Leon is now one year and three months old, and I am very glad to tell you that he is already displaying signs of being every bit as slippery as his Father! Yesterday Nuth bought some snacks from a food cart that comes by the house now and then; she bought some BBQ chicken for Ball (her 10 year old Son from her first marriage) and some lua kheen (kind of deep fried fish dough balls) for Leon. So Leon takes one look at his fish balls, then looks at the BBQ chicken and instantly decides he wants that instead. His brother tells him ok, finish eating all your fish balls and you can have some chicken, then turns his back and starts talking to a friend.

Leon looks at his brother, and then carefully hides the fish balls behind him on the chair he is sitting on. He then shouts for his brother to pay attention to him, and opens his mouth to show it’s empty. Ball then says, ok you have finished the fish balls here is some chicken and hands him a drumstick. Leon eats the chicken, and by the time he is done with it Ball has finished his chicken also. Leon then looks his brother right in the eye, reaches behind his back, grabs a fish ball and stuffs it in his mouth, laughing at his brother all the time! I was so proud of him!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was going out to the village to attend a celebration that is specific to the region of Thailand in which I live. The entire village spent all day cooking food, to be left for the ghosts of dead family members to eat, complete with beer, whiskey and bottles of coke. Of course, as expected the ghosts didn’t actually eat much of it, so around midnight we had the chance to eat all the left overs!

This is the spread that Nuth’s family prepared in their house (every house in the village did the same), when you consider that this represents the kind of food they can seldom afford to cook for themselves, then it becomes apparent just how seriously they take their dead relatives. My particular favourite was the bowl of tiny fried fish, very tasty!

It’s Nuth’s birthday in a few days, so last week I asked her what she wanted as a birthday present. She said she didn’t know and would think about it. I thought she would come back to me and say a bracelet or something; she had also been making exciting noises about these little electric scooter things they are selling in the local supermarket, so I figured jewellery or one of these.

Eventually she calls me up and says hey I know what I want for my birthday, so I ask her what, and she says… two cows…

I really was not expecting this answer! So, anyway today we went and bought the two cows and they are now happily in her father’s old cow shed. I think this is possibly the strangest birthday present I have ever given somebody.

I’m looking at plane tickets today, and am seriously thinking about jumping on a plane three months early. My mother has been ill for many years, but she seems to be getting worse a lot quicker now. Only a couple of weeks ago she had an accident, fell out of bed and broke her hip, she was rushed to hospital for an emergency hip replacement.

Yesterday my step sister let me know that she is back in hospital with an infection in her gallbladder and they are going to remove it, so she will have had surgery twice this month for two separate things. I haven’t been back to the UK for a couple of years, I think I should go and visit her.