Well, that was a great way to kill three months!

So we managed to avoid a particularly nasty, wet British winter and take our two babies away on a trip of a lifetime before Ellie is taken away from us into the education system in September. Our whole aim has been to spend time with Ellie and Joey and make the most of them both, play with them, laugh with them and have time with them because life is so precious, you only have one chance to do it and we have taken the chance or as some people say, "the risk." In my mind, if you don't take the chance, you risk missing life. 

In doing this we took Ellie around some of Europe for 19 weeks two years ago and Ellie and Joey through South East Asia and along a small amount of the Australian coast for 11 weeks. I think for them, the most eye opening and educational times were in Asia, in Thailand they witnessed the crazy country it is, the sites, houses, smelly rivers, sandy roads amazingly friendly people and beautiful beaches. They got used to seeing all manner of creatures in day to day life from water buffaloes to lizards and they soaked it all up and took it in their stride. In Australia they had the opportunity to get to know their uncle and Aunty, travel around in a motorhome, go to some fantastic zoos, see some huge deserted beaches and Joey even (and some may say finally) learned to walk.

We had the most fantastic time and we smiled a lot, mainly at our amazing kids who tried all manor of new things, were moved from pillar to post, got on and off eight flights, had to share a bed in the motorhome, made friends and drew attention wherever we went and most of all, just kept going.

 This is for you Ellie and Joey, I've written this so one day you can read it back and see what you did and where you played on this trip and continue to plan trips of your own and live every minute of your life however you want to, we love you xx 

Phuket, our last week

Phuket, Thailand 02-04

After the largest amount of Blondie Mania we've encountered so far at KL airport where a family set upon Ellie, the daughter plaiting her hair, mother stroking her hand and the dad now and again tickling her chin before a photo session we go on our Malaysian Airways flight which apart from the turbulence, went quickly and efficiently. Doors closed and plane moving before the last passenger was sat down. We were fed, given wine and they returned all of our remaining suitcases, best service we've had in a while! We got to Baan Puri in Bang Tao which are the apartments we stayed in for the first two weeks of the trip, a few weeks ago we decided to rebook for our final week, the girls on reception were chuffed and said "oh you came back!" as soon as we walked through the door so that was pretty cool! We walked through the restaurant and saw Jason the owner and his sister in law, it was great to see familiar faces at a place we enjoyed so much. We've looked forward to coming back very much but obviously dreading it as it's our last week! Unfortunately the restaurant was closed (although we did sit down for ten minutes and the chef who was in the kitchen never thought to tell me until I went in to get her to take the order) so it meant we went up the road to the Riverside Restaurant which from the outside looks fairly u appealing but it's a great place to eat, good and cheap, very busy and very tasty. We ordered a couple of Mai Thais to go with the food and I can barely remember going to bed that night!

We've spent the next few days around the pool as planned, the weather has been better than expected which  is great and Ellie has made some friends to play with, a Russian girl who she got on with fantastically, her mum even cooked Ellie some lunch and gave me a packet of tiny dried fish you rip the heads off and chew the bodies (I was very polite and did this, so did the amazing Ellie! But then the packet was thrown) this was until her Russian buddies turned up (poor Ellie). Also, the lovely Maddi and her parents Lola and Matt from Singapore, it turns out her grandad lives in Callow End and will be moving to Malverm Link so hopefully we will be meeting up with them in December when they visit him. To prevent every meal time being a challenge to the kids and after a near miss with a very very hot meal which was prepared for them at a restaurant at our special request to dull it down, turning out to be the hottest dish sent to the table!  Jim cooked sausage beans and chips, they loved it, for us he did some corn on the cob with pork and Joey got his hands on the corn and he went for it! He loved it, wouldn't eat any of his own food after that! We finished the day with a night swim, it was a lovely way toned the day and the pool here is brilliant.

Saturday came along and we woke up to it pouring! It rained heavily at lunch time so we did the best we could, out came the play dough, stacking cups, Steve Irwin on You Tube, anything we could think of! Thanks fully it did stop, Ellie and Jim went for a swim and met up with Maddi, Joey napped and then we all met for a lovely chicken massamun for lunch... Yumyum! We managed to kill a pretty dull afternoon with a walk to the supermarket spotting a monitor lizard and a turtle in a lake on the way and then a bit more swimming. We sent Joey to bed with some ibruprofen as he was very hot and sat and watched qualifying, due to the time difference, race start is 10pm here! Joey woke at 5am burning up bless him, he was ever so upset and flustered,we put the air on on full blast and he started to cool a little. 

