Malaysian style

I loathe having anything done to my hair.

I have thick wiry hair that kind of curls. Not beautiful pre Raphaelite curls or corkscrew ringlets but the sort that just half-heartedly attempts it. It needs tremendous coaxing to encourage it not to frizz and you can imagine the traumas of being in a tropical country where humidity is a constant issue. (Does anyone recall the Friends’ episode set in Barbados with Monica’s hair?)

I’ve always had thick hair but it didn’t begin to curl properly until adolescence. My mother told me that people paid a fortune to have hair like mine. She told me this over and over as though that might help. Looking back I suspect that that some of the traumas I had with my hair might be because as a small child I was tasked with brushing it myself. I brushed the surface and allowed a vast bird’s nest – nay a bird colony – to grow underneath in the nape of my neck. When this was discovered my mother claimed something weird must have happened in the paddling pool that day. Little did she realize that I’d grown it myself through neglect. I screamed the house down while comb teeth and hairbrush bristles flew through the air. My bird’s nest had to be cut out while I was pinned to the table.

So I hate the hairdressers. Quite often the first thing a hairdresser or their junior hair washer says to me is “have you ever thought of having your hair straightened?” Whether or not I like the curls, anyone who thinks curly hair is not nice isn’t the right person to cut my hair.

It’s got even worse in Thailand because of the language barrier. I have found someone to cut my hair but she’s in England and mostly I’m not. This suits me because I don’t have to go too often but when I’m there I have to grab the opportunity so that I get sorted out at least once a year.

But my hair has been troubling me in recent weeks and I won’t be in the UK until March so … I ambushed myself last week in KL. I walked into a salon and asked for an appointment. He didn’t do quite what I wanted but it’s a good cut.

They did the oddest thing: I had my hair washed ‘Malaysian style’ – in the chair with a bottle of water and shampoo. Does this happen anywhere else in the world?

Have you played 'What's in the box?' Well, don't.

I’ve come to tell you that I survived yesterday – just. I’m only a tiny bit traumatized.

Today the new apartment looks terrifyingly like the photo in yesterday's post.

So entirely pushed to my limits was I by the evening that I was fit to commit all sorts of crimes but fortunately for everyone else I was just too exhausted; a total waste of space by about 8.30.

Knickers and undercrackers going missing have been one of our problems. Noooo, not like someone had a fetish and has been swiping them… I mean more like there are 350 boxes and your knickers are probably in one of them but everything’s labeled in Thai by the packers so it’s like a huge game of ‘guess what’s in the box.’ Have you every played that? Don’t is my advice. When you’re properly pooped and you know that all the underwear’s gone missing but actually you can’t worry about that because you won’t need them until tomorrow morning and further up your priority list should be the bed sheets and pillows which you are going to need much sooner… not to mention the loo roll.

Anyway, Daughter’s knickers were located after she'd left for school this morning in my wardrobe (I wish.) Don’t worry, Daughter had packed some extra pairs separately because she didn’t get her organizational genes from me. And a pair of undercrackers were found for Husband  – we suspect they might be Son’s but beggars can’t be choosers - in the clean washing pile that came separately but that’s only given us a stay of execution… Top of the list today is:

1. Find Husband some undercrackers for tomorrow.

Costume clue

Tomorrow the costumes will be worn and then I can forget all about them.

The traumas of the printers doing them wrong, not once but twice, are still fresh in my head. As is the person who came to collect their costume who wasn’t on my list. (We’d had an extra one printed ‘just in case’ and I’d made an extra hat because ‘thirteen is unlucky’ but I still get the hot and cold shivers when I think of how close we came to not having enough costumes.) I’m vowing never to do it again - until the pain wears off - and I find myself volunteering for it all over again this time next year…

I can’t unveil yet, but I’m going to give you a clue.

I did have my toenails painted as part of the theme and I took a picture to show you, but honestly, when I saw the photo… uncooked pork sausages came to mind and I decided not to put you through it.

So you’ll have to do with this. Note: I haven’t been at Photoshop again.

Dear PG Tips

JJ Beattie
Bangkok
Thailand

Dear PG Tips

I just opened one of your boxes of teabags. The box, which had travelled from the UK to me in Thailand, was undamaged.

Imagine my horror, however, when I discovered that not one, but two teabags had spilled their tea leaf guts all over their compatriots inside the carton. There were tea leaf entrails everywhere… I had to take all the teabags out, tend to them individually so that they weren’t harbouring their loved ones innards in their little pyramid® crevices. (See illustration one.)

As though this wasn’t disturbing enough, imagine my shock when, on sorting through the debris of this horrible atrocity, I noticed this anomaly: a baby teabag (see illustration two). I note your pride in the ‘ingeniously designed pyramid® bag’ which ‘gives the tea more room to move’ but what about this little fella? What if he can’t ‘free the delicious taste’?

Not only am I traumatised by the images I encountered but I’m horrified that I have been short changed to the tune of at least three mugs of tea.

Yours in anticipation

JJ Beattie

One

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