Friends from faraway places

We have been very lucky to have so many friends visit us this year... and it seems that I forgot to mention a couple of dear friends in my Christmas email... so once again, a big thanks to Melinda, Richard & James, Troy & Dannielle, Jollsy, Marcus & Jolanda, and last but not least Ting.

It's great when you have 'visitors' because it gives us an excuse to discover more 'fun' things around the island.

We drove around the southern part of the island with Melinda, and discovered - among other things - the Rum Distillery. We have also been up to the Jungle Club resort - with Melinda, and also Troy & Dannielle - to practice our 4WD skills, chill out and take in the views. And of course, we were able to attend Troy & Dannielle's wedding here in Samui!

When Jolanda & Marcus were here - we spent a few hours bumming around on a quiet beach waiting for the wind to pick up enough for Marcus to take 'Kite Boarding' lessons (it didn't), so we ended up hiring a small boat and touring around one of the smaller islands instead, stopping off for a swim at a secluded beach along the way, and re-discovering the Rum Distillery!

We had a very relaxing weekend with Ting (since she arrived at 7am on a Saturday morning, we had some sleep to catch up on). Ting was lucky enough to visit the hospital with my sprained foot, and has photos of me zooming around the supermarket in a wheelchair. After such an exciting day, we forced ourselves to spend a night at home trying out some natural Thai spa treatments, made from fruit and essential oils. :-)

So, you see we've had quite a busy schedule ... and in between visitors we've spent lots of time doing the boring stuff (grocery shopping), the fun stuff (hanging out at the beach) and the important stuff (planning for our house).

We look forward to more friends visiting us next year !!!

Merry Christmas from Samui

We hope you all had a great Christmas with your family & friends! We had a very international gathering on Christmas Day at Wendy & Roger's - with 18 people coming from UK, Australia, NZ, Israel, Canada, US, Thailand, Belgium, Austria and Taiwan! It was a great day - with a traditional roast turkey and all the trimmings! Desite all the house moves - Santa knew where to find us - and we got quite a few nice presents too.

Apologies for not sending proper Christmas cards this year. We are temporarily moving to this e-greeting! Normal service will resume again next year :-)

As another year ends, it is always good time to plan for the next year. This time last year we were looking forward to moving to Samui and starting the house project. Now, after 3 months in Thailand, I can say that we are enjoying our peaceful island existence. Most of the house planning is complete - and we are getting very close to signing a contract with our builder and looking forward to starting the construction in the new year.

As some of you know, we just moved house last week - into another rental house. It's a cute 1 bedroom house, which is part of a small complex of 9 houses. Although smaller than our previous place, there is plenty of outdoor living space and a big communal swimming pool. We're still living in the same area (Plai Laem), and it's just 3 mins drive from our plot. I'll get some photos on the blog soon.

The house move didn't go as smoothly as I would have liked - and we spent a few nights in a temporary house until our house was ready (long story, and a few beers required). Anyway, we finally got into our house on Christmas eve. I also sprained my foot during the process. Moral of the story - watch out for door mats on shiny wooden floors.

Until next time, we hope you all have a wonderful New Year!

T.

Our hosts - Wendy & Roger

Christmas Day at Wendy & Roger's

Santa obviously got our mail re-direction

Bangkok Airways blues

Hi this an update from the jetsetting international executive - currently sitting in the departure lounge at Bangkok airport.

I'm here because the Singapore to Samui diretc flight was full today - so in order to get back for Christmas I had to book a flight to Bangkok and then a domestic leg back down to Samui. The reason I'm still here at 10:30pm is that Bangkok airways have delayed the flight for 2 hours... I might get home before 1:00 am.

I am bringing some Christmas supplies back to the Island - stuff we can't get easily on the island - good cheese, crackers, mince pies, cranbery sauce, wine etc. Luckily for the island dwellers the new Bankok airport has an ok food court so I haven't tucked in to any of the above YET.

