Wednesday's Window: a little bit of drama

 

I love love love these. I'm not sure of my facts because they were taken a few months ago and I didn't label them but I think they were in the Siam Centre. (If anyone knows differently, please let me know and I will happily credit them.)

I love the drama and the sense of the macabre they've created by playing with illusion. (Do you see the half hat?) It's that dolls with scary faces thing (Magic, anyone?) They terrify me and make me laugh in equal measure. 

Parent teenager miscommunications

Poor old Son had a long appointment at the dentist yesterday in order to get some treatment done before Christmas. He texted me - in misery (and sarcasm) from the dental chair - to confirm that afterwards he was meeting friends to go to the cinema. 

I was just trying to cheer him up; to give him a laugh but in my failure to pay attention (and my own obsession about costumes) I think I let him down…

(In my defence, the wool beard appeared to adopt a very similar method to the lion's mane I did a week or so ago... And if anyone knows the boys, please tell them they looked awesome and I really wished I'd asked them for a photo.)

Son's conversation is in yellow: mine in blue.

More costumes and a Zombie apocalypse

The theme on the third day was superheroes. Son went as Dr Horrible - yes, I know... has anyone heard of him? I think it's a sort of cult thing, starring Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and some humourous, catchy songs. I managed to stay project manager on this outfit (the dressmaker actually got this right) and I enjoyed sourcing the bits and pieces. On my way to jewellery class I walked past a shop that sold white wellies; the welding goggles came from HomePro and so did the gloves which I made into gauntlets with white cotton.










The piece de resistance today, the last compulsory day at school, was a zombie apocalypse. Here's Son doing whatever it is that zombies do.

And finally, Son and partner in crime as Banana 1 and Banana 2. The last two photos are sourced from the school website.

A single banana

It's costume week at school for Son. This can mean only one thing: his school life is nearly over. It's a Patana tradition that the Year 13's last week in school, before study leave, can be spent in costumes and doing pranks!

I was asked to be involved in three costumes. Yesterday's costume required a bit of making; Son went dressed in primary school uniform and sadly we weren't able to just purchase that in the school shop (though I'm told some of the Asian girls were still (at 17/18) able to fit into real junior uniform!) I cut up an old shirt and stuck the school badge on with transfer paper. I made the shorts, the piping down the leg is the only thing that marks them out as school shorts...

The next two costumes were more difficult, requiring pattern making skills rather than the sort of slap dash approach I normally employ. I tasked myself with making banana heads - as you do but I farmed out the technical stuff to a local dressmaker. Something went dreadfully and horribly wrong. We needed two pairs of pyjamas for Son and his friend. Son's trousers didn't fit at all and neither of the shirts had large enough collars to take the banana heads I was making even though I had instructed them to make a collar size of 100 cm!

I won't go into the gory details because my blood pressure will go sky high again but suffice to say my position as project manager changed rather rapidly to costume maker. I had to remake Son's trousers from scratch and perform major surgery on both the pyjama tops.

Still, the finished job is OK; I think he looks rather spectacular - even if he hasn't got any hands...

I need a 12 step programme

I’m totally addicted. It doesn’t matter what time of day or night it is, I can’t get myself off it.

Back in March I downloaded two series of the old version of Upstairs Downstairs to keep me entertained during my travels in the UK. I’ve always loved period dramas and I’m sure I must’ve come across the odd repeat while growing up but I’d been too young to see the original airing.

I watched a couple when my travelling lagged but I found the style of acting and dramatization very dated; hammy and overacted, embarrassing. But back in Bangkok I began to watch the odd episode in the evening and before I knew what had happened, I was hooked.

I forgot that they’d irritated me. For some of the visual preparation of the NF book, I can work while plugged into the next exciting episode in the lives of Bellamy family and their servants. And then I see in the following episode Elizabeth and her husband of six months are spending Christmas apart because their marriage is falling apart, and honestly, I’ve got to watch it, haven’t I? Before I know it, several more episodes have been viewed and then Lady Marjorie is sailing to America on the Titanic and well, I’ve got to see what happens, haven’t I?

Then there’s the singing. For days now I’ve been singing the theme tune, which, oddly I can’t reproduce on command, rather it just appears in my head to irritate me (and my family.) And there’s something in the phrasing that makes it morph into The Teddy Bears Picnic so I sing that over and over too…

I do think I may be losing my grip.

But oh, Hudson (Gordon Jackson) is just wonderful (and not hammy at all) and Thomas Watkins (a very PHWOAR young John Alderton)… the beautiful lust-after John Alderton Edwardian clothes… And god, the horror of the way they lived… I love it all.

Now it’s no longer just the evening but the morning as well and sometimes even during the day; I’m just watching one episode at a time… Honest. Well, mostly.

Husband has rechristened it ‘Crackstairs, Smackstairs.’

Friday Photo

Yeah, yeah, it's a cheap shot to laugh at their English (when my written Thai is non existent and my spoken Thai is so shabby) but it made me smile.

Costume clue

Tomorrow the costumes will be worn and then I can forget all about them.

