👋🏻 Hello, I’m Anna, an adventurer, speaker and author of seven books. Currently writing about the colour and chaos of a well-lived, unconventional life. My new Book - Bedtime Adventure Stories for Grown Ups 2, is out now on eBook, paperback and audio 💙 🗺️

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Hello Restless Ones

I had a Thailand tale lined up for you this week, but life had other plans.

After taking Storm on a surprise Mumma-Daughter trip to the Scottish Highlands, getting home turned into QUITE the adventure when our sleeper train was cancelled. Storm managed to catch some Zzzs. I did not. So I’ve arrived at this weekend a sleep-deprived mess.

Such is the life of adventure!

So instead of a lengthy tale, I’ll just say:

A) Hello! / Howdy / ¡Hola!

B) I’m taking August off from storytelling — to make space for more family adventures, and to get stuck into creating a new book.

I’ll be back in your inboxes on September 10th, with fresh tales and news of where in the world we’re heading next on our family travels this autumn.

Z) (I just always liked the letter Z, it has some pizzazz, ya know?) Thank you, as always, for being here and for your virtual good vibes, whether you’re a paid or free subscriber. This newsletter is such an important part of my life and it gives the weeks a joyful, flowing, rhythm.

Wishing you a summer filled with adventures, mishaps and life-detours.

Big love
Anna xxx

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P.S Let me know in the comments where you’re heading off on your own adventures over the next month? I’ll be online for a few days and would love to know. 💙💙

👋🏻 Hello, I’m Anna, an adventurer, speaker and author of seven books. Currently writing about the colour and chaos of a well-lived, unconventional life. My new Book - Bedtime Adventure Stories for Grown Ups 2, is out now on eBook, paperback and audio 💙 🗺️

Subscribe now

Hello Restless Ones,

Dropping this into your inbox while Jamie and I are at a friend's wedding in Exmoor National Park. One of my fave places in the UK! It is wild and windswept and full of hidden nooks to explore.

Also. There are ponies. Many beautiful, wild ponies.

In other news, I recently learned (with five-year-old Storm) that a group of jellyfish are called a… wait for it… a smack.

So thanks to the gang smack of new paid subscribers this week. I really appreciate you supporting me in sharing these stories with the world.

Today is another tale from Thailand. There’s a paywall halfway through when the thoughts get personal. 🫠

I'll be wrapping up stories from the Thailand journey next week. After then, I'm taking a month break — something I do each summer for the sake of creative projects and ADVENTURE! Yee Haww.

Until next time, enjoy the read.

✌🏻💙 Anna xx

🐈 Oh Thai Cat, How Could You?

In mid-April, the rhythm of life in Thailand shifted again. We moved out of our plush MTV Cribs villa and into an apartment up in the hills. A third move in as many months. Not what we’d planned, but life rarely goes to plan anyway. Especially not when monkeys are involved.

The one-bedroom apartment we rented was a squeeze, but it had a major thing going for it: a couple of steps beyond the front door, the kids had playmates on tap.

The Mabbutts were living there, along with a few other families we already knew, plus some we’d never met. Jupiter became ‘best friends’ with a seven-year-old called Oliver, who showed her how to make Lego airplanes in the playroom. And Storm showed several other kids in the vicinity how One skids much faster down the splash slide, when One is fully naked.

Our new home was away from the main road, surrounded by jungle, with a stellar panaromic view down to the sea and, if I sat right at the end of the balcony and craned my neck, I could see the mountains. Just about. The inside of the apartment was cramped, yes, but it was the best spot for the kids.

It wasn’t long before the Mabbutts left Koh Lanta, along with most of the other families in our community, many of them headed for Vietnam. Every day or two we said goodbye to another group, all with a nod and an agreement to stay in touch — until maybe we met again, somewhere, sometime, around the world.

By late April, there was only us and one other family left — some fellow Brits.

