All weather, fair weather, ill weather...

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and general Festivus all round.  Mr Lapin and I flew into London last weekend to spend our first Christmas in 10 years in England (oh bah humbug - why would you deliberately leave a tropical clime for cold damp England in December if you did not need to?)

Ill weather.....
I am all set to start my half-marathon training; running in the park, beginning to put some core exercises into my post stretch routine and building the focus I know I am going to need to push past my 11K maximum.  Not to mention the anticipation of wearing my presents, because an interesting discovery is that once you have become a runner you need never struggle to answer the question "what do you want for Christmas?"  The easy and truthful answer now can always be "oh running kit please."

Off line and off to Burma

Rangoon, Mandalay, political suppression, Aung San Suu Kyi, western trade embargoes, gin and tonic, a special place in my mother's heart.  Just some word association that comes to mind when I think of Burma.  I am spending the rest of this week preparing for a short break over the border and I can't wait.

Chinthe - Chinese guardian lions

I have lived in Asia for a little over eight years and for many of those I have waged a small internal war with myself over whether or not to go.  I am not sure what has made me change my mind, but certainly the recent events in the country have helped to reassure me on some level that it would be ok to go.  Also several friends over the years have visited, loved it and felt it was the right thing to do.  I may also just be getting old and therefore losing such a tight hold of my once staunchly held principles....