Life seems amazingly tranquil by comparison with other years. We are not rushing anywhere. The house project continues at a leisurely pace. E goes to school. The
Radio Station prospers. Reading my tortuous reports of other Januaries, one can only suppose they have helped write things into stupor! Though the accounts of other Januaries have proved a reminder of things forgotten. In 2005 K’s sister went to see the witch doctor who said she would not live long with her ‘husband’ and never get to buy the house in Korat. As of now all come true..so K is keen on his prophecies of further daughters!! In 2004 we sat and gazed at the sea in Pen Llyn and in 2003 wre so consumed with Elodie’s problems we scarcely thought.
This year we have assuaged the ghosts of France, and some other places, and no longer find ourselves consumed with a desire to be there, or indeed in other places.
Of course there are always demons in the cupboard!..Discovered I could buy a seaside estate in The Pelopponese…why not? I think not.!
What really strikes me is how easy it is to forget and thus how much I have forgotten. Even reading what I wrote last January reminded me that without it having been written I would have forgotten most of what was going on, and certainly would not have remembered when it was happening. When I say this to K, who forgets nothing, misses nothing, she looks pityingly at me and ruffles what passes for hair. It must be age? Though I suspect more likely idleness. I notice a great difference from the days when I noticed everything, missed nothing. I don’t miss much now, I just forget about it as it seems unimportant; except when it relates to E or R.
R and A are skiing in Val Thorens. I suppose he is gliding on snow rather than grass!
They rang me to tell me that R had ‘set fire to himself’, which is, I suppose, one way of seeing in the New Year
Some idiots have decided to fill BKK with bombs. It would be a great shame if the troubles of the world came here. Who would do that? Taksin? Possibly. Islamists? Does not seem likely? Will we ever know? Lingeringly awful pictures of blood on the streets and bits of people. Will probably have to be circumspect in the airport and on Samui….
New Year may have been cancelled in BKK, certainly not here where another ear splitting cacophony has been in progress, as usual. K went to an alumni fest at school; seems they spent most of the evening sending SMS messages to each other.
Tonight the ‘Police’ have sanctioned a disco in J’s hotel. Presumably because they have been a. Invited and b. Provided with bottles of Chivas. I shall tell you J’s story in a while!
But I look back. It has been a year when I wrote very little. I am not sure why. Maybe just consumed with daily life. Though, of course, we have had another medically dramatic year with the operations at Moorfields on Elodie’s eyes. Not a great success in our opinion-though improved. Time may well tell.
We spent far too much time on Byron’s book and some more on the Fulmar ‘Film of the Book’. The book is pretty good and may well help in the humanising or de-demonising of RS. The film a curate’s egg, appropriately enough. Too little time; though amusing to go back to Manafon in the pouring rain. Still trout and kingfishers, though, in mid winter, hardly any echoes of that upland summer idyll!
E’s going to school and coming home speaking Welsh probably the most significant thing! She sits and counts in 4 languages, much to her satisfaction! The school is wonderful and I have to retract all my reservations about her going to school there-well at this age. Later who knows? She misses it and her friends dreadfully and for a long while refused to go back to school here on the basis that it was, by comparison, quite accurately, boring! However the prospect of dancing got her there. She has been besotted with Angelina Ballerina, and her own tutu and leotard are not often removed.
And of course I am a princess and Snow White
Anyway enough of all these festivities. Time for sleep with the 'Teddy Dog'
