Creative Writing
As part of our homeschooling topic on the Vietnam War, Z has been reading Chickenhawk. While not as “adult” as the current meaning of the...
Tagged: round the world
The Birds and the Bees
In the aftermath of our not wildly successful dragon boat cruise, Z and I are ambling along the south bank of Hue’s Perfume River, trying...
You are Nine, Going on Nineteen
So Z got dumped by his girlfriend. Or did he? It came up the first time in a moment of anxiety atop a sand dune...
Hounds, Bikes and Dunes
Z and I are sitting at a roadside stall in Mui Ne, Vietnam, watching a very cute, extremely solemn and phenomenally determined toddler hounding an...
Dolphins on the Mekong
I was eighteen when I read about the pink freshwater dolphins on the Amazon. I’ve dreamed of seeing them ever since, and Z and I...
I Heart Cambodia – Part 1
Z and I are sitting in pitch blackness on the laterite stairs overlooking the lake of Banteay Kdei, Cambodia, between a sculpted Khmer lion and...
Doctor Fish
Downtown Siem Reap, your starter for ten for the glories of the Angkor era, is tacky as hell. Yet, while a banner boasting “the most...
S-21: Genocide for Beginners
“Kneel down, mum,” Z says. “Close your eyes.” He fumbles with my hair. We are in the courtyard of Tuol Sleng prison, Phnom Penh, Cambodia,...
Does My Mum Look Big in This?
“I think you should wear something a little more slimming tomorrow, mum,” was tactfully meant. “God, mum, your tummy sticks out almost as far as...
Lotus Seeds
When someone you have never met in a country you have never visited gives your child and you a present and wants nothing in return...