tea stains

More monitors

2012-01-29T12:01:00.000+07:00

I was over Lumpini way yesterday with several hours tomyself so I did one of my favourite things: I went monitor lizard hunting inLumpini Park. I love these creatures. They're so unlike anything I've ever encountered anywhere else. (Thank heavens; can you imagine the hysteria if these climbed out of the Serpentine one day?) My normal practice is to tear around the park, wondering whythere aren’t any lizards to be seen and it’s only as I slow down and acceptThai time that they become visible. I think there might be a life lesson there.

I was sketching a tree (badly) when this little baby – aboutfifty centimetres long - appeared. He was beautifully marked. His yellow spots - which looked as though he'd been assembled from beads - make him, according to my book, a simple Water Monitor Lizard.

He seemed oblivious to me, a metre or two away. He movedabout flicking his tongue and exploring and then, after playing for a bit in apuddle of water, he took off around the edge of the lake.

I watched him for a long time and then I decided to go insearch of another; greedily I wanted a bigger one. On the opposite side of thelake I’d seen a group of adults doing T’ai Chi. As I approached them I saw apiece of tree that looked a lot like a monitor lizard’s head but I decided itcouldn’t be because it was so close to the T’ai Chi practice.

Then it moved.

This chap was about two metres nose to tail tip. According to my reference book I'd swear it was a Bengal Monitor Lizard but these aren't documented (in the book) as living in Thailand though they do live as our near neighbours in Burma and I'm not sure they have much respect for the border control. So the next best (and a bit unsatisfactory) ID would be the South East Asian Monitor Lizard, famous for their scavenging– hence the T’ai Chi people. Maybe it is then.

Not everything is for sale

2012-01-24T09:51:00.000+07:00

"I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting."
Mark Twain.

I told you here that Thais, (and I) love to sleep. Here's an example.

Husband gets the credit for this cute photo.

No more apologising

2012-01-23T10:38:00.000+07:00

I read recently a load of old letters from my early days in Bangkok. Severals things struck me about their tone but the most depressing thing was that practically every single one began with an apology. I'm sorry I have taken so long to write; sorry not to write sooner; sorry. Sorry. Sorry. God it was depressing.

A woman in Gap dressing room in New York once told me off for apologising. I'd only been with her for 35 seconds.

There's going to be no more apologising for sporadic posting.

I missed making a fuss of Tea Stains birthday on Friday. So what? I'm not offended and actually, I toasted it several times during the day; the best one being at lunch, with a dahl and a fizzy water in a pretty blue glass. Yay. Get me.

But five years of blogging: that's not bad huh?

I am having a little bit of a change of direction. I am out playing with different ideas. I suppose I shall come here at some point and let you know how and why. Maybe.

In the meantime,

Happy New Lunar Year

Friday Photo

2012-01-13T15:31:00.000+07:00

As an accompaniment to today's photo I have to tell non Thai residents that Thai people sleep everywhere and anywhere. As a napper, I think this is eminently sensible. Once, I was so culturally immersed, I napped in Starbucks and I've been teased by my friends ever since. Still as you can see here it can be pretty funny too.

This week, as I raced around the malls of Bangkok trying to find Daughter's computer case, I went into a new set of loos in Siam Paragon. I couldn't resist taking this photo. I promise I haven't photoshopped the sign. I am convinced that the (foreign, surely?) translator has been poking a little fun at the Thais' love of forty winks. In Thai, this label says it's the equipment/broom cupboard.

RAKE WEIRD TEAM

2012-01-12T16:59:00.001+07:00

I've failed at the 'being a better blogger' already, right?

What have I been up to?

I have been writing. I've done 10,000 odd words of novel and 1,500 odd of non fiction book.

I've had some migraines; raced about Bangkok looking for pink computer covers for Daughter (it had to be pink; HOW many malls? I found it at Fortune.) I've tried to have a life too. I've attended book club and a coffee morning so that I remember how to socialise and today I've been back to Wood Street with my friend K. She needed some furniture and I ~~needed~~ wanted some letters. Daughter and I wasted quite some time making anagrams with my new letters.

Now if you'll excuse me I've 500 words left to do today.

Here are my wooden letters:

Friday Photo: pin the tail on the... chair?

2012-01-06T12:54:00.000+07:00

Spotted in Billion Beef restaurant, Emporium.

Voices in my head

2012-01-05T10:22:00.000+07:00

I had a bad writing day yesterday; like in the old days. Voices in my head telling me it was all crap, asking why I was wasting my time. It would never be any good... And when I read back what I'd written, why, sure enough, the voice was right.

I buckled for a bit. It was a bad morning. Then I realised I just had to tell it (the voice, my editor, the devilish creature, whatever the hell it is) to bugger right off. My goal isn't to write a perfect manuscript but to get the story in the right order.

Husband took me to a newish Japanese canteen a few doors away where I inadvertently ate wheat noodles (I thought udon were rice noodles...)

Then I got a tuk tuk to Starbucks in soi 49. It was lovely and cool in there and I settled into a sofa to try and write.

It was tough, I won't lie. I people watched; checked out Twitter and Facebook and I wasted at least ten minutes taking these photographs of the plant shadows on the blind.

But I wrote until I was 25 words short of today's aim, 4000 words. No matter how hard I tried those 25 words wouldn't come.

I will try and make up for it today.

Reading recommendations

2012-01-02T16:40:00.001+07:00

I still haven’t got a kindle. Don’t feel sorry for me, as I am more than adequately techied up. I do have the kindle app which means I can read on my iPhone or my iPad so I’m not missing out. Here are a few e-book recommendations.

It must be so interesting being a crime writer. I was sitting in Starbucks the other day reading this crime thriller and I had to google 'can you get DNA from vomit?' Imagine your days filled with questions like that. My friend and former Novel Racer, Mel has just published her first book, Taunting the Dead, featuring DS Allie Shenton. I love a novel with had a strong sense of place – in Stoke on Trent – I loved all the references to the pottery industry.) It was gritty and a brilliant page-turner. I recommend it to anyone who likes to get into a gory crime.

My second recommendation is an anthology, Tears and Laughter and Happy Ever After. A collection of twenty-six short stories written by a group of women who have had hundreds of stories published in women’s magazines. They’ve written novels, had stories win prizes in competition and there’s something here for everyone. I love a short story in between my first love – novels.

Tears and Laughter and Happy Ever After includes stories by Cally Taylor, Bernadette James, Tamsyn Murrary, Jill Steeples, Jenny Maltby, Deborah Carr, Karen Clarke, Sally Quilford, Kathleen McGurl, Sarah Dunnakey, Helen Kara, Helen M Hunt and Leigh Forbes.

My third recommendation is Five Stop Story: Short Stories to Read in 5 Stops on Your Commute. Five Stop Story is an electronic publisher specializing in short stories by new writers that you can read in five stops on the underground – or indeed, the BTS. Since their inception they’ve had over 1,000 entries to their competitions and this ebook features 30 of the best stories from those entries.

And, look at the cover! Isn’t it just beautiful?

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T21:03:00.000+07:00

We saw it in at home, playing games and watching Harry Potter (and the Order of the Phoenix) until 11.55 and then we went out onto our Bangkok balcony and watched several displays of fireworks. I love living in a city.

I’m going to gloss over the ‘what I have achieved in 2011’ round up we’re seeing all over the blogosphere because the answer is ‘precious little’ and I’m feeling pretty blah about it.

A few weeks ago I signed up for Sally Quilford’s 1000 words a day for a hundred days. It started this morning. Of course I had to trick myself into writing. I set the clock for one hour and wrote and I just continued until I’d written the 1000 words. Why isn’t it always that easy?

This year I am going to get this novel into a shape I am happy with if it kills me. (It might.)

I’ve given up wheat, meat and sweet(s).

And I’m going to have a better blogging year.

What I read in 2011

2011-12-31T20:50:00.003+07:00

Taunting the Dead by Mel Sherratt

Tears and Laughter and Happy Ever After by many talented writers!

Daughters-in-law by Joanna Trollope

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath*

The Association of Foreign Spouses by Marilyn Heward Mills

Hens Dancing by Raffaella Barker

Home for Christmas by Cally Taylor

The Devil's Music by Jane Rusbridge

Disgrace by J M Coetzee

The Extra Large Medium by Helen Slavin

Tender by Mark Illis

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Write To Be Published by Nicola Morgan

The Cardturner by Louis Sachar

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday*

The Point of Rescue by Sophie Hannah

TigerLily's Orchids by Ruth Rendell

Hurry Up and Wait by Isabel Ashdown

Below Stairs by Margaret Powell

A Tiny Bit Marvellous by Dawn French

Bombsites and Lollipops by Jacky Hyams

The Beauty Chorus by Kate Lord Brown

When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman

And The Band Played On by Christopher Ward

West End Girls by Barbara Tate

Getting Away With It by Julie Cohen

The Novel in the Viola by Natasha Solomons

The Art of Losing by Rebecca Connell

Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton

Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson

The London Train by Tessa Hadley

Before I Go To Sleep by SJ Watson

Cold Light by Jenn Ashworth

Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones*

Janice Gentle Gets Sexy by Mavis Cheek

Sex and Stravinsky by Barbara Trapido

Blame My Brain by Nicola Morgan

Naked by David Sedaris*

Whatever You Love by Louise Doughty

Mathematics of Love by Emma Darwin

Bestseller by Alessandro Gallenzi

Told in Silence by Rebecca Connell

Days of Grace by Catherine Hall

The Secret of Lost Things by Sheridan Hay*

Everything We Ever Wanted by Sara Shepard

Glasshopper by Isabel Ashdown

The Blasphemer by Nigel Farndale

Orchid Fever by Eric Hansen*

You Don't Have to be Good by Sabrina Broadbent

Crow Stone by Jenni Mills

Not So Perfect by Nik Perring

Mousetrapped: A Year and a Bit in Orlando by Catherine Ryan Howard

Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

The Ghost Lover by Gillian Greenwood

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson

The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams

*Book Club choices

This year's Christmas Creatures

2011-12-28T11:11:00.000+07:00

I told you here how my Dad has made the children of the family Christmas Creatures for some 38 years. To call them 'Blue Peter style' might be accurate one year and totally inaccurate - possibly insulting - the next. (The dinosaur on the bottom right was made using a newly acquired piece of equipment that cut polystyrene - heated wire, I'm guessing.) The Creatures had to contain some kind of cavity in which tiny presents were hidden. The creatures would be placed under the tree on Christmas Eve though I have at least one memory of them appearing, smelling of paint, on Christmas morning. For most of these years Dad was a senior consultant at a local hospital; quite how he got them made each year is beyond me. We often had guests at Christmas or there were children of close friends that Dad wanted to make them for; some years I think Dad made around six or seven Creatures.

