Goodbye Brunei, Hello England!

Well, it's been 6 weeks since my last blog post and - no apologies for not blogging sooner - it's been a somewhat hectic time!

Leaving any posting is hard.  Hard work physically, packing up your life into boxes, but hard work emotionally too, saying goodbye to people who have become fantastic friends often within a relatively short space of time.  It's military life I suppose, but it's not something that ever becomes any easier as time goes on. 

Brunei was the hardest place we've ever had to leave.  Of course there were things about Brunei itself that were hard to say goodbye to - the climate, the travel opportunities, the Yacht Club, etc - but mainly it was the people.  I think it's a function of being abroad and so far from home, but we had found ourselves part of a small and close-knit community amongst which we had made some extraordinarily close friends - lots of colleagues from my school, and also the rest of the British Loan Service community of which we were an active part.  We had also recently joined a choir, the Serunai Singers, and as much of our final fortnight in Brunei was taken up with rehearsals for 2 concerts, this too became a new group of people to whom we had to say a sad farewell.

So here's some photos of our final couple of weeks in Brunei:

Goodbye to the Serunai Singers.  The concerts were fantastic.

A lovely farewell tea at Pantai Jerudong hosted by Rob's OCS colleagues.

Plenty of 'final lunches' at our various favourite local restaurants.

Celebrating Rob's birthday amongst the chaos of our final few days in the country.  Luckily it was also the Loan Service Quiz Night so a very sociable occasion!

Goodbye to Berakas Camp, our home for the past 21 months.

Our final night in Brunei, and a lovely party hosted by our wonderful neighbours.  We stayed until after midnight, despite my pregnancy tiredness - we just didn't want to leave.

And our last day in Brunei spent, of course, at the Yacht Club.  The lovely Reggie gave us our final meal 'on the house' and we spent the day chatting with both ISB and LS friends.  A fitting end to our time there.

But now, 8000 miles and a 17-hour flight later, we're back in the UK.

We landed early in the morning and went straight to spend the day with Rob's nieces and their families.  It was fantastic to see everyone again and we were really touched by the effort they had made to welcome us home.

Banner, bunting and balloons!

Sneaky pre-lunch trip to the pub - ahhh, bliss!

 Gorgeous Sunday lunch.

Four nights in a hotel in Salisbury followed, during which we enjoyed reacquainting ourselves with this beautiful city and its wonderful historic buildings.  Not something we had been used to in Asia.

 

To give ourselves a break from the unpacking of the boxes that were delivered to our house, we took a few days to visit my parents in South Devon.  The weather was stunning so we were able to enjoy the glorious coast and countryside, as well as having lots of great meals cooked for us of course.

We managed to see pretty much everyone else in Rob's family over the Jubilee weekend when we went to visit them in a holiday cottage in Corfe Castle, Dorset.  All very sociable, and a great place to celebrate.

But now we're at home, waiting for the next excitement to come...  Baby Norm is due in just over 3 weeks and we're slowly getting things organised.  In the meantime I've set myself a little maternity-leave project to fill in some of the gaps in this blog.  Looking back through my photos I realise that there are lots of things I didn't blog about - our trip to Australia for example, and the National Day 2012 parade which was such an impressive Brunei event.  So hopefully several more blog-posts to come over the next few weeks.

Update from Chiang Mai

Well, it's certainly been a trip of contrasts so far... Lots of great bits, but a but of a disaster too as I currently find myself lying in bed in my hotel room after a particularly grim bout of illness. I now understand why people tell you not to buy street-food in Asia... But I've always done so, and never suffered before, so just bad luck I think.

And those Chiang Mai sausages were just SO delicious!

So, aside from the last 24 hours - a waste in so many ways, and so utterly miserable I even considered coming home early - it's been a good trip. My Thai cookery course was excellent and I'm really looking forward to trying out some of my new-found recipes when I get back. I was the only person on the course, so got 1 to 1 tuition! Lots of details and photos to follow.

I also went to see the Giant Pandas at Chiang Mai Zoo this morning. I saw them when I visited in 2005 - there were 2 then, but now there are 3. Thanks to a rather overly-informative display board I now know more than anyone should ever know about panda sex! (Or rather, lack of it - Lin Ping was conceived through artificial insemination, fully documented photographically for all to see!) But what gorgeous creatures they are.

I arrived as they were eating breakfast and stood for ages, watching them enjoying their bamboo. I was very jealous as I wasn't able to enjoy any food at that point - all too risky!

I'm writing this on my iPhone so please excuse any errors, and the lack of pictures - I can't seem to get them to upload from the phone.

Going Solo

I'm off on holiday.  Alone.  Not particularly out of choice, but because it's my half-term holiday and Rob couldn't get time off this week.

