Living in Bangkok with Two Lurchers

Something strange has happened to me. Well actually nothing has really happened, just something has changed, things are not quite the same. Slow Progress After the novelty of the first week of working in Thailand last December, I've spent the last 9 months feeling quite unsatisfied by my job. Yes, I've enjoyed some of the new experiences and have made friends, but I've found that no matter how hard I've tried, not a lot has really progressed, or not quickly enough to notice! I'm not exactly sure when things did change, whether it's been happening gradually or there was a giant thunderbolt, but this week I noticed that I wasn't counting down the hours until I could go home from work. And I wasn't waking up in the morning desperately wishing it was the weekend. I wouldn't say that I've been enjoying myself but it's definitely felt a lot less painful. Things have actually been happening as a result of my actions! How did this happen? ...

We've been back in Thailand for just over a month now and it seems the initial post-holiday blues have subsided and we've settled back into the normal routine, or as normal as it can be! A Fresh Perspective Returning to Thailand after even just a very short break almost feels like starting again. There are things that I now notice that perhaps weren't quite so obvious before, maybe I'd become desensitized? One thing I have noticed a bit more is how Farangs are sometimes treated by Thais at work. This doesn't happen all the time, but quite often I find that Thai colleagues go so over the top in terms of being nice to me, I can only describe it as being fawned over. If I look back through my time so far in Thailand, I initially saw this behaviour as a way of making me feel welcome in a new and unfamiliar country. Making sure I knew where I was going, had everything I needed etc. But now nine months in, it does seem strange that I still attract this level of...

It seems a long time since I last posted, 6 weeks actually which in the blogging world is about a million years! My flow of words and life, in general, has been interrupted by some time away from Thailand. After an eventful 9 months, it was time for our first trip back to the UK. Home Sweet Home? Before we left, I was feeling a combination of both excitement and apprehension. I was clearly excited to see family and friends, we had a wedding to go to and a holiday to the Jersey Shore, but I was also a bit worried about how I would feel being back in my home country but essentially homeless, with the building I do call home around 6000 miles away. Obviously, we had to leave the dogs behind in Thailand which was probably adding to my anxiety. I knew they'd be absolutely fine at home with Rena but it's only natural to question whether it's a good idea to leave your only dependents in the care of a 23-year-old Burmese maid who you've only known for 9 months! The al...