Now, there always seem to be blind spots when you travel, or maybe that’s just when I travel? A blind spot of mine had been the weather on Koh Lanta at that time of year. I just sort of assumed the weather in Thailand always fell into one of two categories: Nice and Not Cold. So I hadn’t looked into it. But now I understood why everyone else was leaving. It was getting hotter by the day. Uncomfortably hot. A baseline of 41C, ‘feels like’ 45C on some days.

Yikes.

With the rising temperatures and the mass exodus, the island vibe changed. We rolled into the Thai Cat one day to find a big chalkboard sign propped by the beach: Last day today! Close until October. We were devastated. It was like a breakup we hadn’t seen coming. Oh, Thai Cat, how could you? Just when we needed you most.

We stayed for a final fling with our fave beach bar, ordering one last round of Thai omelette, Leo beers and Swedish pancakes, while simultaneously mourning its loss from our lives.

After that, we kept to our weekly rhythm the best we could — going to the same places on the same days each week — but naturally, we had to shift things around. At a time when we'd only just found our feet, that was tiring in itself.

One evening, still reeling from the loss of the Thai Cat, we tried out a new bar on the beach, aptly named ‘Somewhere Else’. While the kids dug holes in the sand nearby, we got chatting to a family over from the UK on a two-week holiday. Oddly enough, the family was from Gloucestershire.

That night, while lying in bed, I struggled to sleep as my mind drifted to thoughts of the UK. Of our home there. Although the heat was relentless and we were ready to leave Thailand, I didn’t have an urge to go back to the UK.

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Hello Restless Wonders,

I don’t want to waste a second this week before dropping you onto a beach in the south of Thailand, so… in you go….! Imagine yourself floating down from the sky via parachute… Mind your feet on the tops of those palm trees as you land, won’t you? 🌴

Read or listen to the tale as you fancy, and catch you next time,

✌🏻 Anna xx

🏖️ A Baywatch-style beach rescue! (This thing weighs a ton)

It’s 10am on a Thursday and I’m running along Klong Nin beach; bare feet padding over soft golden sand, sandwiched between a dotted string of bars, restaurants and hotels on one side, and the blue-grey sea on the other.

Up ahead there’s a rocky headland, overflowing with palm trees. Klong Nin is a thirty-minute drive from our home on Koh Lanta, but it’s worth every turn of the wheel. Especially in the morning when the narrow stretch of sand is all but deserted. Klong Nin, is a family fave.

Jamie is way up the beach at ‘Basecamp’ — keeping an eye on the kids, who are deeply immersed in a den building session. We come and do this every couple of weeks, and it’s always an easy morning of parenting. Except this morning my mind wouldn’t pipe down.

It’d just hit me that the rest of our family friends are leaving the island soon, and that it’s only going to get hotter for the six weeks we’ve got left here. I’m wondering how we’ll cope with both those things changing at once. When my brain’s in overdrive like that, exercise is usually (always) the answer — so I’ve taken the kids being entertained as my chance to escape on a run.

Sweat beads on my brow and drops from the end of my nose onto my chest. It’s already hot, the temperature pushing 30°C, and my breathing is ragged. The air is heavy, but my mind feels light. Far lighter than when I left the group, forty minutes ago.

I let out a long breath and look ahead, drinking in the palm tree-framed view. The feeling of this place. The serenity of it, and thinking what a lucky duck I am to be here, running along the shoreline of the sparkly sea.

And then… huh? Something looks out of place in the water. There’s a head — it’s making jerky movements just above the surface, inching toward the shore. Stranger still, the head seems to be holding a… is that a? Yes. It’s a fishing rod.

My eyes dart to the right, and I see our friend Rob wading out from the shore. He’s shouting toward the bobbing head — checking it’s OK. I squint through the glare on the water’s surface. The swimming-head is Rob’s son, Max.

Close to Max, I spot an upturned green sea kayak, its hull still visible above the waves but disappearing fast. I look back and forth between the two swimmers as if watching a game of tennis. Rob is still a way from the kayak and Max is still a way offshore. I’m not entirely sure what is going on, but a) it looks refreshing to be in that water and b) this smells like some kind of rescue mission. I want in!

