Yo Gary! This is the Xmas email I sent to people with a little add-on about how you are, whether you are causing havoc, enjoying your bed baths etc etc... Mr Westhenry, official spokesman for Jones Jones Calling Dr Jones, has now informed me that your hip bone has been reconnected with your knee bone and your brain has been reconnected with the incredible force and power of the Interweb of Ideas. HOORAY!
I have a little (well, technically it is rather large and no it is not a Ladyboy sorry) present for you to make your stay in hospital a little brighter for you and a little more painful for everyone else...plan to send it back with the Pwa (though given that the CIA have her luggage from the Carribean perhaps I should get Mum to be in charge of my stuff!) because they're coming out soon and it'll probably get to you quicker than if I snail-mailed it....unless Pwa DOES get detained by authorities...
How are you feeling? Are you being given lots of free prescription highsahemimeanmedication? If they are being stingy I can try to get some Valium for you...plan to bring all the prescription meds I can get my hands on back because most of them are available over the counter here...
Having said that may not have enough money left by the time I leave to stock up - am planning to do a massage course. This is good news for you because I will obviously need people to practise on which means plenty of free massages for friends who will then out of gratitude and politeness pass my business card on to other people so I can make money from my new skill (ps if any plans of the pimping variety are popping into ones head banish them and fuck off!) though I will have to be careful how I word said business card - Thai massage does have certain euphemisms and I really don't want to end up at the door of some balding man who resembles a diseased egg and is expecting some tiny little Thai girl to come and massage his bollocks!
One more thing...Now I really do feel the utmost sympathy for you, have heard from friends and the Echo what happend, but, given especially who accompanied you on your fateful heroic deed, was there, is there not the possibility that you were planning to have a delicious roast leg of venison, followed perhaps by a venison stew, in the very near future, had monstrous machines then not decided to trample you? If not I am very dissapointed that you were planning to pass up the opportunity of such fresh, and delicious meat and shame on you, but if that was the plan then at least you were injured in the pursuit of a fine piece of meat...!
How are you dealing with the lack of weed? This has been bothering me for some time now (both my lack of weed and the questions over how you would be dealing with the lack of yours) and what about normal cigarrettes? Alcohol? Are the doctors meds making up for this? And how was the festive period?
Oh Gary, I miss you, though I missed you before you were injured, just sos you know, life seems horribly saner without you around. Wierd. Still, there'll be a nine months of random of our-faces-ness with Mel to catch up on upon my return. Wow, think of the fun we can have with drugs, you, a wheelchair and the present I have for you (thought you won't know what that is until you get it...!!)
Well, seeinng as you will now have as much spare email time as me how about being email-pals? Or we could just have some kind of poke war on FB...whatever, just keep in touch...withreality....with me...with any dodgy doctors who will dole out prescription meds when they perhaps shouldn't that you happen to meet...take car little injured inglishman me love you long time xxxxxx
P.S What was Xmas in hospital like? I;ve done easter before and we got so much free chocolate...did Santa take advantage of your inability to run away and come down your chimney? x
Hello...hope everyone has had a great Christmas and is fit to burst with mulled wine, turkey and Christmas Pudding!
Christmas over here has been...interesting...
Coming up to Christmas.
The run up was pretty fun. Meredith and I taught the girls how to make Advent Calendars (we put it down as 'a lesson on Anglo-American culture and instruction following but really it was just to explain the afternoon I spent making an Advent calendar for Linda!) Anyway, they seemed to enjoy it as they love making things and drawing, and luckily the cock up the copy-print room made with the sheets (printed the calendar sqaure sheets double sided) didn't cause too many problems. I also spent some time helping Anns class make mini Christmas trees, then made a bigger version for my room (THE most pitiful Christmas display EVER!) and then on the thursday we had no lessons. Naturally we used this to catch up on important stuff - we sat in the comfy film room and watched the entire first series of 'Greys Anatomy'! And halfway through retired to Big Mamas for a Christmas lunch complete with crackers (thanks Mum!).
The Last Day of Term.
It kicked off properly on the last day of term, the 21st, when we had to get up at 5am to go to Wattana Church for the Candlelit Service...it was beautiful...we sang traditional Christmas songs (though I definitely have issues with the US version of 'O Little Town' - doesn't have the same bouncy happy tune as ours) and were treated to a step-by-step Nativity, only there were no tea toels in sight and the costumes were so impressive we may as well have been in Israel, then we lit our candles and all proceeded down the aisle with them until 200 people had emerged out into a Bangkok Sunrise with sleepy eyes (well, I had sleepy eyes!) and big smiles.
Afterwards Ajarn Waree, Linda, Ann, Robin, Meredith and I went to Honey Hotel (the charming little place where farang go to have sex with Thai girls. Nice.) because, despite the aforementioned seediness, it is close to school and the food is brilliant.
Once our appetites had been satisfied we trundled back to school to sleep until the whole school staff party at 11. The party, which was held in the Nelson Hayes Memorial Hall (no idea who he is!) in Kindergarten, was like no other staff party I have ever been to.
