Another World.........

I thought I would post some photos that my family took while scuba diving off Koh Samui. They are so beautiful that I feel sure many of you will be inspired.....

......maybe to start a new hobby? Not me I am far too much of a scaredy cat!

 Wouldn't he be great in miniature? I can definitely see him in a magical pet shop.

 Playing hide and seek with the big people? 

 The anemones are so gorgeous. Great idea for miniature plants? 

 A very fierce looking cusomer.

 These look like they are flying in a very blue sky don't you think.

 A whole collection of anemones with a teeny fish in the centre.

 There was lots of interesting and colourful coral too. Apparently it is very sharp so you have to be careful. My better half scraped his leg accidentally and his leg became quite nastily infected leading to some heavy doses of anti-biotics.

 A goldfish for the garden pond maybe.

 I love this picture. The colours are so retro, he's a very hip fish!

What a strange one this is. Great eyes.

Lastly, how cute is this. There is something so appealing about sea-horses and not just the fact that daddy carries round all the babies!

Back From My Travels......So How Did It Go?!

Firstly a belated Happy New Year to everyone. I for one am looking forward to a mini-full 2012 and intend to work hard on my Diagon Alley. I have lots of ideas and intentions for my shops and it was nice to have so much thinking time on holiday.

We had a fabulous family holiday on the beautiful island of Koh Samui which sits off the Thai mainland.

This was our first complete family holiday for a long time. All my children, aged 22, 20 and 19 years were surprisingly keen to come with us even though it meant spending new year away from significant halves and all their friends. I think they were all looking forward to sun, sea and sand after a long, hard term at Uni. Plus my two youngest were going to do their PADI, a scuba diving qualification while my eldest would be able to add a couple of extra qualifications to his PADI.

My ever adventurous other half was very keen to dust off the PADI he earned last year in Borneo and dive with all the children.

No, there was absolutely no chance I would be diving with them!

Here we all are at our lovely resort on Bophut Beach. We stayed for ten days at the Peace Resort which was perfect for a chilled beach holiday. As you can see my youngest is not keen on the whole staged photo thing!

 We stayed in a beach bungalow which sat right on the beach, unsurprisingly! It was wonderful waking up every day with a view of the sea plus we had our own sun beds which took away the whole towel drama. Why do people behave like absolute twits when it comes to sun beds?! The resort had more than enough for everyone but that didn't stop the madness.

 Every day these ladies would walk down the beach with a portable BBQ. They would prepare corn, spring rolls and chicken satay. Absolutely delicious and soooo cheap. I didn't even have to move off my bed!

 Then the boat sellers would pull up on the beach with fresh pineapples and mangos for dessert. Yum, yum!

 The beach in the early morning. I thought the sea was a bit cold but I am a bit of a wimp. There had been a lot of storms in the weeks before our arrival which may have chilled the sea temperatures down a bit. The sand was not very compacted too which made it quite hard to walk on unless you were very near the sea's edge. How the ladies managed with their BBQ's I do not know! 

 You can see how deep the footprints are where you sink in. But hey, who cares, it was sunny and.....

 ........the cocktail shack was not far away for when I needed some light refreshment!

 The beach sellers trudged past all day. All the usual tourist stuff as you can imagine and I thought they would be a problem but they were not at all. Unless you showed interest you were not bothered by them.

 Of course all holidays mean lots of nights out visiting the local restaurants. My eldest son spent 6 weeks in Thailand a couple of year's ago and was keen for us to try all the Thai food he had enjoyed. I wasn't quite so keen to try out the typical backpacker's eatery so we compromised.....he could eat whatever he wanted as long as we got to choose the place!

Here he is enjoying a vanilla milkshake which he assured me was a Thai speciality!

 After days of noodles we had to go to Zico's a fabulous Brazilian BBQ restaurant. Where you could eat all the meat and fish you wanted from the giant skewers taken round all the tables. Plus they had a huge salad station which made a really nice change to curries and rice.

 Lots of cocktails with dinner. Never drink them at home but on a sunny holiday they are a must for me.  Like mother, like daughter!

 The family had a great time diving together with CSI Samui even though the conditions were not great. The sea was a little rough and on one of the days visibility was really poor. They seemed to do everything they wanted and the fish photos are amazing.

 I was expecting the kids to go off and party after we had fed and watered them each night but they only went out for the New Year Full Moon Party on the infamous Koh Phanghan. To be honest I was a little bit worried and spent a lot of time laying down rules until my eldest told me off. He said I was making my youngest even more terrified and there lay the road to disaster, of course he was perfectly right.

They caught a speed boat taxi from the beach by the hotel at 10pm and returned home exhausted and happy at 7.30am the next day.......

50,000 revellers of all ages cram the beach and have a whale of a time. What fun it is to be young eh?! Me? I was tucked up in bed by 12.30pm after watching all the fireworks around the bay. Did I sleep? Of course not!!