2016 started off as a normal year for our family. However looking back there were signs even then of what was ahead. From the moment we sweltered through an uncomfortably sticky New Years Eve, it should have been apparent that the year of the fire monkey was going to have me hot and bothered!
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Mr Wren also known as Monkey man, on account of his zoology background studying red colobus monkeys, was bored. Ready for a change. Yep, oh my golly gosh all the signs were there: fire and monkey. I was just head down, bum up, enjoying life, and rather blindsided when the Company announced our move to Bangkok, before I'd even been to look at the City of Angels. I call that a bit rude, he calls that effective business planning!
Our January showed little signs of what was ahead. I was finishing off in my locum Social and Community Development role with the wonderful Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and preparing for our last family holiday together in Myanmar. Daughter Number One was packing to leave the nest for the London Good Life.
And there was the Tennis! We'd had a thoroughly amazing time, our seventh year hosting for the Australian Open tennis and indeed in 2016 I was well on my way to the Fan Slam having also loved being a tennis groupie at Roland Garros and Wimbledon before the proverbial rain stopped play!
Our family travel in 2016 was at an all time record. The kids all living up to their parents wanderlust tendencies. We've covered a bit of the globe between us: Australia, New Zealand, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong & Macau, Malaysia, France, United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Croatia, United States of America, Cuba, Guatemala, Belize and more I'm sure I have forgotten.
In July a surprise return to work, was a welcome distraction from cataclysmic world events like Brexit, mutterings of an international transfer and a whole heap of kids sports related injuries - if you can count jumping of a cliff a sports induced injury...
So 2017 will see us jumping into a new life in Thailand. I won't say we are leaving the 2016 World's most liveable city, the bestest of friends, or my favourite job ever to do this... I know we would have never had all this, if we didn't leave the last most amazing city Hong Kong, or Brussels before that...
And of course I wouldn't dream of leaving before the tennis, so don't get too excited to see Bangkok as we have a whole lovely Summer of tennis ahead. Roll on the Australian Open!
Happy New Year to us all!!!
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