A Very Quiet Day

Tuesday 3 October

What a quiet day! No “Oileys” and and no “Willeys”. We spent most of the day round the pool receiving updates from Juz about their progress home. It seems the new airport at Bangkok is still in chaos, and Koh Samui could not book their luggage all the way through to Teeside, so will have to collect it at Heathrow before traveling onward – hope there’s enough changeover time!

The weather here is becoming warmer again by the day – not that it has ever been below top 20’s – but its back to blue skies and white fluffy clouds, although still quite breezy. The sea is once more aquamarine, with only a few white horses and warmer than the pool. It’s really too hot to do much more than laze around, swim, puzzle and my most demanding task each day, write and publish the blog.

We did manage to raise ourselves and go to Coffee Junction for lunch, but even this took a great deal of effort. The pool was being used for diving lessons again this afternoon, so didn’t actually get another swim in till this evening, by which time I was very hot and sticky. There was a strange family in the pool at the same time as me – a mix of English and French I think - they had a two/three year old daughter with them wearing arm bands. Her main enjoyment was for her father to hold her by her feet, throw her up in the air, spinning her round, so that she fell in the water at all different angles and promptly sank, before spluttering to the surface, waving her arms, and asking for more. She was most upset when the game was over. I don’t think I have ever seen a child who can’t swim, be so unfraid of being completely submerged.

We took a leaf out of Juz and Dave’s book, and played cards on the balcony for a while before it was time for dinner – thanks to Sue and Liz, their present of laminated cards are perfect – if a little difficult to read once you have had a few drinks!.

For dinner we returned to Starfish and Coffee. We arrived soon after 20.00 and it was already very busy – all the tables along the sea side of the verandah were taken, and we had to sit in the next row, but still outside. Every time someone left, other people took their place immediately. It had been a similar story yesterday evening at the Happy Elephant, lots and lots of people. I think there are more people here in Bophut now than at any time since we came - they can’t all be evening trippers - but they are not staying at Smile. I tried blue crab tonight – out of its shell, and in a curry sauce. It was very tasty, but not the strong flavour of crab we are used to at home. Colin finished with mango and sticky rice, but was quite full by this time, and wished Juz had been there to help him out again.

We have had a short response to our email regarding arrangements for our next tour – “you had the hotel vouchers and information, before you left” – we had wondered if there were any changes due to the weather conditions or the coup, or even if the tour was still operating (had enough people booked?) as we had heard nothing since June. So I suppose we will find out on Saturday.

One of the things we have enjoyed most here is the balmy evenings, when you can sit out on the balcony with a drink in your hand, looking at the moon and stars (we can see Orion’s belt clearly above us, which is quite disconcerting, as we can see that at home too), and the temperatures are still in the low 20s, even at 22.00 or 23.00. We have seen the weather forecasts for Britain, and they say it has been the driest September on record and even now into October temperatures are still around 12 or 13 at the height of the day! Give me this warm weather anytime.