Back to Skool

It's amazing how quickly 8 weeks can go. Sara's back to school this week, and I'm back working from home after a summer of working from some rather bizarre and remote places... the benefits of long-distance telecommuting!

Tea for Two

Tea plantation

I need a new visa, and Thailand's awkward immigration rules mean that I need to apply for it from another country. Sara and I use the excuse to go to Malaysia for a week. We head to the Cameron Highlands; an old colonial hill-station, and a beautifully cool respite from Bangkok. Mornings are spent trekking through the jungle, whilst afternoons are reserved for indulging in that great legacy of British colonial rule... the cream tea.

Phew, that was a Close Shave

So I've always been content with my Mach3; even that seems a bit of overkill. I mean, I'm pretty sure my Grandpa managed with a single blade. But then along came the Wilkinson Quattro. Now, I see in a friend's magazine that Gillette have launched a 5-blader! When's it going to stop? Is there a market for a 20-blade razor?
"If you can’t get a close enough shave with 2 or 3 blades, maybe God is telling you to grow a beard" M.D.

Do you trust Big Brother?

So I forgot to mention Sara's super efficiency on the laundry front a few weeks ago. On returning from Singapore, she'd lovingly washed all our clothes as soon as we got back, in preparation for our next trip. Unfortunately, she also managed to boil-wash both of our passports. Ironically, I needed a new passport as mine was full of stamps. Now it didn't have any (you'd have thought they'd use fail-safe ink).
Anyway, today was new passport day. Did you know that they now cost 100 quid each? They've also got a somewhat worrying biometric chip glued inside. I wonder what that contains? my DNA profile? details of my Tesco shopping habits? a full set of my primary school report cards?...

New Balls Please

Simon challenges me to a game of golf, and we head over to the Royal Thai Army Course. You'd have thought that the presence of rifle ranges all round the course would have helped to reduce my legendary ability to slice the ball, but no such luck. Thanks to the fact that the course was more water than land, I manage to lose an impressive 20 balls. Simon fares little better, and we agree that the only winner today was the course itself...

Just Don't Leave Me Holding the Baby

Wha-hey! Andy and Sarah arrive with Sianna in tow, and we get to meet our God-daughter for the first time. Still not being a natural with small humans, I opt to get to know her from a safe distance.
For the first few weeks, they'll have the unenviable task of finding somewhere to live. As they start to troop round looking at places, I'm reminded of this time last year; how horribly unsettling that first period is, and how happy you feel when you finally find somewhere to call home.