The traumas of the printers doing them wrong, not once but twice, are still fresh in my head. As is the person who came to collect their costume who wasn’t on my list. (We’d had an extra one printed ‘just in case’ and I’d made an extra hat because ‘thirteen is unlucky’ but I still get the hot and cold shivers when I think of how close we came to not having enough costumes.) I’m vowing never to do it again - until the pain wears off - and I find myself volunteering for it all over again this time next year…

I can’t unveil yet, but I’m going to give you a clue.

I did have my toenails painted as part of the theme and I took a picture to show you, but honestly, when I saw the photo… uncooked pork sausages came to mind and I decided not to put you through it.

So you’ll have to do with this. Note: I haven’t been at Photoshop again.

And some of the costumes...

Pratunam Pussy Cats

Pratunam Market is where the ladyboys get their costumes made. I was looking for feathers... for the Melbourne Cup.

I was meant to be shopping but I got distracted.

The bottom cat is my favourite; he's finished his bowl of soup and he was so full, he just couldn't move too far... Oh, here looks like a good place to sleep.

Which one is your favourite?

Take a deep breath: following on from Saturday

I’ve heard it said that Sampeng Lane is half a mile and I’ve also heard one and a quarter mile. It doesn’t really matter how long it is because it feels like five miles and you’ll be good for nothing by the end of it.

I do absolutely love Sampeng Lane – it’s a must-go to for anyone who enjoys shopping but it’s nicest when you’re there for a browse rather than something you must find. I could have scoured other parts of Bangkok for the items for our Melbourne Cup costume and not find them. I’d waste two days looking so I figured I might as well go straight to Sampeng Lane. If Chinatown doesn’t have it, it’s probably not available.

It’s a bit of a nightmare to get to. There are various routes; the one I take (not the river) is to go by underground to Hua Lampong and take a taxi to the far end of Sampeng – the Pahurat Indian Cloth market end. Hua Lampong is a train station from which naïve backpackers and tourists emerge regularly and the taxi rank here seems to attract the less honest taxi drivers. This is not the same for most of Bangkok.

Sampeng is a long lane of shops facing each other that in some ways puts me in mind of medieval England, where people on a top floor could lean out and shake the hands of people in the opposite building. The pathway is maybe a meter or so wide because goods spill out on the walk way to entice us in. Mobile food hawkers sell their wares; motorbikes, mopeds and hand carts laden with goods weave in and out of the people.

Sadly for me, there isn’t a Starbucks half way along.

Uh Oh: what have I let myself in for?

To say ‘Melbourne Cup is a horse race’ is probably a bit like saying ‘Shakespeare was a writer.’ I don’t mean to enrage any Australian readers (*waves*) I just happen to think horses are for riding and not watching… However, that doesn’t stop me from booking a place at the Anzwg (Australian and New Zealand Women’s Group) organised Melbourne Cup each November.

I used to go to point-to-points when I lived in Kent. It’s a form of amateur horse racing over fences for hunters but I’m only a teensy bit ashamed to say that for me it was a social event: beer tents and flirting with boys (it was a long time ago.) I rarely saw a horse.

I’m sorry; I know I’m a disgrace. As I say I like horses enormously, I just prefer riding them to watching them run.

Melbourne Cup is a bit like Ascot – that’s how seriously it’s taken – except I don’t think bizarre costumes are ever worn at Ascot (unless you count some of those outfits!) For Melbourne Cup, everyone dresses up either in formal race attire or in fantastic costumes. I think this year is my fourth time. I’ve always gone with the BWG and most years a costume theme is organised but I don’t take part in costumes. I make them; I don’t wear them. (Shhh: This is because I don’t like anyone looking at me!)

However, last week I found myself sitting next to costume queen, CD, and we cooked up an idea for a team costume. And now it’s happening and because I’m helping to organize it…I’m going to have to wear it. I hadn't even had a drink when I agreed to it!

Take a deep breath: yesterday I went to Sampeng Lane in Chinatown to source materials…

I don't bake...part two

Yesterday I said that I would post Daughter on World Book Day 2004.

Here she is: two pictures for her as I loved the attitude in the close up shot.

She was Medusa.

Now I think you can see why the solicitor woman told me I took it a bit too seriously! You’d think I was in the Hollywood films the time I took concocting these costumes.

I don't bake...

Bookworm costume

... but I do make costumes. The children know that they can ask to be anything and I will huff and puff and grumble about time and then usually I will do it. But, if I can't, my Mum or my Dad can and will. That is one reason why my parents are so fantastic.

This is Son as 'Bookworm' for World Book Day 2004.

That year, I rather surpassed myself. Both Son and Daughter looked spectacular, (Daughter tomorrow) and another mother passed me in the playground, and said: 'You've got too much time on your hands...'

I was devastated; I could've cried. She was a solicitor - I am impressed because she had a real, grown up career and she baked her daughter's birthday cakes, while I didn't have a job, I just went to art college. I could make costumes but not cakes and so I bought mine from Tesco or M&S. I reckoned we were pretty even on the making front but she'd reached the finished line on careers before I'd even heard the starter pistol.

Anyway, sorry for the 'me me me, aren't I clever' post but I'm writing you know, and can't think of anything else to post.

Halloween's here

Bangkok prepares for Halloween 2008

One of my favourite costumes: Son on Halloween 2006 (I thought it was last year but my records say not).

We gave untold small children in our condo nightmares that year.