Haven’t actually got you a present as yet, but will no doubt have something awaiting you when you get back.

I trust that you are taking it easy today and stearing well clear of all things bucket-shaped.

Ma forgot to mention that the wind was gusting at about 45Knots (Force 8 ) when Dod got the kite up and would no doubt have gained a large amount of unwanted air if he’d held on to the bar. Good test of the kite’s safety system I say.

Dear Julio,

Happy Birthday!

I imagine that you are at a road side cafe sipping a hot chocolate, munching on a baguette and cheese and listening to tales of the last war; or doing a boat tour round Ha Long Bay. Anyhow, have a nice day!

Here, Spring came last month with hot days; the blue tits, chaffinches and robins are in a jolly mood, singing and flitting from one tree to another. The primroses, daffodils, snowdrops and even bluebells are out, giving a bit of life to the sleepy garden. I am frantically cleaning the house, cupboards, windows, etc, now that I have more or less got rid of my cold. Nicky cut a lot of the hedges, lowering them by by a good threee metres. He was like a big machine cutting those enormous branches and piling them on the lawn. There was such an enormous amount that we had to burn it in the end. The bay leaves crackled and exploded like fireworks due to their oil content so the flames were leaping several feet into the air.

Today a gale is blowing from the North bringing the temperature down from 15c to 8c; but it won’t last, I don’t think. Nicky and Olivier and I went to the beach to fly the kite but the wind tore it from their grasp.

It’s all quiet here without Tanya and Geofff and Rio. They were having a good time in Seychelles until today. Tanya has got Chitigunia (headache, joint pain, unable to walk). Oh dear! There is nothing one can do: it lasts 3 to 5 days.

There is a new addition to the family. Aurelia had a boy last night called Elliot. Christophe must be very proud.

Thank you so much for your messages.

Love Mama

Mmm. A succession of nights out with a handy ‘bucket’; or a succession of days in without food. Neither appeals much to someone whose idea of a big time is shared by Calvin’s dad.

I’m not sure he would have considered diving through flaming hoops ‘character building’, either!

I’m glad you found Ankor Wat ‘suitably impressive’. I feel the same about Chichester Cathedral, which you may have noticed on occasion, going to and fro about the town.

I hope the stuff you filled your buckets with wasn’t like the cheap vodka that is killing people by the score in minor Russian towns and appears to have arrived in Britain:

“Drinkers have been warned to look out for illegal bottles of a vodka that could blind or kill. A bottle of Kremlin Vodka with sixteen times the recommended maximum amount of methanol was found on sale at a shop in Burnley, Lancs. Trading Standards officers fear it is available across the North West and urged consumers to contact them if they come across it. Methanol is a toxic chemical often used in bootleg liquor. Even moderate amounts can kill and initial effects may include drowsiness, inebriation. Delayed symptoms include blindness.”

I didn’t think ‘inebriation’ was unusual when drinking vodka, but blindness would be.

The story I heard was that the Cambodian government are payed hoards of cash not to fix the road by the airline companies. This ensures that rather than take a hellish bus ride Mr Western Tourist feels it necessary to pay for an air ticket. Sneaky. But I suspect that the money you saved was worth the discomfort?

the last week in ko phangan passed in a sort of daze.

the full moon party was a bit crap really. the days before though were lots of fun. that is to say, what i recall of them i would class as a fun of sorts. getting drinks at a bar had now become a bizzare practice, only to be done as a last resort. no, it was the buckets for us. lucy had opted out of the communal bucket sessions prefering beer, so that left Carson and me. not that we were complaining. sangsom had become quite seductive at this point. when properly mixed you could bearly taste the alchohol. we would sit, of and evening, and get roucusly sloshed in the privicy of our room, then, at a precisely timed moment we would unleash ourselves onto the beach.
the beach was a nice stretch of white sand, with glistening water during the day, at night it was lit up by the countless bars along the beachfront and the fire staff/poi blokes who were every where. the bars poured out a solid wall of music, the sands became the massive dancefloor of the biggest club in the world. thousands of people drifted to and fro in various states of intoxication. sometimes we would sit on our balcony of our guesthouse complex, which overlooked the beach, and people watch. picking out the more ludercrous from the crowds of humanity for our amusement.

on the night of the fullmoon we discovered that some enterprising street vender had upgraded the buckets from pidly two pint sized ones to massive ones you would use in some sort of floor mopping operation. it was the work of a moment for us to purchase this monstrocity and pour in a bottle and a half of the good stuff. retiring to the balcony, the night progressed in a faverable fashion. some of our fellow guesthouse users had bought dayglo paint and were painting each other. somehow we got hold of it, and in a trice we had doubed ouselves in garish paint, being somewhat drunk, our artistic ability was slightly impared, and the results were less that pretty. with that it was a matter of moments before i had got a cowboyhat from a minion on the street and Carson, against my advice, had got a police womans hat. thus aquipped we made for the beach. despite all this preperation it was a bit of an anticlimax. non of us had that great a night. there were just too many people. tens of thousands all fried to the tonsils.

plenty of mad stuff going on though.
on a previous evening i recall finding Carson at a perticualy large crowd of people. burrowing through we came to an open circle of sand in front of a bar. across this the barstaff had strung a large flaming hoop. the rules to this game were simple. picking your moment carefully you take a run up position, sip some of your drink, then sprint up to the 4 foot wide hoop and leap, headfirst through the inferno. the barstaff would raise or lower the hoop seemingly at random, and many a fool collided with the hoop sending sparks and flaming debrie cascading onto the sands. we watched the petrol soaked chunks as they continued to burn merrily.

“thats pretty dangerous.” i remarked as i kicked out the nearest flames. Carson took a contamplative sip from his bucket.
“yeah.”
i didn’t have a drink at this point. i vaugly recall hurling my half full bucket from me in a fit of passion earlier in the evening. i was begining to feel this was a mistake.
the staff had taken down the hoop and were squirting it with petrol from washing up liquid bottles. thus refueled it rose again, a majestic burning wheel. billows of heat washed over us.
there was a moment of stillness. visions of my hair flairing alight filled my head. with one hand i took hold of my locks.
“lets go!” i said, charging for the hoop.
no doubt to onlookers, i described a perfect parrabolic curve as i sailed though the air, intersecting with the exact center of the wheel. the flames licked at me but didn’t catch hold. pure serenity, then i landed with a soft thud on the other side. i looked up to see Carson bursting out of the fiery gateway. impossibly he had jumped through with his bucket and not spilled a drop. we rose to general applause. we did it again and again just for the hell of it, and laughed wildly as others took the spills that we avoided. here and there someones foot or a flailing arm would mash into the side of the hoop, their screams drowned out by the happy laughter of the crowd. two fools mistimed their approuch to such an extent that they jumped from both sides of the hoop at the same time, meeting at the hoop in a bone dislocating crunch and a shower of sparks.

good times. good times.

leaving ko phangan, we parted ways with Carson. quite a shame really. he had acompanied us on and off since malaysia. he was heading back to ko lanta and us to bangkok. bangkok was a lot nicer than i thought it would be, but incredibly hot. we spent a few forgetable days there and got a bus to combodia. we had been warned many times not to get a bus to combodia, but for some reason we got a bus. no idea why. it just seemed easy. anyway the road from the border to siem reap is an absurd bit of madness. if you wanted to design the worst, most pot holed, dust bathed road in existance then you would be wise to take the bus to siem reap, and jot down a few notes. hellish.
people told us that cambodia was not that great, but in fact it isn’t too bad. ankor wat, was sutably impressive. and the people seem nice and friendly.

anyhow, next stop vietnam.

juliio