Joey made a triumphant effort at the start of the day although he definitely wasn't himself, we went to the pool and saw Lola and Matt with little Maddi and spent some time there. They kindly offered to take us to lunch with them to bliss, a beachfront restaurant with a park and their own pool which I jumped at but through the morning little grumpy Joey just couldn't pull himself together so we took him back and put him to the room for a rest up. After some time in the pool, Ellie and I went back to the room and Joey was really struggling again he could barely keep himself awake and was so so hot, 38degrees so we stayed in and got takeaway from downstairs and put Joey into our room for a sleep bracing ourselves for a crap night! Which it was!

Monday we wake up and again, he really seems to have picked up after a slightly slow start. We headed out for a walk, had some lunch, put Joey down for a nap whilst Ellie and I went to the pool, Jim had a nap. We met a lovely family who are British teachers in Bangkok here for a holiday with their daughters Evie and Eliza, Evie is about six months older than Ellie and they are very similar. We got called back up at five and Joey had turned when he woke up. His temperature had soared to 39 and he was just so sleepy / lathargic. The boy was really poorly, we looked up hospital details ready for a midnight dash. He was terrible all evening but not floppy and his temperature had dropped itself once so whilst we were very concerned, we knew he wasn't in a dangerous situation. We got takeaway pizza and stayed in again, we had a very long night with the poor bugger, he was very tearful. The temperature didn't drop until around 5am.

Tuesday he struggled to settle after the temperature stopped so I sat with him on the sofa and after a couple of hours every one was up and he was becoming a bit happier. we knew we needed to take him to the docs, it was at the Laguna retail area we'd been to first time that we were here, luckily reception got us an appointment which saved us an hour each way trip into phuket town. It is suspected to be a viral infection due to the temperature coming and going so not really any treatments, he just needs to ride it out! Obviously once we were there he was perfect! We had another Ellie fan club session involving photos with each of the staff, they tried to get her to put the peace sign up but she was saying "ok, I'll do three fingers on this hand and four on this" not really getting it! We spend the day taking shift work with Ellie, it's such a pity we can't all hang out at the pool for our last couple of days but we need him better. We stayed at the pool and split shifts between the two kids but did manage one last meal out at the riverside cafe, and downed a couple of their Mai Thais again (really... You'd think we'd learn!) then put the kids to bed and sat on the balcony feeling sad drinking beer.

Luckily, for our last night Joey slept through, although I don't think I would have heard him even though his cot has been moved into our room while he's ill! Our last morning has been a bit ouchy on the old head but although waking up with a mild temperature, Joey is a lot better. We took him for a stroll to the beach and a quick paddle before taking him home where he had a monster four hour sleep! We took various shifts packing and playing by the pool. Me and Ellie had lunch for two by the pool with her own lemonade, it was you but regretted not ordering a fried breaky and Ellie eats so slowly, I just wanted to eat hers up! When he did finally wake up we gave him lunch by the pool and spent a last hour there together. It was great as it had been five days since we'd all been able to hang out together, a great way to end. At 5, all packed up and sweating like idiots as we were all in jeans we got in the taxi and left Baan Puri for the last time (this trip, I'm sure we'll go back) and headed to the airport. We are so sad, but looking forward to seeing everyone very so much. 

The flights were all on time, no delays to add to the drama. Joey was terrible, especially on the second flight were a mildly psychotic looking man across the isle kept shaking his head and looking very angry, it was incredibly stressful and I was exhausted. I managed, maybe an hour at the most sleep for the 7 hour flight, 2 1/2 hour wait at Abu Dhabi and 7 1/2hour flight from Abu Dhabi to Manchester, the trip door to door took 25 hours. Ellie has been wonderful to travel well, she's at the age where she sits in a seat comfortably and is happy to watch movies and sleep, poor Joey, just learned to walk so has no interest in sitting! We landed in a very cold Manchester where John, Jim's dad picked us up in Maxine (our car) and made our way home, down the M6 and back to Worcester... Holiday over... 

Pictures
1 Joey and his corn 

2 our apartment

3 play dough 

4 tomato sauce in ellie's hair to get green chlorine out!

5 Ellie's green hair

6 on the way out to our last meal

7 Joey making cocktails

8 bye bye beach

9 arriving home in Manchester 

Kuala lumpur 30/03 - 02/04

    Apologies, I've had to write this twice as it got deleted so it's not too detailed!

