The Aunts are Listening

We receive a message from Bart on the blog.Tottenham are 3rd from bottom in the league. Bri cannot take the humiliation and studiously avoids Chris the Manchester United fan who, luckily, is on the other bus for the rest of the day.

More news from home - aunts are now reading the blog and warning us to keep it clean, and, as everyone knows, you don't disobey an aunt. Under the guise of 'and finally' news they also cunningly manage to slip in a mention of Brian's uncle's MBE that he received earlier this year. My relationship to the Queen moves one step further on, even though it does mean that the O'Tooles have started raising their little fingers in the air when they drink their tea. Well done Aunts.

The last day of the tour. It almost goes without saying we are up early, in fact we barely need an alarm clock these days, we are up with the lark and in bed with, well mostly an ill-assorted collection of mosquitoes, frogs and geckos.

We go on an elephant ride through the jungle - fantastic. Our elephant is relatively well behaved, but one insists on dragging its poor passengers through every low hanging thorn bush and ants nest. We have lunch at an eco lodge run by an italian and are so impressed with the cleanliness of the toilets after 2 weeks roughing it we spend more time in there admiring the tiles and the pot plants than in the restaurant. Then it's back on the bus for one last time to the Thai border which we cross and take a flight from Ubon Ratchathani to Bangkok, arriving at about 8 p.m. exhausted. There is some token squabbling over bus seat positions when we change from two buses to one. It's only to be expected. Only time to dump our bags and head straight out for dinner. If its Saturday it must be Thailand……..