Got my visa today

I managed to get my extended visa today rom the Philippines Embassy in London. Unfortunetly it shouldn't expire til November 8th but they have made an error so it expires on October 26th, which means that I have lost 2 weeks. No big deal as I have to apply for a new visa every 2 months anyway.

Ruth's farewell dinner

Well last night was Ruth's farewell meal with some of her friends that are parents at the school as well as some staff too. The staff are her friends also !! ;-)

There was 14 of us, 13 females and me !! Of course I was invited because of my debonair good looks, witty repartee and male charm. Ok...Ok.... I hear you..... yes I was the token male ;-(

It was a really good night except for that wriggly thing in my salad, it did get me a free bottle of wine though... and yes I did drink most of it !!

Ruth's presents were donations to Oxfam for school desks and she also sponsored a goat, some people thought it reminded then of one of the parents............... !!!

Click on the photos link (family only) to see some pics. Please notice that someone has messed with the photos to make me look old and fat, when in reality I'm a lean mean machine !! :-)

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Staff night on Saturday 14th July

We had our staff do at Walthamstow dog racing, it was a really fun night out organised by Lisa,
I really enjoyed it and won £20 on the night. To see photos click on the "photos" link on the right hand side of this page.

Barrio festival

There is a Filipino Barrio festival this weekend in Hounslow which is quite close to my home. The festival is held over 2 days in Lampton park and will have between 40-60,000 visitors. There will be many stands selling lots of filipino foodstuff, knick knacks and also lots of services offered, mainly flights home, how to send items home, real estate, jobs, etc.
I may pop along if the weather is fine to see if any of the realtors can help me find a condo before I arrive there. It's really a day out for all the British Filipinos, they travel here from all over Britain. It is just nice to see people enjoying themselves without lots of bad behavior going on.
There will be lots of Filipino music to make everyone feel at home and there is a also a fairground for the kids to play in. There should be a lot of fun, I just hope the sun shines.

2 weeks to go !!

Just 2 weeks to go til the end of term, then 6 weeks of the summer holiday which I really enjoy. I then have to work the first week of the new term before I fly out to Manila on the 9th September.

Then it's 7 months of the unknown which is exciting, where will I visit, who will I meet, different cultures to investigate. Will be travelling around the islands and maybe to other parts of Asia too, but the most important thing is to feel what it is like to live there and fit in to the way and pace of life over there.

I'm sure there will be times of frustration while I adapt, one thing I have found to be difficult is "Filipino time", if I agree to coach someone at 1pm til 3pm then I expect them to be there at 1 pm but of course the reality is that they may not appear til 2pm or afterwards, this is going to be one of my biggest challenges to deal with as I can't have players turning up at different times, that would be ludicrous !! We shall see.....

renting a condo

Now that I have my flight booked I have been looking for a condo to rent for 6 months. Not so easy to find, there are lots of condos but nothing that I've liked so far, I may just have to wait til I get there and find somewhere to live, the only problem that I can forsee is that they all want 2 months rental and 2 months security deposit up front. Now that in itself sounds ok but the problem comes when the 6 months is up and you are looking for the extra month and the security deposit to be returned. They are not so quick to giving it back and as within a week or two I will be 7,000 miles away.... well you can see my problem.

I'm not sure how I can resolve this other than putting a clause in the rental contract that the monies must be returned on the final day, whether it would be or not is another question.
My other solution is to hold out and insist on only 1 month rental and 1 month security deposit up front and then don't pay the final 2 months rental which would then makes us all square. They probably wouldn't be very happy with that but it sounds the best option to me.

No smoking in the Uk day

Today is the first day of the new non-smoking rule. No smoking allowed in any public area, pubs, cafes, workplaces etc.
This should help a lot of people to give up smoking.