Not quite Hurricane Irene

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!

Wednesday

I had a fabulous session in the gym this morning. I was fired by banana power; a tiny cup of tea (can’t do without) and a banana half an hour before I started. I seem to have come on leaps and bounds today; stronger, quicker, smilier.

I had plans to go to the newly reopened Siam Paragon today but when I’d showered and dressed, this happened:

Still seeing the sky like this (it’s rain not fog) is waaaaaay better than seeing it full of black smoke.

(I think it might have cleared up enough now for me to brave the outside world. I am off to sit in Starbucks  in Siam P with my book, notebook and index cards… just because after weeks and weeks of not being able to… now I can.)

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.

Today

I’ve just got back from Book Club. It’s only down the road from me but we got stranded by the torrential rain storm. It’s proper tropical rain. Only newbies try to run home in it.

Our book club was a ‘pot luck’ meeting where there is no prescribed book; instead members come with a book they’ve read recently and enjoyed and we all get the floor to talk about our choice. I like pot luck meetings.

I took ‘We Are All Made of Glue’ by Marina Lewycka. I loved it. I love the way she writes. I love that she writes about ordinary personal drama. I don’t need guns and aliens or the imminent end of the world; there’s enough drama for me in the ordinary domestic arena.

Finally, after lunch and then another natter, the rain stopped. I made for home.

In my soi, I very nearly had to swim.

On holiday

It's half term, and we're away: not where we planned to go and not our second choice ... but we're away.

This is Son's preparation for his holiday. His wicked parents told him he couldn't bring his lap top. He'd finished the first Harry Potter for the 247th time, by the end of the journey. His stupid mother didn't notice the hotel had a wii.

It's definitely still the rainy season.

Brain blurt

• The UK is doing its best with the torrential rain storms to persuade me that I’m still in the tropics.
  
• Just as I said ‘I’m having some days off …’ I start writing again. Bizarre.
  
• It’s my Dad’s birthday today. He’s 79.
  
• I didn’t blog about the third funeral I saw in four days. These are villages with a funeral every now and again … apart from the last week it seems.
  
• In the post this morning I got a totally gorgeous ‘artist card’ from Rachel. I love it. I’m reciprocating when I get back to Thailand.
  
• Lovely Leigh came to lunch yesterday with her beautiful children. She read some of my words and I told her the bones of the story and I’m feeling all fired up again. (Although I have to say, I’ve been feeling mostly fired up anyway…)
  
• I opened the Sunday Times ‘Culture’ supplement this morning, and saw the mother of my MC staring back at me: Wyndham Lewis’ portrait of Edith Sitwell.