Presence and Presents

My homecoming was lovely.

There were hugs (lots of them); a Welcome Home banner and, as I’d been in the UK for my birthday, a pile of presents and cards to open. (And then it was right back into Mummy work - sorting out some homework that was due the next day! It was almost as though I’d never been away…)

The presents were thoughtful and lovely and I shouldn’t single out any… but… during half term Son had been to Borneo to climb Mount Kinabalu as part of his Silver International Award (I’m sure you remember the dramas I made of his first trip: it’s odd, but Son and Husband didn’t make nearly such a big fuss about organising this leg!) Any way, look what Son brought me back:

Camellia Sinensis Black Tea from the foothills of Mount Kinabalu! Yum. Very lovely tea it is too.

Gargantuan food; gargantuan feet.

Oh good grief; you wouldn’t believe the amount of work that goes into sending Son off for an International Award expedition…( the same thing as the Duke of Edinburgh Award in the UK.) This year it’s silver and he’s off on a rehearsal this weekend for three days. I tell you, the amount of work involved means I feel somewhat deserving of a silver award myself.

When I moved to Thailand I was warned that you couldn’t buy western sized shoes here, but I was okay Jack. I’ve got size five feet, I fitted Thai sized shoes. NEVER did I imagine I was going to need to worry about the children’s feet. But here we are: gigantic feet, both of them. I’ve been in email negotiations with someone in London to see if they could get hold of great big trekking shoes. (Thank you Simon: I know you were too busy, really) and he was going to have to get them to whichever colleague was the next visitor to Thailand. I finally found enormous trekking shoes yesterday morning. The man at Central Chit Lom had size 45 and 46 and said he’d keep them for me until Son and I returned around 4.30pm.

This whole thing is assessed. The students have got to plan their diet to suit the tasks they are undertaking. It needs to be varied and sufficient. This amounts to about 5,000 calories (*sits at the keyboard for a second, wondering if hiking up a mountain is worth doing so I can consume more calories. No, maybe not*) So then we had to go to the foodhall for two hours to consider what can be taken; carried; enjoyed; prepared; fulfil leaders' ideas of balanced diet…

Truly I began to lose the will.

Eventually, we finished. We went to the taxi rank: BIG long queues. Bangkok was under attack from a tropical downpour. We’ll have to take the sky train. “But,” I say to Son, “I’m not walking home in this. We’ll go to the next sky train stop [from home] and get a taxi just the local bit.”

So there we are, not at our local sky train station but one further away to justify a taxi journey. It's still pouring sheets of rain. The roads are car parks and so the first three taxis refuse to take us. We are soaking wet already. If we’d got off and walked from the correct stop, we’d be home by now. Eventually a taxi agrees to take us. He doesn’t know his way; we miss our left turn, we do a u-turn, he misses the next right. He reassesses; instead of a u-turn we turn right. From this direction cars are forbidden to turn right into our soi. He drives up the wrong side of the road, hits another car (no damage, just the wing mirror flipping in) and turns right to a symphony of honking horns, flashing lights and tropical rain.

But you know what? It could be worse: I could be going camping at the weekend!

Finally, just because it's fun, long time readers might remember this picture of Son from our trip to see grandparents in France.

How are the French so chic?

I’ve just been down to school to pick up Son and his friend who’ve been on a camping trip. It was the expedition for the bronze International Award (this is the equivalent of the Duke of Edinburgh Award but goes under a different name here.)

I was waiting in the café with another Mum, a French woman who came to Bangkok at the same time as we did. They are a lovely family and our boys, despite being chalk and cheese (brie?) are friends. D rang his mother to say they were back. Five minutes later D appeared in the café. He looked fantastic – as though he’d been on a five star spa break and not camping in the Sam Roi Yot National Park. We chatted for a bit while my son didn’t turn up… (Son lives on a timescale unique to himself.) Then they left, with the parting words from D, that Son, wasn’t looking quite as clean…


Some twenty minutes later, Son appeared in the distance. ‘In the distance’ was the safest place to be but I had to confine myself to a taxi with him. He looked like Pigpen from the Charlie Brown cartoon, walking in a cloud of debris. I'm glad to report he had a great time, but had he changed his clothes all weekend? Who knows? He had tide marks of grime in his neck. Ewugh.