Slipping off my bumbag and visor, I leave them in a pile on the sand and gallop toward the sea. As the water reaches my knees, I leap over it to keep up momentum and the leaping reminds me of something… something from my childhood… I sing the Baywatch theme tune at the top of my lungs.

‘Dukka-dun-dukka-dun…Some people stand in the darkness…!’

Rob clocks my entrance to the waves, but his expression doesn’t change; he’s pouring all his energy into swimming. He makes it to the kayak first and I watch as he begins an attempt to drag it toward the shore. By the time I make the hull, Rob already looks done in.

‘Oh, hello, Anna,’ Max says, polite as ever, moving past us on the other side of the boat — as if it’s the most normal thing in the world to see his parent’s friend in the water, fully clothed.

‘Morning, Max, having fun?’ I ask.

‘Well, I was, and then I leaned over a bit and the kayak just tipped! It was mental!’ He says in his usual excitable tone.

Rob tells Max to keep swimming toward shore, and says that we’ll take care of the kayak, so Max bobs on — still holding his fishing rod in front of him like some kind of moving statue. I look back at Rob, now on his back kicking with all his might, acting like a human tugboat as he tries to inch the kayak through the water. Water, which may as well be treacle at the rate the kayak is moving.

‘Want me to have a go?’ I ask. Rob nods and lets go.

I move around to the front of the boat and quickly realise why it’s zapping all his energy. Despite a few strong kicks, the kayak barely moves, and all the while it’s sinking downward, taking on water and getting even heavier. If we don’t get it out and onto the sand, it’ll only be a few minutes before it’s on the bottom of the sea.

‘Oh, my days! This thing weighs a ton!’ I shout in between pants. Half laughing, half exasperated.

‘Oh yeah, I put an anchor on it.’ Max calls over his shoulder, still swimming.

‘An anchor?’

‘Yeah, there’s a rock tied to the bow, you know, to stop it floating away.’ He puffs.

A few minutes later my feet make contact the sand, and a recharged Rob joins back in. Together we heave the kayak far enough out of the water so that it’s no longer going to float away… or sink.

‘Oh. The hatch is open.’ I say, looking at a round circle on the deck of the boat. A hatch that should be covered so that air stays in the kayak and water stays out.

‘Oh, that explains a lot,’ Rob says, helping me flip the boat over so that we can wedge one end in the sand and tip the water out. Once its hull is facing the sky again, I lift one end — thinking back to my rowing days when we used to have to do this if someone fell out of a boat on the river. (That someone was sometimes me).

‘You got it?’ Rob asks as I squat under one end of the kayak and press it above my head.

‘Yeah I got it. This is awesome!’ I say — veins pulsing with adrenaline. I am loving the simple challenge of lifting a heavy thing to do a thing that really needs doing. It beats throwing weights around in a gym.

We tip the kayak back and forth on its end for a few minutes, water sloshing out of the hatch at intervals. Once enough water is out, I drop the kayak down and flop onto my back on the sand — my lungs, arms, and legs all on fire. I’m buzzing. What a way to start a Thursday!

‘Well. That was fun!’ I say.

Rob is bent over next to me, hands on his knees, brown hair plastered to his face, sand stuck to his wet shins. He says nothing. He’s catching his breath.

Max is already thirty metres up the beach, rod slung over one shoulder, strolling off to find his mates and no doubt tell them all about his mini fishing adventure. Charlotte passes Max coming the other way. I watch her stop briefly to check her son over. She carries on down the beach toward us.

‘Oh, thanks Anna, are you two okay?’ she asks, reaching for the kayak to take over and drag it along the sand.

‘Oh, you know. Just Max being Max.’ Rob says as he straightens up, and then smiles.

I think this all very fun and a marvellous, adventurous addition to the morning, but I can’t be sure Rob feels the same. I get the feeling this is just another day in the life of parenting a teenager.

