Molly and more Phuket.

Well, I got an answer. Apparently my name has changed....

"Dear Valued Customer..."

Don't you love the personal touch? How hard is it to type my name at the top?

They're going to get back to me in 7-10 business days, which leads me to believe that they're waiting for me to calm down over time. (Which, of course, I already have. But a Drama teacher can get back into the zone any time she wants. It's a gift.)

It's going to be a busy day today. I've been a bit tired after Phukhet, so I haven't been up to correcting the 136 or so essays that my two classes of year 12s have poured out during their practise exams for English. The due date to hand them back is Monday, so today and the weekend are earmarked for some serious reading. The light at the end of the tunnel is that once these are knocked over, then the work for the year 12s is virtually done. Yay. There'll be kids writing practise essays before the exam, but they come in ones and twos, not hundreds.

This afternoon I've got to take Miss Molly to a canine opthamologist. Mum and Dad were looking after her while we were gone, and her eyes really flared up again, to the point where she was walking around with her eyes closed looking utterly miserable, and putting her head on Dad's knee whenever he sat down, begging for eye ointment. The vet said that she has an ulcer on the cornea. Can you imagine how awful that must feel? This makes me officially a Bad Mother to my furry-faced daughter. I'd include a photo of how crusty looking her eyes are, but someone reading this might be eating, and I'd hate for anything untoward to happen...

Hopefully we can fix this up fairly easily, though judging by the vet's sombre face, we might be up for many $$$$ and lots of mucking around with her poor eye. She's certainly still not back to her happy little self.

Still, maybe Mum's vet is a big panic merchant, and she'll be fine. Fingers crossed for Mollicent's sake.

I want to keep going with writing about the holiday, because I want to remember it. I very intelligently packed my video camera in my suitcase when packing for the holiday, and when we got to Thailand found that it always thinks the lens cap is on, so there's no video recording. So photos and this blog are all I've got. For a supposedly intelligent woman I certainly do my share of stupid things.

Brennan grew while we were there. That tropical climate is amazing. Before we left he was shorter than me, and now we're eyeball to eyeball. He's so rapt. But that only leaves one child that I tower over. (By about 2 cms.) What happened to those gorgeous chubby-kneed infants I made, and then dandled on my knee? Jordan sat on my lap for a joke the other night and I nearly disappeared.

Following are extracts from a notebook that I wrote in while we were there. I used to get up, make a cup of coffee and then sit out on the balcony outside my room, looking out across the gardens to the little stream that ran through the property. The air was always warm, humid and filled with tiny sounds of birds and the distant sea. Utterly relaxing and beautiful. I'd write about the previous day and wait for the boys to wake up.

Here goes...

I'm sitting on the balcony outside my room. I'm in my very shabby pjs and look hideous, but who cares? I can hear birds twittering, the wind gently moving the palm trees, and low... so low that it's barely there... I can hear the sound of the sea.

I look across, and it's all green. Rank, brilliant green.The thing I love most about looking at palm trees is that when I'm doing it I know without a doubt that I'm not at home. I'm overseas - and I love that feeling.

Down by the little stream there's plantings of a wieird lacy lily type thing. It's beautiful, but in a strange way. I'm really taken with them. They have an eeriness that I find appealing.

The kids have fallen in love with the pools here. Brennan doesn't go in much; they have too much chlorine in them and he hates getting his eyes red. This doesn't seem to bother the others. They're going every night - even Jack! There's a kids pool with slides, (the first night we were there, they had a baby elephant there), and the other pool near us is more for adults. It's quiet, with guys quietly coming up to refill your water glasses with iced water, (about the only complimentary thing the resort offered!), while the patrons sleep and read under umbrellas. This is where we had lunch the first day. The staff gave us 4 beach balls for the kids when we arrived, and the kids play pool volleyball and have a fantastic time. I'm so lucky that they genuinely like each other and get along. Most times, anyway.

Just a short walk from the pool is the beach. The kids didn't go there all holiday, and I only went once. We're not big beach people. On the first day after lunch the kids went back to the room to sleep and I went for a wander. It was pretty magical.

The beach is a turtle reserve, so there's no vendors or people offering massages. It's empty.Considering how crowded and bustling the rest of the island is, this is amazing. I dropped my things and ran to the water. I waded in - I've now been in another sea... the Andaman sea. I'm now in the northern hemisphere too, which is another thrill. I was going to swim, but the current was strong and was trying to pull me out, and the last thing I wanted was to be caught in a rip when no one knew where I was. Especially on the first day of the holiday. So I waded thigh high, and I was really, really happy. I got us all here. We made it.

A couple of days later Jordan and I were walking down the path beside the lake when a familiar, yet exotic scent wafted across. At first we couldn't identify it, but when we looked across to the middle of the lake we saw a Buddhist shrine, where someone had lit incense. Everything was quiet, the shrine was painted in vivid colours of red, gold and white, the lake was dotted with pinky/purply waterlillies, and Jordan and I just looked at each other and smiled. The aroma of incense added the last touch. It was definitely a moment.

Seeing one of the pools near the lobby being lit with many little fires at sunset was another. A man waded through with a long handled fire lighter and as he went, the fires lit up. (A stupid sentence, I know.) It was dusk and we were on our way to dinner at the buffet. All through our meal I could see the glow of the fires behind Brennan. It was undeniably beautiful. I took photos, but they don't do it justice.

Wherever Brennan goes he's getting called 'Harry Potter' by the Thais. It amused, then annoyed him, and now he's resigned to it and has started counting. I think he's up to 29 or so. (When I showed photos of the elephant ride to my classes, without fail at least one person in each class made the same remark. Looks like this might be something the poor child has to live with.) He's still bemused by it... "I don't look anything like Harry Potter..."

I'll have to continue with this in another post. It's time to wake the boys and officially start another day.