Christmas party

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

No words necessary

Discombobulated

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

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

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

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.

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

Enlightenment

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.