Dad was poorly with nearly-pneumonia back in November. I began to worry that he might be worrying about the Christmas Creatures... After careful negotiations - I really didn't want him to feel I was taking it away from him - I offered to make them this year. Dad was very pleased but said it wasn't just this year's nearly-pneumonia but also his worsening gout, which he has badly in his hands, that made them too difficult now.

I was tasked with taking them over.

It felt only right that I should honour my Dad with all the making he has done for us over the last years. I made four 'dolls' and here they are:

(This year I cheated slightly with the cavity idea. The cavity is the filing cabinet, not full of medical records, but little gifts, sort of stocking style...)

Boxing Day boxes

2011-12-26T12:50:00.001+07:00

I hope everyone is having a lovely holiday time. We started yesterday in a rather wonderful reversal of the last 14 or so years: we had to drag the man child, Son, from his bed at 8.30am to open his stocking; I told him flat that it was revenge for the real crack of dawn starts to so many recent Christmases... Our day consisted of stockings, Christmas creatures, present opening, food, Luther series 2 and skyping family.

Clever Husband knows how much I love boxes and two of my gifts came in such beautiful boxes that I consider them presents in their own right. I am easily pleased...

Happy Christmas people

2011-12-25T12:27:00.000+07:00

Wishing all readers of Tea Stains a very happy Christmas.

Christmas in Bangkok

2011-12-23T10:57:00.000+07:00

A great deal of effort goes into decorating for Christmas in Bangkok. Of course it's all about getting us to spend our money but I love wandering about to check out the decorations.

Top left: supercool steel tree, outside Emporium (my favourite)
Top middle: Teddy bears, inside Centralworld
Top right: 2D snowmen, outside Eight, Thong Lor
Middle left: gargantuan tree, outside Terminal 21
Middle middle: tinselly pandas, inside Emporium
Middle right: lifesize reindeer, inside Central Chitlom
Bottom from left: tree, Kasikorn bank, Thong Lor
Bottom second from left: gargantuan tree inside Centralworld
Bottom third from left: cardboard cutouts, strangely stylish, inside Siam Paragon
Bottom right: 3D tree outside Amarin

When do you open your presents?

2011-12-20T09:43:00.000+07:00

When Husband was growing up, his family adopted the Christmas customs of their close friends who were Danish. They had a special meal on Christmas Eve and then they opened their presents.

It was nice when we were ‘going out’ because I could spend the evening of the 24^th with his family and at the crack of dawn on 25^th I could hare around the M25 and arrive at my own home and I hadn’t missed anything because my family don’t open presents until after lunch on Christmas Day. (Realistically this could be as late as 3 or 4pm…)

When we got married we spent our early Christmas doing the same thing. I’m sure all parties were delighted there was no ‘them and us’ going on.

But when we had children and had one or two Christmases on our own, we had to negotiate.

So I told Husband, “I’m NOT opening my presents on Christmas Eve; that’s just crazy.” Poor Husband.

We have a special Christmas Eve meal (his tradition) which starts the festivities off early (my family might still be shopping for gifts at this point) and we have a table present (his tradition.) We do the altogether more average present opening after breakfast on the 25^th (more my tradition.) We have the Christmas Creatures (my tradition.)

One of the customs I have willingly adopted from Husband’s upbringing is the family Christmas game. They had a new board game each year and yesterday I went out and bought ours:

Culture clash?

2011-12-19T10:22:00.000+07:00

I have to confess that my heart sank a bit when I heard that Ikea was opening in Bangkok. I wondered, what would be the point of living in a different country if everything in it were the same as everywhere else?

But it’s also true that I’d grumbled when I couldn’t find the right plastic clip things to seal bags – the ones where the hinge didn’t ping open when I’d squidged too much plastic inside - (Why is it that all the big ones disappear but not the little ones?) And hadn’t I, a few years back, whined all the way to Wembley’s Ikea to purchase those cheap, but really good, scissors in packs of three for next to nothing. It had seemed so necessary at the time: I simply must drive forty miles to get three packs of scissors or my life in Bangkok really won’t be worth living *in a Celia Johnson accent…*

In the end Ikea’s opening at the beginning of November was something of a damp squib; it’s thunder stolen by the floods. I’d been evacuated so I’ve no idea if there was the kind of hysteria prompted by the opening of Uniqlo or Krispy Kreme doughnuts but I suspect not.

I was intrigued by the difference in cultures too. Thailand is proud of its service culture; but hadn’t my experience of Wembley’s Ikea been a bit different? Hadn’t they carefully cultivated a snarl-in-welcome and a not-giving-a-tossness about customers? In a land where I don’t even need to go to the bar to get a drink, would they leave me to clear my own table after my Swedish meatballs? (Not that we shouldn’t…) Would I understand anything? Would the labels be just in Thai and Swedish? With product names like ‘obskropt’ would it matter?

I’ve been meaning to go. You can always do with more plastic clips, right? And long-term readers will know that one of my personal mottos is that ‘one can never have too many pairs of scissors.’ Last week, after a crack of dawn meeting at school and with no other plans, I decided I’d go…

These were my findings:

· I could have been in Wembley

· The staff, though scarce, do care about the customer

· After six years of Thai food, Swedish meatballs are disgusting

· The girl in the restaurant couldn’t bear for me to have to put away my own tray

· The scissors; where were the scissors?

The eclipse and string bags of nuts

2011-12-11T18:10:00.002+07:00

Sorry to Facebook friends who will have seen this already but this is an (irrelevant to the post) picture of last night’s eclipse that I took from one of our balconies.

Husband is back from his jolly to the UK. (He went to meet up with old friends from university. He caught up with a mixture of old friends some of whom he hasn’t seen in years but could I get a sensible word out of him about any of them? ‘How’s So and so?’ I asked and in typical man fashion, I’d get ‘Yeah, they’re good.’ SEVENTEEN years he hasn’t seen some of them….)

Now that he's home it feels like the proper run up to Christmas. I still have some elf work to do but since I’m not innovating it shouldn’t take as long as the previous ones. Hopefully I can do it before the kids break up from school next Friday. Husband is compiling a list of food in consultation with Delia Smith. Living overseas where imported goods cost so much more, we have to make choices about what is and isn’t essential to our Christmas fare. A string of nuts is essential to Husband so when I spotted them in Villa supermarket I picked them up and put them in my basket. Then I noticed the price: about 700 Baht… That’s £14.50 by today’s exchange rate.

£14.50? For a bag of mixed nuts?

Well, obviously I put them back on the shelf. They could be the embodiment of the Husband’s Christmas but I’m not paying that for them. Instead I sent an email to him in the UK and told him if he wanted a string bag of nuts (!) he jolly well had to bring them back with him. So frightened was he that he wouldn’t have any nuts to crack open in front of the seasonal TV he went a bit overboard:

It IS meant to be a writing blog

2011-12-09T13:15:00.000+07:00

Friday Photo:

Christmas party

2011-12-08T09:50:00.001+07:00

This is what I'm doing today: Christmas partying in the tropics.

No words necessary

2011-12-07T10:25:00.000+07:00

Discombobulated

2011-12-06T17:57:00.000+07:00

Today feels like the first day of the week because yesterday in Thailand was a bank holiday. Tomorrow the children are doing Monday at school instead of a Wednesday because they’ve missed more Mondays - due to flooding - than any other day.

I'm confused. Perhaps it’s happened because of my unscheduled month in the UK but I’ve been feeling weird since I got back. I can’t still be jet lagged but I am definitely discombobulated.

Still, in order to draw a veil over my strange feeling and so that Husband doesn’t grumble about my lack of blogging while he’s in the UK, I thought I’d put start blogging the Christmas trees that are appearing around Bangkok.

This tree is outside Siam Discovery. I love their trees because they're often recycled but this year it feels especially right because they look like snowflakes. (There's a close up too so you can see what it's made of. )

Elves at work

2011-11-30T14:43:00.000+07:00

The elves have, er, needed some space in my room to work. They have a rush job on… something to do with overseas mailing, apparently.

Funny old food time

2011-11-29T08:33:00.000+07:00

It’s been a funny old food time.

I’ve been cooking for my parents since they were ill. My poor parents: they produced three children, two of whom are quite talented cooks but they got me as resident chef and yes, I am the third one!

Mum didn’t eat much (anything) while she was in hospital so when she came out we tried hard to tempt her with what she fancied. She made a face at some of her normal treats (avocado pear) but was willing to try another one (cottage cheese and pineapple – BLEUGH, what’s that all about?) She couldn’t eat my carrot and potato soup because of the garlic… but if I stuck to simple, traditional (dare I say it) nursery food, we seemed to be okay.

After about three days (of fourteen!) my repertoire was running thin. My Dad is a carnivore through and through. His freezer is full of grown up meat, like chops (BLEUGH on the bone?) Or with names like chuck steak or braising steak that I don’t know what to do with. Some of the packets were entirely unlabelled. (I took comfort that there was a large bag labeled with ‘cat or dog meat’ and assumed that the unidentifiable steak I used one day was actually for human consumption.)

Gradually, Mum’s heightened senses returned to normal and I managed to get her to eat my version of Snob’s Guacamole, well, okay, I missed out the chili peppers.

Last Thursday, while I waited for the taxi to take me to Heathrow, my Mum and Dad were preparing supper. It was a joint effort; the first evening meal they’d had to make since before they were ill. Dad cooked leeks from the garden and par boiled potatoes while Mum layered it into the oven dish.

I watched while they prepared the leek and potato gratin from a vegetarian French cookbook. And I thought, ‘yeah, my job here is done.’

My first choice of food when I got home: stir fried cabbage and garlic. Yum.

Leo the dog and my last day in the UK

2011-11-24T21:49:00.001+07:00

Long time readers might remember my parents’ dog, Leo. He’s reputed to be part Labrador and part collie but I think there’s fair evidence to suggest some kangaroo genes too.

