Secret Beach is Secret Again

What a great way to start Des's holiday here with us, a beautiful beach day followed by the 'leavers party'.  It was an absolutely beautiful day and even better is Luis's secret beach is a secret again.  In the high season there was about a million people and now it is back to just us, a lot of crabs, sadly some rubbish and a few other people.

Me saving the car fro going over the cliff.  Luis forgot the handbrake.. A very scary moment! But I saved the day!

 It is such a great beach.

Waves were huge, time to start the surfing.

 Every year the people leaving the school throw a party.  

 A great evening and now another beautiful day today!

Des Arrives!

Des is in Phuket!! And so begins the start of our mini Ecua family reunion fun.  All summer we have different friends from my old school arriving with four or five days where we are all together in July.  Des is here now for two weeks to start things off.  And she is one lucky girl weather wise, meant to be raining and it could not be more beautiful and the forecasts says the sun is here to stay for ages!

 The night before Des came I made us a candle lite dinner!  So sweet I am!

 Before Des arrived we had a much needed catch up with some great friends at our favourite Boat Avenue.

And then at 11pm Des arrived!! We spent the next four hours putting the world to rights and catching up.  Now getting ready to go to beach (we are slightly behind in the schedule) and start our weekend fun.

Skye Lake Birthday Date

Luis calls me social butterfly in Spanish and he is quite correct I do like to be out and about doing things.   But then it just makes our time together all that more special!  So after five nights out on the trot with different friends flapping my social wings I took Luis out on a date.  We went to a restaurant on the small lake near us that we have wanted to try for ages.  I am not sure why but I did not hold too high hopes, even though it has some great reviews.  Well the restaurant itself was lovely, nice views onto the lake, people playing music, cool outside bar, but I am not sure the food was overly great.  Not bad but not overly great.  But what made it the funniest night is Luis told them it was his birthday.  Mainly as even though I asked for the bill they gave it to him, and when he gave it to me they kind of made a smart remark and Luis just casually said 'well it is my birthday'.  A few minutes later, the lights dimmed, the birthday song came on and Luis was presented with a delicious banoffee caramel chocolate bowl of delicious.  It was so funny, I really could not stop laughing.  So overall the restaurant became a winner for me and we had a lovely night out.

Happy four months till your birthday Luis. Surely it should be my birthday, I am the one who turned 40 and I know people that had celebrations for months!

Spoilt Rotten

What a splendid weekend, the most amazing weather, food, friends and accomplishments.  We were spoilt rotten every night with wonderful food with wonderful people.  We enjoyed loads of time on the beach with Lola Cola and then of course my run.

Sunday night we were again treated to dinner, this time by Marie and David who are off to Munich this year.  A delicious night of food and cocktails at a place that has been on our list to try for ages.

 A really nice dinner.  With some lovely people.

 We were really touched and honoured to have been invited.

 Me and Marie, loved her from the very beginning a) Swedish b) helped us search for Lola when we lost her

 Veggie Indian, my favourite

It was a lovely way to end a lovely weekend. Now we must reign in the socialising before our latest guest arrives on Friday!

Laguna Phuket Marathon (and other races)

Checking boxes all over the place! Yesterday was a big one for me, my first big race, big like 1268 people.  It was only the 5km but trust me a year ago I did not believe I could run 1km let along 5km.  The next one will be 10km, as it is on the list, but then I think I will just stick to perfecting 5km (taking my fathers advice who believes that our family is better at short distance running).  But then again who knows!  I really have never ever been so proud of myself.  I woke up again yesterday with a running nose, sore throat, headache and just not feeling anywhere close to 100 percent.  But I was determined to do it.  IT was a boiling hot no cloud in the sky day, most people were unhappy about it, it kinda worked in my favour as I actually love the heat.

 Me and Leica who also ran the race.

Beginning of the race, we were so far back that we did actually get to start until 2 minutes after the start!

 Lola who was meant to be cheering me on but was sticking her tongue out at me instead.

 My second medal in a week! 41 out of 768 in the gender category, 150 out of 1268 overall :)

 Looking a little worse than at the beginning

 We then went to Sean and Kim's for games and delicious Mexican.  I wsa so hungry so it was great to have dinner already for us!

 All scrubbed up!

 A disturbing game to play to say the least.  But it was great fun with some great people!  What a great Saturday!

Pre Race Prep

Big first real life race in a two hours.  Race day prep involved a lovely curry dinner last night at Julie and Stewarts and a lovely calm afternoon at the beach today.  It has been beautiful the last couple of days, and I am trying to take full advantage as I know it will be short lived.  

 I have not been well this week and particularly yesterday my cold and sinuses were driving me crazy.  But some time with friends and some delicious food definitely helped.

I am still feeling a little rough but hopefully this run will help or possibly make it worse!  Today was a gorgeous day and I am so happy to see our "secret beach" back to being a secret.

Small but Fabulous

The last wine club of the year looked like it might not even happen.  The ladies dropped like fly's all day, sickness, VISA troubles and headaches meant there were many cancellations.  I almost postponed thinking that six ladies was really not enough.  So happy that I did not as in my opinion it was the best Phuket Ladies Wine night yet!  We did a proper tasting, a blind tasting, trying to cover all the 'major' wines.  A Sauvignon blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Reisling, Merlot, Cab Sauv and Pinot Noir, oh and a bottle of bubbles (not Champange, as I probably mentioned far too many times last night, but I do hate when sparking wine is referred to as Champagne), we covered a lot of ground.  All had to guess what wine was what and were given sheets about wine flavours to help them along.

 I am just throwing this picture, pre wine club beach date with Lola.  The water has now properly changed and it is clear the rainy season seas are here.  But a beautiful day.

 Getting ready for the night

 Mid tasting dinner, my favourite veggie Thai restaurant.  

 The six ladies who made this night one of the best ones.  I learnt so much last night, some things which I am sad to say I can never unlearn! 

The winner of the evening! Kim got all the wines correct, so proud of her!  Now I just need to take her out clubbing with proper Champagne.