By Hannah Black The other day I woke up singing the 1980s super-hit The Final Countdown. Now I don’t like to overanalyse, but I think the fact that I’m leaving Bali for a big chunk of time in less than two weeks has something to do with my brain’s song of choice. Right now I’m [...]

By Hannah Black The past week I’ve hardly seen my husband, Ongky. Ceremonies, his work and my newly rediscovered social life (since I finished work) have kept us away from each other for whole days at a time. A wedding next door had him up and out at 6am one morning and 3am the next. [...]

By Hannah Black In Bali, like every other holiday destination in the world, the majority of residents have to work. Of course there are the retired and the disgustingly rich, but I’d say 99 percent of the population have to bring some money in to live, me included. I’ve been working at a school for [...]

By Hannah Black I used to think buzzing around on my 125cc scooter was really the best thing in the world, but oh how my feelings have changed in the past few years. This week I’ve been relegated back to the bike from my lovely, comfy air-conditioned car and I can tell you with total [...]

By Hannah Black My very tough, hardworking mother-in-law fell ill last week and was taken to three different doctors before landing in hospital on Friday morning. I was told when I came home from work last Tuesday to her moaning in pain and vomiting repeatedly, that it was because she had eaten too late and, [...]

By Hannah Black I’ve just had one of those weeks that everything seems absolutely unmanageably crazy; but looking back on it, I can’t really pinpoint what happened. It felt so much busier than usual, but perhaps it was only because I had such a nice week off teaching, for Galungan. There’s been a quiet madness [...]

By Hannah Black Galungan holidays are lovely, but when you’re married into a Balinese family there is a lot of making offerings, going to temple and generally being in the compound that goes on. So after a slow week of going to temple, eating offerings and generally lazing around the house I thought it was [...]

By Hannah Black My husband Ongky’s brother and cousin stumbled down to our house to collapse on our front porch in drunken giggles (and see if we had any more alcohol in our house). They were amusing, but also made me thank the heavens that I married the right brother. Ongky is the youngest of [...]

By Hannah Black This week I introduced my niece and nephew Kaka and Dara to wonders of the Sony PlayStation. A colleague at work was selling an old console off cheap so I thought I’d treat the kids to something they’ve wanted for a long time. I’m not a big fan of game consoles but [...]

By Hannah Black When news of the volcanic eruption in Iceland broke last week my mother immediately called from the other side of the world, opening the phone call with “Hi, did you hear about the volcano?” The names of active volcanoes lining the Indonesian archipelago promptly began running through my head. Rinjani on neighbouring [...]

By Hannah Black It’s been a big week for visitors this week, and out of five, three were from the Isle of Man. This may not seem like a huge number, but four people (including myself) in Bali at one time from a place with a population of only 75,000 is practically a conference. On [...]

By Hannah Black Sometimes living in Bali can really wear you down. All the positives – sun, sand, etc. – are fantastic things to have in your everyday life, but they sometimes get buried deep, deep down under insane drivers, corruption and silly amounts of bureaucracy. Last week was one of those weeks where I [...]