We were seated 8 to a table facing the stage and then preceeded the first in a long, long line of dishes to grace our table...whole fishes, spring rolls, deep fried shrimp with some kind of orabge sauce that looked strangely like cheese...sticky rice and mango...the list goes on. And on and on and on! Apparently everyone puts on weight in their first year at Wattana. Wonder why?
While eating we were treated to ANOTHER two hour chruch service...I'd kind of had all the God I could take for one morning and this time it was all in Thai and I find it hard enough to sing in English! Luckily the church service soon became a show puton by teachers from various departments. Some had clearly been forced into dressing up in shiny tin foil and singing, but the really scary ones were the ones who very clearly wanted to be there. One of the teachers from our office, Nina, sang and she was amazing, I didn't even recognise her when I went up to give her some money from Ajarn Waree! All this was accompanied by some kind of biblical slide show on big screens to either side of the stage. Not the tasteful kind either. Very CCT.
This was all pretty fun but four things made it the best, if weirdest, party ever.
1) The clothes. The Thai teachers have never heard the 'red and green should never be seen' advice. Phew! There were some crazy concoctions invloving red and green tartanat it's very worst, but the peice de resistance was Ajarn Pumaha (the Principle). She appeared, to allintents and purposes, to be masquerading as a Christmas tree. Fuzzy green suit with frills. This alone wasn't too bad, but she had actually attached baubles to the jacket with paper clips. Some lines shoud lust never be crossed. One wonders why she didn't just go all out and wear a great big star on her head?
2) Jaew, on of the fiercest (if you are a pupil, think slapping round the back of the head etc...) teachers in the office, but also one of the lovliest (if you are a teacher!) was one of the MC's for the do. Only Jiraporn had named her Jennifer. No one knows why. only that in the state we were in (sleep deprived) it seemed hilariously funny and I think she may well be known as Jennifer for a long time to come...
3) Crazy Lady. No one is exactly sure who she is, or how she ended up in the Nelson Ahyes Hall for the Christmas party, but my God was she entertaining. She was sat in the VIP seats at the front so we presumed she was an Alumni, though she hardly carried herself like a Wattana girl. Perhaps she was drunk, though how we don't know seeing as Wattana is very much a dry campus, but she was really going for it - joining the performers, geting into every photo and evidently offending everyone else at the top table as over the four hours (after which ?I left) she slowly drove everyone away from her table, then the one next to it and so on and so forth, until even the traffic cops table got up to presumably take their chances with the crazy bangkok traffic. p[resumably this seemed a safer option!
And 4) The Gardener.
A little preface is needed for this chapter. You must understand that Wattana, as well as being an enormous school with perfectly kept grounds requiring a plathora of grounds staff, is also a very religious school. The girls are brought up to be the creme de la creme of Thai society, to get married and be good wives, or to go to university and become good employees. There are strict rules for codes of behaviour, even among the teachers, which is what makes this next tale so surprising...
After all of the teachers who so desired had 'enterained' us we assumed the show would be over. Oh no. The final act was easily the best. The lights dimmed, the music started, she walked onto the stage in a stunning shimmiring gown of green, six-inch stilettos, massive hair, then she opened her mouth and began to sing. 'I Will Survive'. 'She' was the gardener.
Now I expected to see ladyboys in Bangkok. I expected drag shows and godd old Gloria Gaynor. But I did not expect it at the Wattana Christmas Party.
Well, 'Gloria' was fantastic, she had a standing ovation and she certainly made my day!
The Alcohol Ban.
Because of the political elections that were going on over Chirstmas alcohol was banned for the two weekends preceeding Christmas - though how much differenc it could make I don't know. For one, who would vote drunk (Oh yeah, I forgot Maggie Thacther got elected. That explains it) and secondly whats stopping people doing what we did and stocking up before hand. Anyway, crazy rule. I was hoping to catch some farang in Beer Garden getting pissed when the strongest drink on the menu was coffee, but, unfotunately, 'banned' really meant 'anywhere that isn't 'in' with the police, and most places were either openly serving beer or else it was "I'll have a (wink wink) diet coke"
The Christmas Spirit Begins to Flow.
After the (insane) party I hurried to my room to get my stuff ready for the pre Christmas Christmas I was having at Anns, with her, Linda and Ajarn Waree. We decided to call it 'The Vodka-infused Christmas', inspired by the vodka cookbook (Cheers Greenhill Gang!). The plan was to ensure that everything that passed our lips had vodka in it, be it solid, liquid or gas.
Ann and I cooked Vodka chicken with veg, and we sat down at her coffe table with the crackers (a few crackers go a long way) and got drunkenly full....then came present time. We took it in turns so we could get photos, and my face when I opened the Harry Potter cusion from Ann was a picture - I think I was a bit sloshed and I thought she had wrapped up the one she had! And apparently my exitement over a Parker Pen and notebook was hilarious...Linda got me a massive bag full of lush beauty products- I think she may have held up the Lancome counter at gunpoint - and an MP3 player-cum-camera-radio because, and I quote, it was "driving [her] crazy watching me try to hold together the other one to make it work" (my other one still works but requires a massive amount of pressure on all its points for about 20 minutes to get it to switch on)!
