Time flies…

Time really does fly here, it’s almost a month since we’ve been back and it has whizzed past in a blur of diving, dinners, research and relaxation. For inherently unsociable people there sure are a lot of lovely people making us, ok fine me, want to be more sociable. JHubz is still firmly against most social outings or so he says and luckily for him early morning starts conspire against too much socialising ☺️

Having finally chosen a platinum award winning IDC centre in the Philippines to undertake my PADI instructor course I set about letting the few centres I had shortlisted know that I had not chosen them. Anyone who knows me knows that I do not have a problem with being honest, too honest some say; although I am not sure there is such thing, which is of course my problem 😂 My emails were all vanilla bland and thankful for the time and effort they had put in to responding to me with best wishes for the future…until I was asked why I had not chosen a particular centre. It had to be that one I thought momentarily before remembering people who ask for feedback usually want it so that they can improve. They were a dual location centre who had provided truly excellent responses to my request for information but had a manager at one of the centres who responded to critical reviews from customers with derision and dismissiveness, which I found pretty distasteful, especially when it related to diver feedback. The lady I had been corresponding with was beyond excellent in both her responses and speed replying and rather graciously accepted my feedback, for sure if she was the only factor I would have chosen them!

We’ve discovered that we can extend our visas without the need to leave the country, which while a trip away is always enjoyable, it is also expensive, so discovering we can extend is pretty great and has enabled us to loosely plot out the rest of the year. We’ll be staying on Nusa Lembongan until the end of October, me diving and JHubz finishing his book, before heading to the Philippines via a few days, hopefully with friends, in Singapore. Ma is coming over for two weeks in the middle and I can’t wait to see her and no it has nothing to do with the bounty of diving goodies she is bringing me. Ok a tiny bit to do with that but mostly I cannot wait to see and spend time with her again, mummy’s girl I am 💕

I’m learning all the time it seems, every dive growing my experience, every hiccup adding to my problem solving database and I am grateful for each new piece of knowledge that makes me a better diver and with my one year anniversary of diving next week I am beyond proud of all I’ve achieved and am pretty convinced that in the next few weeks I will once again see the dolphins underwater that everyone except me has seen this last week 🐬🐬

I really am loving life, fully aware of how utterly lucky we are and thrilled with the path we have chosen. Planning the next few months always manages to stir up some anxiety in me especially with the months ahead including a great deal of expense, studying, a change of country and exams but I’m now much more successful at talking myself to the other side and resuming living and loving being in the moment. It cannot be said enough, life is short and precious LOVE LIVING IT Xx