General

I’ve never much thought about it, but my life seems to be a series of very different chapters.  If friends from these different chapters were ever assembled in one room, probably the other only thing in common would be myself. So 10 months ago, a new chapter starts by leaving Tokyo and moving to Hokkaido, … Continue reading »

Many years ago whilst living in the Solomon Islands, I took up scuba diving.  One thing led to another and I eventually ended up in California at the now defunct PADI college and became a Scuba Instructor.  There was the dream of finding a pristine island in the Pacific, open a dive store, dive during the … Continue reading »

It’s been a while but slowly getting back to this.  stay tuned, stay patient….

In a previous life, I wintered in Antarctica as part of ANARE (Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition) and this month travelled to Hobart for the 25th Anniversary of that winter – Davis 1982.  I had wintered also wintered at Davis in ’72  but that is another story. As you would expect, over the 25 years … Continue reading »

We made a promise to go back and did!  An even better year than last year in the quality of the matches. England got bumped by New Zealand in the quarter final breaking the four year winning streak, New Zealand got bumped by Fiji and then Fiji lost to Samoa in the final in a … Continue reading »

Late last year, we had been invited to spend a week or so with a good friend and his family who was planning to rent a villa in Tuscany, Italy in the summer of 2006.  For various reasons that fell through but we had set in motion the prospect of a European holiday with Tuscany … Continue reading »

The internet is certainly proving the place to find long-lost contacts.  Over the last six months, I have been visited by friends that have fallen by the wayside due to all the usual reasons of our modern age – too busy, too etc. Both friends stem from another life where I was passionate about cars, … Continue reading »

Hong Kong Rugby Sevens has been one of those ‘I should see but never seem to remember each year until it is over’  events in life.  Finally, as it came up in a conversation with a friend before the event and it was an easy sell to Shorty (birthday celebration in Hong Kong this year, … Continue reading »

How did these start and at what point, did they give up and just keep adding rather than tidying up?

After a couple of week-ends busy in Tokyo, we got away to the Nagano house.  As we crossed the hills from Tokyo to Nagano, the snow started.  It didn’t stop and we finally got out of it as we crossed the hills back to Tokyo on the Sunday night.  The skies dropped 10-15cm of snow … Continue reading »