Wow, is it nearly November already, October whizzed by. Finished my first half term at Regents did a grand total of 10 weeks, and to say I'm shattered is an understatement.The last week I have done nothing but go to school and sleep.

Let's try and get you up to date with my life, well September finished in a flourish.Mike organised for several of us to go to a free wine tasting.Never been to a wine tasting and Rachael I apologise now, there was no quaffing.There were 17 wines on the bar and we tried all of them several times.Good job we were scoring them as we went because by the time the tasting was over and it was a case of drink it all up we had forgotten what they tasted like individually.Imported wine in Thailand comes with a 400% tax, to encourage you to buy the local vinegar.That means that wine drinking is limited, luckily the whole point of this evening was to flog the now quite drunk people some Australian wine.I picked up 6 bottles of a very drinkable Chardonnay for half the price I would pay in the shop.

I went to the Thai tennis Open at the Impact Arena. Got all kitted out for an afternoon sat in the sun only to discover it was indoors and they sure know how to air condition. Turns out the Arena is the Bangkok equivalent of Wembley Arena. We watched the semi finals.As we didn't know who anyone was we just cheered for everyone.I can tell you that we watch Tsonga and Djokovic win, Tsonga went on to win the $600,000 prize money.We did the crazy supporter thing by hanging around the stairs the players left via. Hence the very random photos, was kinda exciting though.All in all a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon, even got myself the t-shirt.

Payday came and went, but it was nice to have money finally.

Louisa, Dan and I headed out to Muang Boran, which is also known as the Ancient City.The park is shaped like Thailand and houses replicas and some original buildings from around Thailand.Each building was roughly placed in the park according to the real life location.Discovered a bonus to having a school ID card, we count as locals and so pay a reduced entrance to loads of things, at Ancient city we got 100THB off our entrance and our bike hire free.Yes we hired bikes, you can drive around, but that's cheating.It wasn't a hard cycle as we stopped every 200 metres to look at the next site.As you can imagine it is mainly temples and statues, but they are fascinating to look at and we did get into a replica of a couple of ancient palaces and stopped for lunch by the artificial lake.We peddled around for 4 hours and still only managed to see 1/3 of the park, so we will have to go back, but Suwan, our friendly taxi driver had been waiting for us and we were starting to fade fast.Well worth a visit and just good to do something a little bit different.

The next big event was my birthday.The first thing to say is a big THANK YOU to everyone who sent me cards and presents.Lowena and Jane - the chocolate was liquid when it arrived, but a short while in the chiller box and boy was it good. Had to teach which is always a pain, but after school about 20 of us headed to the Dubliner for grub and a pint.Everyone raved about the food before we got there and we weren't disappointed.Very simply sat talked, ate and drank for the evening, was great.Sadly now I am in my 4th decade, better start planning the 40th in case the memory starts to fade.Sometimes the post here is frustrating, but having a birthday that lasts over 2 weeks because of cards arriving slowly was great.

I started my 4th decade by running 6km in a charity midnight run, I ran all the way, I didn't come last most the folks doing 12km passed me on the way back! Look at the photos (thanks to Mel) I finished and I got a medal and vest. The vest taught me one thing I don't fit a Puma XXL, tight is a slight understatement, but who cares it's the first running vest I have.I know I am not known as a runner or shaped like one, but I am going to start running more regularly.

So there is September and October for you.Off to Laos on Thursday so look out for that.