I've been surprised by the fact that many people have said I'm 'brave' for doing this - but people holiday on their own all the time, don't they?  I don't think it's too big a deal...

I'm going to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand.  It's a city I've been to before (my brother lived there for a few years and I went to visit him there in 2005), so I know it's a lovely place.  I'll be there for 5 days, and my guesthouse has free wifi, so 'virtual contact' with home should be easy (how ever did we manage before Skype and Facebook?!)

I'm hoping to spend a day doing a Thai cookery course, and am looking forward to browsing the markets and doing lots of shopping.  I'm also taking plenty of things to read so am planning to spend time sipping watermelon juice (or cold beer...) in cafes, immersed in a good book.

But I'll be honest, despite my excitement I am a little nervous.  I have 4 flights and 3 airports to negotiate on my own, and I arrive back in Brunei next Friday a mere hour and a half before a dinner we're attending, so I'm worried about delays. 

Hopefully I'll have plenty to blog about on my return, but in the meantime - wish me luck!

A New Adventure...

It's been 'on the cards' as they say for a while, but it's now finally confirmed.  We're off to Brunei this August, for two years, on Rob's next posting.

Before you rush to find an atlas, here's a map:

Plenty of travel opportunities, as you can see!  We'll be living near the capital city, Bandar Seri Begawan, and I will be teaching in one of the International Schools there.

(This of course is the largest mosque in BSB, not the aforementioned school!)

I have visited Thailand, but nowhere else in Asia, so can't wait to explore more and am excited to be able to experience living in a country so different to the UK.

I know that there are many things about England that I will miss, but I also know that we will go into this experience with an open mind... and an open mouth!  I can't wait to enjoy shopping for, cooking and eating Asian food on a regular basis.

I also can't wait to have visitors such as this in our garden:

With thanks to Paula, our neighbour-to-be, for the photo.

We're not off for a few months, but I am aware that the time will fly by.   I'm unsure as to how much foraging for food I'll be doing in Brunei, but I'm looking forward to posting about our experiences, foodie and otherwise.

Back Home

So much seems to have happened since I last posted. We have called many places 'home' since we left Walcheren Loop - the Nottawasaga Hotel in Alliston, the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto...

New York City...

Cunard's Queen Mary 2...

but now home is a little more permanent - beautiful England. The experience of moving from country to country is a strange one. If I am feeling negative about it I find myself homesick for Canada, just as I sometimes felt homesickness for England while I was on the other side of the Atlantic. It can feel as though it's hard to settle properly in either place when you are yearning for the one that is 3000 miles away. However, in a more positive mood I just feel fortunate that I love both countries and had the opportunity to experience living abroad for 2 years.

Since landing in Southampton a month ago, we have toured the country from south to north, visiting family and familiarising ourselves once again with some of our favourite parts of the world. It's funny to see certain things with new eyes - not realising that we had actually missed them until we saw them again. These little pink and purple fuchsia for example. South Devon is full of them, and they sometimes make up large parts of the hedgerows.

And sheep! We rarely saw sheep in Ontario, but they are such an integral part of the English landscape. These sheep are fortunate enough to be grazing the gorgeous South Devon coast, but we were delighted to find that there is a large field of sheep next to the road where we now live in Buckinghamshire.

Heading north to Cumbria, we were reassured to find that in a fast-changing world, the Lake District remains the same (even down to the weather... but no, I'm being positive now!). People in Canada could never quite understand what I meant when I said that I missed the hills, but I don't think that landscape quite like this exists anywhere else. The Rockies are awe-inspiring, but there aren't many peaks there that can be conquered on a day-walk, or without some fairly specialist climbing equipment. The Niagara Escarpment in Ontario, what was our local area of hills, is beautiful, but England is unparallelled in its network of public footpaths, making the countryside so accessible to walkers.

The bracken-covered hillsides looked wonderful in the sun, and it's even easy to find beauty in the clouds, swirling over the high peaks and bringing dramatic changes of weather from one minute to the next. Just make sure you pack a waterproof jacket, and try not to worry about getting wet feet...

La'al Ratty, the miniature steam railway, once used to transport iron ore mined in the hills down to the coast, now used to transport tourists and tired, damp walkers. Always a highlight of our trips to Eskdale.

Back home in Bucks we are beginning to find our feet in a new area, greatly helped by having family living nearby. When the sun finally made a concerted effort and managed to stay out for a whole weekend we took the opportunity to explore the area on foot and by bike.

So, back in the land of thatched cottages and historic churches,

of blackberries in the hedgerows,

and where picnics are made up of delicious treats from my Uncle Michael's butchers shop in nearby Thame,

I think we're going to be very happy.