John and I are open mouthed with awe and wonderment. We are like two Neanderthals staring at a wheel. I appreciate that Neanderthals don’t talk but work with me. Imagine our knuckles scraping the lino and me grunting. ‘Wow.’ ‘How does it work?’ ‘Wow.’ ‘How does it open?’ ‘Wow. Just wow.’ ‘Where does the detergent …
Singapore. It really is like visiting a Christian university for the weekend. It scares me. I keep expecting to come across the satanic underbelly. So far, no joy. Even the Amish would find this place too straight and would jump into their wagons and head straight back to Pennsylvania for a good old barn-raising. No …
For the first hour my feet didn’t do one single rotation on those pedals. And I spent that hour smiling to myself at the genius of the entrepreneurial Balinese who’ve set up Downhill cycling tours. I mean what a canny understanding of Western culture. We’re fat and lazy. For the most part I mean. Obviously …
Jack Bauer style The alarm bells should have started to ring when he straddled me. It wasn’t sexual, don’t get me wrong. It was more like he was getting ready to carve a particularly large parma ham. And it hurt. This man knew pain. He was on first name terms with it. There was a …
I am going to fire the nanny. It’s either that or one day soon coming home and finding her dressed as Lula’s very own gimp, with a playdoh mask and a stress buster stuck in her mouth. We’ve already been through one nanny (Made). We didn’t fire her. The Balinese woman who found her for …
‘It is today right? The picnic is today?’ We stop in the middle of the rutted road that runs to Alula’s nursery. ‘Yeah. It said Thursday on the invite. It’s Thursday today isn’t it?’ ‘I’m not sure. Is it?’ ‘I don’t know. Hang on. It might be Wednesday.’ ‘Wait. I can figure this out. What …
It is the dead of night. The moon is shrouded with cloud. Eerie Gamalan music is drifting through the trees. We are stalking through mud, smacking into branches and tripping over ditches. The high priestess is ahead of us, springing like a mountain goat over the puddles and broken ruts. She is balancing a basket …
‘Do we just text 118 118?’ ‘Where in the yellow pages would you even look for one?’ I tweet to see if anyone can help but Balinese priests don’t hang in the twitterverse apparently. Richard, John and I are in the back of a van touring the back lanes of Bali. We’re talking priests because …
Al Gore is visiting later this month. Richard Branson popped by for tea a few weeks ago. The dude from Ben & Jerry’s ran an ice cream-making workshop a month or so ago. So you know, they’re used to visiting dignitaries. We fit in well. The Green School in Bali – it kind of defies …
‘At what exact point did you decide you weren’t going back to live in the UK?’ Richard asked. What was the trigger huh? Well, you know, it wasn’t when I got my fiftieth pile of clean clothes back from the laundry people. It wasn’t when Alula went to play with our neighbour’s family. No, the …
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