Rain has arrived!

Having our second downpour since yesterday, most welcome after three dry weeks, although accompanied by the loudest clap of thunder I have ever heard.

More lurgies bringing down family members this week; hot, sore throats, coughs and sneezes. Seems like Brunei is a veritable sink of germs, although we get less head colds than UK and Falklands. Swings and roundabouts. Not helped by Woozles having the last of her immunisations needed for the tropics and before she starts school full-time in August.

Sewing machine has been out and busy lately, turned Big Man's Mess DRESS into a skirt for me, made clothes for all the dolls around the place, cushion covers for our patio furniture and still got a couple more things on the list.

Managed to scrump a couple of mangoes this week from around the estate, not sure whether they are in season or just finishing as only saw one or two but nicely (very) ripe and enough to complement a fruit selection for breakfast. Yummy.

Now busy planning future trips around the region including hopefully long-lost relies in Australia so lots of good things to look forward to. Watch this space for travel snippets and photos...

What a week!

Week 3 of being back in Brunei after our trip back home and what with the jet-lag and all the leaving dos we have not known which way is up.

The summer ball - entitled 'Garrisonbury' (the idea for the name was all mine!) on the 8th June was a fantastic night out. It offered the full festival experience, with brilliant bands, fast food trailers, t-shirts and a tent pitched on the grass. Then His Nibs got promoted last Friday, which meant more celebrations.

This week he also had his first glimpse of the Sultan, who came to the garrison for the first time in a few years. Etiquette is as follows: no wearing yellow, shoulders and knees must be covered, no hand shake unless proffered, no overly zealous grips for hand shaking, good eye contact to be maintained at all times. Spouses were allowed to visit but as Woozles was off school with possible hand, foot and mouth virus and it meant waiting in the sun without shade for 2 hours I decided to bypass this one. Click here to see the BruDirect website write-up

Now it is the end of the week and we seem to be smogged in from the forest fires in Indonesia. It has meant no fresh air, lots of marauding mozzies and a slight smell of burning. Hoping for some wind, fresh air and rain!

Homesickness, homecoming and homework

No sooner had we started to feel fully settled in our new home than the urge to be back amongst family, friends and our own culture has hit. It is the little things I miss, like being able to go for a brisk walk in the cool air, being able to communicate fully and freely with contractors so they tell you before cutting the power to the pc (grr!), being in the same time zone as people so that you don't have to make all your phone calls in the late afternoon and evening with a fractious child and a tired Mummy, and so on.

So we are booked to return to the UK in May although before then I need to finish assembling the Falklands plant data ready for the next phase. So it is all systems go. Fun stuff like baking, crafting, photography and hard phys are on the back burner until the blessed spreadsheet is populated. Big Man recently said "there is only one thing more boring than data entry, and that is talking about data entry" but if you could picture an Excel file 324 rows tall and 101 rows across, equalling 32,724 cells in total, then that might give you some idea of my days at the moment. Currently 39% complete!

Better get back to it ...

Borders in Borneo

It has been a busy month here in Brunei with the Easter holidays and two very memorable journeys. Our first big road trip took us across the border into Sabah, Malaysia, where we based ourselves around Kota Kinabalu for 5 days. We saw orang-utans at a rehabilitation sanctuary for orphaned animals, drove to Mount Kinabalu National Park and walked one of the trails (actually one and a half trails as the signs were not clear) and then got a boat to one of the islands and had a go at snorkelling.

I was very lucky to be allowed to go into the jungle in Brunei the following week and see some more incredible sights. Reaching the field centre involved travel by road and by river, which in itself was a fantastic experience. The first evening I climbed a gantry to the top of the rainforest canopy and was rewarded with a beautiful combination of rising cloud and sunset. Once my knuckles had loosened from the fear, I was even able to capture some of it on camera!

Now back home and the school term is well under way again. Big Man is busy at work, I am trying to get my Falklands project completed and Woozles is now riding the bus to school, like the very big brave girl she is.

The only excitement last week was noticing that the 'grains' in my out-of-date Ryvita started to move across my plate in a fashion contrary to gravity - weevils!!!

Brunei beasties

As promised in a post a while ago here are few of the critters we have encountered - and managed to photograph - on our adventure so far. Being a tropical country with a reasonable amount of forest cover remaining, and a low population, wildlife is abundant.

Big Man has been lucky enough to see otters on his way to work, which I assume are the asian short-clawed variety but I have not had the pleasure yet. So no photo. Can't leave here til this is done!

Long-tailed macaques Macaca fascicularis A troop of macaques are often seen on the grassy verge near the road or scavenging from bins at a nearby nature park.

Monitor lizard Varanus sp. Not sure whether this really captures the scale of these often massive beasts!

Oriental pied hornbill Anthraceros albirostris. My birds of Borneo book has this as 'widespread and locally common' but I believe we are incredibly lucky to see these rather large, clumsy and bizarre-looking birds almost every day.

Snakes alive!

Actually the snakes were dead. But the skins, skeletons and head parts were found IN OUR GARDEN last week, striking fear in our hearts. The remains were found on a pipe halfway up the back wall causing us to wonder what they were doing up there and if they could get in the nearby air conditioning vent. Then as I relayed the story to a friend (or so I had assumed!), she asked how big the snakes were. Not big I replied. Why?

Well... it turns out she knew the person who lived in our house before us and they had a small snake living in their loft space! This person didn't think she should tell me as I had mentioned my fear of snakes. Aaaargh!

Apparently the small loft-dwelling snake had been examined by the appropriate authorities and determined to be non-venomous. I still don't tread in a room until the light is turned on though!

Brunei Beach, BBQ and burn

Had a lovely trip to the beach near Tutong yesterday which is much more scenic than the area around us. Golden sand, clear waters and a clean tide line. We jumped in the waves, built sand castles, buried children (temporarily) and Big Man had his manhood tested through repeated application of a large weight!

When we had had our fill of the beach we had a BBQ and a game of rounders with our friends, returning home with sand in our hair and pink stripes all over our bodies!