It would be churlish of me to suggest he’s as bonkers as ever; he’s three now and is maturing. A bit. But my parents are getting more elderly and if I were to draw a graph that showed their aging against Leo’s springiness, he’s not growing up quite fast enough.

To that end (and to make myself useful) I’ve been training Leo. At least, I’ve been trying. His Dad was a gun dog and his Mum a collie so he’s infinitely trainable and intelligent but, am I?

I’ve been using the command ‘slowly’ with a hand up to show him not to bolt. It’s a sensible word and he might hear someone using it that didn’t know he understood it. And he might, you know, actually go slowly. First of all I couldn’t make him take more than a step but eventually he began to string the steps together. He looks like someone playing “What’s the time, Mr Wolf?” Maybe he just looks like a dog taking the piss (out of me.)

We’ve been practicing when Leo has been outside or behind a shut door or is waiting to be allowed to eat his dinner/breakfast because that’s the moment that he bolts. It’s a bit of problem if it’s before food because he’s a dog in slow motion: he dribbles all the way, leaving large globules of dog slobber in heaps on the floor.

As if a slippery floor isn’t adding another level of risk to my parents’ stability, we appear to have reached a kind of impasse. He’s doing metres of slow but it doesn’t matter how far he is away from his plate of food – even a foot away – he always thinks eventually that I’ve stopped asking him to go slowly. The second he decides this (or let’s face it, I’m far enough away to be ignored) he unleashes the control and launches his 32 kilograms into the air like someone has released him from a canon.

I’m giving up. I’ve decided that that might be more dangerous than some simple exuberance.

********

Other Leo stories can be found here, here and here.

Enlightenment

2011-11-20T16:19:00.000+07:00

It was a shock to find night fall, year round, approximately 6-6.30pm in Bangkok. We have almost exactly 12 hours of daylight and night. But over six years in Thailand I must have become used to it.

Our summer trips to the UK are welcome and wonderful by comparison; the daylight can go on to 9.30pm…

This time, however… well, I’d forgotten what English autumns and winters were like – at least I knew in my head but I couldn’t remember the experience. I have to keep checking my watch because the visual clues (it’s pitch black outside) are cheating my body. I yawn. I start to think it’s bedtime and check my watch; it’s 6pm!

My parents have made a good recovery from their pneumonia and nearly pneumonia. It’s a relief, I tell you. Never have I been so glad to see my Dad in the kitchen, asking if he can do anything towards supper. Not, I might add, so I don’t have to peel the potatoes but because I realized that he must be on the mend.

When I walk into the village I keep being recognized. In the chemist they ask how M&D are. Someone stopped me on the road yesterday; yes, I’m M’s sister. I’ve seen people I knew as a child. Perhaps I’m starting to belong again.

It has been surprisingly mild here but there’s a definite nip in the air of late so I’m thinking it’s time to go home now; my other home.

Friday Photo

2011-11-18T20:10:00.000+07:00

I am spiriting myself to back to Bangkok for today's picture. I'm missing home...

I took this picture outside Amarin Mall back in June of this year.

Wellington boots, snakes and blog awards

2011-11-15T00:30:00.000+07:00

The children went back to Bangkok on Saturday. I’m so impressed and proud of the cavalier way they travel.

They took wellington boots with them. In view of the stories and pictures of escaped crocodiles and wild snakes to be found in the flood water I was amused at Daughter’s choice of wellies. (Can you see it? It’s mock crock or possibly faux snake skin!)

When Husband confirmed that he’d met them at the airport, he texted to say ‘they had to wade through 40cm of flood water with the cases held above their heads, but all safe and drying off now.’ That man had better be glad he’s 6,000 miles away from me because my sense of humour is pretty stretched to its limit.

Something that has cheered me no end, however, is the news that Tea Stains, my dear old blog, was declared Expat Blog of the Month. Do go over here and read the interview with me.

The picture of me is at Bai Pai Thai cooking school, which I thoroughly recommend.

Cat babies: Squeeeee

2011-11-12T15:14:00.000+07:00

This is Mummy cat having a little snooze after kitten number two of five. She gave birth yesterday on her own first birthday.

She chose her birthing area herself: an upmarket shopping bag full of wool. The balls had to be removed so the kittens didn't get entangled. She had five babies at half hour intervals.

And I'll tell you another thing, she was serene and purred the whole way through, so in my next life please... I want to come back as a cat.

Can't see what that little black blob is? Here's a (blurry) close up:

Friday photo: Remembrance Day

2011-11-11T21:08:00.000+07:00

*
My paternal Granddad. Wounded at Gallipoli and rescued from no man's land by two New Zealand soldiers, 1915.

All I want for Christmas....

2011-11-10T15:48:00.000+07:00

… is a Christmas creature.

Since I was about seven (that’s a LONG time people) my Dad has made a Christmas creature for all the children. When Husband appeared on the scene, he too qualified for a Christmas Creature. It was only as our children became old enough to receive one (small parts and all that) that my generation no longer had them. The creatures might be real animals, our pets, beasts from mythology or my Dad’s imagination. They appeared under the tree on Christmas Eve or the following morning. Each model had a cavity which was filled with tiny presents, wrapped in tissue paper.

Since I am home (and my sister has kept so many of them) here is a Christmas Creature montage:

You can read a bit more about the creatures’ origins here, here and here.

In the meantime, it won’t fit inside the Christmas Creature, but this is a definite under-the-tree gift. Cally’s first book, Heaven Can Wait made me laugh out loud (no mean feat) so I’m really looking forward to reading Home for Christmas which is out today.

Beth Prince has always loved fairytales and now, aged twenty-four, she feels like she's finally on the verge of her own happily ever after. She lives by the seaside, works in the Picturebox - a charming but rundown independent cinema - and has a boyfriend who's so debonair and charming she can't believe her luck! There's just one problem - none of her boyfriends have ever told her they love her and it doesn't look like Aiden's going to say it any time soon. Desperate to hear 'I love you' for the first time Beth takes matters into her own hands - and instantly wishes she hadn't. Just when it seems like her luck can't get any worse, bad news arrives in the devilishly handsome shape of Matt Jones. Matt is the regional director of a multiplex cinema and he's determined to get his hands on the Picturebox by Christmas. Can Beth keep her job, her man and her home or is her romantic-comedy life about to turn into a disaster movie?

You can order Home For Christmas here.

Colours of autumn

2011-11-09T17:37:00.000+07:00

If I thought I was escaping stress by leaving Bangkok and the possible floods, I was wrong.

In four days I have ridden in two ambulances and spent a total of twelve hours in casualty. (My Dad is now out of hospital; my Mum still in…)

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen autumn in England. When we arrived ten days ago it was mild; the sky was blue and the leaves rich and russet. In the last few days it’s turned damp. Last night, when I walked across the hospital car park, I felt a sharp sting in my skin, the stirrings of winter.

Must get my gloves out.

Quick catch up

2011-11-04T23:42:00.000+07:00

We fled the impending Bangkok floods for the airport during a tropical storm; the lights went out in our apartment and we had to pack in the dark and then find a taxi in the roaring rain, thunder and lightening.

The children and I have settled in well at the Parental Evacuation Centre here in Kent, UK. We’d only been here three days when I asked Husband when we could come back. I don’t think he appreciated that.

But you see, this is an unscheduled visit and it feels wrong. The kids should be in school; they have exams. They’ve had nearly two weeks unplanned time off and it might be one more… School has obtained permission to open on Monday 7^th but things aren’t back to normal in Bangkok – they aren’t even better than when we left. Provisions are being made for online learning for those not in school but still…. So we feel we should wait a week before we go back. Or should we? I don’t know. I don’t like making decisions. (I found this online decision maker. I asked it if we should go back to Bangkok and it said no. So there we are: decision made.)

And there ARE things to keep us amused here: let’s see, there’s the paperwork I brought with me. Hmm, I haven’t touched that. The novel? The non-fiction book? Nope; untouched. As you can see from the picture, there are kittens. Oh yes. Five of them. Five weeks old and pretty perfect entertainment. And if we get bored of them, there is another, very pregnant cat, due any day now.

Here she is showing off her bellyful of kittens:

Sad to say...

2011-10-27T17:30:00.000+07:00

... that we're being evacuated from Bangkok.

In the meantime, just to show you that we're in good spirits, here's an early Friday Photo for you:

This is Korean, not Thai. Frankly I'm a bit worried about Coco travelling the world with PaPa.

I love you

2011-10-26T12:12:00.000+07:00

If I ever wondered how I spent my time before I got my own computer, this weekend I found out. I was writing letters. On paper. By hand.

I have a beautiful, leather chest that I bought second hand at an auction twenty years ago but it is rotting away. It was repaired once but the humidity of Thailand hasn’t done it any favours. It was full of correspondence which I have been meaning to go through for years. On Saturday I bought the contents a new home, a beautiful box, bamboo with a lacquer interior, and so finally I have emptied the chest. I threw out all the cards, *wincing* reading only a few. A brave move because I am a hoarder.

But I am saving all the words; the letters and postcards which so many people have written and sent to me at all the places I’ve ever lived and worked, I am keeping. The envelopes alone chart my life.

There were gems in my trunk (and a desiccated spider;) letters that I’d rather forget: “I was disappointed to see that at close of business today the balance of your account was…” And many that I treasure: an envelope, from my sister, full of drawings of shoes and swatches of material for my bridesmaids’ dresses. There are letters from pen pals, family, school and university friends and work mates.

And there are love letters… Oh yes; love letters.

Not. Just. From. Husband.

I spent the afternoon reading and grinning. And then feeling sad that I don’t still write letters, and my children don’t write letters.

What will happen to their love letters?

It's Groundhog Half Term or 'Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam'

2011-10-25T15:52:00.000+07:00

It’s like Groundhog Half Term here at The House.

My children have just finished nearly two weeks half term and they went back to school this morning. At about 1.30pm today Daughter sent me an email saying that the Ministry of Education has declared that all schools must close until the 7 November.

The 7 November?

So like I say: Groundhog Half Term.

Of course I love having my children home… but mostly so that they can go back to school again. (I guess I’ll get that pleasure all over again then – on the 7 November!) The school will be commencing their online learning programme from tomorrow, which means getting the young people to lessons on time (at all) will become my problem.

