I was going to headline this "The end of an era", but I don't want to be overly dramatic.

We are coming back in February, after all. Well, we hope we are. You never know these days, do you?

But we took up residence in Sarawak a little over five years ago, and we've just moved out of the apartment we've lived in all that time. So it feels like the end of a particular stretch of time, if not exactly an era.

There are sentimental memories attached to that flat for sure. It's where we first explored the arts of low-carb cookery. It's where we sat out the two weeks' home quarantine that succeeded the two weeks' hospital quarantine when we had covid for the first time in 2020. It's where we survived the long lockdown of 2021, and watched the live feed of Nigel's father's funeral, because the restrictions didn't permit us to go in person. It's where we did our one-week self-isolation when we had covid for the second time in 2022. And from its big windows we have surveyed the changing moods of Gunung Serapi, and many, many, many sunsets.

So there's lots of personal history in that little space.



But it's time to move. I don't believe in staying too long in one place. (The longest we've ever lived anywhere as adults is just over six years.)

And there's a certain attraction to nomadism, I have to say. We were nomadic from December 2017 through August 2019, and it was a lifestyle that held a lot of charm.

On Friday, we put the bulk of our stuff into store, and a kind friend is going to mind a suitcase and a computer monitor. Otherwise we've just got what will fit on our back (and front). And there's a definite feeling of freedom in that.

But I guess it won't last. We've always been tethered by issues like tax and insurance. Others manage to set up work-arounds, but somehow we have never been able to pull that off. So we can't do without a base for too long.

And don't even start me on the medical situation...

In any case, we miss people when we go away... We've kind of dug ourselves in here. We have a little circle of good friends, plus a lot of acquaintances, plus nodding familiarity with more people again. It's always sad to say goodbye even for just a few months.


So there we are. Want to go. But don't want to go for too long. Want to keep mobile. But don't want to lose touch. Don't want to get stuck. But want to have around us the stuff that makes life comfortable. Want to seize the day while health permits. But don't want to spend too much money, or wreck too much more of the environment. And -- additional complication -- we need to be able to deal with the expiration of our visas in four-and-a-half years' time.

A bundle of contradictions.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a travelling soul in possession of a lively imagination, must be in want of the ability to be in two places at once...

Anyway, whatever the future holds, we're still in the present, and we're pretty tired after what has been a fairly exhausting week.

Here it is in pictures:


















Our dining-out has been a little constrained of late by the need to work our way through the contents of the fridge and freezer, but we have enjoyed dishes from some of our favourite places (Kim Joo; the Chinese Barbecue Specialist; Nam Joo; Country Kitchen...), and done a round of all our regular coffee haunts. Breakfast with friends at Choon Hui this morning was a nice little final flourish.



Tomorrow, all being well, we fly to KL. The following day, on to London.

We have plans as far as early December, rough ideas for the next couple of months after that. And we'll take the rest of the future as it comes.