GOOD NEWS...........

Well it has been confirmed. I am off back to Malaysia with my current project. The timings are yet to be decided, but it looks to be around the middle to end of April for 6 + months.

I am really looking forward to it, the sun, the food, the work. Obviously there are the down sides to it. It will mean another 6 months without the family.

Catherine and the kids will be coming out in the summer holidays though, hopefully for a month. That will be really good. We intend going to several places in Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, then maybe the Cameron Highlands, and then an elephant sanctuary. I am not sure about another Isalnd trip, not after the disaster we had last time! If we did I think we will go to Rawa Safari, as it is a lot nicer and a dam site closer to the mainland!!!!!

Of course, we will also visit Singapore.

UP THE ARSENAL

Well the time had come to visit the new home of football. It was a cold night when Sam, Zoe and I undertook the long drive and tube ride to The Emirates Stadium to watch us play CSKA Moscow.

I had been to Highbury so many times both as a kid and with the kids, so this was going to be something mighty strange. I looked at the Transport for London website to find where was best to get off the tube, they told me Holloway Road instead of Arsenal. What the forget to tell you is that the bastards close Holloway Road tube station on match days.

The stadium is fantastic, the seats are a good size, and padded. We were seven rows from the front out wide to the left of the goal. The match itself was crap. A very boreing 0 - 0 draw.

Getting home took for ever. The Police stop you from getting in the station in groups of more than a few dozen, do with 60,000 people there you can guess the length of the queue!!!! It was then an hour on the tube and 80 minutes drive home, all for a crap 0 - 0 draw! Why do I bother!

Holiday


At the end of October we all went on holiday to a log cabin just outside Ilkley in Yorkshire. The cabin. The weather was good though considerably colder than Malaysia!

The cabin was a bit on the small side, another poor choice of cabin, that's two in the same year. See HERE for a reminder of our other miserable holiday shed! Actually it was no where near as bad as the Tiomen experience. This place had a surround sound DVD and an outside hot tub!

One big advantage of this place was there was a private fishing lake. Alright it was a 10 - 15 minute walk away, but it did give me and the kids something to do while Catherine lounged in the hot tub. They said the lake was well stocked, yep you guessed it, there was virtually sod all in it! Sam caught one and Zoe two, I caught a cold. No it was not that we are crap at fishing, well alright, it may have been........



We all had a wonderful relaxing time doing basically nothing. We had a great Thai meal out in Ilkley. We were talking to the owner, explaining how I had been in Malaysia for six months and said that Tom Yam Soup was my favorite. They did me a special Thai strength Tom Yam. Shit it was hot, the hottest I have ever tasted. As true Westerners we ordered far too much and ate most of it.

BACK AT HOME......

I have been back from Malaysia for six weeks now. I had a wonderful time out there, but let’s face it, without Catherine, oh yes, and the kids, it was not the same.

Of course this is where the problems start. I would love to go back to Malaysia to work, but that will require leaving them behind again. Even if I got a long term posting, Sam has started his GCSE courses, so to uproot him and take him nearly half way around the world and put him in a school in Singapore would be far to disruptive. Zoe of course would take it all in her stride, Catherine would adore being a lady of leisure, shopping on Orchard Road, (see picture) but it would not work.

It is not all down to Sam’s school, there is of course Harvey. Being an English Springer Spaniel, he would find the heat unbearable, though the air con would help him.

Walking him would be a struggle though, and with all the laws in Singapore I am sure there will be one for a dog shitting in public!