The World's scariest landings

A few years ago, 2010 to be exact, I was invited to write a guest blog on Rachel Cotterill's very popular blog. I chose to write about airports and some of the scarier landings to a few of them that I have experienced.
I thought I should share this post with you here on my own blog.  So, I've included a link to the original post on Rachel's blog which I urge you to visit. Her posts are varied and always interesting.

http://blog.rachelcotterill.com/2010/06/worlds-scariest-landings.html

15 years of teaching EFL - time to pass on the knowledge

After 15 years of teaching English as a Foreign Language it's time I took more of a role teaching and training other teachers. Although I have presented at conferences and seminars for many years and taught occasional input sessions for Cambridge CELTA courses I've never done a whole training course myself. Last Saturday I attended a short training course and interview which included a 10 minute presentation. I'm hopeful that the outcome is that I run training course for one or two weekends each month.
It's for a company that run introductory courses for those wishing to become TEFL teachers. They are 120 hour courses with 20 hours face to face (me I hope) and the remaining 100 hours online.

I will know on Monday if I've been selected. Watch this space.

5 years on - still no nicotine

While sitting at my computer this morning I realised that it is now five years since I smoked a cigarette. At that time I was on retreat at a Buddhist monastery in Thailand. I had applied for a job in York after 10 years living and working in Thailand. I thought to myself that as cigarettes in Thailand were less than £1 per packet but were at least £5, possibly as much as £7 per packet, depending on the brand, in England, I had better think about stopping.

I'd never really tried to stop before, thinking it would be much too difficult. In the end I just stopped. A day or two of craving then nothing at all. And this after more than 30 years of smoking.

Since that time I've seen a whole new industry spring up making 'electronic cigarettes'. I see these are very popular, but have the smokers really given up smoking? I think not, merely changed their way of taking nicotine.

How do I feel? Much fitter, no cough, clean smell. I wish I'd done it years ago. 

Khao Soi - my favourite Thai meal

We recently travelled from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. It's a long way so we needed to stop several times for food. We were with my brother-in-law who works for EGAT (Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand). In his job he travels all over Thailand and is great for knowing the best places to eat. He recommended a restaurant in Lampang which serves a really great dish of Khao Soi, sometimes spelled Kao Soi.

I had eaten Khao Soi while living in Bangkok. The shop which used to sell it though fell victim to the riots of 2008 and I have been longing for a dish since that time. So, as you can imagine, I was very pleased to hear we'd be stopping at a restaurant well-known for this speciality of Northern Thailand. I usually choose to eat chicken breast and was a little disappointed to hear they only served chicken legs here. It tasted amazing though and I washed it down with a glass of guava juice. I asked for an extra portion of crispy noodles, as I like that part the most. Then my brother-in-law ordered another bowl for me of just the curry and noodles. I ate the lot. It really is that good.

On the return journey, three days later, we stopped at the same restaurant (Khao Soi O-Ma) and had two bowls again. Yes, I put weight on during this holiday.

Below you will find a link to a recipe for it. Enjoy.

Link to Recipe on food.com

Back from Thailand and full of resolutions to post at least once a week to this blog.

Just returned from Thailand. Not as warm as may think at this time of year. We visited many places and took a lot of pics. I'll drip feed them over the next few weeks rather than all in one go.