Sunset and the English Rose
Day 799
While I was visiting my 2nd Bangkok Home, Jac was having her own adventures. And in between these, we had a lovely time meeting up with Andy.
I had another visit to what seems like my 2nd home – Bangkok Hospital; this time to receive my Medical Certificate for Air Travel. After the nurse checked me over and the Doctor prodded me and listened to my heart and movement in my intestines, I passed with flying colours (excuse the pun).
I must say that it’s disappointing to see so much one-use plastic. Everywhere there are single plastic cups freely given out to visitors and staff. A nice touch, but not for the planet.
I got back to our empty apartment. My sister, Jac had brought with her Fay's tiny box with daily “Thoughts on Creativity”, and today the quote from Gerald Brenan read: “It is by sitting down to write every morning that one becomes a writer”. That was rather apt as I was returning to relax and write my blog for the last two days called “Three GUTs and the Safe Sex Diner”. The quote must have inspired me as afterwards my good buddy Eve wrote “Fantastic Post!!”
Meanwhile, Tim had taken Jac to Jim Thompson House Museum (See Day 776). With just a few days here, we wanted her to visit and experience some nice places.
Like us, she loved the sereneness of the garden, the history of Jim Thompson and creating his home and also learnt how silk is made. Despite the shade of the garden, Jac needed to recuperate from Bangkok’s oppressive heat and sensibly had a bit of a lie down before a nice cup of tea in the cafe.
They returned to the apartment just as I was walking out. We were going back to the Cabbage and Condom Restaurant, this time to meet Andy.
I met Andy over four years ago when I was running a week’s Coaching workshop for the Armed Forces in Germany. The welfare workers on the course, Andy being one of them, were incredible people, supporting soldiers and their families through issues that usually a fully trained and often specialised counsellor would take on. It was one of my favourite pieces of work, teaching them skills such as clean-language and deep listening, and facilitating coaching sessions. They all were such a warm, friendly, yet highly professional and dedicated bunch of people. The weeks with various groups was a journey for us all, but we always ended up having much laughter.
After a few minutes, Andy joined us. It was lovely to sit back and watch Tim and Jac quiz him on his career in the Forces and fascinating to hear about Andy’s time in Bangkok, now that he has left the Army life.
He is such a great storyteller and had us in fits of giggles when he was sharing some of his antics. And if it weren’t for Facebook, we probably wouldn’t have kept in touch. Well done Facebook, you did it again!
Time was ticking, and I needed to get back to my 2nd home – yes, another trip to Bangkok Hospital, this time to see my surgeon. Tim joined me, and our 30-minute journey doubled in time, well, it was Friday evening in the city. My surgeon went through the Pathology report with sentences such as “The serosa is partly covered with exudate”. The joys of google meant that Tim had already deciphered what this meant in layman’s terms.
He prodded me about a bit and with tweezers, swiftly pulled off the gauze from my three keyhole wounds. The upshot is that my surgeon was very pleased with the results.
We returned to our apartment where Jac chortled as she reencountered her time while we were away. She went to the rooftop swimming pool to relax and started chatting with a lady from Shanghai. The sun was setting, so Jac began to take a couple of photos of the deep orange sky, then this lady decided to join in, and insisted that Jac posed for a multitude of photos. Haha, I wonder if these will go viral on WeChat in China - The Sunset and the English Rose (Xīyáng yǔ yīnglún méiguī).
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