Monday 1pm

I'm in the mall typing this as I wait for my flight at 5pm to Cebu.

The Philippines air force ( which consists of 2 planes) bombed part of Mindanao yesterday. There are also elections in Mindanao today, during elections people are always killed so it's good that I'm leaving this island today.

I was out for a meal last night at Gerry's grill.. apt or what !!.... anyway across the road was a carnival, some call it a fayre or in Glasgow it's known as the shows !! don't ask me why !! It was a real deathtrap of a place, nothing would pass with a safety certificate in the UK. There were lots of street kids there asking me for money as usual, I refused but I decided to treat them all to free rides, their faces were a picture and it was well worth it, I didn't go on the rides myself... far too dangerous for me. After 2 rides I was aware of being too conspicuous, too many people began to take notice and chat with me.... time to leave... you have to be so careful in these places, guys see you with money and become interested, 1 guy did follow me as I was leaving but I am always aware of my surroundings and whoever is near me, so I turned back and he did the same but I just stopped and then as he passed I left safely, he may have been innocent but better to be safe than sorry. of course I was also aware that it is not good to be seen around children but sometimes you just have to help out.... its hard not to love the smile that you get from a kid when you give them something that they normally can't have.

I have mentioned before on my blog, when I was 5 or 6 years old, an ice cream seller gave me a free ice cream when I was sitting on the pavement, I had no money so he made me smile... I think he enjoyed doing it... he has passed that feeling onto me.

well I hope you all have a great begining to your week.... thanks Anne for your texts.... but don't keep reminding me of my return...... please.... :-)

Sunday 9am

I had an interesting Saturday at Bob (Mindanao Bob) Martin's home. This was his seminar on how to earn online.... very interesting indeed. Most of these get rich with this or that, I take with a pinch of salt but Bob is extremely well known for his blogs and has lived in the Phils for over 10 years now. 100% of his earnings is made online.

He has obviously done well, he was involved with ebay as a business and was earning £15k per month but has now stopped that because he felt that there were easier legit ways to make money online..... so how is he doing now...... well it must be good if you can stop one business that pays you that much per month.

This is not a get rich quick scheme, but you will earn money if you do the right things, we all know about "pay per click" from google adsense but there are so many other ways and Bob has refined them to a "T". Bobs website gets 2 million hits per month !!

He is a really nice guy and an intelligent businessman, everything he said makes sense and he is the living proof that it works. I am more interested in the blogging side of things so we shall see how it works in the future. The seminar gave me purpose to go to Davao and meet Bob.

I never knew that there are people online on ebay making millions of pounds per month..... can you believe it !! its there in black and white..... if I didn't hate ebay so much I would try it myself in a very small way of course.

hope you all are having a great weekend.................

Saturday 1.15am

Thursday evening was nice, I spent it at the home of friends in the suburbs of Cebu, I am very lucky as I do get invites to spend time with the locals which is what travelling is all about.... luckily my personality gets on with people and thats why it works out for me.

Thursday night 11.30pm I am entering my hotel after my night out, this Brit is in front of me, he is old (60 +) very skinny and a bit shifty if you ask me, I seen him in the bar one night and tried to smile but thankfully he didn't respond, he is with 2 young "ladies", the hotel is a 5 star so they are careful about who they let in. As I was waiting for the elevator I was watching him as most people were, I heard him say to the receptionists " she is my girlfriend and she is my friend"..... right ... ok... I bet if someone had asked he wouldn't have known their names... they were nice girls but obviously the"working" type..... he was ambitious bringing 2 home !!!! better man than me that's for sure !!!

Thursday night 11pm said goodnight to my special friends, 8.30am Friday I left my hotel to go to Davao, I arrived in my Davao hotel at 1pm, I am in the Marco polo it is VERY expensive but nice. I have spent most of the day in my room as it is soooooooooooooooo very hot outside. It is now 2am Saturday, I am going to a seminar with "Mindanao Bob" at 3 pm today and am looking forward to it.

My special friend is leaving at 4am today to go to Hong Kong to work so I will get ready for the texts.

I hope you all have a great weekend..............

Wednesday 11pm

I have just returned to my hotel after being out with a group of friends.... well it was a family actually that I know here in Cebu... we really had a lot of fun. Some pics below.

I was also out with them last night too and that was very enjoyable also, tomorrow (thursday) I am going to their home on the outskirts of Cebu City for a meal,

Not much has happened over the past 2 days, just been dealing with this high blood pressure thingy... I stopped taking the tablets as they were making me feel worse than anything else, I felt great on Tuesday after stopping taking them, my BP monitor even registered all great readings.... 130/80. I got up this morning and all readings were 130/95... not so good. I visited the health centre here in the hotel, the nurse took 2 readings which both were 120/90 and she said that is normal.... I've read that over 90 is high.... but what do I know !!

