A Monday morning sort of post...

I’ve been missing the gym; not as in yearning for it but as in skipping it, avoiding it. Not ‘skipping’ as it turns out. I only managed one session last week due to a combination of lingering tummy ache and preparing to move apartments. (I am trying to sort out some of the shambolic mess in which I live.)

Yesterday I was leaving the apartment to go out and pick up some fabric I wanted for cushions (with this move I’m feeling the need to nest.) When the lift arrived there was already another tenant inside from one of the floors above.

‘Morning,’ we both said and smiled.

I looked at him and I felt a stab of guilt. He was dressed in trainers, shorts and a t-shirt and was clutching a bottle of water. The light to floor six was illuminated. Bugger it. I jabbed the ground floor button. ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘You’re going to the gym…’

‘I am.’ He looked pleased and pulled a small towel from the crook of his arm and dabbed his forehead in anticipation of his sweating.

I wanted to be sick. It’s proving so hard to get the fitness back since I was away in the summer and these two weeks weren’t going to make it any easier. Then I realized…

‘Oh yes,’ I said, triumphant; ‘I’m also going to the Jim. I’m going to the Jim Thompson fabric shop; do you think that’ll have the same effect?’

The voices...

Thank you to everyone who left comments after my last post – especially those who delurked to do it. I am feeling a bit better just for having said it out loud.

Yesterday I walked down the soi in my new FitFlops (thank you Helen, the Vaseline between the toes did the trick, though Son found the concept of Vaseline on a thong absolutely hilarious: can’t think why…) to ThaiCraft.

I’ve blogged about ThaiCraft before. I love it. It’s no longer at the Ambassador Hotel but has been conveniently relocated to the bottom on my soi! It’s in the Jasmine building at the base of Sukhumvit Soi 23 though you can find it at one off locations too. See their website for details.

I wandered about and bought a few small things. I have to be really careful at the moment because my brain is shouting at me: Buy things! Buy stuff! It could be your last chance… The same thing is happening visually. On my walk back up the soi the lunch vendors were out; customers queued or sat at temporary plastic tables eating their purchases. Carts laden with food were parked on the edge of the road and on the pavements. All sorts of food, chicken feet and squid, barbequing fish, bulbous plastic bags of curries were ready in portion sizes. My brain started up again: Camera, camera! Now. Capture the Thai food; this could be your last chance. Oh for god’s sake, I said, shut up; it’s at the bottom of my soi.

Next, before I picked Daughter up from a rehearsal at school, was an annual Jim Thompson sale at Bitec, a big exhibition centre. Oh. Oh: for a fabric whore like me (I am you know) this was divine. Rolls and rolls and rolls of fabric: silk, linen and cotton as far as I could see. Oh. My. God. I bought some napkins, cushion covers and a couple of pashminas but I didn’t buy any fabric off the roll. The strength of will I needed with those voices in my head… curtains! What about the curtains you'll need in the UK…

I just can’t stop the voices.