Grandma P's Ramblings Through Life

Warning:.......Lots for you to look at!
I have done 3 blog postings. I have done another Thailand report and also a report from a family party. Very few people will be interested in the party; but my brother will be glad to see the pictures no doubt.

And now just a few words about life.
"Life"......"don't talk to me about life!"
Well, my life today and tomorrow, too are not at all as planned. The plan had been to catch up with some housework and rest a bit.
This morning Jo rang from the shop, wondering if I could go in today.
One of her normal Tuesday colleagues had suffered a fall this morning and was in hospital waiting to be checked out. It was more than just a fall......having fallen he scrambled up a bit and then collapsed.
So, the checking out has been very thorough.
I got myself ready to go and the phone rang again.
This time it was Terry at the shop......wondering if I had picked up the message about doing her duty at the shop tomorrow.
I hadn't ......just too many hours out of the house over the last 3 days.
Terry explained that there was a danger that the shop might not be able to open tomorrow....for Steve couldn't get there either.
Bill and I owe both of them a day....they did one of our Mondays whilst we were in Thailand.
So we will be off in the morning to the shop again.

And talking of life.....here is an image of a new life.
It seems that, if you pay, parents can get 3D scans of their unborn child.
We are expecting a great niece on or about my birthday, late August.
Her parents, our nephew and his partner had just such a scan done today and naturally are thrilled to bits with the image.

A long time ago a baby girl was born and very soon after her mother died.
Very sad.
The baby needed a new family to help her thrive and she was passed to a very loving family.....part of the existing family.
But this was done with no outside help or supervision (why should it have been?) and it was decided it might be best to keep the original details of her birth covered up.
That baby was my mother's sister.....and therefore my aunt.
But it did seem that the extended family would always be kept away from the original truth and I never got to know my aunt.
She was happy with her family who gave her much love.
Although she had worked out the truth, she felt no reason to uncover the original details.
It would have completely stayed that way until.......I suggested that I would very much like to meet my lost aunt. This was at a time when I was very ill with cancer and might not have lived. Family members stepped in and we met and that original truth was acknowledged by all.
But I still knew very little about my aunt.....there have only been 2 brief meetings at family occasions, when I wasn't really sure what to say.
Very recently I learned more about her own two children.....and through the wonders of the computer and facebook we got in touch.
So, many thanks go to my cousin - one who I had never met, for she invited me to a family party.
I met both my cousins for the first time and my second cousin and above all.......my lovely aunt.
They have now become very real people to me.
Here are a few family snap shots.























The hosts of the party - my cousin and her husband.
It had been his birthday a few days before and were there to celebrate.



A very special treat was the band.......he introduced Charming.
One of the members (the drummer) is my cousin and her husband's son.


Oh she is so much fun!
My aunt......and I don't think I am imagining that I look quite like her.



































































My aunt's son.........
my cousin.





























































My aunt and her grandson........the drummer in the band.

















































The band......Charming. Vocal harmonies, guitars ---fast and slow, gentle and lively. How shall I
describe their music? Folk rock sort of does it.








































































A tale of a party.....and a tale of much more.
It was a tale with a sad and confused beginning which turned to love and joy. There has been much joy along the way and, of course, some heartaches too.
The tale does not end.....each generation carries it forward.
I think that the young mother who died over 80 years ago would be happy with the family as it is now.
And I think my mother and her older brother and sister who always knew about that baby would be thrilled to see us all united.

The hills of Phang Nga are very beautiful, with streams tumbling down to the coastal plain.
In places streams plunge down steep drops creating great waterfalls.
We visited some whilst staying in Khao Lak.
The first was Tamnang waterfall......which the family had visited before.
It involved a short walk through the jungle.


As you can see the path is easy....at this point.






























I got to the waterfall on a high path.
To get down to the water I would have had to negotiate a steep rocky drop.
The family were already enjoying the water....so I mad me way back until I could get into the stream and wade along to join them.

















