I did some artwork last week that I owed and it really cheered me up. It made me think of my community back in the UK and here in Bangkok.
When we lived in Buckinghamshire the children went to a small church school. I loved that school and got very involved, working in the library, supporting a year three teacher with her art classes and running an after school book club with another teacher. At their summer fair they always had a Mystery Jars stall. You collect jars, fill them with toys or sweets and then wrap them up so the contents can’t be seen. If you need to label it with age and gender you can. Then you sell them for 50p (or whatever) each. If you didn’t get to that stall early enough, all the jars would be gone and my children absolutely gutted. It was popular because of the preponderance of sweets there but the joy is also in the element of luck.
One time at a committee meeting here in Bangkok we were looking for fundraising ideas for a fete day at the British Club and I brought up the mystery jars stall. Traditionally at the Ploenchit Fair we have the Olde Tarts Shoppe where we sell home baked cakes and stuff but last year we also had the mystery jars too. And I brought them here. (OK, so I did steal the idea....)Call me an egomaniac but I sat there, working away in Photoshop, thinking of the things I had done in Bangkok. Sometimes there is physical evidence of those things, like the mystery jars or the numerous Santa’s Grotto signs I’ve made or the BWG Bangkok logo (that Carol and I designed.)
I like that. I like that I have left little bits of myself here.
