Today I went for my first run in weeks. WEEKS. With AJ running the desk it's impossible to have any kind of work-life balance. As a consequence I could barely run a mile without dying. Never mind. I will persevere.

After the unsatisfactory attempt at exercise I had a fairly productive morning, making breakfast and dinner for everyone. while J and the kids put up the tree. Lunch was a treat from ET at TMCC, which we were 45 mins late for. Luckily she is used to the Drakeses. It was splendid but as usual we had too much food and we rolled out of there in a carbo coma an hour later for riding class. E came with us and we had coffee at Gallop Stables while the kids rode. It rained a bit but neither they nor the horses seemed to mind.

After the class, we made a detour to ET's house to play with her dogs, then it was back home to finish putting the ornaments on the tree. Mum and dad, and Alan came for dinner. We had a good time watching the SEA Games and Haunted Mansion, which is a ridiculous film but good for family bonding on a rainy night.

J finally cleaned out his BCD tonight.

Today we were completely lazy, wiped out after our vacation. While we were up at 7 and out for roti canai by 8.30, we were back in our room by 9.30, where we stayed till it was lunchtime, watching TV and lazing. J and I wanted to wander around town at first but Tawau seems pretty charmless, existing largely to support the oil palm industry around it.

Checked out at noon, went for lunch round the corner at Pizza Hut (awful), and then got picked up at 2 for our flight at 4. Tawau town is 28 km from the airport so we were there in half an hour. This flight left on time, and we were back in Senai by 6.15. We ate at the very decent Lavender airport cafe, then piled into the car and went home. The car was still there! And parking cost us only RM99!

Left the airport at 7.50pm, arrived in Singapore at 8.50. Dropped the Lohs, went home. Isabel had a shower then went to Pine Grove to spend the night. The rest of us unpacked, washed up and went to bed.

We leave Kapalai today :-( much to the sorrow of all of us. Had two last dives, at Mid-reef and Hanging Gardens. Though the marine life was abundant, the dives were a bit of an ordeal for me. I felt nauseous and had a headache through the first and felt weirdly claustrophobic during the second. But we saw a spotted leopard shark, beautiful, and aerodynamic, at the Hanging Gardens. It was on a ledge about 25 m below the surface, and as we approached, it got up and swam away. It was about 6ft long, I should think.

Also spectacular was the school of bumphead parrotfish which were swimming at about 15m. There must have been 30 or 40 of them, and I swear you could hear their jaws clacking as they ate coral.

Anyway, we were back in the resort by about noon. Packing madness ensued, followed by lunch, and then a boat ride to Semporna. We left around 2pm, waving goodbye to Amin, the resort manager, and anyone else in the dining room who cared to wave to us. The moment we stepped onto the jetty at Semporna, everyone wanted to go back.

From Semporna followed a long tiring bus ride back to Tawau. We arrived at the Heritage Hotel at about 4.15. It's comfortable enough though they tried to charge us for an extra bed (which we'd already paid for) and were reluctant to give us an extra sheet to lay under the blanket. I guess you can't expect much from a small town or perhaps the exemplary service at Kapalai has totally spoilt us.

Luckily dinner was very good and pretty cheap, at the Nam Ling seafood restaurant near the bus station. Really fresh steamed tiger group, and mud crab fried in pepper till crispy, a lovely home made braised tofu, which Isabel scarfed, fried rice and egg foo yong, and two kinds of veg. We had five bottles of beer and the whole thing came up to RM235. Really excellent. We rolled back to the hotel and into bed.