More impressive from the stream.




But we were not there for the waterfall alone.



























We had already fed fish further downstream....hundreds of them, big and flapping excitedly when food appeared.































My grand daughter feeds fish.

There were other people about - not a lot; but tourists do reach this spot, part of the Phang Nga National Park.
One Russian beauty and her man were enjoying playing at being beauty model and ace photograher!


























She enjoyed swimming with the fish.

Everybody did......yet again, I didn't have swimming gear with me.
































I kept my bright orange crocs on because tender nerve endings in my feet make walking on anything other than a smooth surface quite painful.































My grand son surrounded by fish.
I am not sure if he truly enjoyed having his toes nibbled!




































My daughter in law took a leaf from the Russian beauty's book!

As I said the family have been to this waterfall before.
Here is his blog account, with photographs of that day.


https://www.jamiesphuketblog.com/2011/05/sri-phang-nga-national-park.html

Will I stay awake until I have finished this?
I have enjoyed 3 long and very active days.
So tired.
This morning I went to Poynings (near Brighton) for a car boot sale. Came home with a small collection of treasured "junk".
This afternoon we went for a walk......a new route to us.
We parked by Horsted Keynes church and walked a small part of the Sussex Border Footpath which took us alongside a series of well stocked fishing lakes.
Back in the village we enjoyed a half pint each.
Tomorrow it will rain - a staying at home day; have lots to do.
And tomorrow I will do more for the blog.
Here is one picture to whet my brother's appetite........

More will follow.



































Goodnight! Eye lids are drooping.

Tonight I am tired.....following up on this busy weekend will begin again tomorrow; along with more Thailand photos.
Yesterday we were out from half nine in the morning until midnight.
The shop was busy. Hooray!
The family party was lovely and I felt privileged to be there and a pride that I belonged with the new family members that I met.
The band, Charming,.....were musically good and entertaining and were just "charming".
I do have pictures.
This morning we were up early and at the track for 10 o'clock.
It has been a lovely day - sunshine, friends, support in our team. Very relaxing...and yet a long day which leaves me a bit weary.
Happy for the athletes who achieved what they hoped for....could be a medal or it could be a personal best.
Tomorrow we will go to a boot sale for a while. It's quite close to Brighton, so will probably go there afterwards.
The distance is short enough to go and by fuel for the car there....the cheapest in Sussex.
Hard to believe that we saw diesel for the car at 16p a litre more than at Asda in Brighton, whilst on the A2 yesterday evening.
Hope everybody else is enjoying the sunshine (makes a delightful change doesn't it?) and hope you are having some fun this holiday weekend.

A brief news blog....there probably will be no blog at all tomorrow.
We have a very busy weekend.

The end of this week has been so cold.....very cold for the end of May.
Yesterday it was very cold and windy; today it has been wet too.

We went to Ford yesterday morning. Everybody was talking about feeling cold. We bought some things and scurried to Littlehampton to get inside, in the warm, for breakfast.
We just didn't fancy a walk in the cold wind at all.

Today I have made some preparations for the weekend.
The duties of all my timekeepers for Sunday have been sorted. Let's hope the Sussex Championships have some better weather,
I have written up all yesterday's purchases and have them in a box to take to the shop tomorrow.
It is one of my occasional Saturday duty days.

In the evening we are driving east to a village near Gravesend.
We are going to a party - a 60th birthday party for somebody we have never met.
Recently I have been in contact with a cousin I have not met (oh the joys of a complicated family history!). It is my cousin's husbands birthday party.
I really look forward to meeting them and also my cousin's mother (my aunt) who I have met, perhaps twice.
During the evening their will be music from my cousin's son.
His group, Charming, are playing in Bath this evening and I know my cousin is there.
So a busy time for them too.

I hope that if you have plans for this Bank Holiday weekend, the weather doesn't interfere and spoil things.

Khao Lak....you might recall that name from the news reports of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.

