long time catchup

So, it's been ages since i updated this blog. It's going to take a bit of time to get you up to speed on Timbos activities over the last month or so.

Starting from where I left off, here goes:

So I got fired. For the first time ever i got given the boot, and for no apparent reason whatsoever. OK so I told the boss a few times that he had absolutely no idea what he was doing, and basically told him that the best thing he could do would be stay well away from the project and just sign the cheques, but that is beside the point because deep down he knew that I was totally right, except he is a very silly and very rash individual who acts on a whim without consulting anybody, then regrets his actions later. He fired vanessa at the same time, which was also a very silly thing to do. He has since realised the error of his ways, and asked us to go back and renegotiate, but Van now has a new job (starting next week) with the biggest Special Effects company in Malaysia, so she ain't going back for any reason at all. I simply can't face another day with Keith being my boss, he's a lovely guy but just far too much of a child to deal with and his penny pinching tight-arsedness is just more than I can handle. I mean the guy was asking me to run all purchases I made past him - and wait for him to sign the money off - even for things that cost around £2. Ridiculous.

Anyway. Getting fired was great, immensely liberating in fact, so much stress that I hadn't even realised I was under just fell away. As a present to ourselves we decided to go on a much needed holiday. So off we went on the train up to Thailand. Vanessa was a bit worried about taking the train cos the south of thailand is a little bit dangerous at the moment, what with some seperatists blowing up lots of stuff and cutting off chinese peoples heads and leaving their corpses in plantations, and the Thai army going in and executing thousands of people around the region. But the journey was actually very uneventful, no explosions or shrapnel wounds at all.

We webt back to Phuket to go visit Kim, and we had a great 8 days there. Kims mum let us stay in the hotel (In on the Beach) on Karon beach, totally for free cos nobody else was there. This place usually cost about £50 or more a night (a flipping fortune over here, proper expensive) and is absolutely lovely. You just step off the hotel doorstep right onto the white sand beach which is so fine it squeaks as you walk along it.

We generally passed the days reading (Kim took us to a great 2nd hand bookshop which sold brilliant books, my favourite being a 1972 guidebook to Malaysia, which is fascinating but brings a bit of a tear to my eye when you look at the savage damage capitalism has brought around to this country) and eating nice food. We had the usual games of "spot the ladyboy" and "hooker slalom" but because it was low season there was nowhere near the usual amount of hassle.

Vanessa and I went SCUBA diving a few times, Vanessa went on her first wreck dive, which was a bit scary for her I think cos the visibility was low and wrecks always abound with dangerous spikey things, rusty metal and poisonous creatures. My idea of fun, not hers, maybe its a boy thing. We saw a really big turtle having a sleep inside a doorway, really well hidden, but I couldn't quite figure how he was supposed to get out again.

We met a lovely guy called King on Phuket, a chinese-ozzie, who is living over in KL for 8 weeks as part of his Doctor training. His real name is Wan King Man. No shit. Wan being his family name, but the chinese put the family name first. Wan King Man, I've had to take the mickey for that a few times, but the guy is from Australia so there is absolutely no doubt that he has been ripped to pieces all his life, he takes it well, after all it is a very funny name.

Wan King Man. Heh heh heh

Anyway, purile jokes aside, we all ended up getting stupidly drunk on many an occasion and generally having a jolly good time.

We convinced Kim to come visit us in KL on an extended stay type idea, then when the holiday was over we both went back to our appartment.

A few days after going back Kim came over to stay with us. We kept on with our marvelloiusly unemplyed holiday vibe (exept vanessa went and got a job a day after we got back) by drinking lots and all being tourists in KL. King only lives a mile or so from our place so we have all kept going out on the lash and doing other such work avoiding tasks as laying around in the hammocks and going ice skating.

The ice skating was fun, as it's been years since I dared to but unfortunately the random flailing of a very large (and now slightly portly due to to much good food and laying around in hammocks) white boy did little for his ailing knee. Yes the silly sod forgot he had a bad knee and ice skating mashed it up quite a bit. Well not the skating so much as the flailing around and falling onto my arse repeatedly.
Now a week later I have a bandage on it and the swelling is just starting to goo down.

Silly boy.

This weekend we went down to Malacca, which is a brilliant town absolutely chock full of history.

I'll tell you all about that next time cos now I've got to go eat dinner.

love to all

timbo