Happy Birthday! It's Briby Time!
As I set out to collect my spawn from the airport, on my birthday, I am feeling quietly smug about not having paid a single...
Tagged: ubud
Is this the Ultimate Touron?
So I am sitting in the pizzeria which is my regular local base for “work”. Or, more accurately, that mixture of social media, gibbering quietly...
In Which I Lose A Child and Gain a Motorcycle
If there is one thing more disconcerting than being woken up while sleeping al fresco under a mosquito net by a chap who wants to...
Homework, AKA Shouty Time
“Do you have homework tonight?” “Yes. It’s quite hard.” “Oh.” We are in our local pizzeria, for a change. The homework thing, after a year...
Back to School!
Can You Take a Child out of School for a Year? I recently came across a parents group arguing against longterm family travel on the...
In Conversation
Her voice catches me first. It’s actressy, well-honed, modulated, and, my lord, it carries. It’s like Princess Diana in her “three people in this marriage”...
The Sound of Silence
On Saturday, town was so quiet you could literally hear the silence. Not the usual raucous night-time non-quiet, the squawking yabber of geckos, the surprising...
Learning to Love Our Motorbike
It didn’t take sharing a road with the Bali Merzy Motorcycle Club, arguably the best-behaved bikers on the planet, to teach me that there’s nothing...
Temple Monkeys: The Devil’s Work
To anyone with an evil sense of humour, hanging out at a temple with monkeys is a guaranteed source of entertainment. Gasp as a tourist...
A Cremation in Bali
The three giant black bulls had been sitting in state outside Ubud Palace for a day or so, golden necklaces adorning their necks, their dangling...