*nervous cough*

Ah. Hello. Is this on?

Well, I’m back. This isn’t going to be a daily exercise – I’m aiming for maybe one post a month. It’s just meant as a means to keep in touch, and to let friends & family know I’m still here.

I’m still living in Bangkok, Thailand. It’s now just over 18 months since I threw caution to the wind, sold everything that wouldn’t fit in a suitcase, and jumped on a flight to Bangkok armed with a one-way ticket and a tourist visa. I’ve no regrets so far, and have in fact fallen completely in love with Asia. I don’t know whether I’ll still be living in Thailand in ten years, but if I were to move on (and I have no plans to just now), then I suspect it would be to Hong Kong, China, Japan, or elsewhere in Asia. There’s very little I miss about the West, aside from friends and family.

It’s been a busy year though, looking back. In April, I returned to the UK for the first time since moving out here. My little brother Alan married Jessica on April 14th 2007. It was great to catch up with so many friends, as well as all the family.

Sadly though, this was also the day I was told that my Dad’s recurrence of melanoma was more serious than we had realised. The cancer had spread to his liver, and was terminal, but he figured he had a couple of years left.

Tragically, he didn’t even get six months. I got the email I was dreading last month, after a sudden swift deterioration, and returned to the UK again last month to be with him before he died. I got to him on Sunday 7th October. He died early on the morning of Tuesday 9th, aged just 63.

Quite aside to everything else he did for us, Dad was always the go-between. It was always through him that I’d hear what everyone else had been up to. And it was through him that they’d be kept informed of what I was up to.

So from now on, I’ll find some time each month to write about what’s going on over here.