Not long to go

Well - Friday is here once again - with only 7 days until I return to Singapore. It has been 3 plus months since I left, and in that time I have flown over 100 000 miles (no joke - my KLM and SQ airmiles exceed 100 000!), have seen some of Sao Paolo, Madrid, Lisbon, London, Amsterdam and have been involved in talks with people that I didn't even know existed 4 months ago. But all in all, I still miss my somewhat more relaxed life in SG. I miss going to the gym at lunch time, popping down to Bojangles or SODS for a beer or diet coke. I miss my dogs and I miss my wife (that thing about last not being least applies here).

Don't get me wrong - I am not complaining. I am well remunerated for my time. I do enjoy the travelling. The work is exceedingly rewarding and challenging. My house is beautiful. But I have lost my centre, that which provided stability. Not having a stable, reliable and predictable environment is not as easy as I had thought. Not drinking has proved nigh on impossible, as the thought of sitting in hotel rooms, alone, watching TV in portugese or Spanish (unless I watch bbc non stop) just doesn't appeal. Not being with your wife adds untold stresses to both yours and her life - whilst asking Kanga to relocate to Amsterdam - when I am rarely here - just doesn't make sense. Marriage is about union - not division. Yet how can I - at 31 - turn down any of these opportunities? Opportunities that will help make our lives fiscally easier as we grow older?

When, at 25, I arrived in Singapore, I was not a career man. I wanted to have fun, and do just enough work to get by. Somewhere along the line I seem to have acquired ambition and drive. I find myself actively thinking about moving, in the words of Aslan "onwards and upwards". I wonder what I have sacrificed in order to make room for these new motivations......hopefully not the things that made me what I was, and what, I hope, I still am.

Anyway - enough musing. I will be back for 8 days, and look forward to seeing you (very Tiny Tim here) "One and All". I hope that Terse (et al) will be available for a beer - and I won't ask about anything you don't want to talk about. Just a quiet pint, a few hands of darts and possible a few frames of pool. In return I promise not to bore you with talk of work.