Below is a really nice family, these are the nice girls of Cebu.




Mary Grace, Vina, aileen and airleen
3 sisters (1 x twins) and a cousin.

Airleen's son... I won't even
try to spell his name !!!!

I have had a really great time here in Cebu over the past few days... probably the best that I have ever had in the Phils.... so I will be sad to leave... but I am booked to go to Davao on Friday but I do return to Cebu on Monday. I had some bad news tonight, I was going to visit a resort about 3 hours outside of Cebu just to relax for a couple of days, it was owned by a really nice American guy and I was looking forward to meeting him but unfortunetly he died yesterday so the trip is cancelled as his resort is now closed..... you never know the minute.... the phrase that comes to mind is.... death......is like a thief in the night.

I hope you and your family are well and in good health..........

Enjoy your wednesday................

Monday midnight

I arrived in Cebu with no problems. I am staying in a nice hotel in the centre of the city. There isn't a lot to see here but it's still a good city to walk around. It is very hot, so hot that I have to keep in an aircom room.... I am not used to this heat now that I have been away from the phils for a few months.

You wouldn't believe it but here in Cebu foreigners are looked upon highly..... so much so that I had 2 pairs of girls ( about 20/25) follow me around trying to attract my attention........... not a good reason to get involved.... I just ignore them as best as I can.... I am not stupid !!!!

I am going out with a couple of friends tomorrow and with other friends on Wednesday, I have booked my flight to Davao for Friday.

By the way, if you noticed the pregnant lady in the picture below, she had a baby boy today !!

hope you all have a great Tuesday...........

Saturday 9am

After seeing the doc 3 times yesterday I didn't do very much else really, Just rested mostly in my room but did manage to buy some sheets and pillows for those mats. I am invited again to go to the beach again today. As I have to drop the sheets off anyway I might as well go although it is very hot and it is still only morning.

Ozamiz is a strange city, some guys here are walking around with 2' machetes, it's no big deal here as it is a tool of their trade, if you walked around like that in London, you would have armed police on you in a few mins.

Well I have now returned from the beach, below is a couple of pics.

This is lunch in our beach hut.



This is the beach hut, 75p to hire
for the day.


The ladies sorting out the food.


Kids are the same the world over,
give them an old inner tube, the
ocean and they are happy !!

I must admit I am missing the text match !! It sounds like their could be a very interesting end to it !!

I fly to Cebu tomorrow morning on the 8am flight so I will have to have an early night.

hope you all have a nice weekend.........

Friday 2pm

well yesterday I had a pain in my head.... not the usual headache.... more of " I think my head is going to explode" type...... each time I had to sit down as the pain was so bad. I have since seen a doctor and had the usual tests done, the result is that I now suffer from hypertension ( high blood pressure) and have been told that I will probably be on these tablets for the rest of my life !!

The doc's consultation was only 200 pesos ( £2.20) for each of my 2 visits, the lab charged me 1880pesos ( £ 21) for all the tests but the tablets cost me 3500 pesos ( £ 40). Plus the usual......... will have to reduce my alcohol intake, fatty foods, salt and smoking..... luckily I don't touch the last 2 and probably surprisingly to a lot of people I don't eat fatty foods often either. I have always done excercise all my life but since my knees have given up on me this year, it's more difficult to play badminton but I will manage something.... this is the downward spiral that a lot of people hit when they get past 50 !!!

Other than that life is good !!!!

It's very hot today here in Ozamiz, even the locals don't like it... lots of them go to bed in the afternoon for a siesta.

I done my good deed for today (actually yesterday), I bought a family 4 mats to sleep on, they normally sleep on the floor, one of them is 9 months pregnant (no don't look at me !) but still sleeps on the floor... I had to do something, you can buy these mats here which are a cross between a mat and a mattress.... not the old joke about between a mister and a matress is a mistress !!! anyway I hope they all enjoyed their first comfortable sleep..... or did they..... they are so used to the floor that they may not like them !!!

UPDATE.. I have just learned that they are too hot for them... the mats are sort of a plastic surface.... oh well I guess I will have to buy some cotton sheets to go with them.

I also bought a little boy a bike.... he could never have one as his parents are very poor..... I could never have a bike when I was a kid so I wanted to sort of put that right in a way by helping a kid to have one....... his face was a picture...well worth it... I must take a photo of him.

They loved the clothes that I brought for them, they were all shared out through the families, some of them were in town so I invited them to eat with me, 2 had my shirts on and 2 had on shirts that my sister Anne provided....they were all very happy.

I was invited to go to the beach today but it was simply too hot and sticky... so I plumped for the air con instead.