Jessica, Jimmy, Dharma and JJ!

I miss them already and they only left a few hours ago!  It was so nice to have them as they are such a great family.  The girls are fantastic, thoughtful, kind, funny, interesting and interested.  Unfortunately, I was not at my best this week as still trying to get rid of this infection (which they have now named as some tropical thing) but it was still fabulous.

 I love love this of Lola!

 Dharma and JJ

 My new adopted God babies!

 The family

I love these guys and I also love team t-shirts.  Unfortunately, Luis was called away to work so he missed the team t-shirt pictures.  But I am sure you will see us sporting ours fairly soon!  Maybe you will see us all wearing them in Seoul!

Shocking Patong

No trip to Phuket is quite complete without a trip to Patong, if just for the shock value!  It is a pretty sketchy place in a fairly upbeat bright lights sort of way.  It really is unreal, sensory overload as you try to take in your surroundings and turn down the sex show you are offered every 30 seconds.   JJ, was totally shocked and made sure to tell them that she was a only a child and they should not be bothering her.  But there is also some great bands playing, some great street performers and if you can ignore everything else you can have a great night out (as it happens we were only there for dinner and a quick walk!).

Hoping they are having a great holiday.  It is wonderful to have the family here, I just love each one of them! 

Quite the Week

What a week!  Emergency root canal, very close call for Lola, potential Malaria and fantastic guests have arrived.

First, I am so happy Lola is back to her usual self after a life threatening tummy turn, she had us so concerned and I am obviously so thrilled that we caught it in time.  Potential Malaria comes from a week of fever, heard aches, muscle aches, and my trip to Jakarta (will find out tomorrow).  To be fair I do not really care what it is, I just want to be 100% better.  The last two weeks I have felt about 60% of myself, until last night and the arrival of Jessica, Jimmy, Dharma and JJ and then I rose to about 90%.  It is so lovely the power of people and just seeing them improved me massively (and I know it has not cured me and it is a temporary high, but it was very much needed).  I am so thrilled they are here, I have missed them loads since Ecuador and plan to enjoy every minute of their stay, a little unwell or not!

 A late dinner on arrival.

 The girls

 lovely Jessica

 Jimmy

A pretty amazing football match

We took them to our favourite brunch place, well our only brunch day.  It was a fantastic day out.  

Come on Lola Cola!

Well this was a fairly unforgiving week.  First an emergency root canal on Tuesday, by far the worst thing that I have ever had done.  It made my wisdom teeth feel like a fun day out with ice-cream at the beach.  It did not help that it had been infected for at least a week, my first attempt at the dentist being unsuccessful.  It was horrible, expensive and still three more times till it is finished.

But, I would take 100 tooth canals to make the rest of this week turn out happy.  Last night Lola's bellied expanded massively, her breathing slowed down to an almost stop and she was dazed and unresponsive.  We searched for a vet on line but could not find one close by.  Luckily are wonderful friends Ruth and Adam know a vet that are close by and they asked their vet friends to help us. And they came back and did.  Lola is now loads better than last night, but we are still worried and tests are being carried out to see what the problem is.

I am hoping she just needed some attention and more air time on the blog, as now sharing with Luis she has a bit less than before.  So Lola, here is a post about you and there will be hundreds more to come!

Six Nations Future Consultant

I am very happy to be able to post this post.  A couple months ago I received an email that was addressed to the whole staff regarding a six nations rugby pool, costing 500 Baht and ending with 'may the best man win'... Well I saw red, best man!  So I replied to the whole staff (this was by accident) that I intended to enter and show who the best person was. 

I am happy to report that not only did I win, but I won by quite a bit.  I predicted every result and in most cases got the spread within 5.

 I will now be starting my own consultancy business for future predictions, or maybe I just quite while I am a head, either way I am pretty thrilled.  And with my winnings I am treating Luis and myself to a big night out at a charity event many people are going to that we could not afford at all.  Yipppppeeee!!

Entertaining Make Up

As we have been very busy with our little Airbandb, especially on weekends we have had little time to entertain, something we both enjoy. I love the organising and socialising and Luis loves to cook.  Perfect!

So this weekend we took full advantage of our guest free villa.

 It is wonderful to be able to use our pool, well kids of our guests if nothing else.

 We had two couples who I have wanted to have for ages for a late lunch/early dinner.  I was in charge of this meal, a strict gluten free menu as Julie (one of the guests) has celiac disease.  I think I surpassed my normal self!

 Lizzie, Alastair and family.  I knew from our first encounter that me and Lizzie would be fast friends.  It has taken a while, having three kiddies and being lovely people puts her in huge demand and so happy to have finally had them over.

 Julie and Stewart worked with three other great friends around the globe.  They worked with and are friends of Maria in Romania and Jocelyn and Dan in Jakarta.  As Maria and Jocelyn are two of my closest friends from International teaching world I knew Stewart and Julie would be pretty fabulous people and I was not wrong.

 Sunday Luis prepared a very popular and delicious (by all accounts as it was not veggie friendly) Ecuadorian meal for a couple we have been dying to get to know.  They live down the road, Rhinan is from a town close to Bruton and Philpe is from Italy (and their names I have most certainly spelt wrong).

 We had such a lovely day with them and really I almost burst into tears when I learnt they will be leaving in July.

They have an adorable son too who just loved Lola.  So now I have 3 months to try to convince them to stay!

Phuket Town

Well it only took 8 months but we finally made it down the road to Phuket town, the 'capital' of the island.  It is only 12km away, a half an hour drive (minimum due to traffic) and it still took us so long to get there.  I think we have become very comfortable within a 3km radius of our home that we have not explored loads of the island, but I blame this on our accident.  Either way we finally made it for a great night out with some pretty fabulous people.

 First we had dinner in a great Italian.

 Then off to a proper bar, a novelty as we have very few around us.

Phuket town is lovely and even at night we could see its charm (well except for the massive rat that pretty much attacked us).  It was a lovely night out, with lovely people.  

BISP International Day

This is my third International school and now my third type of International Day.  I think Basel will be forever hard to beat, mainly as it is a whole day event of food and drinks from all around the world (clearly the drink helps) and we had heaps of different nationalities.  But here comes a close second, the kids and staff all dressed up in amazing costumes and were just so into celebrating the day.  

 In the morning everyone had to line up with their country wearing colours or traditional dress. Many kids chose more than one country to represent, or chose a different country from last year as born in a different place as to one or both of their parents.  I liked this whole attitude of not having to be 'from somewhere', most people there have been built up from several different cultures and backgrounds.

The Swedes, always some of my favourite people.

 There was a British food stall, which is not real surprise being a British school!

 And do miss all my Basel peeps, so like seeing the Swiss

 Loved some of get ups.

 And of course the kiddies were adorable.

 I went with Ecuador as well we had matching shirts and I like matching shirts!

Lots of good food (which I could not enjoy due to a horrible tooth ache!), Luis loved this part and filled up on food from every stall.  Russian was one of his favourites.