What else does it mean? Is the water now, definitively, heading to central Bangkok?

Hmmm, it depends on which report you read.

We have enough drinking water and food for a while. If the electricity goes we might be living on dry pasta but I think the Beattie family could do with subsisting on rations for a bit! I’m in denial about living without regular mugs of tea punctuating my day; I will have to face the floods (snakes, rats, crocodiles and all) to find a Starbucks with electricity…

Husband sent me this picture: the shelves in all the shops are empty but no-one’s so desperate they’re going to buy up the Spam!

We're still dry...

2011-10-24T10:57:00.001+07:00

In another life I dreamed about being a window dresser.

Here are two windows that caught my eye while I was in London. Nostalgic?

The first one is John Lewis.

The second one is Love Bakery in the King's Road. The Union Jack cake in the window was a wedding commission.

Friday Photo: flood update

2011-10-21T10:20:00.000+07:00

I don't like coming here and whining so I've just not come...

This week has been a combination of flood flood and flood, interspersed with several personal issues. In my hierarchy of worrying the personal issues took precedence but when I was finally able to stop stressing about them, all I saw, read and heard was about the flood. So I haven't been feeling very calm.

Anyway, here we are: there's still no water in our part of Bangkok but it won't be long, I don't think. And in the meantime, the cupboards and shelves are bare.

An apology; boots, feet and flip flops

2011-10-17T12:55:00.000+07:00

Firstly, I need to apologise to any Thais who found my foot picture offensive. I was in London, quite sick and I forgot myself.

While I take the time (and the blog post) to apologise, it’s worth noting that this is an excellent example of cultural differences.

Thais (as I understand it) have a sort of hierarchy when it comes to body parts. Heads, as the location of the soul, are treated with great respect. You may touch a child’s head but after a certain age, the touching of heads should be avoided. You will see all sorts of exceptions for this out and about, but since it’s impossible to understand the nuances of these guidelines, we foreigners should stick to general rules.

For Thais, feet are the lowest and dirtiest part of the body and they should never be pointed at anyone, or used to open doors, stop coins running away or to point at anything.

I do believe (though I failed most spectacularly when I posted that picture) that if you wish to live in/visit a different country, you should find out about the things that cause offence and respect those differences.

But here’s the thing: after my boot fuss (which was mostly made on Facebook) I wanted to blog about the fact that I was REALLY wearing my flip flops in the UK in October. I was walking down the Strand; it was early morning and quiet so I sat on an empty café chair and stuck my foot in the air in front of a British ‘landmark’ (the phone box.) I had to do it several times because my foot waved around in the air. A commuter walked past me and laughed. That’s it; there’s the difference: he thought I was a nutter, but he wasn’t offended.

So to the biker boots. They very nearly made it back to Bangkok in a virgin state which would have made me cross and sad but a walk saved us: on the Thursday morning of my writing retreat we went out, up, along and down the valley in Heptonstall, near Hebden Bridge.

And we shall gloss over the small matter of the blisters the boots gave me because they are so pretty...

Friday Photo

2011-10-14T09:05:00.000+07:00

Burger King, Charing Cross, London

It never rains but it pours

2011-10-13T14:41:00.000+07:00

So I’m back in Bangkok where the whole city is bracing itself for the worst flooding for fifty years. The rains this season have been very heavy and the sea level is at its highest point between now and the 19th October.

The rest of Thailand has been suffering for some weeks; Reuters report that ‘more than 2 million people are estimated to have been affected by floods around the country … At least 283 people have been killed … since late July and 26 of its 77 provinces are inundated.’

Sandbags are appearing all over the city; these ones are outside our apartment - I'm not entirely sure about the wisdom of where they've positioned them but who am I to know? People have been panic buying in Bangkok and shop shelves are reportedly clear of many essentials. (I'm wondering if there's still chocolate but I'm afraid that if there is, a week's chocolate might get consumed in one stressful night so I'm not going to check.) I am fairly sure we’ll be okay - we’re on the 21 floor after all. We have candles and enough food (though no chocolate) for a week (assuming the electricity remains) but as the Chao Phraya river winds through Bangkok, many people won’t be alright.

This YouTube from Associated Press gives a good sense of what’s going on.

I’ll be back soon - electricity permitting - to tell you about my UK trip.

Blogging from Blightly

2011-10-01T19:33:00.000+07:00

As well as the sunny weather, I brought food poisoning to London. This explains my unscheduled absence. I had planned my blogs. Instead I found myself having to plan my bogs. (Oh dear, I’m sorry.)

I got off the flight, dumped my cases at the hotel and went off to find a hospital with a walk in GP unit. I am sort of, slowly, on the mend but disinclined to explore the list of restaurants and cafés I’d got planned for this trip.

Facebook friends will know that I made a special boot purchase in Bangkok and I was excited to have ten days in which to wear them. But so far, the weather in London has been hotter and sunnier than Bangkok (middle of the rainy season.) THANK goodness I slipped in the flip flops at the last minute.

On Monday I’m off to Arvon. That’s meant to be time to retreat into my writing so I’ll see you here if I manage to schedule some posts. Who knows?

Last Saturday I fell in love again

2011-09-27T07:34:00.000+07:00

Love’s funny, isn’t it? It can just accost you when you least expect it.

I was walking out of the second floor of Times Square (the less famous one) across the skywalk and I happened to glance up. It was as simple as that. It wasn’t that I’d ever fallen out of love with Bangkok but after six years I was beginning to take it for granted.

I stood and grinned. It felt like seeing something for the first time.

It was just a view, nothing particularly special, except that it's my Bangkok. It was something to do with the telegraph poles and the skytrain - so perfectly placed - leading my eye towards the backdrop of the spectacular panorama beyond. In the road below the brake lights of the pink, orange and green taxis shone out in the pre dusk. But I think it was the light that made it magical…

The moment I walked away I knew I should’ve taken a picture. I thought and thought about the view and then I went back on Sunday to try and identify what it was that made my heart palpitate… The light wasn’t quite right and I didn’t feel the same enchantment but at least I was reminded how much I love Bangkok.

This is the view when I went back.

Secrets and Lies (only without the lies)

2011-09-26T10:10:00.000+07:00

Life here at The House has been a bit mad. I’ve been busy making for our table's Melbourne Cup headwear.

And I’d had an idea to take a trip to the UK during October but it didn’t come off as I’d hoped. After considerable to-ing and fro-ing I decided that I would take a trip to the UK ANYWAY. Ya, get me; it’s nothing to do with the Fates. I’m going to make it happen.

I used Late Rooms’ Secret Rooms to book my hotel room. I think I must have been working from home for too many consecutive days because I found this a most exciting experience. The idea is (and there are other websites that do it too) that the hotels don’t want us to know how big a discount they are prepared to offer at late notice. So they remain unidentified until you’ve paid.

You tell the site which city, what dates, how many rooms and people you want and they find the secret deals. You’re presented with a list of unidentified hotels with a couple of hints; they’ll say something like ‘it’s 2.7km from the centre of London’ (in my case) and then they’ll give you a user quote ‘we were delighted with our stay.’ (I’ve yet to see one that said ‘it was a bit skanky’ so you can’t really take much notice of this.) You could do a bit of research on hotel booking sites to see if you can work it out before you book but I wasn’t bothered where I stayed only with t’brass. It was easily inside my budget so I booked it.

TA DA! The big reveal; I am staying at Millenium and Copthorne Hotel at Chelsea Football Club.

Research suggests that I am paying a third of the normal price (yay; result) and that an added bonus to staying here is that I may bump into famous footballers in the lobby.

Yeah, right. I’ll recognize them immediately.

Friday Photo

2011-09-16T10:46:00.000+07:00

Advertising 'Thai style' via the tuk tuk.

Take one large dose

2011-09-13T09:47:00.000+07:00

When my sister in law and her family were staying with us we watched The Adjustment Bureau. It was a miracle that a realist like me (strictly no aliens, no end of the world, no fantasy) would even contemplate such a film… I quite enjoyed it but I spent quite a lot of time huffing and puffing about Emily Blunt’s dancing and her posture. (EB’s character is a professional dancer.) Husband and SiL spent quite a lot of time laughing at my huffing and puffing. I know it’s ridiculous to let it spoil the film (when, frankly, a gigantic dose of suspension of disbelief had to be taken to watch the film AT ALL. I mean ‘hats’ enable them to go through the portal? Really?) Anyway the daft notion of the hats didn’t spoil the film but Emily Blunt’s dancing was a low level irritation all the way through. (You can tell a dancer from their posture, the way they move, even stand. It’s a useless piece of knowledge but I know it anyway.)

Eventually I turned to SiL and said ‘if we were watching a film about dressage and the rider was really pants, wouldn’t it irritate you?’ Because the thing is, any little thing that brings you crashing out of the story can act as an irritant and we need that belief.

I was thinking the same thing about reading. I open the book and I say ‘I am willing to believe.’ And you enter this wonderful, symbiotic relationship with the creator: you are prepared to believe and they will entertain you. I don’t think life gets much better than that. But, if you encounter a gaffe, that tenuous rapport is shattered. For me the breaking of that contract is liked being sucked out of a vacuum.

Crumbs; this writing lark is a bit of a responsibility.

(Incidentally I think Natalie Portman (Black Swan) had considerably more background in dancing than EB and her posture was pretty good. I heard Deborah Bull on Radio 4 say that it takes ten years training to make a dancer’s arms look weightless and the only thing apart from this to let Natalie Portman down was that she didn’t have a dancer’s bottom! Of course, NP also had a dancing double and it was damn difficult, thankfully, to spot where she took over.)

Thai style

2011-09-12T07:59:00.001+07:00

This is the rugby world cup 2011 Thai style.

The Londoner pub was heaving with people. It was just like being in the stadium: there was a lot of noise, klaxons, whistles and lots of shouting at the big TV screen: "tackle them!" "heave" "Oh Johnny...not again."

Before, during half time and after the match, the Heineken beer ‘pretties’ (a regular part of selling here in Thailand) appeared to entertain us; well, probably not me… but there were promotions, quizzes and prizes of shirts and beer to be won. It was a good afternoon, particularly as we won... even if we played like turkeys quite a lot of the match.

