It feels like we are just cycling North. North north north. Does this island ever end? I thought it was only 3km long but it feels more like 30km in this intense heat with the bicycle wheels burying themselves every five metres into Saharan sized sand dunes. And then somehow we are back where we …
We’ve had friends staying the last week. Sorry to neglect you. Here’s a quick catch up. I have started and written 30,000 words of my new book. I’ve been dragged rafting along the Ayung River – about as much fun as being shoved inside a carrier bag and thrown repeatedly against rocks. I’ve butterfly stitched …
‘So for xmas we have two options. If the weather is nice we can go to the beach. And if it’s not we can stay in Ubud and do what xmas is about. Namely eating.’ ‘Actually Christmas is about Jesus,’ John reminds me. I raise an eyebrow at the heathen grinning at me across the …
We have seven days before we head back to London. I can’t believe we’ve been away 7 months. It’s been easily the best 7 months of my life so I’m kind of reeling with premature holiday blues whilst also enjoying the best time of the trip so far. Not that it’s over. On the one …
‘Are you hearing this boys? Now always wear a condom.’ The boys laugh but I see their fear. I see it hovering at the back of their eyes like kids who don’t want to be chosen for PE. The fear – it is being generated by none other than my 3 almost 4 year old …
We have twenty four hours left Malaysia before we get back to Bali. Home. As I’m tentatively starting to think of it. We’re going back for 6 weeks to make sure the honeymoon isn’t over. I haven’t loved Malaysia. Just in case you missed that. But maybe, after Bali, nowhere was going to impress. I’ve …
‘So what do you fill your days with?’ a friend asks in an email. I stare at the screen frozen. What exactly do I do every day? I have no idea. My fingers hover over the keyboard as I try to think. I have become one of those women I used to read about with …
They row canoes across the beach searching for tigers and fairies called Happy. They climb mountains and make princess castles in the sand. In the meantime we sit, drink vodka limcas and pay the nearest five year old five rupees to watch they don’t drown. Does that make us bad parents? I keep asking this …
‘You are not a frickin Hardy Boy John.’ He is pointing with his oar at a giant scrub-laden hill that he wants me to climb with him. Urghhhh, I groan letting the oar flop. ‘It will be an adventure.’ ‘I don’t want an adventure. I’m tired.’ ‘You’re so no fun.’ ‘You’re not in the famous …
