This month will stick in many people's minds on account of a particular event:



For us, however, May will be memorable for its variety.

It kicked off on the Isle of Man, a place that exerts ever more of a pull on me as the years go by. (Start here, and work forward for loads of walks and drives; it's hard to choose, but possibly the route that took us to Garwick Beach and St Adamnan's was my absolute favourite.)







The month continued back in England, with more friends-and-family time (and more cheese). (Start here.)






Then came a brief interlude in Singapore, another of our former homes, which we'd not had the opportunity to visit since 2019. (Our little jaunts in the Lion City start here.)


And on Monday, Day 100 of our trip, we headed for our current home, which is Kuching...

We're still in the middle of a whirlwind of jobs, but it was nice to fit in a museum visit today, as a bit of light relief.

The end of a trip always calls for some sort of assessment, and certainly I've earmarked a few things that I would do differently next time (I hope there'll be a next time for this kind of journey, as I have a TON of ideas for alternative Istanbul-London routes...).

But, by and large, I think we were amazingly fortunate. So much that could have gone wrong didn't. So many things turned out way better than we'd envisaged. And the opportunity to connect with old friends, after many years of separation, was priceless.

Once more, the hectic schedule has kept The Velvet Cushion on iron rations, and for the third month running, there are just three posts: The Therapist, a tense little psychodrama by B.A. Paris; Flights, an extraordinarily inventive (not to mention educational) novel by Olga Tokarczuk; and Best of Friends by Kamila Shamsie, whose insights into Pakistani and British politics are well worth anyone's time. But there'll be more soon...

And so we move on to the next phase of the year.

Tomorrow (or, more accurately, midnight tonight) sees the beginning of Gawai Dayak, a festival marking the end of the harvest. We particularly wanted to be back in time for this uniquely Sarawakian celebration, even if it doesn't touch us personally. The festival greeting, "gayu-guru, gerai-nyami", Iban for "long life, health, and prosperity", makes an appropriate way to close.