Today is Chinese New Year, the Year of the Horse. This day also coincides with the start of Ramadan and Shrove Tuesday. I love the colours of Chinese New Year, the noise of the fireworks, the lion dances and pavements strewn in carpets of spent red streamers from the firecrackers.

We arrived back from Kota Kinabalu in Sabah yesterday, and after unpacking we dashed to the supermarket very afraid that we might starve throughout all this celebration with the Chinese shops closed and the Muslims fasting. All very worrying for the inner woman. It has also been worrying trying to find brandy in these cities of KK and Kuching, where the prices are aimed at millionaires only. £90 for a bottle of whisky or brandy? The duty on alcohol is ferocious. We did hear of a certain grocer that might have some smuggled bottles of Japanese gin, going for a song. We raced across the city and came back triumphant. The gin did taste OK, but the whisky John got was reminiscent of drain cleaner and promptly was hurled down the sink. Too many bad stories coming out of Thailand and Laos to risk a dodgy wee dram.

Our time here is zooming by. The first month we still felt very connected to home and our thoughts were constantly subtracting eight hours and imaging what everyone was doing and feeling just a little homesick. After the first month Kuching became normal and we felt we were part of the daily life here, with no need to rush about doing tourist trips. We have eaten in all the local restaurants – noodles, rice, curry and even pizza made by Alex who is from Montenegro and came out as a chef in a hotel but now works for himself.

We have befriends Kim who owns the charming coffee and noodle shop in Kai Ju lane. Best coffee we have tasted, but the cups have been there since they opened eighty years ago!

When we visited Liz and Clement in Kota Kinabalu last week, we booked into the Jesselton Hotel where my dad once stayed back in the 1970s when he was building the golf courses in KK and in Sandakan. The hotel is old and charming and sits on Gaya Street just along from the old Post Office. I lived in KK with my family back in the 1980s and my daughter Natasha was born there. So many memories. John and I took a boat out to Manukan island and although it was quite overrun with tourists from mainland China, all photographing themselves from every angle, we did find a place to look out at the sea and eat mandarin oranges. We avoided swimming as there were a lot of sea urchins about. The monsoon rain drove us all into the restaurant where we were given an outside table protected from the rain only by a red umbrella. We tried to eat satay and mango salad, until we got soaked in the deluge.

Oh my! It certainly can rain. They eventually found space for us inside.

Liz and Clement drove us up to Kudat, about three hours’ drive from KK and passing through sporadic villages and past fruit stalls laden with durian, rambutans and papaya. These villages were predominantly Christian with giant crucifixes attached to the tops of telegraph poles. No doubt for lost wayfarers who might need a sign from above. There were schools dedicated to St Benedict, St Joseph, St Thomas and St Aloysius and I had to smile as we passed a convent or some religious compound, when I saw a green cement building with the sign ‘Secret Beauty Salon’ written on a dodgy piece of wood.

We drove to our destination, the Tip of Borneo, where the South China Sea and the Sulu Sea converge. It was magical and we posed for photographs and ate egg sandwiches beside bushes laden with the beautiful Bunga Raya flowers or the red hibiscus.

All the way Liz peppered the journey with tales of people we had jointly known or some who we didn’t. She and Clement have been in KK for fifty-four years. I couldn’t help thinking how we all live parallel lives. They had bought a new car quite recently and their mechanic, nicknamed ‘Dirty Wong’ due to the grease marks on his face and hands because he was always wiping the sweat from his eyes, had damaged their new engine by not replacing the oil cap. The engine had to be shipped to Kuala Lumpur where another friend, James, the mechanic for Rolls Royce at the Formula 1 racetrack, stripped it all down and returned it. She went on to tell us that another friend, called Fatty Wong was not to be confused with Dirty Wong. Fatty Wong was a lovely chap, who had gone on a diet thirty years ago, but was now skinny. His name remained. I tried hard to keep up.

Later we went to the Yacht Club and met Captain Alan, a retired airline pilot, and another chap who owns a lot of property as well as five cars and five motorbikes. Posh cars. Posh motor bikes. There was another friend who had bought an island and made it into the most luxurious resort, and they all thought nothing of drinking beer or whisky. I doubt they did mad dashes to dodgy grocers who hid their supplies under the counter.

Sunday lunch was at another friend’s place. A New Zealand chap, who is now about eighty-six and who had acquired the land about thirty years ago and had built a restaurant with chalets and a big area for entertaining and weddings etc. The long veranda of the upstairs is cooled by fans and the sea breeze. Palm trees fringe the shore; the South China sea washes the yellow beach which effortlessly gives on to the green grass. No concrete walls or fences offend the eye. It was all so peaceful. These businessmen, who built hotels, and designed water and sewage works way back in the day, made their money and can now sit back with a whisky, enjoying the fruits of it all in their own private luxury kampongs. What a wonderful way to end one’s days.

Ming and I have been trying to find a venue for my book-launch talk for The Fish in the Tree. It is not looking promising. So many of the places and hotels are asking too much. We did find one place we both liked, run by a very enterprising Sarawakian group promoting culture of all sorts. Rusydie was keen but wanted me also to do the talk in a shopping mall, at the same time as a troop of indigenous dancers and random members of the public dropping by to view some new paintings. I wasn’t very enthusiastic. I did like the upper room where their organisation used as an office, but Rusydie was keen that people sat on floor mats. Most of the expat people here that I have met are over seventy and many have had knees operated on. I doubt they would be able get up afterwards. So, the search continues.

John has had a few days jogging along the waterfront with the other keen runners early in the morning. He keeps an eye on the water as when we were out the other day on a sampan, we saw a giant 3 metre crocodile just resting on the edge of the river.

Today he was hoping to get his hair cut in the barbers down India Street. They charge a couple of quid for Grade 2 all over. We both have had massages from Ming’s friend, Sophia. She specialises in deep tissue massage and each time I go I wish I had a stick between my teeth. Pain, but afterwards, worth it! (I think!) She tsks with her tongue when she attacks my shoulders. Spending hours hunched up over the computer does me no favours. But my new book which I shall call ‘The Highland Curse’ is coming on. I have written 22,000 words already. It is set in the north of Scotland. Seems strange dredging up thoughts and scenery whilst living here. I have introduced a new character to my highland village; his name is Lord Dalwhinnie. He makes me smile just to think of him marching about in his yellow corduroy trousers and his tattersall shirt.

It’s coffee time now, and then later we are having dinner with Ming and Philip at the Telang Usan hotel where they specialise in the local Iban food from the jungle. My favourite is raw red snapper marinated in lime juice, garlic, chili and red onion and possibly coriander. It is just too good!

Bye for now.