided I was going to give them a bit of a rark up. No shouting or ranting, just a nice calm but firm talking to. Mostly I spoke about being respectful to each other, their teachers and themselves and turning up on time. You know, "the usual school stuff". And they sat still and listened quietly. Some nodded their heads, while others dropped theirs and looked embarrassed. They left very quietly at the end.

Later I spoke to the IB co-ordinator and some of the other Grade 12 teachers. Over the course of the day they had learned that they were quite a way behind where they should be and they all had a massive workload in front of them if they were to catch up and get their diplomas. Basically, they were shitting themselves!

The next day I did a reflection activity with them to see what they had to say about their first day. There were a lot of positive comments, which was great but it made Holly and I feel quite bad for these guys. They said stuff like "the teachers spoke to us like we were people", "the new teachers seemed like they cared about us" and "I'm glad we have new teachers and they've kept the good ones from last year". These kids had obviously not had much support from most of their teachers last year. I asked a couple of kids about it and the comments were along the lines of "the teacher came in, wrote some page numbers on the board, said "there's your work" and then sat at their desks playing on their computers.

Anyway, things have moved along and we're getting a picture of what the students covered (or not!) last year. In the Senior school they do the IB Diploma in Grade 11 & 12 and the IGSCE in Grade 9 & 10. As they're both 2 year courses finding out what was done last year is obviously really important. Our roll is quite small which is not ideal for the school in the long term, but it's good for us as our classes are really small which means we won't so caught up with loads of marking:)

Our apartment is taking shape and now feels much more like a home. We got a second hand lounge suite and a book shelf thingy, which look great but poor Mel had a mission getting them home. The guy she organised to help turned up and said "7th floor? No you said 2nd floor" which is bollocks because she has the text to prove it. The woman we bought it off wasn't sympathetic either. Long story short, Mel got another (more helpful!) guy to help and she had to help carry part it of down 7 floors because it wouldn't fit in the lift. Poor bugger was knackered by the time I got home and has several sizeable bruises on her arms and legs. I felt stink about not being able to help carry the stuff. But I was able to help put it together and move it around.

I've run out stuff to say for the moment so I'll be off and will try to post more this week sometime.

Ciao for now!

TONE

Back from Thailand

We got back from Thailand late last night. It was kind of sad to leave Khao Lak, but that was tempered by not having to fly back into winter. Yay! Again Tilda was a trooper on the plane. She's teething at the moment so she's been pretty grumpy for the last 3 or 4 days. We try to give her a bottle when we take off to help her ears adjust to the change in air pressure. Unfortunately, boarding (then sitting & waiting for the laggers) coincided with her dinner time. Mel had made the milk in preparation and Tilda could see it. And she wanted it desperately, so she had a wee meltdown. Although it seemed like ages and ages, it was only probably only 20 minutes or so of waiting. But minutes seem like hours when you have a wailing baby sitting on your knee. Eventually we got moving and we could give Tilda the bottle and she quietened down straight away. For the first time in a year, she fell asleep in my arms:)

We had a pretty good time in Thailand. I managed to pick up a tummy bug before we left (dodgy cheesecake?) which wasn't cool. Some Imodium and a bland diet helped settle it down and the last night I could finally enjoy some proper food. And happily that coincided with BBQ Buffett night at the hotel:)

The place we stayed was the Le Meridien at Khao Lak which is about 80-odd km north of Phuket. Mel and I stayed there in 2005, when we were living in Thailand. The hotel is literally on the beach, facing the Andaman Sea. It had been badly damaged in the Boxing Day Tsunami and a lot of the staff died. We were there almost a year after and if you didn't know about the the Tsunami you probably wouldn't have seen a lot evidence of it besides defoliated trees. Anyway, it was great to be back there after 7 years and see that the place hadn't changed too much, because the setting is just magnificent.

See what I mean:) The staff were all really lovely and totally enthralled by Matilda. They all wanted cuddles with her. Sometimes she was obliging and other times not so much. I think she enjoyed the attention though:)

So for 6 days all we pretty much did was swim, get massages and snooze. Despite feeling ordinary for the first 3 days or so, it was really relaxing.

That'll do for the time.

Ciao