An Unexpected Parcel!

Hari Raya celebrations this week!

Another two to go !

   Someone asked me about how I find things to write about in my blog and yes sometimes there is so much to tell that I find it hard to condense it and yet other times I have to think about what to write - like today! Fortunately  I had a most lovely surprise this morning. I went to school this morning, (A Saturday to make up for a day off before Hari Raya) and was given a form from the Post Office saying that I had a parcel to collect. Who from, I asked myself?  I've hardly ever used the school's address and certainly no one I know has it. I went off to the Post office and collected my parcel which I opened with great delight. It was some children's books and two lovely letters from Kim and Pete. Kim and Pete were standing at the bus stop with their large backpacks waiting for a bus in Ranau when I was just about to set off to meet Patrick in Sepliok in July. I offered them a lift and we spent the next three hours together in the car, mostly with me chatting away but I did find out about them too!! They had met at Southampton University and after finishing their degrees found jobs working in Singapore organising field trips for schools and were travelling around Sabah during their "summer" break. I dropped them off at a junction for Lahad Datu and they gave me the name of the organistaion they work for and I must have given them my school address being the only one I had.
  Anyway, what was so lovely was that they had spent the time and effort to find some great books for the pupils, then sent them to me, including really appreciative, personal, letters. I had forgotten what a lovely feeling it is getting a letter that you can touch and reread. I don't suppose we could go back to letter writing could we? I will be writing to them today as we did not exchange emails and their address is on the envelope but just in case it doesn't reach them, thank you Kim and Pete, I was very touched.

Taken from the Saturday market, Ranau

  This weekend is rather like the calm before the storm as on Monday my brother Ian and his wife Clare arrive in Sabah, (although not arriving in Ranau until Friday ) and then Tanya, my daughter arrives next Sunday. We will have a couple of days together before brother Christopher arrives and if his plane is on time we will manage to all have lunch together before Ian and Clare leave on their way to Vietnam! Did you follow all that?! No, it is complicated and if I don't find time to do my blog that is the reason. I have also embarked on an online TEFL course which has things such as reading, tasks and essay deadlines to complete. I had hoped, rather optimistically,that at my age that I might have changed  my former studying habits but alas no - I'm still falling asleep when I start to read and procrastinate when I have an assignment to finish, which is what I'm doing now!