It was necessary to take a moment to ponder awhile on what had happened there.
The official count of dead stands at over 4,000; but unofficially it could be over 10,000. People just disappeared.
We had fun and saw beauty on the beach......but I had to stand awhile and think of all those people and their families and all that people had experienced.
The first tasks were to find the dead and feed and house and help the survivors.
New villages have appeared now.....we saw a very "little boxes" village; but better than tents.
Khao Lak goes on - life goes on.
The tsunami is not forgotten. There are warning sirens, just in case it should happen again. There are notices advising where people should go to.
And memorials are being constructed.....big and small. But these have to come after the living have rebuilt their worlds.
And to some extent, clinging onto the past goes against Buddhist beliefs. The dead move on to their next existence and we have to let them go.









That's our beach.....or could be our beach. I have looked at dozens of pictures and recognise very few places.
So much has been re-built and re-developed.

We visited two memorial sites close to Khao Lak.


This one, with its gentle wave shape on the left was close to the beach.




































The memorial had been built by a boat that had been washed up and over the beach.

Another boat gained fame. It was a police boat and was carried over the  beach and way inland...2 Km inland. We visited it on our second visit to Khao Lak.
It had been out at sea as part of the security operation to watch over a Royal Princess and her children on holiday.
Her son, the young prince lost his life.







A big memorial is planned here. Will it ever be completed?





































The extensive plans seem to have been left to a handful of Burmese workers with primitive tools.


































That poor Burmese woman hasn't a hope of building all this.
Perhaps it is time to let the thousands go and remember with much simpler memorials.
Nature can be cruel; life can be cruel..........but we all should look to the future rather than the past.


My grandson, walks carefree by the police boat.
The tsunami came before he was born.
We know that if it had come a few hours earlier then he might never have existed.....it was 3 weeks before his birth.

But things were good for the boy and his family - my family.
And his life is good and his future will, I hope be good.

Grasp life today....let the past go.

Before I begin to tell you of our own day on Paradise Island....Koh Tachai, I must direct you to Jamie's account of the day.
His pictures are wonderful.
The young family did their own thing - mostly in the water.
Why on earth didn't I have my swimming things with me? That was a very silly mistake.
But Bill is not a swimmer.....and I guess that I felt I should be with him.
Anyway,
Jamie's blog.........
https://www.jamiesphuketblog.com/2013/05/koh-tachai-island-day-trip-from-khao-lak.html







































So, there we were....still wet through from the storm and with an island to explore.
Wow!
White sand and turquoise sea....what more did we need to look at? When again will we see such a tropical island paradise?
The colours have not been altered or enhanced.













































Still wet through from the rain.....
why, oh why did I not just take my dress off and play in the water anyway?




















































































The green interior.

Koh Tachai is unhinabited.
Each day about 20 speedboats take visitors.
But it is not too crowded.....and we were amongst the last to leave, which was lovely.
Koh is the Thai for island.





























































That's the little flat bottomed boat that would take us out to the speed boat.


































Tommy, our group leader seemed to be modelled on Bob Marley.
And Bob Marley is a hero of John's.
Tommy wandered up and down the beach with a plastic guitar and soon, John had persuaded Tommy to hand it over.
John plays really well.

We went for a walk.
It turned out to be more fun than usual......we ended up in the pub!
We just went to Tilgate for a bit of exercise and maybe take a few photos.
The flowers and trees were superb, of course.
And we were silly!
The sublime and the ridiculous.




































The dented mirror was in the maze.
Yes, we got to the middle and back out again!








Silver birch bark.
The tree had been felled and was therefore horizontal on the ground.




























This might have been the start of Bill's pub idea.



















She had 2 other cygnets, swimming along behind her.


These are steps climbing the new dam.
A lot of work has been done to improve the park and to reinforce flood defences.














































































And then we went to the pub. It's a Smith and Western pub - country and western themed.















Bill had a cider.


I had a long soda water and lime.