Happy Chinese New Year

It's become something of a tradition on my blog to post pictures of celebratory decorations out and about in Bangkok. Or is it a habit?

I don't take the pictures to blog them, I take them because I so love to see the decorations that these big malls produce. (I once harboured the desire to do these kind of displays as a job.) The difference between here and the UK seems to be that here there is still a generous budget for this PR.

These two are taken inside and outside at Siam Paragon Mall.

Kind and Lovely People

While I was writing the doorbell rang.

It was Khun Cherd. My parents were guardians to his son while he was at boarding school in England. Khun Cherd divides his time between Chiang Mai (Thailand’s second city in the north) and Bangkok. His son is back in the UK doing a photography degree. (My parents having Thai students was nothing to do with our coming to Thailand.)

I looked disgusting because I wasn’t expecting visitors. It was a writing day. No make up, old baggy clothes, glasses. My hair was washed, but bad hair days, when I scrape it up and pin it back, are rather tidier than clean washed hair. With clean hair I look like I’m wearing an unwieldy curly mop on my head that’s threatening to eat my face.

He brought me a present which I wanted to show you. The box is made of coconut leaves and the sweet things inside are wrapped individually in another, more papery kind of leaf and garnished with a little bit of raffia. They are called kar-ai-mai (or something) and are black sticky and totally delicious. But aren't they beautifully presented?

He was completely charming, promising to bring a bag for Daughter and green tea for Husband next time he comes to Bangkok. He left me with four phone numbers in case we should ever need help.

My folks

Carol-a Crayon, my friend and partner-in-design, said to me last week ‘you don’t talk about your parents very much…’

I thought about it, and she’s right I don’t talk about them much, but I do think about them. And when I do it’s tinged with sadness and guilt so I keep it in my head.

The simple fact is that I am breaking my Mum’s heart by living in Thailand – or by not living in the UK. I can’t bear to think too hard about them because I know how sad she is about me being so far away and how much she misses me.

(And if I’m honest, it’s not only my Mum.)

I don’t know how my Dad feels because he’s a man in his 70s, and he hasn’t been encouraged to talk about his feelings. I do know that he took his profession extremely seriously, and so did Mum and so they both understand that Husband’s job is the Thing We Have To Consider.

The opportunity to move overseas for a job – and therefore have some support – isn’t offered to everyone all the time. To live in a culture so different from your own it may as well be the moon, is a privilege. It’s not easy to do and I am proud to have adjusted.

Knowing that I’m enjoying this time in my life, but that it is something that makes some of my family and friends unhappy, is very hard to live with. It’s distressing to know that I am wilfully causing someone pain simply by living my life.

Every time we converse, embedded in the conversation is the never asked question: when are you coming home? Those unasked words reverberate around other words, enquiries, and conversations. I hear it in her tones, bouncing between the lines. Sometimes she might ask ‘Are you able to get home for Christmas/Easter/summer?’ She might ask again a couple of weeks later – in the hope that the answer has changed.

And no, she won’t come to us. She won’t fly.

So I’m going to post about my parents; one at a time.

No more blah

You know when you can’t really grumble, but still you feel a bit blue because of a couple of crappy things happening over a day or two? And you know it’s ridiculous to feel like that about those things, but you can’t shake yourself out of it…

And then something(s) happens, and your mood turns in an instant?

No? Oh it’s just me then; I am most fickle.

I have gone from a bit blah to ridiculously cheered up.

First: The lovely Laurie, whose blog I discovered quite recently (I think) through Lane (doggie loving writers) and just instantly loved it (three dog blog) has given me an award: A Big E for Excellent. Thank you Laurie: I am posting it with pride. And I can nominate 10 people to receive the Big E.

Then, after a long afternoon at website where the lovely Andrew solved my many computer problems (though not our internet at home, which Husband is rather worryingly trying to fix as I type!) I picked up my post (real post).

And completely gorgeous Helen sent me some articles for research purposes because we’d been emailing about an article I might be trying to write … anyway, slipped betwixt the card were two packets of Galaxy Minstrels. OH MY GOD: thank you Helen, you lovely woman.

