I was rather bemused to be told the other day that this is the beginning of the rainy season! When, one wonders, is the non-rainy season, given that the winters are cold and wet and the summers, hot and wet!! But I think I'm in danger of becoming a weather bore, so I'll try not to mention it again! Well, once again we were given last minute leave of absence - the kids were all doing tests last week. So I went, on my own this time, to an area about a 4 hour bus r...

I have a sad confession to make. After all this time I have only just realised that comments are posted at the end of the blogs. I don't normally go over the blogs once I've done them but the other night I did and found the most encouraging comments from Christine, Kay, Judy, Nick, Steve, Debbie and Vivienne. Thank you so much. It is really good to hear from you and sorry that it took so long for the penny to drop!! Last Wednesday, at the 11.9th hour, as usual, ...

Well, I haven't, so far, been putting my 3 (almost 4) day weekends to particularly good use due to the fact that I've been afflicted with a bit of sciatica (cause - hard beds, I'll say no more!). So, last weekend I went to see a Chinese doctor (as recommended by readers of the Lonely Planet),and was given the most murdurous massage - the worst pain since childbirth (and as we all know, that is the most extreme ever!!). Anyway it has done some good and I've be...

If Peru is, to my mind, the land of mountain giants, this part of China is the land of mountain dwarves - small, friendly hobgoblins, rising up like colossal mole-hills and presiding over the fields of rice, the palm trees, the ugly, tiled houses and even uglier high-rises, not serene and majestic, but looking surprised and skittish as if, at any time, they may just disappear! But enough whimsey... How to earn a fortune in China - become an umbrella salesman!! T...

Well, I'm back online again - Bianca wasn't using her computer (she has her own all singing, all dancing Macbook and if anyone's stuck for a present for me...). Anyway, I'm using her computer and hoping that my broken one might be quietly forgotten about. I'm loving the teaching. The kids, as I said before, are delightful. There is none of the teenage angst that we have at home. They never pass one without saying 'hello' and the girls go round holding hands, lin...