A Year On

Today is the 1st May and come the 7th it will be a year since I left the sunny shores of the UK on a round the world trip. So far I've made it about half way, had many adventures, seen things that I would never see in the UK, met loads of interesting people, some rich, some poor, some very poor and others very, very poor. In the main these people, irrespective of their social status, have been rich in their imaginations, energy levels, love of life and willingness to experience new things no matter how much they have in the bank or under the mattress. When I look back on this blog I see I have written 66 posts which my bean counter estimates is more than one a week. I see this as very positive and a testament to how full my life has been in the first 12 months. Leaving home so far has been a good decision.

The year has ended with me getting a job at The Prem Center (the American spelling is theirs not mine), Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand as a director of The Prem Football Academy. My brief is to start, run and expand the academy by using the wonderful facilities here and tapping into the Thai and other national's passion for football and love of the English Premiership in particular. After 4 years of retirement I'm now back into a work mode, highly compensated by the fact that this, for me, is a labour of love. I'm very excited about the coming months, of starting such a brilliant project, seeing it work and progress - now that's not work is it. Do have a look at The Prem website www.premcenter.org and look at the pictures of the school, its facilities and surrounding area. Although this is a very posh school, with posh people in it, one of the girls has her own maid to cater for her every need, part of my vision is to offer free scholarships to the academy. Also I fully intend offering kids from local orphanage's, poor villages and hill tribes opportunities to come to the academy and play football. So I will still be pandering to my socialist roots. Part of the deal is they have given me a lovely 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment overlooking The Prem grounds - see photos taken from the balcony and note the 1st photo has the Olympic sized swimming pool in the distance. This means that any of you fancying a trip to Thailand has a place to stay. Please take advantage it will be great to see you. In fact, the one downside of this new life is that I really miss seeing and socialising with good friends and family. Even though we are not meeting at the moment you are forever in my thoughts. The other great thing I've missed in the past year is storytelling - the company, the fun, the joy, the challenges, the conversations that I get from stories, storytelling and storytellers has not been here in South East Asia for me to enjoy. Maybe I can get to do some around Prem.