So the question on everyones lips... is it good to back at work, coming up with innovative solutions to clients requirements, and helping to keep the money flowing round the financial markets? The short answer is "sometimes".

The first two weeks were good from a novelty point of view - wearing socks and shoes again instad of flipflops etc. It was also interesting to catch up with the company gossip, and I will admit to getting a kick out being able to remember all the technical gobbledegook that you need to understand the system I'm supporting.

But I am definitely missing the Island, and the sense of freedom that comes from not having commitments or an office schedule - In short I'm ready for holiday!

flight finally being called now so this is the end of this impromptue mind dump.

The last few weeks

I really should update the blog more often... and then they'd be 'short & sweet'. But time seems to whizz by on this island, and finding time to sit down & write blogs proves difficult. So here goes;

Ian & I had a great weekend in Singapore - catching up with Michaela, Suren+Zeena, Ting, Steph+Ray and Susie.... eating at some of our old favourites (En Dining Bar, Gurka Grill) and some great new places (Whitebait, The Wine Garage), and of course some retail therapy! :-)

The reason that we were in Singapore you may ask? Well, Ian has gone back to the corporate world for 2 short months - contracting for Citibank (a Wall Street client). He will be commuting between Samui & Singapore (1.5 hour flight), and spending weekends with me in Samui. It's Ian's 3rd week in Singapore - and although he's counting down till the end of the contract (Jan 31), he's been house sitting (and rabbit sitting) for our friend Ting, and indulging in yummy Singaporean food such as Hokkien Mee.

While Ian's doing the big city thing.. I get to do all the hard stuff... like moving house, and ongoing discussions with builders about our architectural drawings! Oh... and in between, hanging out at the beach & some yoga! :-)

Actually we're moving house today, to a smaller 'hut' - aka a cute 1BR house, in a resort like complex with a big swimming pool, just 3 minutes away from our 'plot'. You'd think I was responsible enough to move house on my own (I mean I've done it enough times).. but just yesterday I slipped and sprained my ankle.. so now I'm hobbling around with a walking stick :-(

I took ownership of a set of architectural/structural drawings last week - all 36 pages - and spent a few hours going through them. Marking up the amendments reminded me of marking up brochures in a previous life - but I think the builder wished I hadn't had so much experience in this area - he jokingly commented that perhaps I should spend more time shopping - and less time on the drawings :-)

Anyway, we should have a final set of drawings this week (fingers crossed) and then the quote/bill of materials will follow (what a lovely Christmas present?).

I've just put the Christmas carols on, and starting to get into the Christmas spirit. Tomorrow I'm going to the SOS Christmas Lunch - with a bunch of Samui ladies, and we will be spending Christmas Day with our friends Wendy & Roger (in Samui).

Apologies in advance - we're not sending out Christmas cards this year, but will be sending an electronic version soon.

T.

Yoga

I've been doing some Yoga over the last few weeks at a groovy Yoga Cafe in Bophut. I'm sure that I'm the worst in the class, and some of the moves are way too technical for me... but there's nothing like a challenge, and I've got nothing but time! I signed up for a 2 month course today - so I'll give you an update on my skills in February :-)

Although I'm going to another island this weekend - SINGAPORE!! Wait for the update next week...

The King's Birthday

It was the King's birthday on Tuesday (5th Dec)... when you live in a tourist zone public holidays aren't much different to normal days - because most of the shops were open. However, out of respect for the King, most of the bars were closed!

Yellow is a very special colour this year. The King was born on a Monday, and yellow is the colour for Monday - so most Mondays you'll see people wearing the yellow shirt out of respect for the King... but even more so on his birthday, I was in Tesco and just about everyone had their yellow shirt on. It's quite nice to think that the whole country does this... I just can't imagine Aussies or Brits doing the same for Lizzie! :-)

This photo is of a big mounted picture of the King... on the roadside near where we live.