Friday Photo: One for my gastroenterologist father

2011-09-09T06:58:00.000+07:00

I did a double take as I made my way through the crisps (chips) aisle on the way to the till the other day.

Can you see what I thought it said? The second packet from the right shows it best.

Apologies for the poor picture quality - the shop wasn't very happy about my whipping out my camera!

Cats and Cakes

2011-09-06T08:35:00.001+07:00

This post was inspired by Helen's memories of Summer 2011 blogpost. Helen's is mostly to do with cake. When I thought about doing a similar thing I realised that food (not so much cake) was a big part of my summer but so were cats. They punctuated my summer. They aren't all here and some pictures (Peanut, I'm looking at you) don't present their best side.

1. Peanut 'helping' sort photographs.
2. I thought I wouldn't get any tomatoes from the greenhouse before I left. I was part of the watering the yard and greenhouse team but there were no ripe toms until THE DAY I LEFT and then I ate all of them.
3. Chickpea or Noodles in Manchester: no idea which one it is.
4. Beetroot, potato salad and green salad with cucumber: all from my Dad's garden/greenhouse. YUM.
5. Custard looks bad tempered here. He's not; he's divine and I love him because he will always come to me for some cat loving. He was actually poorly and taken off to the vets a few days later.
6. Zen or Sephy. No idea which cat is which.
7. It might have been the only cake I had a picture of but it was THE best cake I've ever eaten.
8. Zen and Sephy.
9. HP, 17 years young. This picture was taken in March this year. Two or three weeks after we got back to Bangkok we got the phone call we'd been expecting. RIP HP. He was a proper gentleman cat.
10. Lentil, red pepper and feta salad and whatever else I might have in the fridge. In honour of HK.
11. HK's cat. No idea which one but it came to comfort me when I was a party pooper and in bed with a migraine.
12. Back in Bangkok and I made tzatziki in honour of my sister and felafels in honour of Leon.

I love Louis Sachar

2011-09-05T10:30:00.001+07:00

I love Louis Sachar. My first love is Holes but I’ve just finished and enjoyed Cardturner.

I didn’t know it upfront but Cardturner is pretty much about bridge; you know, that four ~~old~~ person, card game? Now, if I had known it was a about bridge I might not have read it – even though it WAS a Louis Sachar novel – because I had been very seriously scarred by my bridge playing experience many years earlier.

When I was going out with Not Yet Husband* I discovered that he loved bridge. I came from a family that went to watch Shakespeare plays. My parents didn’t play cards. I knew what they were – I played Cheat with my cousins – but why would you play card games when you could watch Macbeth or King Lear? (Don’t get me started on that…)

NYH*’s family started me off slowly: I was taught to play Whist, Drellacabella and Sevens. Every time – and I mean EVERY time – we prepared to play, someone had to explain the rules to me. Again. And again. And again. Any experience I gained of the game evaporated from my head the very moment I left the card table. Retaining detailed bits of information is crucial in bridge. This is when I got my first inkling that some people’s brains are different from mine.

Eventually I agreed to learn bridge. Perhaps I thought that a life with this man would have to include it and perhaps I wanted to make an effort with something that was important to him. So, during uni holidays I attempt to learn, playing with NYH, NYMiL (have you got that?) and some cousins. They thought I was terribly clever because I’d seen all sorts of Shakespeare plays but that wasn’t to last long. They explained the game to me and were infinitely kind and generous and ~~put up with my immense stupidity~~ acknowledged my learning status. I had a little notebook that I wrote notes in, explaining the rules and bidding for contracts and even some of the play.

In my third year at university, NYH had a colleague in the chemistry department that played bridge and with the promise of a chilli con carne and beers we scrambled together some other friends to make two tables of four. They were great fun at the beginning when everyone else was learning but soon as our friends became more experienced… I realized then that it wasn’t bridge, it was me; I remained in a fug of bafflement.

You play bridge with a partner. When you see the hand dealt to you you have to bid a contract (saying how many tricks you’re going to win.) You need to know what kind of hand your partner has so there are rules to bidding ~~which made no logical sense to me at all~~ you have to follow to communicate with your partner. (If you aren’t already wanting to slash your wrists, for a laugh you can see here what some opening bids mean.)

So many things about bridge puzzled me. In order to know what tricks you might make it’s helpful if you can retain the information the other pair gave during bidding; and you should try to count the high cards as they are played. Except I couldn’t: ‘Was that a King of spades in the last hand? Hmm, it could’ve been, or it might have been a diamond and a Queen… Hmm; Who cares?’ As we were learning, we were allowed to query (this is strictly forbidden in real games;) NYH would say ‘she played the queen because she knew that it was good for a trick.’ ‘How?’ ‘Because the ace and the king have already been played.’ Really? And you’d all noticed this?

I tried for about two years to learn bridge. It was long enough for me to establish that I was void (a bridge joke!) of any natural ability to play cards.

And NYH married me anyway.

(Louis Sachar’s novel Cardturner is totally brilliant in spite of the bridge play – or maybe even because of it. His characters are real; their voices so strong and the story is great. They’re perfect for any teenager… or mum or dad, come to that.)

Friday photo: Because I do

2011-09-02T09:13:00.001+07:00

How To Satisfy Your Woman

2011-08-31T08:35:00.000+07:00

Today is my wedding anniversary; Husband and I have been married for twenty years. (How the hell did that happen?)

I’m going to leave you with an anecdote. Apt? Possibly.

My advice to anyone looking for specific books in the English Language bookshops in Bangkok is to ask. Their shelving confuses me. Their decisions about genre, and therefore where a book ought to be, are quite different from mine. It used to lead to frustration; now, after a swift check where I think it should be, I ask and they locate it. (99% of the time they DO locate it, so clearly they understand their system which is the main thing.)

But I’m a great browser too and I can often be found checking out the aisles on how to make a better version of me. I live in constant hope that ‘how to’ books will make me a better writer/cook/knitter/parent/whichever skill I am currently desiring.

I must have been in such an aisle when I spotted these two books, side by side:

*How to Satisfy Your Woman

*Household Hints and Tips

Not quite Hurricane Irene

2011-08-29T21:22:00.000+07:00

It’s just typical that the moment I decide I am reblogging our internet goes up in a puff of smoke. Actually it just sort of fizzled out.

We had a storm on Saturday night; quite a humdinger. I am reluctant to make a big deal of our storm because at the same moment Hurricane Irene was rampaging up the east coast of America. During the rainy season we get lots of big, impressive storms and yes, I’m sure some of them do some damage but they aren’t hurricanes. I do have some perspective.

We arrived home, Husband from dropping Daughter at a friend’s and I from my ‘office’ at Starbucks Emporium, to find the apartment in darkness and a very stroppy Son flumpy footing it around the apartment. He’d just clocked off from working and was about to start getting on with his real life (computer game of the moment) when all the power cut out.

We’d planned a curry and a film. The lights stayed out for quite some time. Husband worried that he might run out of Angry Birds battery power and I was trying to read by candlelight. Son continued to strop around. And then there was light, shortly followed by the curry delivery. Hurrah!

Hello? Waves

2011-08-28T11:39:00.000+07:00

I'm sorry I've been AWOL.

What have I been up to? I've been to the UK and eaten quite a lot of cake - most of it wheat free but not all of it. Sorry body. It was my Dad's 82nd birthday and Daughter and Sister made him a 'light chocolate cake' from Harry Eastwood's Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache book. It was quite simply the best cake I've ever eaten.

My sister taught me to make tzatziki and I cooked quite a lot; most out of character.

I raced like a maniac around the countryside seeing people and doing things but people drove and trained around England to come and see us too. Thank you people. Several things got cancelled and we weren't able to reschedule and other things didn't get arranged in the first place. I'm so sorry to people I didn't manage to see.

We got back to Bangkok just in time for Sister in Law and her family to arrive. They had a week in the city and then we all set off for a week by the sea - Koh Samed. I'll skim over the fact that I had what I think might have been flu while there. At least I could look at the sea while I felt crap.

And then the kids went back to school and it felt like we'd never been away.

I feel very 'start of a new term' though. We've started planning for our Melbourne Cup hats - I am feeling very excited about these. And I've bought myself a food processor (both Husband and I bought food processors to the relationship. We both had them as students and bits had broken off so that nothing fitted together in the end. They were judged too falling apart to make the trip to Thailand. Both were twenty years old which I reckon was pretty bloody marvellous and is why this week I bought a new Kenwood.) I've continued to cook quite a lot - tzatziki, hummus, leek and potato soup, guacamole. I'm failing to buy sweet potatoes in Bangkok at the moment so I can make Leon's sweet potato falafel. Leon says it must be the ones that are orange inside. Somewhere else it said there are Japanese sweet potato and the internet said that what Americans call yams, often aren't. Or something. So I keep going to gaze at sweet potato shaped things in greengrocers, wondering if they're the right thing to buy.

And I'm writing. I've had five days of storming writing or rewriting to be accurate. I appear to have worked out what needs doing with the novel and I feel a bit floaty about it.

I'm beginning to think the fairies might have dropped in and exchanged me for a slightly better model.

F- F- F- Saturday Photo

2011-06-11T10:21:00.000+07:00

I love Chinatown.

A short story competition at Five Stop Story

2011-06-08T11:29:00.000+07:00

Please welcome my guest Ruth Heald who gave a talk at the recent Bangkok Literary Festival about her project ‘Five Stop Story.’

Welcome to my blog Ruth. Five Stop Story is an intriguing title; what’s it about?

A “five stop story” is a story you can read in five stops on the tube in London, or in about 10 minutes.

I started the Five Stop Story project to discover and publish short stories that can easily fit into modern lives. As people get busier and busier they find it harder and harder to find the time to read. At the same time, they now have the technology to read on the move. They no longer have to lug a book around in the hope that they will find somewhere to read it. They can read on a mobile phone, an ipad or a Kindle.

So people have less time, but they can now read anywhere. This means that they can fill their spare moments with fiction. They can read on the tube to work, or while they are waiting to meet someone for coffee. The ideal medium for these spare moments is the short story; fiction that will fill the time, but you won’t have to abandon half way through.

Five Stop Story aims to fill these spare moments with stories by new writers. We are running regular competitions to discover these writers and the competition prize includes publication on the website and our forthcoming mobile application. The mobile application will enable people to read stories by up and coming writers on the move.

