Last night in Phuket

As I sit down to write this I am reflecting over the last 14 months of our life here in Phuket, Thailand and all the adventures we have had, mostly great, good and amazing and a few not so wonderful. It's almost hard to imagine life back in the UK again. I have thought as far as France and that is it. Imagined the joy of seeing and cuddling my little nephew for the first time and hugging my family once again.

We have met so many amazing people and made dozens of new friends.
If I thought this was it, I would be rather depressed but the plan is to come back. We have a few cards to play out over the next six months which will hopefully mean we can come back over the winter. With that in mind we have managed to leave a couple of boxes with our long suffering friends, so have avoided having to ship anything more than one small box back. It will be touch and go on the weight limit at the airport though so not sure how that will be. We have tried to be careful but it is not easy for a family of four to pack their last 14 months into a 20kg bag each!

We have spent the day today downloading some podcasts for the journey, relaxing by the pool and eating out with our friends this evening. Tomorrow we don't have to leave for the airport until 7pm so we have the whole day to soak up the sun and swim in the pool.
This will probably be my last blog post for a while. It has served it's purpose to keep family and friends informed of our nomadic life and will also be a great source of reference to look back on in years to come.

Leaving paradise

Well we are getting ready to leave this wonderful island, exactly 3 weeks from today. We have very mixed feelings about it as you can imagine. On the one hand we are dying to see our family and friends back home but on the other hand it's hard to leave such a beautiful place and such an amazing congregation. Many of us here are leaving this month so it will be lots of tough goodbyes. On Wed we said farewell to a lovely French family who have become special friends. They are off to Reunion for a few months. Hopefully we will see them later in the year in France.
This month 18 out of our 22 publishers are pioneering. What a great time we are having. It's not easy in this 35 degree heat and by the time we finish mid afternoon we are exhausted but it is so wonderful to be spending the day with our brothers and sisters. Many have been invited to the memorial and lots have promised to come.
We are determined to make the most of our last weeks here though and have been spending all our spare time at the pool. Nick is many times to be found on the golf course. It's going to be a tough transition to life in the UK again!