I'm back

Well, I'm back. I had the loveliest time in the UK although it was exhausting too. However, I didn't belong anywhere this time. It was all familiar, but nowhere was properly home.

I met two Novel Racer bloggers while in the UK: Jen and Helen. Jen and I made a pact for our launch parties (ha ha ha). Helen has (most impressively) got her first draft done which is very exciting and renewed my enthusiasm for my own WIP.

I was dead tired by the time I came to the end of my Grand Tour of the Beattie/Stevens clan - and climbed on to the aeroplane grateful to be able to stop living out of a suitcase. I woke in the night on the 'plane knowing I should stay awake because it would make the jetlag easier but someone had been by and put grit in my eyes and they wouldn't open. I sat there in my inadequate seat thinking about going home, but for the life of me in my confused and comatosed state, I couldn't work out if I was going to the UK or to Bangkok.

On my first full day in Bangkok I had a spa morning arranged with friends: I d booked a jetlag massage which was lovely, but resulted in my returning to the unconscious state. It meant I was alert enough (or maybe not, considering) to meet Ms Melancholy and her family that evening (see here). I'm still punishing myself for the social faux pas made there...

I woke on Friday morning with a ferocious migraine which meant I had to cancel my (urgent) website lesson and didn't get the (urgent) voting form up on the website before Husband and I came down to Koh Chang (Elephant Island) for me to try scuba diving. The family had done their 'Open Water Diver' training here and the staff were lovely, gentle and encouraging, so as a total coward I decided I'd like to come here for my 'Discover Dive'. I was clothed up in all the scuba paraphernalia, told to jump in and then instructed to submerge... this was my training.

You know what? We can't breathe underwater and my brain and my heart had a stand up (alright, floating) altercation about this fact. I tried several times, but each time I submerged I wanted to run (that's quite hard in water, wearing flippers, a tank of oxygen weighing as much as me (that's a lot) and a mask. He (the instructor) just wanted me to 'go down.' Like it was as simple as that. Anyway, I bottled it. I couldn't do it and I got out. I felt terrible: like a failure and that I'd let husband down who so wants me to discover and share the world of diving. It took until this morning for me to realise what a crap piece of teaching I'd had: or non-teaching. Maybe I'll try again in a pool in Bangkok, or maybe I won't.

Now that I'm back I'm going to have a potter around all my regular blogs and say hello. See you soon.