{Just reading back on my life before Joe and Egger arrived. I had been so scared to hire anyone to help, for so long because of cost. But actually it was a false economy, I was working non-stop and getting NOTHING done to forward our business.}

High Speed Trains Crash Faster

The main problem is there are not ten of me – I am full time mother, chef, manager, accountant, landscaper, cleaner, launderer, graphic designer, and marketing department all rolled into one neat (or actually a bit flabby and scruffy) package.

At any one time in the day I am doing one task for one of my roles, and simultaneously thinking about all the tasks that desperately need doing for all the other roles. The result is that I am effective at nothing, inadequately efficient, and thorough rarely. I am also usually moving a warp speed and am a danger to myself and others, case in point the kettle incident yesterday.

Today the day began with the kitchen flooding due to my not putting the pipe for the washing machine out into the drain. Because I was busy feeding and changing the baby while simultaneously hanging the laundry I didn’t notice this until it had gone through its whole cycle.

Result: entire kitchen under three inches of water, me with the baby on one hip, squeegee thing in one hand trying to swoosh water out the door while talking into the phone jammed between my ear and my shoulder about something else entirely. This is not an unusual scenario in this madhouse. Clear Sky will probably grow up thinking that’s how you wash a kitchen floor in fact.

Later on when the baby went to sleep I leapt into action with the aim of completing at least ten tasks during her short nap. First on the list was finishing painting the large banners to advertise our monthly full moon lunacy party next week. Ro had already made a start on the lettering so all I had to do was fill in with blue and orange paints. This I did in record time, brilliant, all good to go, then I picked up the first banner to discover I had painted through onto the floor of the restaurant and the banner was still wet on both sides.

This meant that maneuvering it was a bit tricky but needless to say I didn’t really have time to wait for it to dry. I think the moment when I became wrapped in five metres of cotton and wet paint, which I then had to wrestle with to free myself, daubing pretty much my only paint free clothes in orange paint at the same time, was about the same moment I realized that maybe my step mum was right my time management is poor.

Shrimp came over to see what all the kerfuffle was about and as usual looked at me in exasperation for rushing another job and creating more work by doing so. What winds me up is that he, the master of patience and carefulness seems to think that I rush everything by choice or personal preference.

In my defense my time management skills are poor because there isn’t enough time to go around, or enough of me, or enough resources to buy another me. I am making it my goal to work on delegating effectively this month, and also organizing in advance to reduce my rushing. Will let you know how it goes.

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1. Fraternisation with Refrigeration

What a glorious day today was. I awoke to the smell of warm air and the glow of sunlight for the first time in days.

What a difference the sun makes! I have been valiantly washing everything we own since we got back due to above mentioned smells, today for the first time things felt clean and crispy dry – the smell of clean laundry and sun-baked linen was everywhere around me, and what a welcome relief.

We spent the day as usual, madly trying to catch up on all the damage and refurbishment after the monsoon. But despite all the cement piled around, the buzz of saws, wood dust and hard slog, today the world is a beautiful place to be.

She is literally bopping her little socks off along with the highly dubious tune – and all this without the aid of a TV. Priceless. At the end of the day we have very little money, every week is a struggle to keep our heads above water in the most basic of ways, but we are raising our daughter in beauty and nature and with the love and adoration of both her fully present parents and the help, care and support of an entire village. When it is tough, and other aspects make me weep with exhaustion or worry, I can hold on to this strength.

Nong mail also arrived back from her holidays today, and what a sight for sore eyes is this little angel. No longer a baby, she is fast becoming a wondrous girl-child, quieter, a little more cautious perhaps than in her boisterous, romping babyhood, but with the same gorgeous humour and character present in her eyes.

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1. Kids’ Day

My partner’s name is shrimp. His brothers and sisters are variously named for two kinds of crab and a crayfish. My shrimp insists that he is a tiger shrimp, the biggest variety, and I won’t beg to differ.

In fact the only sibling not named for a crustacean is simply called sister and she married a man called fish, so I guess the saltwater is just destined to flow through the family tree. We live on a small tropical island in the gulf of Thailand, where we have made our home, with our baby girl, Clear Sky and most of my partner’s extended family.

When I first came to Thailand backpacking at the ripe old age of nineteen, I fell in love immediately, with the sparkling ocean, the majestic palms and the spotless white beach and most of all with the spectacularly beautiful people. I had found my idyll, my personal paradise.

Now that the years have rolled by and I have made this place my permanent home the love affair with this beautiful land has continued to bloom, but like any relationship has ripened with age and experience, so my love for it is a little more battle-scarred and my understanding is much deeper, although I will never comprehend the full complexities of this vibrant culture.

I will always be grateful that we start our day with a walk on the beach and a swim in the sparkling ocean, that we have mangoes and rambutans, and mangosteens piled up around us according to season, that my daughter will be raised by a village full of people and learn respect for elders, to share all that she has, and the principles of jai yen (calm heart) as an intrinsic part of her upbringing.

I am less enamoured with the lack of decent healthcare, the chronic pollution problems and widespread use of chemicals that afflict the country, and I will never learn to reconcile the beautiful face of Thailand with the diabolical treatment of Burmese people which is endemic in this culture.

Thailand is a land of many complexities, with two sides: one so beautiful it can take your breath away and the other with a quiet, darkly violent pulse barely visible under the mask of jai yen.

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