The Five Stop Story website launched in November 2010 and the first competition ran in January 2011. Five Stop Story is supported by the Arts Council and will be launching its mobile application in September this year.

The theme of the current competition is travel and we are looking for stories of 1,500 to 2,500 words. As well as publication on the website and mobile application, the overall winner will receive a copy of the book A Moral Murder & Other Tales from the Blue Hills by Sangeetha Shinde Tee.

To find out more and read the stories by previous winners please visit our website.

Thanks for the guest post Ruth and the very best of luck with the competition.

The deadline for short story entries is Sunday 26th June. Ruth's blog can be found here and you can follow her on Twitter @FiveStopStory.

Ewwwgh: Friday photo

2011-06-03T09:51:00.000+07:00

Displayed on a taxi dashboard:

Narcissus

2011-05-30T10:33:00.000+07:00

I found this fabulous chrome pillar – stay with me people – outside my apartment building last week. Yes, pillar; as in holding the building up… or simply looking elegant, I’m not sure. Or maybe it was placed there just for me…

As I ran past I thought, ‘who is that gorgeous, slender creature?’ I stopped and walked back to gaze into the chrome mirror. Gosh it was me twenty years ago. Just kidding; we'd have to go back a LOT further than that! I was never that skinny. But I looked and looked, just like Narcissus. I even took a photo for you lot.

And then I remembered where I was going: to the 7/11 for a snack.

Sigh.

The irony wasn’t lost on me.

I need a 12 step programme

2011-05-27T08:28:00.001+07:00

I’m totally addicted. It doesn’t matter what time of day or night it is, I can’t get myself off it.

Back in March I downloaded two series of the old version of Upstairs Downstairs to keep me entertained during my travels in the UK. I’ve always loved period dramas and I’m sure I must’ve come across the odd repeat while growing up but I’d been too young to see the original airing.

I watched a couple when my travelling lagged but I found the style of acting and dramatization very dated; hammy and overacted, embarrassing. But back in Bangkok I began to watch the odd episode in the evening and before I knew what had happened, I was hooked.

I forgot that they’d irritated me. For some of the visual preparation of the NF book, I can work while plugged into the next exciting episode in the lives of Bellamy family and their servants. And then I see in the following episode Elizabeth and her husband of six months are spending Christmas apart because their marriage is falling apart, and honestly, I’ve got to watch it, haven’t I? Before I know it, several more episodes have been viewed and then Lady Marjorie is sailing to America on the Titanic and well, I’ve got to see what happens, haven’t I?

Then there’s the singing. For days now I’ve been singing the theme tune, which, oddly I can’t reproduce on command, rather it just appears in my head to irritate me (and my family.) And there’s something in the phrasing that makes it morph into The Teddy Bears Picnic so I sing that over and over too…

I do think I may be losing my grip.

But oh, Hudson (Gordon Jackson) is just wonderful (and not hammy at all) and Thomas Watkins (a very PHWOAR young John Alderton)… the beautiful lust-after ~~John Alderton~~ Edwardian clothes… And god, the horror of the way they lived… I love it all.

Now it’s no longer just the evening but the morning as well and sometimes even during the day; I’m just watching one episode at a time… Honest. Well, mostly.

Husband has rechristened it ‘Crackstairs, Smackstairs.’

And after the event...

2011-05-23T07:50:00.000+07:00

What a lovely day we had at Neilson Hays Library yesterday. Saturday night’s big thunderstorm gave me hope that we’d have a dry day and we did; it was a scorcher.

I don’t have many pictures but this one makes me happy:

WordPlay: final programme

2011-05-21T10:37:00.000+07:00

Tomorrow the Neilson Hays Library is hosting WordPlay, Bangkok's first literary festival. The details below are the final programme. It's not too late to sign up for the workshops!

Further details are here.

It's the Friday Photo... YAY

2011-05-20T12:11:00.000+07:00

This photo comes courtesy of Daughter's lovely friend EN. Thank you for letting me use it for this week's pic.

Ten years in the planning...

2011-05-19T15:19:00.000+07:00

For about ten years I’ve been thinking about writing a non-fiction book – not any old non-fiction book obviously, I had an idea for a specific one. It’s a dangerously long time to leave my ‘brilliant’ idea in my head because it could evaporate or someone else could be writing and publishing it. But in my case they haven’t (that I’ve discovered) at least not with the angle that I have on it.

So as I’ve put my novel aside for a time (actually, my the novel has put itself aside; it quite insisted. It refused to cooperate with my plans for it.) And I have started, seriously, to plan my non-fiction book. Ten years thinking is probably long enough.

I am eminently qualified for this project which, let’s be honest is a miracle. I am qualified - with my two useless but enjoyable degrees - for precious little.

So that could be where I am when I’m not blogging: listening to Radio 4 and working on this new/ancient project.

Bangkok Literary Festival details

2011-05-12T17:10:00.000+07:00

On Sunday the 22^nd May 2011 the Neilson Hays Library is hosting Bangkok’s first literary festival.

There are some fabulous speakers coming:

• World famous chefs – Ken Hom (My Kitchen Table) and David Thompson (Thai Street Food.)

• Novelists Christopher G Moore (Vincent Calvado Private Eye series and Editor of Bangkok Noir), John Burdett (Bangkok Eight) and Stephen Leather (Private Dancer.)

• Philip Cornwell Smith, Editor of Time Out and author of Very Thai (possibly my all time favourite book about Thailand) will be in attendance talking about trends in Thailand.

And if that’s not enough, you can listen to:

• Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit (The Tale of Khun Chang Khun Phaen) talking about the craft of translation;

• Nic Dunlop (Lost Executioner);

• Sandy Dodd and Jennifer Baccon (literacy promoters);

• Tom Vater (Sacred Skin);

• Ruth Heald (short story writer);

• Janice Santikarn (Little Blue Tuk Tuk).

In addition to this the library are running six workshops related to books, writing and story telling.

1. Breaking Through

Photographer Gavin Gough and writer and coach Paul Sochaczewski will teach how to write and photograph a personal story for publication.

2. Writing from the Unconscious Mind

Anette Pollner’s workshop will trigger your creativity and access the unconscious process.

3. Make Your Own Handmade Book

Kate Macdonald will show you how to make your own silk bound book.

4. The Art of Story-Telling

Artist and Actor Louise Truslow will share her secrets on how to make stories engaging.

5. Writing Stories, a Workshop for Children

Janice Santikarn will inspire children with the joy of writing stories.

6. One to One critique service

Submit your work for a critical review by author Bonnie Sauder.

Click here for more information or to book any of the workshops.

Bangkok's first literary festival

2011-05-06T11:02:00.000+07:00

*
Can't wait for this.

We've got some fabulous names lined up. Check out further details on WordPlay here and I'll be back to tell you more soon.

My favourite people in Bangkok

2011-05-04T20:05:00.000+07:00

While the rest of the world (barring the conchies and the cynics) were watching the wedding, I was being a tourist and gallivanting around Bangkok with my brother.

These chaps (at Wat Pho) are among my favourite people in Bangkok. During the time of King Rama III these stone figures came from China to Bangkok to act as ballast on the returning royal rice boats.

(I couldn't disappear without leaving you a picture of the Reclining Buddha: the beauty and sheer size stuns me every time.)

Friday Photo: Lost in (Laos) Translation

2011-04-29T07:58:00.000+07:00

Because who doesn't love stationery?

2011-04-28T17:36:00.000+07:00

Husband spotted something interesting in a tiny subsoi (side street) while we were exploring Luang Prabang.

The little shop was like an installation, brimful of products made from saa paper, (made from mulberry bark.) Lanterns hung down on our head and papers, envelopes, notebooks and albums were piled high in neat lines. Each piece was beautiful in its own right but its strength was in the whole.

Lovely Luang Prabang, Laos

2011-04-27T17:11:00.000+07:00

We didn't do all thirty two temples in Luang Prabang but here are some images from those we did visit.

So many reasons to go to Laos

2011-04-26T10:02:00.000+07:00

Buddha Park alone was worth the visit to Vientiane but one day there was enough. Luang Prabang, UNESCO World Heritage site, was the main event. Actually, forget the thirty-two temples, for Son and Husband I suspect the French baguettes were the real draw.

(Laos became a French protectorate in 1893 when a French warship reached Bangkok via the Chao Phraya River and pointed its guns at the palace. It compelled the Siamese to give France sovereignty over all Lao territories east of the Mekong.* Hence the French bread…)

But I digress. If I’d known there’d be a parade of elephants in Thanon Sisavangvong, Luang Prabang to greet us, that might have been the main incentive to me.

I am so easily bought and I do love elephants. Right at the end you can hear me practising my Lao. They say 'sabai dii' for hello, which in Thai means 'how are you.' I was perpetually confused.

*Lonely Planet: Laos by Austin Bush, Mark Elliot, Nick Ray

Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos

2011-04-25T11:02:00.000+07:00

Buddha Park is a sculpture park built on the banks of the Mekong River about half an hour’s drive from our hotel in Vientiane, Laos. The park was built in 1958 by Luang Pu (Venerable Granfather) Bunleua Sulilat who was a yogi-priest-shaman. The sculptures are not new; they were built of concrete in the ‘50s and combine Buddhist and Hindu icons, philosophy and mythology. We had a fantastic, if hot, two hours wandering around here.

Last stop in the UK

2011-04-24T11:10:00.000+07:00

My last call in the UK was to a writing friend.

We hadn’t made plans – beyond my going to hers overnight - but there was a touched upon agreement that it would involve wine, chocolate, wheat free food and pulses.

It was perfect after the ‘messing with my head’ experience of the writing workshop. And, before I returned to the concrete jungle that is Bangkok, I filled my head with images of the countryside. Here are a few:

Picture postcard perfect:

Friday Photo: Happy Bangkok Easter

2011-04-22T14:31:00.002+07:00

Water in my eyes: York memories

2011-04-19T12:18:00.000+07:00

I was in the UK for York Festival of Writing.

At the end of the festival weekend all I wanted (I thought) was to collapse on my hotel bed and watch some undemanding TV but my taxi driver drove me through the city centre via Piccadilly, Pavement and Coppergate. Those names gave me my second wind and after five minutes inside the hotel room I put my boots back on and walked into the city.

