Status update

As you are no doubt aware, my interests have always been reading, writing, psychoanalysis and myself. However, I have recently branched out! Please amend your Christmas and birthday (it's still not too late!) gift ideas to encompass the following 'new hobbies' I have cultivated in Thailand:

• Riding on motorbikes!
• Sailing on yachts!
• Eating som tam!
• Reading War and Peace! (as opposed to just plain old 'reading', which I used to do; see above)
• Haggling for bargains!
• 'Being my own life coach'!
• Not replying to emails immediately!
  
• Swanning around! (Technically, I've actually been doing this for many years now, but I've determinedly fine-tuned it to perfection now.)

I know I've been like an absent mother to you all, but you'll be glad to know I am loving my life here. If you must know, I am currently 'on location' on a beautiful island, staying with my friend Nadia's family under the most idyllic circumstances. To be welcomed so warmly is so overwhelmingly wonderful that it makes the lack of adjectives in the English language with which to describe such generosity deplorable. I would blame Noah Webster, but I am about to embark on a Buddhist meditation course where I know a major tenet of the practice will be not to blame other people for things, especially not for something like the English language, so I won't say another word.

I am about to head back to Bangkok tomorrow, and I have to say I love the place. It's so frantic and fun and fast, I can't believe I never thought of coming here before.

There are so many other stories to tell, like Phoebe's stupendous Thai wedding, in two acts, and the regal pink wedding gown she wore. Like the three weeks I spent at the newlyweds' house, walking along the beach every day, eating som tam (papaya salad) every night, and helping to 'raise' their new baby pug, Bob. The two weeks at Ko Phi Phi, where swimming, reading and writing were the only things I had to do. The invaluable hours I've had to just stop and think about things for once.

One of the more superficial outcomes of this last one, all the ruminating, has been the thought that, from the time BMX Bandits has come out to the present day, how is it that Nicole Kidman has transformed herself from being a freckly redhead into an alabaster-skinned blonde while I, who used to be an alabaster-skinned blonde, have, over the same 20 years, metamorphosed into being a freckly redhead? Really weird. I blame Hollywood. Or maybe the Thai sun for bringing out my freckles. Or why not even Noah Webster?

I'll go to Chiang Mai and learn how to meditate and I'll come back with all the answers, I promise.