Looking up the gorge towards the Swallows’ Grotto
We arrive in Taroko on Good Friday, in the rain, after a pain-free train journey from Taipei and a scenic ride up the winding vertiginous road that leads to our hotel. Continue reading
Preparing for hula-hooping at Lovebox, summer 2010
This is now the fourth time that we have had to experience the worst day of our lives: the day that Louise, our beloved daughter, died.
It’s just a perfect day…Mt Yotei in the background
‘It’s the worst season for 12 years: no decent powder since December.’ Not what European snow refugees want to hear of Niseko, Japan, the powder Mecca of the world!
This is a proper drink – a margarita on my birthday
It’s been non-stop visitors since we got back, in case you were wondering what had become of me! First Cindy and Guy from Mumbai, then Louise’s best friend Lulu dropped in after doing some extraordinary free diving to create an underwater apsara installation to celebrate reef protection in Bali, and now Christine and Diego are here for a week before we set off for Burma next weekend. Continue reading
Gorgeous orchids at the Gardens by the Bay
It’s here at last! after months of grafting, cooking, testing, tasting and photographing. Thanks to husband Ross for being so patient in all of these tasks and for being a great webmaster.
http://healthylivingwithcancer.co/
Please follow and, more importantly, spread the word amongst any friends and family you think it might help – it’s all about the power of positive thinking to help you recover from cancer. For foodies there are loads of new recipes, all extremely healthy. There’s even some proper scientific back-up for this holistic approach, with periodic blogs by ‘the doc’.
All comments and suggestions welcome – on the site of course! Continue reading
In the National Orchid Garden with Tommy
It’s always the waiting and hoping that’s the worst part of anything medical. Luckily for us my waiting is punctuated with a visit from Tommy and his girlfriend, Olivia, en route to Sabah for a holiday. They stop here for the weekend and we tick off some of the tourist boxes – black pepper crab, the Botanic Gardens, a dim sum lunch, lunch in hawker centre, mum’s home cooking. It seems like they had hardly arrived before they left again – but they will be back. Continue reading
The reclining Buddha
Five days in Bangkok leave me breathless, yet full of energy! We are here to meet up with Dr Fi and her family, and also to catch up with another old uni chum, Patrick Brooks, who has been living a Somerset Maugham-type of existence for the past 30 years or so (actually an ex-dip and now consulting for the EU, trying to teach them diplomacy – the EU that is, rather than the Vietnamese or the Thais, who seem perfectly good at people skills if you ask me). Continue reading
Idyllic vista at Wormlsey for the Garsington Opera
The waiting is over; the MRI and chest x-rays were done on Monday and on Wednesday, after an hour of relaxing yoga to de-stress me, I am back seeing professor Thomas. The past few days have been almost unendurable with anxiety, punctuated by treats to try and keep an even keel. So on Saturday we went to Garsington opera with Tommy and his girlfriend Olivia, who prepared a most delicious picnic which we ate while sipping champagne by the lake; Sunday we had some dear friends round for a Thai feast in the garden. Both days were glorious and bathed in sunshine. Continue reading
The shady market scene in one of the backstreet hutongs
It’s the anniversary of Dad’s death two years ago, and I need to do something positive to take my mind of all the losses of recent years.
So I decide to branch out and see some of Beijing on my own: the hutongs beckon. Hutongs are the very core of the city, vibrant and thriving communities, which date back to Mongol times. In the 1950s there were as many of 6000 of these streets crisscrossing the city – all east to west for good feng shui – but the bulldozers moved in and razed many to the ground in the name of progress. Now around 2000 remain, and the government seems to have realised that they are good tourist attractions and can feed their coffers with tax; the destruction seems to be on hold. Continue reading
It was this big!
Believe it or not it’s been nine months since we have had a proper holiday (in Malapascua – https://vickygoestravelling.com/2013/08/13/in-which-we-dive-with-thresher-sharks-and-sea-horses/): our last one to Wakotobi was cancelled on the day of departure by my admission to hospital, so we felt we deserved a mini-break to relax and chill. I know many people might think my life is one long holiday, living in the tropics and swimming every day, or tagging along to Ross’s exotic work destinations but, believe me, living with cancer is hard work. Continue reading
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