Boards ready to go and very colourful

When my ex Manager told me to delete my old Blog I was devastated. 500 blogs, 5000 hours work and 5000 readers all lost at the click of a button.

You can , however, still see one of my eBooks containing the best of those blogs from 2015 by clicking on the link below:

The Best of the Blogs from 2015

I vowed to return as soon as I left Bahrain and here we are again! In our down time Chester created a new Blog format, new blog footers and has been searching for Drones for our new Vlog on our new life in Palawan....

The British Kabayan Vlog

Kites ready to fly

I was trying to find some old photos of my friends Phil and Di after they sent me a wonderful Kindle with 30 books on for my 60th Birthday. I wanted to make a thank you card for them but Chester suggested a slide show. On one of my external hard drives guess what I found? The word documents and photos from my 2015 Blogs ( I still cannot find the others!) .

So here is another of my old blogs, with a fresh lick of paint...

Enjoy!

Drew soaking up the sun on his ankles ( spookily he emailed me for the first time in 9 months as I uploaded this pic!)

It’s more fun in the Philippines

What a fabulous advertising slogan and so true. There is so much to see and do here – and there are so many places to go and things to do. I have been here six times now and many of my OFW (Overseas Filipino workers) tell me I have seen more of their country than they have. Then I get an email from my good friend John Jaworsjki, back in Bahrain, reminding me I have not. Out of the list of “15 breathtaking places to go soul-searching in the Philippines” (capitalization removed so as not to upset JJ and font made the same to keep Phil happy)- I have only been to two! In case you are wondering it’s the Mahogany Forest in Bohol and the next stop on this year’s vacation, El Nido.

A rare shot of me exercising by the pool

I do love the author’s tag line “There’s more to life than strawberry picking and Ube jam.” So my thanks go to John Jaworski for sending the email and to the author of the list Isabelle Laureta . It looks like I will have to keep exploring the rest of the Philippines another 13 times for more fun!

One of the ways I have fun here is sitting in the sun with a cup of coffee and reading the papers. The Philippines has two great newspapers in English- the Star and the Enquirer – and they are proper A3 papers with lots of sections (sport, business, entertainment, corruption, MRT etc!) . However reading them both is a bit like reading the GDN and the DT in Bahrain - same stories in each!

The first Kite-boarding tour Drew and I saw in Puerto in 2015

Today they are full of the kite boarding tour taking place at the Microtel in Palawan where 14 year old Boracay Kite surfer, Christian Toi is hot favourite to scoop the titles again. He reminds me of someone before they had their hair cut and ate too much Bulalo in Tagaytay! We also have the Philippine National basketball team here ( and I am sure you can guess where they had dinner the other night!) . As if that was not fun enough the Robinson’s Mall had the launch of its new solar panels yesterday. It's the first Mall in the Philippines to be powered by solar panels on the roof ( next is Dumagete apparently) . Meanwhile back in Manila they have the fabulous Ed Sherin coming to play at SM arena (that always sounds vaguely like the kind of place Mr Gray would enjoy!

Christian sets off to compete, he is an Olympic hopeful now

So it really does all happen here in the Philippines, not to mention the beautiful sun, clean sea, and sandy beaches! The only thing I really didn’t enjoy was listening to other people’s videos, Skype conversations, phone calls and incoming texts in the restaurant and by the pool. Too much like being in a traffic jam in Bahrain!

Halo Halo at Chef Arnel's restaurant at the Microtel in Puerto

Well summer is here in the Philippines and so everyone has started to advertise Halo Halo- and I am pleased to say Drew and I were the first to sample it here at Microtel Palawan and my verdict was “Masarap” which is Tagalog for delicious.

My crush, Christian Tio

Next on my list of things to do is to take some photos of the sunrise which is always beautiful here in Puerto . It is 6 am and I am ready with my camera- luckily our room is on the ground floor next to the beach so not far to go. In El Nido we get all the sunset photos. Then later today the Kite surfing competition will resume. There is also swimming, walking on the beach and the exercise machines to fit in and when they arrive after breakfast the papers and coffee. I really never have been so busy having so much fun!