Day 20 - More of what we needed

13:30
I sleep terribly. My dreams are (unsurprisingly) littered with loss and chaos. I don’t think I slept till nearly 03:00, and then only fitfully. Vicks, happily, has had a much better sleep, and is feeling in finer fettle this morning, to the extent that she declares she *might* be hungry. I manage to doze off again around 10:00 for another hour, and we then head out for some food. It feels a little cooler today - perhaps psychosomatic, but I’ll take it, nonetheless. There’s also a vigorous and cooling breeze coming out of the South West. As we sit on the beachfront, contemplating the world, it’s a pleasant temperature. Vicki vehemently sticks to the very plainest of jasmine rice, and I have some stir-fried noodles. As we re-enter our room, I smash my shin against the hardwood bed frame. Usually, 10 seconds of swearing and shouting is enough to diminish the pain. Not this time. Suspect this one is a few days of ouch, followed by a lifelong scar. Tremendous.

18:30
Vicki has slept around 16 of the past 24 hours. I have been bored and lonely for around 16 of the past 24 hours. I’m conscious that correlation is not the same as causation, but I can’t help but feel there’s a link here. We pop out for a very late lunch/very early dinner. Vicki bravely eats a pizza - stage 3 of her ‘getting back to eating/drinking normally’ campaign. I have a stir-fried duck dish that is banging. Vicks seems a lot better for taking it easy and sleeping so much, and this hopefully stands us in good stead to head on to Phuket in the morning.

23:50
We need to grab a few supplies for our journey tomorrow, so head down the beach in search of a mini-mart, and frankly - just to get out of our room for a little while. We stumble upon a little bar called Majestic, whose playlist is basically out of early 90’s Seattle. We hear some Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, LIVE, all washed down with a couple of Mojitos (for me)… It makes a refreshing change from the music at *most* of the beach-bars we’ve visited, which tends to feature bouncy pop covers. Yesterday, I was treated to a shitty pop rework of California Dreaming by the Beach Boys. Best avoided.

Vicki’s been awake for a full 3 hours, so needs to get back to sleep pretty pronto. I don’t feel like sleep, despite desperately needing it.Read more