Tuesday 24th and Wednesday 25th February So arriving at Bangkok airport it didn't take me long to get stressed out. After 5 weeks of chilling out, my go to response is now reset to getting emotional rather than angry. Good in some ways as it means I'm completely relaxed- but bad as it also means that when the somewhat clueless lady checking me in, goes and tells me ive not got the correct paperwork for my flight, I struggle not to get upset. About 25minutes lat...

Tuesday 17th February That night I headed out with Kim, Damien, Sarah, Elaine and Cheryl to an Irish bar to have a drink. I only stayed long enough to have the one cider and watch some of the craziness that was happening. The kids next to us were British and the most drunk one tried convincing Damien that he was Irish too. It didn't work. But then he convinced a rather drunk Cheryl that he was scottish and kept up the charade for the next 5/10minutes as she tri...

Saturday 7th February Today Lin and I got up and went to get breakfast at the Gecko cafe just around the corner. As Sarah had predicted the service was terrible but for less than £2 I got a delicious banana shake and a huge bowl of muesli with fresh fruits and yogurt. We didn't stay too long as we had to get back to the hotel as we had an included tour of the Grand Palace in the morning. Sarah walked us the 25mins or so to the entrance before handing us over t...

Friday 30th January The next morning I put poor Lin through two alarms. I know, I'm so mean! The thing is, the Vietnamese hold exercise classes in the park every morning and evening and I'd told Cheryl I would try and drag myself up. Well I could have, but I was actually having a really good sleep so I dismissed my alarm and we woke up a couple hours later instead. As it was Jeannette had been really struggling the evening before with all the pollution in Ho Ch...

In march 2013 I had begun organising my dream trip to Western Canada. After years of putting it off because I didnt want to go it alone, I had decided to just go for it, and booked my flights. Within weeks of this, I had a letter through the post from work stating that a new policy was soon to be brought into affect. Eligible people were to be allowed to take up to 3 months unpaid sabbatical leave. Of course, if I had known this earlier then I would have organis...