It appears we not only have the regular monsoon transition to contend with. We also have La Nina...

It has certainly been a wild weather week. Malaysia is very rarely a windy place, but on Friday a wooshy hot wind badgered our balcony for hours, and on Thursday, for the first time ever, we had rain running down the inside of our windows... It's always a bit disconcerting when you say, "Wow, it sounds like it's raining inside," and then discover it is...


This weekend Kuching has been marking the 84th birthday of the Yang di-Pertua Negeri (that's Sarawak's head of state) Tun Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud.

Everyone has been very keen to tell us that all the celebrations were held "with full SOP compliance"...

This emphasis is not surprising given public criticism of the relationship between Malaysia's scarily resurgent covid numbers and the recent elections in Sabah...

Anyway, the ceremonial helicopters flew over our building on Friday, and we caught them again as we were having coffee yesterday.

And, as we headed off towards lunch, we heard something of the festive band, albeit from the other side of the river with the hoi polloi (actually there wasn't much in the way of hoi polloi, as it was damn hot by that time...). But the Parliament building looked very nice all decked out with tents and ribbons.





Today, on the way back from another of our little walks, we witnessed the hoisting of the sign on our new local supermarket. So we're hopefully nearing the end of a super-loud renovation programme that's involved more drilling than you'd ever think was possible on such a modest-sized site...


Not sure when it's going to open its doors. But rest assured the Terns will be checking it out as soon as it does.