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur by bus which cost us the grand total of £8 each including a bottle of water! The coach would have been very fancy in it's day with fully reclining seats and seat massage, foot rests and Tv but most if it didn't work, none the less the seats were very comfy and with the exception of spending about an hour getting out of Singapore and into Malaysia, it was a very easy way to travel, easier than flying, plus, we still have all of our bags (just...) we were dropped in KL on the side of the road where a bunch of "taxi" drivers were waiting and agreed a price of 80p to take us to our hotel which is when we realised we had left Ellie's froggy bag on the bus, as if he had been waiting for this moment all of this life the driver bundled our stuff in them car and went "after that bus" fair play, we got to tragic lights, Jim bolted out of the car and up to the bus and got froggy back! Few!! After some confusion and time we got to our apartment which is lovely. 34 floors up with a view straight over one of the Petronas Towers, unfortunately we were here too late to get to the Grand Prix so we watch some of it on tv with a quick break for a swim in our wonderful 3rd floor infinity pool which over looks our road Jalang Pinang, on the corner of the pool is a glass fronted spa which you can go under water and look out on to the road! We skyped home at the same time as a major rain came down, loads of thunder and lightening. Amazing! We had to run out in the pouring rain and we had a meal at the shopping mall at the bottom of the petronas towers which was fairly hard work picking which food and then which for the kids, then trying to sooth their burning mouths as the food Jim had been told was mild ... Wasn't! Very kind! We took our weary little bodies back for some sleep! 

March 31st and we went up Menara Tower to the viewing platform. The tower is 420 meters and lets you look over the huge variety KL has to offer, new and old, rich and poor. Of course there is major humidity so you can't see too far but just far enough. For lunch we cheated and went to TGI Fridays! Even that was cheap here, the kids meals were £1 each! In the afternoon we had a swim and the rain came down again, this time we were in the pool and it was great to go under water and watch the rain drops on the surface, they were like hundreds of bubbles. But the rain here is massive and it actually became uncomfortable when it was landing on us so we went in. After it finally cleared we went to KLCC park, it is epic, it's like they have taken every climbing frame, see saw and swing in Malaysia and put it in the middle of this park! It was very exciting for the kids but slightly tarnished by what must have been 100% humidity which was incredibly uncomfortable and the park police which kept blowing their bloody whistles at the parents. Jim got done for going on the see saw with Ellie! He booooed them! Yet again we went back to the mall to the food court for dinner. We did ourselves a favour and just for noodles and rice with chicken but the food really isn't great here, we need to get out! We spent the evening watching the view from the sofa.

Tuesday 1st April and we headed to Batu caves nice and early. They are some limestone caves up 272 steps where there are Hindu Temples. On the way up the steps are your first little surprises in the form of wild monkies living there! We got to the top and there are a few stalls selling everything from religious artefacts to ice creams to remote controlled helicopters! And then we go into the cave and there are ornate statues and temples, it's a really lovely place to visit. We got a taxi away for there to go to the central markets, Ellie is currently obsessed with all things signage so spent the taxi journey reading all of the signs in the taxi and the licence agreement for being a taxi driver! The central market was great, it had air conditioning which was so fantastic to me at that point, the walk to the caves was ridiculously hot, plus I had to carry Joey and my not too light handbag full of our supplies and water so I could have fallen to the floor by the time we walked in! Joey has come into his own suddenly and was waving and blowing kisses to all who would look at him! It was full of souvenir shops which we browsed around before grabbing some lunch. We then walked over to China Town which again was a few roads full of souvenirs and rip off goods but it was nice to be out of high rise. Every one was chatting to the kids as we went along, high fiving them and generally making a fuss. It was a nice area to be in. We bought Ellie some pink Dr Beats (maybe) headphones as she has weird shaped ears that won't keep earphones in! We did attempt to walk home from there but got over that idea pretty quickly and jumped in a cab again and jumped Into the pool, it is so refreshing, I'm really glad we opted for an apartment with a pool, it makes a major difference to your day. After the swim whilst Joey was napping there was a really big long storm, I haven't seen anything like it, in the fashion of the movies when someone is murdered style thunder and lightening, we even saw it hit the Menara Tower! When it finally did ease (not stop!) we headed back to the mall for dinner, it's nice and quick to get to in such shite / tropical weather! We picked up a couple of supplies to weigh down our luggage, headed home and that's it, that's our time in KL done! We need to wash our limited clothes as we do every night! Get packed and prep ourselves and our two, not three cases to go to phuket for our final week, really looking forward to this week but gutted also, not quite done with the tropics! Case still lost, Sydney now stating it definitely didn't get on our plane but nothing else, they still don't know where it is!