I have several favourite resorts on Langkawi Island. It has a whole range, from glorious luxury (Datai Langkawi; The Andaman — where I once stayed while on a job!) to cheap backpackers.

This time around we went for comfort and great surroundings, but not outrageously expensive. I like the Berjaya Beach Resort because they (like the Andaman and the Datai) pay a lot of attention to keeping the green surroundings and blending the resort into the greenery.

 Some of the chalets are over the water, but these are not my favourites; I like the chalets tucked away among the trees. You get woken up by the birds, including hornbills, and can watch the wildlife on your verandah. At night, there are flying “lemurs” (actually colugos) and flying squirrels.

 Of course, there are still the usual things like swimming pools and recliner chairs on the beach.

 One of the restaurants, see below, I enjoyed at breakfast because just below was the playground of about fifteen grey bellied squirrels and a number of common mynas.

These squirrels were wrongly identified in the resort literature as Plantain Squirrels; they aren’t. They are Grey-bellied. (I have both types in my garden.)

One other reason I like these “green” resorts is that they don’t clean the beaches with tractors and mechanical scarifiers — it’s done by hand, so crabs and other wildlife living beneath the sand is not disturbed. This means the herons and waders come to feed.

I remember walking out on to the beach in the early morning at The Andaman, and seeing the beach covered in tracks: monkeys, monitor lizards, otters, civets, leopard cat, herons, rodents, crabs and mud worms of all sizes. It was like a written history of what had happened during the night and at dawn, written in the sand.

A colugo taken at the resort on a previous visit. Remember these things fly. Well, to be more accurate, they glide…

But first let me show you the answer to yesterday’s wildlife trivia. The answer is a Colugo. Also known (erroneously) as a flying lemur. It’s a herbivore mammal that flies (well, glides actually) using a membrane that stretches from the tail via back and front legs to the sides of the neck.

And now for the nice things that happened today. Well, first I realised someone posted 3 rave 5-star reviews on Amazon for the 3 books of The Isles of Glory, which is always nice.

(OK, I know one is not supposed to put any store by Amazon reviews – they are all supposed to be written by one’s mother or best friend or something, right? And I promise you, once I am hugely famous and no longer need the reassurance that someone out there likes my work, I’ll stop reading them… Until then, bless you, you Amazon reviewers. I love you all. )

Next my Australian editor, wanting something to put in the 2007 sampler, read the new first chapter of The Song of Shiver Barrens (the old first chapter was totally scrapped) and seemed to like it enough to use. I’m a little embarrassed as it is only a day or two old and not polished, let alone copy edited! Still, I feel I must be on the right track.

And just a few minutes ago, my lovely agent (may she be showered with blessings in 2007) sent me an email detailing another offer for yet another foreign language version of The Isles of Glory to be published 2008.

In Trade first, then Mass Paperback. My first TRADE!! Eureka!

Major publisher in a major language. (Having once had an serious offer from a Big English Language Publisher that later fell through before signing, through no fault of either mine or my agent, I am not saying more than that, but believe me, I am already grinning from ear to ear on this one. ) Yay!!