25 December 2009 Christmas Day

Christmas on the equator is hot. And it is happy. Sort of. Sort of if you have just moved to a new nation and have a jet-lagged family. Col and Sarah and cousin Sam joined us for the day. We bought nice food. Steak, as I remember. With a South African barbeque. And wine. And a glass of champagne. We were kindly house-sitting the Sages' place. We ate on the verandah and missed home and enjoyed the occasion, not being quite sure what we were doing in the dead centre of South East Asia. It will be a Christmas we shall never forget. Hot, new, disorientated and utterly foreign. We swapped presents. I got a tie. From Colin. The maid was to later subject it to cruel and inhuman conduct with a hot iron. It made it all shrivelled and disfigured. And that was about as appropriate a metaphor for our inner feelings as it could come.