We’ve had a productive year getting things done on the house, extra insulation, some inserts in the front doors to stop the drafts which worked brilliantly, and we got solar panels installed with a 14kw battery. We are pleased with the way this has worked out, last month our power bill was $25 and I…

We thought we should try this since we may not be back for some time and we’ve never been to Raffles for a drink.

Its good to feel that we’re on our way home, but it’s also good that we can spend a few days here getting over our jet lag and acclimatising for the searing Dunedin summer to come. People in Singapore seem very friendly and the whole place is super well organized. If it wasn’t so humid…

Our friends Jean-Pierre and Françoise picked us up last Saturday after the market and took us to their house in the country near Saint-Servant for lunch, we had a very nice time with them. Françoise taught us some french when we first came to the village and we became good friends with them both so…

The ship was not as large as the Viking Line ships we took from Finland to Sweden but it was big enough and quite new so well fitted out. There were just the two restaurants but the food was French so I was happy. In the evening they had a young woman providing live music…

We hired an electric VW in Dublin and drove to Kilcoona in Galway to visit Daniel, his partner Maria and their little girl Poppy, a toddler, who was extremely charming and cute. We visited Maria’s parents who live just down the lane and had an extremely cultural time talking about bog for heating and how…

We took the train to Manchester and flew across to Dublin on the 24th as the ferry we had booked from Holyhead was cancelled as the port is out of action due to storm damage. Its a bit odd being here on Christmas day just ourselves, the city is empty apart from the odd groups of…

We came to Morecambe because Pauline thought it sounded cool and it certainly is – the cold wind today could take your face off quite easily. We have a friend in Preston from the pharmacy school days, Gordon, who came up here to meet us so that was nice.

We wanted to visit our friend Louisa who Pauline has known for forty years so we planned to take the 11:30 train from Euston. The next day we spent some time with Louisa showing us around Kendal and we visited her mum. It’s a pretty little town but the weather was not conducive to taking…