I could not believe that the last post I published was in January 2010!! Time to try again - the inspiration is a return to Indonesia where I first encountered development and UNICEF forty years ago as a UNA/UK volunteer! Also inspired by my friend Delia who was a VSO volunteer in Makassar, South Sulawesi at the same time I was there, and who has also just returned to Indonesia. We plan on meeting up in Bali where the UNICEF Retirees reunion will be held the last week of February.
In the three years since the last blog we have travelled to many places especially in Europe, moved into a new apartment in Vienna, and enjoyed life in retirement. I did spend 3 fascinating months in Honduras helping out the UNICEF office during a period of transition, and last year we returned to India for the first time in 18 years for a reunion of UNICEF staff who had served there in the 80s and 90s.
Despite a couple of surprises in 2012 health-wise, we are all keeping well. Christopher is still in New York and visits every Christmas while Dominique is here in Vienna. It is time we made a return visit to the US; but first the upcoming trip to Asia, starting in Bangkok, a place we like very much and visited many times when we lived in Bangladesh and India and where Christopher was born, then to Bali and Sulawesi, before returning via Malaysia, a new country to add to the list.
One of the reasons I have not blogged is that despite all its drawbacks I have enjoyed using Facebook. I also keep a personal journal but thought it was time to start writing a bit more. One thing I have done constantly is take photos! It has become something of an obsession. Although I have been taking pictures since the age of about 12, it is only in the digital era that I have begun to take my hobby more seriously. A limited selection of my photos (primarily the ones from Austria) can be seen on the website I use:
Smugmug.com
We leave for Bangkok in less than a week. I hope the trip will inspire me enough to keep up the blog!
