A Day to Forget

Friday15th - the original day we identified for our opening just over six week ago. It should have been a moment of triumph, the realisation of a dream but it didn't quite work out that way.

To start with we knew we weren't going to get open by the 15th a few weeks ago - just too much to do and not enough time, even so a deadline missed is an opportunity lost and it was not an auspicious start. to the day

I spent the early morning in the garden varnishing acres of pub furniture which we are trying to whip some life into. No real problem there except by the time I finished after 3 hours I had a splitting headache from the fumes which stayed with me for most of the day.

I then popped down to the garden centre and picked up some plants with the intention of getting the arches planted up along the pub front. I enjoy a little pottering in the garden and was quite looking forward to it. I began with the main arch and the biggest plant but the pot was dominated by a central steel girder running up the centre of the inside of the brick piller.

No problem said one of the builders. He promptly grabbed his steel cutting gear and had soon made mincemeat of the offending pylon - I should have taken note. The root body of the plant was a little too compact and needed some shaking out so I was vigoroulsly setting about this task when I plunged my finger tip straight onto the razor sharp, jagged steel which sliced through my puny flesh with minimum resitance. The claret flowed freely for a long while and it hurt like buggery. It wasn't quite bad enough for stitches but needed a fair bit of binding to stop the incessant bleeding. Gardening duly cancelled, T-shirt covered in blood. finger throbbing and I still has that damned headache.

Then I discovered I had locked my keys in the car which was bloody frustrating as some drawing I needed to discuss with the builders were locked within. This involved an annoying additional round trip home in a tuk tuk in the hottest part of the day to fetch the spare set which was a diversion I really didn't need but at least I was able to change the bloody t-shirt.

On my return to the pub I then got barked at by the next door neighbour who was needlessly upset about some trivial matter and was quite rude which is very bad form in Thailand. On top of that I had to end the working day with a difficult meeting with my team involving the thorny subjects of cost control, time pressures and quality of work. Although there was no major crisis it was just one of those more difficult meeting s and I arrived home with the feeling I had really gone through the wringer'

I was looking forward to putting my feet up to try to de-stress but I hadn't even made it to the door when I was hijacked by my neighbour. "Would Rachel and you like to come round in a little while for Christmas carols?'. It seemed some children who she worked with were going to be visitng for a Christmas sing-song.
'Are you bloody joking', I felt like saying but feeling i has neighbouly responsibilities I meekly agreed we would come round to show some moral support.

The choir duly arrived, about 30 kids and adults dangerously loaded into 2 pick ups and went through their series of songs in Thai, Karen, Akha and Lahu with an occasional line of English thrown in. The kids, particularly the younger ones appeared to be enjoying it and singing along with great gusto. Despite myself I found I was beginning to relax.

Afterwards we stayed a little while while our hosts handed out drinks and snacks to the children and we learned that most of them were Aids orphans and many of them were dying. Their smiling faces and cheery dispositions in spite of so much personal misery were a reminder to me that my petty problems were trivial by comparison.

Inspired, we decided to go out and headed for a wine bar owned by a very pleasent Brit who has just started in the wine wholesale trade. An excellent opportunity to have a drink and look at possibilities for the Tuskers wine list. Good company, nice atmosphere and lovely wine worries of earleir in the day fell away. Friday 15th though has a sting in its tail.

On leaving the wine bar we went for some happy beers at an imaginatively named establishment called 'The Pub' and then stopped in to grab a quick burger with our friends Murray and Nui.

We were in high spirits when we returned full of joie de vivre but within moments my intestines were turning sickening somersaults and I was gripped with that anguish that seizes you when you realise something is seriously amiss. After paying the driver I looked up to see little Cleo our tiny cat walking out the front door to greet us. However cats don't open doors and I knew instantly we had been robbed.

The next 15 minutes were a feverish blur of checking what was gone, making sure the animals were all safe, finding out how they got in, screaming blue murder at the security guard, calling the police. ranting. raging and cursing.

Within very quick order we were invaded by an army of government agencies, the police, paramedics (thankfully not required), the airforce (???), all armed with flashlights, flooding the area with their good intentions. It was quite astonishing and soon a picture of of the crime was built up.

First, they tried to get in through the kitchen, they had removed glass from the window, cut through the mosquito screen and tried to undo the lock but it was securely double bolted. Foiled they had cut through the iron bars that cover all our windows and doors and gained entry through a side window. It now seems that our return disturbed them because thankfully the job was incomplete and at least some of our most treasured possessions remained. Nevertheless we took a serious hit losing Racehl's jewellerey, my laptop, our small digital cameras (thankfully they didn't get to my big camera), our ipods, all our sunglasses' cd players, some cash.

That sort of experience can really knock you and I think it is worse for being abroad. The losses are bad enough, but you feel surrounded by a bubble of filthy violation that someone unknown has entered your world and brutally shaken it about. At the same time you are impotent to respond in any way that will actually undo the damage. The police have been very good and unlike the UK will actually investigate and shake down the local crime networks. It helps that our landlord is very well connected and has already spoken to police high command. However that is action others can take, we can only watch and wait.

We have decided to repond by being positive and looking to the future. There really is no point in dwelling on it, we can't turn the clock back. We can only move forward, we have a pub to finish and a business to build. We must and will sodier on with even more deterimination and take the words of Kipling as our rallying call. 'If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, And treat those two imposters just the same. . . '

And quite right too it could be far worse. We could be one of those poor children who sang for us in the early evening with big smiles on their faces. Children who have already suffered the most terrible losses, many of whom bear unfathomable fears and pain with great fortitude and will, in all liklihood, never even live to adulthood to be able to enjoy the kind of fabulous opportunities we have before us.