(And, I just have to tell you that Husband has been sweating and a cursing in his head, and I gave him one of my packets of Galaxy Minstrels ... and ... they are magic: two minutes later our secure internet wifi thingy was up and running.)

My ten people are:
Hesitant Scribe, Angie, Yvonne, Jen, Pacha, JonM, Leigh, Carol-a Crayon, Liz, and Liane

Internet Mai Sabai

Sharp eyed folks out there might have seen that my last post was courtesy of my lovely, lovely (have I told you how much I love and adore it?) Blackberry.

That’s because our internet was misbehaving at home. Son had a new game he was subscribing to online, and he’d bought at upgrade, so sod’s law said our internet would fall over and flatly refuse to get up again.

We tried all the usual fixes, of turning it off and on again (this is a very technical IT trick I’ve learned because I’m lucky enough to have Husband who works in IT). Son got cross, whined, blamed everyone, hassled Husband who grumbled and whined back, before pressing the RED (on No Account Press) button that wipes out our internet account. And if you think it’s tough dealing with internet providers in the Western world, you should try it in Thailand! Because my Thai is restricted to ‘Where is the toilet?’ ‘Turn left/right here’ ‘Go straight’ ‘Vegetable/Chicken Fried rice please’ ‘Beautiful’ ‘pain’ ‘not well’ and ‘well, thank you.’ None of which helps much, although I think I could say ‘Internet, mai sabai’ which roughly translates to ‘Internet not well.’

So now, believe it or not, I’m sitting in the foyer of our local hospital because I came to pick up a prescription. They have wifi here … but I can’t stop and visit all my blog friends because I’ve got a website lesson now. Hopefully the internet will be fixed and I'll be around for a cup of tea.

Poor Daughter

Far, far too early for a Saturday, Daughter went off to school yesterday for swimming training. She's been training hard to qualify for a swim competition in Perth, Australia and these time trials were her chance to qualify. Daughter was determined to make the time.

About half past ten in the morning we had a phone call saying Daughter had hit her wrist on the edge of the pool while doing backstroke. They thought it was broken. Because of a big basketball competition in progress at school, one of the hospitals was very conveniently on site. So she was put in an ambulance and Husband was dispatched to meet her at the hospital.

I got myself dressed with plans to get on with some work. I couldn't help thinking of the first time Daughter had broken her arm when she was about four. Her arm was swelling before me, so I rushed her to casualty at High Wycombe. Every time any member of the hospital staff approached her or even came near her, she emitted piercing screams of agony. They can't have been very busy, or perhaps they couldn't put up with her histrionics, because we were rushed through like royalty. She left the proud owner of a cast all ready for signing.

About a week later, her godless parents were staying with us and the children were upstairs playing. Suddenly Daughter appeared at the door with a triumphant expression on her face. She looked like a little elf, in a lime green A-line dress. Her hair was cut in a cross between a bob and pudding bowl as we attempted to keep the regular infestation of nits under control.

My addled brain tried to work out the meaning of the triumph on her face. Until eventually I spotted that she was holding her arm cast in the other hand! The swelling had subsided so much, she'd just slipped it off. Off we went back to the hospital and in no pain at all, we were rewarded with a three hour wait to get her replastered.

So thinking about the last time and worrying about this time I achieved nothing.

Daughter and Husband got back from hospital after lunch. Broken ulna; no gym for THREE MONTHS, two cancelled competitions one of which was Singapore. No swimming for three to four weeks, and then only leg work. No swim competition in Perth because despite trying four times to qualify, her time when she hurt her arm was forty milliseconds off the qualifying time.
Sent via BlackBerry® from AIS

Name and Shame

It's no wonder I'm not getting much done is it?

Look at the state of my desk.

And peek down and notice the stuff under the desk where my legs and feet should be able to stretch out. I'm probably developing DVTs as I type.

Sadly, there's nothing in the Flake tin under the desk.

I'm going to try really hard to clear it all up soon. And then I can come back and post tidy desk pictures.

I wonder what I'll find.


(Daughter came to talk to me after school yesterday. She sat down, peered at my office chair and announced: 'You need to clean your chair. It's got micro-organisms growing on it.')