Friday round up: yee haa

I thought that when the exams were finished life would relax a bit. Ha. No.

I survived a week at the beach with five teenage girls. We were the talk of the resort. One lady had the decency to stop me and enquire what relationship I was to the girls… Actually, she stopped me to tell me how beautifully behaved they were and then she asked: she guessed teacher. Daughter said wistfully that she wished school trips were like our island jaunt and not trekking up mountains in soggy ground with a two-ton backpack.

One young man engaged me in conversation. He thought they were all my daughters! I’d have to have been busy to make that happen: my ‘daughters’ were three Caucasians and two Asians and all sixteen!

Son returned alive from his ten days grad trip to the beach. Phew. He was only a little bit smelly and only a very small amount of his conversation about what happened in Koh Samui has made my hair turn grey. I have remained cool and serene on the outside.

We went to a jubilee ball.

I went to a jubilee coffee wearing the silliest hat I’ve made yet. It weighed a ton and I spent the afternoon with a phantom hat on my head. I kept trying to remove it only to discover I WASN’T wearing it…

Random backpackers have come and gone.

Husband’s flown to London and then Paris.

And breathe… there’s a small window before the next panic sets in.

It should be a Friday Photo here today but instead it’s a round up. So, here’s a picture of the mad jubilee hat:

(The stupid expression can be accounted for by telling you that I was caught with yet another piece of cake in my hand. What I was really doing was relieving K of the item. She doesn't like banana cake; so actually I was performing a charitable act... honest. I cropped the picture so you couldn't see the cake hanging by my side so you could see the hat clearly.)

Pic stolen from YZ's facebook album

No Jubilee celebrations

There have been no jubilee celebrations for us this weekend but on Saturday, Son graduated from school in a rather nice, congratulatory ceremony and then departed for a ‘holiday’ with his school friends. Gulp. I am trying hard to be a grown up. I am mostly sitting on my hands, trying not to text him to ask him if he’s applied the sun screen/insect repellant I purchased for him. (As well as a host of other, much more controlling and intrusive questions…)

Daughter and I had planned our own jaunt to the beach after exams (with strict instructions from Son that the island he was going to, WASN’T big enough for the three of us) and somewhere along the way, it morphed into me taking her and four of her friends to the beach. We left yesterday. There have been lots of (good) hysterics. Teenage girls, en masse, squeal a lot, don’t they? Their phones have remained tacked to their hips (unless they’re in the sea or the pool) even though the four other people they’re in almost constant communication with, are sitting on the beach bed next to them.

My own change in status (from holidaying with Daughter to chaperone) means that I am free to tackle the Adobe Illustrator book again. *Sigh* Despite having worked half way through the course book, EVERYTHING I attempt to tackle feels like Hard Work and I usually abandon it to do it in a more long-winded, but slightly easier mentally, manner.

And that’s pretty much why I’m sitting here blogging… 

I’ll be back tomorrow with Wednesday’s Windows.

Pebble Angels

Although quite unplanned we found ourselves eating chips on the Kent coast today.

Just after Daughter and Friend made these pebble angels I had a 'phone call to say that two further years have been confirmed for us in Bangkok.

I like to think these propitious angels had something to do with it.

And we're off (again)

Family arrived yesterday in Bangkok and we’re off to the beach today. Sorry, it does seem a bit like I’m always on holiday but see, the UK, lovely though it was… that was a bit of a tour of duty. This is a holiday (with family) and Husband’s coming too so I’m excited.

No can do, hesitant scribe...

My extended family has highlighted some concerns they have for my health: my mental health.

They are worried about my behaviour.

They think I need a 12 step programme.

I said: ‘I am a webmaster, and committee member. I have to keep in touch.’

I said: ‘My blog needs doing every day.’

I am in denial.

I should have been able to cope for two weeks with limited access to my laptop, but I can’t. In Bangkok I kept disappearing into my office to ‘work’ and they noticed my absences.

They asked gently: ‘Does it take a long time to do the blog?’

I had to bring it on holiday to the beach, and I’ve got on the wifi router at the hotel every day to check my mail, post my blog, check everyone else’s, fiddle about with my technology… I am even doing it this morning, when we are leaving at 10.30am.

Sister-in-law asked: ‘Can’t you say on your blog that you’re away on holiday and will be back soon?’

‘No, no. I don’t want to go away: I need my laptop with me.’

My sister-in-law has diagnosed PMT-SA.

Personal Mobile Technology – Separation Anxiety.

Family holidays

My sister-in-law and her family have come out to Bangkok see us for Easter. Although we keep in touch pretty well, it’s lovely to see them all here and for them to see where and how we live. In the UK we didn’t live that close to Sister/Brother-in-law who have small children (now 5 and nearly 7) so when we came to live in Thailand the cousins hadn’t spent lots of time together: family celebrations were the only time they saw each other, and their little ones were a bit small to remember.

So now they can get to know each other very well and enjoy each other’s company for almost two weeks: one week in Bangkok and 5 days at the beach.

(My) daughter has innate maternal skills she did not get from watching me. She takes care of her little cousins: anticipating and dissipating tantrums and hissy fits. There’s been lots of frolicking in the swimming pool; performances organised and presented, suncream applied, all by daughter, so sister/brother-in-law are getting some down time and a proper holiday.

With 'almost teenagers', I’d forgotten how hard work small children are: how you cannot take your eyes off them for long. I watch with delight at the energy, the get up and go and selflessness of daughter and it makes me very proud. I also see her recognizing when she needs to spend time alone, and announcing ‘I’m staying home today to work.’

I’ve never spent as long as two weeks with Sister-in-law either, so new stories are exchanged: tales husband has told me from his perspective are shared by her from her standpoint.

My dining chair seats are covered in Marmite, paint has been picked off our paintings and there’s pee all over the loo seats, but our children have created memories, anecdotes to share with their cousins and to tell their children, stories to reminisce over in years to come.