I know York. I worked for York Archaeological Trust twenty years ago, nearly fresh out of university and clutching my classics degree. Not-Yet-Husband was finishing his PhD so I bought a tiny house in Hull and drove across the Wolds each day to work.

But my fondness for the city had started as a student. Dr Stanley took us as part of our Roman Britain course. We were shown inside the Roman Baths pub (not for the beer!) and shown the few surviving Roman parts of the city walls. York has more miles of intact walls than any other English city and it’s something that defines the place for me. I remembered, while I worked in York, reversing my estate car into a tiny space just along from Walmgate Bar – one of the few remaining places I could still park without a permit. A white van man sat across the road waiting for the traffic lights to change, watching me, knowing the spot was too small – particularly for a woman – to park in. I got it in; I am shit hot at reversing into tiny spaces and White Van Man gave me a round of applause.

Of course we went to York off duty too, for pub-crawls. In those days it wasn't all day drinking so after ‘lunch’ we'd have to go and waste time somewhere - shopping or the cinema - until the pubs opened again. (Jeff Goldblum in The Fly will forever be synonymous with York.) And I remembered one of our friends, AP, stripping to his underpants and swimming across the Ouse while we drank pints of Purple Nasty outside the King’s Arms. I recalled games of Ibble Dibble inside the Punch Bowl.

And I remembered organising Soon-To-Be-Husband’s wedding ring to be made by a tiny jeweller in the Shambles right by Whipmawhopmagate. Who can fail to fall in love with a city with a road name like that? And how many more evocative names are there? Finkle Street, Nether Hornpot Lane, The Shambles, Jubbergate and Bartle Garth. I could go on.

Such lovely memories: any water in my eyes while I wandered about was down to the chill in the air.

On stupidity and being married to Jason Bourne

2011-04-18T11:05:00.000+07:00

If I feel as though I’ve spent the last month packing, unpacking and repacking my suitcase it’s because I have.

I tried to be all relaxed during my travels, leaving my lap top in Bangkok and only taking my ipad but I wasn’t cool at all – just too stupid to understand how to get the most out of it. If I ever had a period where I kept up with technology (and my family say I did – for about three months back in 2008) it’s gone now; I’m trailing behind all over again.

I spent ten days in England (in five different venues) one week in Bangkok and then a week in Laos (Vientianne and Luang Prabang) for Thai – and Laos – New Year. I was so glad to get back to Bangkok on Saturday evening even if it meant more unpacking. At least this time the suitcase can go away until July.

This last month has been a rollercoaster of emotions too. I gave up writing and started again. Three good friends – those that I’d turn to in a personal crisis – are leaving Bangkok in the next few weeks and months. Husband took Daughter to the airport for a long anticipated trip to see her BF in Australia. On checking-in they were told she couldn’t fly because she had no visa. (She’s British; who knew she’d need a visa?) Husband went to an internet café and managed to get her cleared and she flew but it gave me three long days of palpitations for not checking in the first place… I mean she’s British… Commonwealth countries? No? We’ve had a horrible situation with a charlatan company with VERY DODGY practices that gave me the heebie jeebies for a week. I handed the problem over to Husband while I ran around in small circles weeping and squealing. I'm excellent in a crisis.

But the good news? Well, we thought this weekend was Easter so we spent yesterday eating chocolate. I think we can do that all over again next weekend, right? And Husband is a hero; firstly because of solving AustraliaVisaGate and secondly for saving us $$$ by his calm negotiations with Charlatan Company. He IS Jason Bourne… Oh give the man a break; it’s his birthday today. He IS Jason Bourne.

See you tomorrow.

Friday Photo: My thoughts exactly

2011-03-11T10:01:00.000+07:00

We're nearly there...

2011-03-01T22:39:00.000+07:00

Sue has arrived in Bangkok and her author talk at the Neilson Hays library, is nearly upon us. (It’s Thursday at 2pm – please do come.) Sue’s talk will include readings from her book and stories of her experience volunteering in Cambodia. You can find further information on the talk here.

I’ve turned my thoughts to all the people who have helped put this together.

My friends in the BWG book club who have pledged their help – support to me, encouragement and help during the talk on Thursday with whatever might need doing.

Volunteer women run the Neilson Hays library. They have been full of enthusiasm and excitement about Sue’s talk and I am grateful to them for the use of their beautiful premises. (If you are interested in working with them – please get in touch.)

Peter Robinson at the SET Foundation – the charity that will benefit from the afternoon – has rung around his supporters and publishers and we have around a hundred books to sell. All of these proceeds will benefit SET. Bamboo Sinfonia, Asia Books and Random House have all sent me boxes of books completely and utterly free… in these hard times. I cannot thank them enough.

Friday Photo

2011-02-25T07:24:00.001+07:00

Forgive me father for I am arrogant...

2011-02-24T10:09:00.000+07:00

I first heard about ‘Mousetrapped’ by Catherine Ryan Howard from Caroline Smailes’ blog back in April of last year. Caroline is a confirmed Disney lover whereas I am not and yet… I knew that I wanted to read it. I was intrigued, not only by the modern publishing story (after positive agent feedback but no deal, Catherine published the book herself) but also by the whole Disney thing; and my own curiosity baffled me. Why would I want to read about some going to work at Disneyworld in Orlando?

It’s not that I hate Disney; I’m indifferent towards it. The Toy Story films and Jungle Book are among my favourite animated movies and there are all sorts of things I admire about the combined skills of those that make them. Look there probably are all sorts of legitimate reasons why some people hate Disney and you can find any number of vitriolic websites about those should you wish to but they weren’t relevant to how I felt. I eventually forgot about trying to identify why I was uncomfortable at wanting to read a story by someone who believed in the magic and Catherine’s book disappeared from my mind until I read another article about her experience of e-publishing.

Perhaps it somewhere around the time that I ordered it that I worked out what I felt. Ouch: I felt superior. Double ouch.

I began to read ‘Mousetrapped’ anyway.

I loved it. It’s immediately engaging and I felt as though Catherine were with me telling me her tale in person. And I realized we weren’t so different from each other. She was just looking for something -aren’t we all? Excitement? Happiness? Fulfillment? (Didn’t she say: “Ahead of her she sees weekends at the beach, mornings by the pool and an inexplicably skinnier version of herself skipping around Magic Kingdom.” And didn’t I, from the UK, imagine drifting around our Bangkok apartment in a size 8 Ghost dress, listening to Frank Sinatra?)

I tell you what else she’s done: she’s made me want to go. I do want to actually see it - partly because I’m still fascinated by the notion that some people should feel so much for something I simply can’t comprehend. And partly because I really wouldn’t mind seeing a rocket taking off at Cape Canaveral.

No I still don’t believe in the Magic but I’ve learned something about myself and had a nose into what makes another person tick. Oh yes, and I’ve given myself a firm clunk around the head for my arrogance.

Chim Chim-in-nee, Chim Chim-in-nee ♪

2011-02-22T09:41:00.000+07:00

Every time I go to Chamchuri Square I start singing. I’ve only been three times but that’s probably good a good thing. It's the singing you see; I could send myself mad. I don’t sing any old song, just once – I sing ‘Chim Chim-in-nee, Chim Chim-in-nee, chim chim cher-ee.’ ♪♪♪♪ And I sing it over and over and over.

I only NEEDED to go to Chamchuri Square for the visa renewals each February which was kind of doable. We can all put up with 24 hours of me warbling like a discordant Mary Poppins or Dick Van Dyke once a year but now I’ve got another reason to go which is a bit worrying. Someone told me about a stall where you could buy notebooks that they would personalize for you (at no extra charge.)

*Gasp* I think it might be worth the pain of the singing.

Look at my new notebook:

Exquisite reading: Not So Perfect by Nik Perring

2011-02-21T14:21:00.000+07:00

My next Book Club book, ‘Orchid Fever’ by Eric Hansen has gone missing. I bought it about three weeks ago and put it somewhere safe. Now it has disappeared from my apartment. There are no more copies available in Bangkok and anyway I’ve already bought it once. I am feeling stupid.

One book I read recently that I wasn’t careless enough to lose was Nik Perring’s volume of short stories, ‘Not So Perfect’ although let me tell you they are; they are absolutely perfect.

I don’t read many short stories and I’ve only written one and it was, frankly, stinky. But I’m going to have to reconsider things because these stories were exquisite: funny, painful and quirky. Such short stories as these are known as flash fiction and of course they look effortless. I know they’re not.

The title “Not So Perfect’ is a line from one of the stories and refers to lives of the characters that people the whole collection. After reading it twice I’m finding it jolly difficult to believe that Nic Perring isn’t a sixty eight year old woman, a fifteen year old girl or a twelve year old boy because he writes with such tenderness from all those perspectives. Bereavements, misunderstandings, loneliness and being different, those human conditions are all here and yet somehow he makes us look twice. He makes them feel unique.

My favourite stories are ‘My Heart’s in a Box’ and ‘The Angel in The Car Park.’

Sadly, 'Not So Perfect' is not available in Bangkok.

Running away

2011-02-20T11:11:00.000+07:00

With the need to look critically at my novel my demon critic is back sitting on my shoulder; and he's... well criticising. I have written numerous blog posts during this last fortnight and deleted them all. B*stard.

The problem is that I can't entirely silence him. I need him and his constructive critique to help me make my book better but he's a devilish little thing and sometimes he just creeps in and criticises everything - he must be a bit dim because he can't tell the difference between constructive and destructive.

So let's start slowly, with some pictures. We went away for three days to Hua Hin this half term week. I had a look on the internet for things to do and found Hua Hin Hills Vineyard forty kilometres away. I had heard a vague rumour that Thailand was growing grapes to make western style wine but I thought it was up north. I have minimal interest in vineyards (although my sparkling wine at lunch was incredibly good) but when I saw that we could tour the grapes and olive groves on elephants the deal was sealed.

I adore elephants. I thought five years ago that we would do an obligatory elephant ride during our first holiday and then it would be ticked off the tacky but essential tourist list but I go back again and again. I am in love.

I think I might run away from home and become a mahout.

It really is Friday

2011-02-04T11:40:00.000+07:00

Friday Photo: Waste not, want not

2011-02-03T09:52:00.001+07:00

Updated: Errrm, how much of a berk am I? Are you too polite to tell me it's Thursday? Doh. Oh well, I am writing: I'm allowed to be a little eccentric.

