Hi,

Well we have just about finished packing for our trip back to the UK we will be leaving Beijing early Monday morning the 4th of November and flying to Warsaw then catching a connecting flight to London, We plan on staying overnight as we arrive late then travelling up by train the following day. We bought ourselves a Citroen relay campervan which we are looking forward to picking up and travelling about in, as we set of on the mammoth task of viewing 40plus properties in North and East Yorkshire,Durham,Weardale,Northumberland and South West Scotland as well of course visiting family and friends and going up to Throssel Buddhist Abbey to spend some time with the monks.

Local news here is that I have taken on a bit more work teaching two adults conversational English so still keeping busy along with the three children I still work with. The weather has changed quite dramatically these last two weeks now a lot colder and a lot more smog days, I am in the third week of a throat and chest infection so have only gone out on nicer days to the parks and taking some photographs. There was also the terrible attack last Monday when it seems three people in a car drove around the crash barriers outside the Forbidden City in Tiananmen Square drove through the crowds killing two people and injuring over forty before exploding the car killing themselves. The Chinese Authorities at first claimed it was just a car accident but later reported it as a terrorist attack, and will now I am sure tighten up even further their security measures.

Other recent news is that I was contacted by a well known Australian artist who is at present preparing for an exhibition in late 2014 of her paintings/photographs on the theme of nature/flowers in hard environments. She asked me if she could use one of my photographs as a model for one of her paintings which of course I was very happy to agree to. She will credit me with the photograph in the exhibition and catalogue as well as sending me a copy of the painting when it is completed, her website should anyone like to look at is www.rospaton.com

OK I will finish this very short blog off here and write again upon our return.