The fridge’s brokeness has got me more than slightly miffed. Apart from the car, and the baby, that fridge is the most expensive thing we own, and in all its shining stainless steel glory is testament to how far we’ve come. In fridge terms it is a victory monument, and the fact that it has given up the ghost after one short season, and now sits brooding in all its gleaming expensiveness in the bar is highly depressing.

On our opening day eighteen months ago, we had no refrigeration of any kind at all. We had blagged a cheap industrial sized fridge off a friend for a knockdown price and when on opening day we hefted it off the truck we discovered two things. One, it didn’t fit in the kitchen door, and two it didn’t work.

Cue frantic calls to fridge man who had to be enticed with some particularly fine expletives to make the treacherous journey to the back of beyond to fix it. Cue large scale conversations about knocking down of walls, ripping out of doors etc (which are all cheaper options than buying a new fridge in this topsy turvy country we call home).

To cut a long story short, we opened the restaurant by the skin of our teeth with large plastic ice boxes borrowed from friends stashed everywhere desperately chilling beer. When push came to shove we even converted cardboard boxes into coolers by filling them first with bin bags and then with ice – a handy American portable cooler trick, gleaned from knowledge of the great american sport of tailgaiting (getting pissed sitting on the tailgate of your truck). To be honest it was not the highly polished and professional look that we had been aiming for, but as I have had thrashed into me over the last two years: what the hell is?

Once the behemouth of a fridge was fixed we were able to use it for the highly creative tasks of storing food and beer. Unfortunately due to the general occurrence of Thai time, and lack of good ideas about how to achieve it, it remained outside the kitchen for another six months.

This was most difficult on Shrimp’s poor younger sister Sao, who, when an order was placed had to slip slide across the treacherous ice rink of a wet kitchen floor, charge outside the kitchen, stand on a rubber pad, grab the handles with cloths (again to avoid electrocution, this fridge had issues too) and remove the food.

Unfortunately due to the complete lack of a bar fridge she also had to repeat this process anytime anyone placed a beer order, and at parties, poor valiant Sao would remain at the ordering hatch until dawn, just waiting to begin her beer charge should anyone of the remaining dribbling drunkards fancy a refreshment.

After about six months, with the aid of six men, a sledge hammer, some corrugated metal, a pulley, and after removing all the doors and screws, and with a hefty dollop of Thai ingenuity we did manage to get the beast into the kitchen. Where it has sat ever since, having become the bane of my life in its finickityness: constantly freezing stuff you’d never want to freeze, like salad, and refusing to freeze stuff you’d always want frozen like meat. I probably shouldn’t slag it off or it will die on me too, and even in all its drippy/icey, energy inefficientness, like many things in my life, I don’t know what I’d do without it.

When our generous benefactors visited us to survey the riskiness of their investment they spotted the bar fridge issue as the crux of the matter and kindly relieved me of my misery by lending us the cash to buy one. This was one of the greatest reliefs of my life, releasing me as it did from endless time spent daydreaming and fantasizing about refrigeration.

But as always the story did not end there, we went over to Samui to buy our second baby, and spent agonizing hours choosing the over priced new addition to our family, in the end we settled on a model that was ever so slightly too large, and a bit more expensive but had vastly more space and a hardcore freezer (yippee).

Once the long arduous process of hefting the monster onto boats and trucks and finessing it in the back of a pick up over the diabolical mountainous jungle track we discovered two things, one it was two long, and two it was too tall and you couldn’t remove the legs as the salesperson had promised.

Cue long discussions involving most of the village about smashing down countertops, removing structural pillars and demolishing reinforced concrete to get the bugger into place. Which we finally did, putting an end to our refrigeration nightmare and making us feel like shiny, stainless steel professionals. Until it decided to pack it in that is.

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1. Plugging the Dam Again

Today was a good day. I think. Or if not perhaps a good day then at least one of note, one where we managed to make baby steps towards achieving something. I think. Or perhaps if not actually achieving something then at least managing to keep my finger plugging the hole in the dam and staving off disaster for at least twenty four more hours.

Here is the main pseudo-achievement/finger plugging milestone of the day. We are open. Despite arriving to no water, no electric, no food, broken fridges, no staff and general monsoon sogginess, we are open for business.

Bad news, the only business we did was locals, all of whose beautiful friendly faces I am delighted to see and welcome as my friends, I hate that the cynic in me means that the joy I have in seeing my friends again is tempered by the awareness that all our money is spent on stock and all the locals are currently drinking that stock, on tab; which means tomorrow we will have even less cash than we do right now, and less stock and no money at all to pay for the beer they are drinking right now, which is on tick from the small shop.

In the morning my worst fears are confirmed as there is absolutely no money in the cash box, so we didn’t even make enough to buy the valve for the water pump today, or even the gasoline to drive to town to buy the valve we don’t have the money for. Which means how long without running water? and begs one of life’s eternal questions: How long can a person wash up in a bucket and pretend to run a bar with no way to clean glasses?

Crab has done a bunk apparently. This is not so unusual, she is known to abscond without warning, usually at critical times for the business. Like last year when our main investor was coming to inspect the black hole into which his money has disappeared.

Oh, and the night we closed for the season, when I was left to cook for a restaurant full of people entirely alone. And not forgetting the night I arrived back from giving birth in the UK, when I got in from three days of traveling and went straight into the kitchen, frying fish with a four week old newborn clutched in my arms.

My mum jokes that they don’t make spatter guards for babies, I think I would find it funnier if my baby wasn’t actually in danger in a Thai kitchen most of the time.

Anyway this time, again critical night – opening for the season, can’t do any Thai food, or about half the menu alone- there is really something up. I know there’s some sort of fight going on with Shrimp, she’s been complaining about her eyes, which is a sure indicator of intention to quit.

Shrimp’s being very cagey about what’s actually going on, and as usual I am getting the inscrutable, and totally useless Thai answer for everything: maybe yes, maybe no. This usually means worst case scenario, but the person is hoping they wont ever have to actually tell you that.

So I’m prepped and ready to lose my best asset the indefatigable Crab. I am sorely tempted to beg, don’t leave me Crab, please. Don’t surrender me to this sinking ship of blocked drains, broken pipes, water shortages, non-flushing toilets, electrifying fridges and baby death traps. Stay, please, only your Massaman curry can save us.

Actually I am glad to report the fridge is no longer a death trap, by some miracle of Thai electrics it has been earthed, and has stopped hurling people across the bar. This welcome respite from death by electrocution is only slightly negated by the fact that it has stopped working completely, and is duly compensated for by the fact that now the toaster oven has started electrocuting people instead. Oh well, you can’t have everything I suppose.

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