Decoration?
To attract and trap something?
To scare something off?

No idea but don't throw them away - they could be useful.

Spotted on Koh Kret Island.

Breeding like...

2011-02-02T11:51:00.000+07:00

... rabbits.

I've covered Chinese New Year before so I won't stop to explain but Thailand is the only country to celebrate (with equal enthusiasm) three New Years (Thai, Chinese and our own Gregorian New Year.)

2011 - starting tomorrow - is the Year of the Rabbit, the fourth sign in the Chinese zodiac. It's an excellent sign to be; it's not the size of the creature but what is in their nature.

I heard the first calls of Kung Hei Fat Choy yesterday and this morning during a peaceful pilates class the first set of fire crackers went off. They might go off for a duration of fifteen or twenty seconds - usually out of the blue. I'm still quite shocked by them - not as much as I was in the early days when I thought bombs were going off but they still make me jump.

Since the end of November rabbits have been appearing all over Bangkok. I had no idea when I started collecting all their pictures how out of control it would get; how very apt.

We have every conceivable rabbit...

And the Tea Stains 4th birthday giveaway winners are…

2011-01-29T16:29:00.000+07:00

As adjudicated by Husband and Son.... in no special order....

Congratulations to the winners. Please send me your postal address so that I can send you your prize (when I've purchased them.) Thanks for the birthday wishes from everyone and commiserations if you didn't win.

Friday Photo Extravaganza

2011-01-28T20:14:00.000+07:00

Yesterday a group of us went to Koh Kret or Pottery Island. My journey was a taxi, two skytrains, a boat, a coach, another boat and then a bicycle around the island. I took loads of pictures and couldn't edit them down any further than this selection.

We had a lovely day. Thanks Kate for organising it.

Happy Birthday Tea Stains!

2011-01-20T11:14:00.001+07:00

*
Well, I jolly nearly missed that, what with all the hard work, wild dreams and food obsessing.

But I'm very pleased to announce that Tea Stains is four years old today. And as well as sharing tea and cup cakes (do try; they're wheat free) to all readers I'm going to have a blog birthday giveaway.

There will be a mystery prize (probably of a Thai flavour unless you live in Thailand) for four winners - one for each year that I've been blogging.

All you have to do is leave a comment or email me at 4pmteatime (at) gmail (dot) com to say you'd like to be entered into the birthday draw. You will have to be prepared to give me a delivery address if your name is picked out of the hat. I will send prizes any where in the world (I hate being excluded because I live in Thailand; it's just not right.)

Do please pass the details on; the more the merrier. You have until Thursday 27 January to register your interest.

Here I am

2011-01-19T20:30:00.000+07:00

Hello?

Is there anyone there?

I thought I’d pop by to let Facebook friends know that despite an unhealthy interest in making statuses about cashew nuts, I am okay. I’m working hard. When I went to the cupboard this morning for a handful of cashew nuts to eat with my tea I was quite shocked at how few were left. I emailed Husband to ask (hopefully) if he’d been helping me out by eating them; sadly he confirmed that he didn’t like cashews unroasted and any consumption into the family pack of nuts in the cupboard will have been me. Eeek.

Anyway, the good news is that I’ve finished them tonight. I just need the strength not to buy anymore.

Along with having cashew control problems I’ve been having mad dreams. They started a couple of weeks ago.

One dream involved being bitten by a snake. Its fangs hung on the fleshy skin between my thumb and my forefinger and I was upset and worried that it would fall off and I wouldn’t remember what kind of snake had bitten me. The biting took place opposite Emporium, a mall in Bangkok and then the scene cut to London where I was wandering through the streets trying but failing to find the railway station to take me to the hospital.

Last night I had a dream that a cult was trying to recruit me.

But the weirdest one was nearly three weeks ago just as I started working on the novel. Husband was pregnant and he delivered two babies and then several weeks later he delivered the other four. In the dream I didn’t take much notice of the first two: I think our existing children and their cousins were ‘looking after’ them. I found the babies under a bed when Husband delivered the other four and I knew then that I had to start looking after them. I had the strongest feeling even in my dream state about these six babies. I knew they would be loved and I’d do what I had to do but the sense of disappointment I felt that I wouldn’t be able to finish my novel was so palpable.

Anyway I probably haven’t reassured any of you that I’m okay. I probably should’ve kept quiet about the weird dreams and cashew nut fetish… but you know I’m not getting out much at the moment.

Not a Friday Photo

2011-01-14T16:39:00.000+07:00

I’ve failed already in my ‘resolution’ to be a better blogger this year. Still, I might be on target with remembering family birthdays, which is my other hope for the year. (I know it's only 14th January and there's plenty of time to cock up but I've just bought cards for the first two. Last year I'd failed by the 26 January!)

I don’t believe in New Year resolutions: I reckon the moment of recognition (that something needs to be changed) can come at any time and when it hits you in the head… that’s the best moment to resolve to change. So, so easily said…. Not so easily stuck to….

I know it’s Friday and I should post a Friday photo but I haven’t got one that inspires me. I toyed with posting a photograph of me with my head down but I started to worry about the chins it might produce.

Anyway, that’s the reason I’m such a bad blogger: I am working on my draft.

Posting might be a bit sporadic here for a while.

Made to measure views

2011-01-10T16:10:00.000+07:00

So I promised photos of the apartment some time ago. This isn't quite photos of the whole place but here's my office. It's alright, isn't it?

But yes, that is a brick wall I look out on.

Back in the summer, before I'd even seen our new apartment, I was at an Arvon course outside Inverness - at Moniack Mhor. This was the view from my window. I made a joke that I wanted to paste the view up on my window when I got to Bangkok. Ha; I had no idea that unless I wanted to look out on concrete I REALLY would need to stick up a picture.

All I needed to do was blow up my digital image onto really large photo paper and I could have Scotland outside my window. Voila:

Then I got to thinking.... I could do a few - dependent on my mood. It's a sunflowers in Lopburi kind of day today:

Tomorrow I might be homesick. Let's have Kent in July:

How about back to Asia? How about Kuala Lumpur at night:

Oh HOW much fun can we have here? Hastings beach anyone? With killer seagull...

Right; okay. I think it's time to go back to work now. Head down...

Friday Photo: if you say so

2011-01-07T10:57:00.000+07:00

You're doing WHAT with those teaspoons?

2011-01-03T14:23:00.001+07:00

I've designated today a day of dreaming.

I've had my head down in my novel for about five days now. I have made some progress but I woke this morning feeling overwhelmed. Where am I? What needs doing? What doesn't need doing?

After my week in KL I made a list of things that occurred to me after reading the whole book through. I brought it along with me on my dreaming/thinking outing because I hoped it would show me where I felt I was. I have four headings:

1. What's irritating
2. What's not working
3. What scenes I need to write

And then because I ran out of space:

4. What's not working 2.

This is what I wrote under the heading What's irritating:

• M fleeing into the garden
• M going off to reflect
• M being unable to go into the studio. HOW MANY TIMES?
• People doing minute actions with teaspoons and things.

It hasn't made me feel any more confident that I know where I'm going but it gave me a good laugh.

What are my characters doing with all those teaspoons?

So I've come out (to Starbucks) to think. I'm asking myself what did I want (originally) Polite Lies to be? What was the essence of this story? Have I lost all of that along the way?

I've written down what I wanted it to be when I began. I've written down some questions I need answers to in the hope that I can move closer to the original idea again And now that I've laughed at myself I feel less panicky and the next step is to give the dreaming a go. And the best way to expedite that is to go off and get a foot massage.

So that's what I plan to do...'perchance to dream.'

Hulahooping into 2011

2011-01-01T12:27:00.001+07:00

Wishing you all a happy and healthy 2011.

There are no hangovers in the Beattie residence today.

During yesterday afternoon Husband dragged me out of the house to prevent from feeding my manuscript through the shredding machine. He bought me some stationery, some chocolate and two hula-hoops and then we went to Starbucks.

When we got home I resolutely refused to look at my novel. Instead we got out the hula hoops.

We had a lovely quiet family New Year, watching National Treasure films, eating satsumas and then watching the panorama of fireworks from our balcony.

tea stains

More monitors

Not everything is for sale

No more apologising

Friday Photo

RAKE WEIRD TEAM

Friday Photo: pin the tail on the... chair?

Voices in my head

Reading recommendations

Happy New Year

What I read in 2011

This year's Christmas Creatures

Boxing Day boxes

Happy Christmas people

Christmas in Bangkok

When do you open your presents?

Culture clash?

The eclipse and string bags of nuts

It IS meant to be a writing blog

Christmas party

No words necessary

Discombobulated

Elves at work

Funny old food time

Leo the dog and my last day in the UK

Enlightenment

Friday Photo

Wellington boots, snakes and blog awards

Cat babies: Squeeeee

Friday photo: Remembrance Day

All I want for Christmas....

Colours of autumn

Quick catch up

Sad to say...

I love you

It's Groundhog Half Term or 'Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam'

We're still dry...

Friday Photo: flood update

An apology; boots, feet and flip flops

Friday Photo

It never rains but it pours

Blogging from Blightly

Last Saturday I fell in love again

Secrets and Lies (only without the lies)

Friday Photo

Take one large dose

Thai style

Friday Photo: One for my gastroenterologist father

Cats and Cakes

I love Louis Sachar

Friday photo: Because I do

How To Satisfy Your Woman

Not quite Hurricane Irene

Hello? *Waves*

F- F- F- Saturday Photo

A short story competition at Five Stop Story

Ewwwgh: Friday photo

Narcissus

I need a 12 step programme

And after the event...

WordPlay: final programme

It's the Friday Photo... YAY

Ten years in the planning...

Bangkok Literary Festival details

Bangkok's first literary festival

My favourite people in Bangkok

Friday Photo: Lost in (Laos) Translation

Because who doesn't love stationery?

Lovely Luang Prabang, Laos

So many reasons to go to Laos

Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos

Last stop in the UK

Friday Photo: Happy Bangkok Easter

Water in my eyes: York memories

On stupidity and being married to Jason Bourne

Friday Photo: My thoughts exactly

We're nearly there...

Friday Photo

Forgive me father for I am arrogant...

Chim Chim-in-nee, Chim Chim-in-nee ♪

Hello? Waves