And there were lots of laughts when Ajarn Waree opened the book I had spent all week making...a hand-made, Japanese bound story about a Limestone Cowboy who wants a football pitch. Basically we have been keeping a list of all the words I pronounce in such a way as to make her laugh whenever I say them (football, pond, plan, roses, land to name but a few) and I turned those into a story using the Limestone Cowboy (Rhinestone Cowboy as sung by the Thai Arun Neville who sings at our restaurant for special occasions!)
Anyway, needless to say we were all passed out to the GOblet of Fire by about 10 (though it felt more like 2am) so we settled down to bed.
The next morning we had (vodka) orange juice for breakfast with Russian Toast - though I seem to have trouble measuring vodka and the toast on it's own had us feeling tipsy which led to more dozing - well, thats what Christmas is for, right?
The Bad Buffet.
On Christmas eve eve I met up with Linda and Pat, an ex-pupil, to stay at Pats while her Dad was out of town (their place was broken into recently, and the jewellry Pat inherited from her mother stolen and they are still pretty spooked about it).
Pat picked us up at Ratchadamri MRT station (bizarrely there is a check-in point here for Thai Air) and we went first to Crystal, a newly opened US style Mall, very posh, and had lunch at S&P before a spot of grocery shopping and about an hour in a pet shop debating whether Pats Dad would be angry, or really angry if we brought Pat a kitten. In the end we decided on really angry and I left her and Linda to play with kitty while I had my feet attacked by a really cute ball of fluff that galloped rather than ran...after a massive internal struggle I decided it was a bad plan to smuggle it home. It would be to big to put under a hat by the time I leave.
After Crystal we went back to Pats to organise our cinema outing was sod all on, but we managed to find an emporer cinema (beds and blankets) showing National treasure, via a market with some of the scariest mannikins I have seen yet (Bangkok is full of them and they scare the hell out of me!) and a department store where I finally had my glasses fixed (they had been held together with a bright yellow paper clip for weeks). The opticians were great. Judging by the amount of custom they had they were just pleased to have something to do, and the fixed and polished them on the spot and for free.
So, with shiny new vision for me we headed up to the cinema. Imagine our joy when we discovered that our tickets came with a free buffet. We loaded ourselves with mini spag bol, mini pizza, mini tiramisu and other mini-foods, and drank free drinks before being shown into the cinema and given our free popcorn. The lights dimmed. The show started. Pretty good film, worth watching. Then, halfway through, the cramps started. I assumed it was overeating. By the time the film finished I felt pretty rough but just put it down to tiredness. But no, Linda felt the same. Suddenly a ran, faster than I ever have before (oh, if my PE teachers could see me now!) and the rest, as they say, is history. Needless to say Linda and I both plan to steer well clear of free buffets in future. SOme things really are too good to be true...
Christmas Eve.
I went back to school on Christmas Eve to do do some last minute marking and put my affairs in order before Vietnam (ie. put stuff on my MP3, check my emails, pack) before meeting Linda in the Westin (the mega-posh hotel at the end of the Soi) for a Christmas Eve buffet (it's OK, this one was about as far from free as you could get!). Oh God. For the second time in as many days I was sick from food, only this time in a good way. There was everything imaginable in a christmas feast, plus more. Inch-thick gingerbread topped with duck liver and foi-gras terrine, turkey, goose, duck, beef, pork, ham, and not just all the trimmings but the whole bloody ream! There was an entire wheel of brie (half of which I smuggled into my handbag!), five different types pf fish, pasta, pizza, and (I counted) twenty two different desserts including stolen, christmas pudding, chestnut ice cream and gateaux, cheesecakes and pies in a rainbopw of different flavours. I kept checking my pulse, so sure was I that I had died and gone to heaven. Or hell. Who cares, I had reached Nirvana!
This veritable feast was accompanied by carols sung by little children, Father Christmas and clown, and there were even more crackers - which perplexed the Thai women on the table next to us!
All in all I think this spread came as close as possible to rivalling the Kelsall & Kelsall Christmas nosh that I'm used to...I'm drooling just thinking about the gingerbread...who knew that would be such a good combination?
We left in severe pain, but very satisfied, and with oodles of class no doubt brought on by a certain little Chilean number I sat side-saddle on the motorbike up the soi, ciggarette in one hand handbag in the other.
Well, thats all folks...the next day I left for Vietnam and that is a whole other story which will have to wait as I am desperate for a bath (I have only had one bath since I got here. One bath in four months. One.) and need to get a lighter that works goddamnit!
Stephen, Loretta, Mr Hemingwah and Miss Lizzie - thank you for the Christmas email, nearly choked on my ciggarette with laughter! Kev should be awarded an ICT GCSE for his email prowess and I loved the varying degrees of drunkeness - very festive! And yes, my 'and is well and truly on my 'apenny!
What's the heads up with Gary? Did his surgery go well? Is he now enjoying the delights of the bedbath and causing havoc for the nurses? Send him my love when you next see him and I'll try to send something soon, or send something home with ma famille in January xxx
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