‘The things you do as a dad, eh?’ I say.

‘The things I do.’ He laughs and shakes his head.

The community on Koh Lanta has taken many shapes over these past few months. Sometimes it’s hosting a farewell pool party at your fancy villa, or being invited over to someone else’s place for a cinnamon bun breakfast. Other times it’s a friend offering to have your kid over for an online art class and feeding that kiddo dinner afterward.

And sometimes, just sometimes, it’s wading into the sea fully clothed to help rescue a thirteen-year-old whose boundless enthusiasm for fishing has led to a capsize.

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Hello Restless Ones,

Happy sunny Sunday from Costa del Gloucester — where the kids spend at least half the day naked, and the paddling pool is getting plenty of splash-time.

Life in the Cotswolds is SO very good at the moment. We’re spending loads of time outside, I’m baking most afternoons (get me), in the gym a few times a week, running trails and generally feeling like life has rhythm and neat balance.

Schools here just kicked out here, so that means we’re going on tour to visit various cousins over the next month.

We’re also slotting plans into place for our next stint of travels in the autumn! More on that soon. Let’s just say I’m muy excited about where we’re headed.

Back to Thailand. On this sunny week, I’ve selected a tale about an equally sunny encounter with a local hairdresser.

Catch you next time,

Anna xxx

👩🏼‍🎤 Life Lessons From a £7 Haircut

I’d ridden by the YES Hair! salon many times in the months on Koh Lanta. It was easy to miss, tucked next to a fancy western-style cafe, a simple wooden sign painted royal blue and YES HAIR! spray-painted in rough white letters.

And yet, its less-than-fancy façade had grabbed my attention. Far more than any ordinary salon would — you know, one of those places with photos of beautiful women and a flamboyant stylist called Rafael tutting over my split ends. From the outside, YES Hair! wasn’t a fussy place. I wasn’t a fussy person. I hoped we’d be a good match.

‘Welcome, welcome!’ A lady with dark hair in a ponytail put her hands together as I opened the glass door and gave a small bow. I stepped inside and returned the gesture. ‘Sawasdee ka.’

She introduced herself as Ploy. ‘Please come.’ She said, showing me to a reclined chair with a sink behind it in the far corner of the salon. ‘He will wash,’ Ploy smiled, gesturing toward a young man who appeared from behind the counter. Huh. A male assistant. Unusual, I thought.

The salon was simple. White-tiled floor, a couple of big mirrors, two mismatched leather chairs and one of those trolleys hairdressers wheel around loaded with bits ‘n’ bobs.

I was the only customer, although I could see a few other people through the archway behind the desk. I assumed they were family. Because that was often the way in Thailand; people live where they work, the spaces aren’t separated. Walking into YES Hair! felt as much like stepping into a living room as it did a place of work (albeit with a few more sinks than in my own living room).

I eased backward into the chair and, although not a forte, tried to relax. A TV screen on the wall by the sink displayed illustrated images of Buddhas, birds and plants, as well as a rolling carousel of quotes. Melodic meditation music filled the room, accompanied by a deep, heavily accented man’s voice, talking about pursuing a spiritual life. The quote on the screen at the moment I tipped my head back read:

‘Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.’

Once my hair was washed, Ploy ushered me to a chair in front of the mirror. Our eyes met in the reflection. She flashed me a beaming grin. I noticed a shock of bright red running through her black ponytail.

‘So!’ She rubbed the towel over my head vigorously, the way a mum does when a young kid gets out of a bath. ‘What you like?’

I told her how I usually ‘wore’ my hair, in the least faffy way possible, sides shaved, short curls left on top. ‘I’m not picky… and I trust whatever you want to do.’ I said.

‘OK, OK!… Oh, baby hair! You have so much baby hair.’ She played with the fluffy bits near my scalp that never really grow, then let out a righteous, full-belly laugh. ‘You ready?’ She grinned, scissors poised, as if we were about to attempt something epic.

Ploy started snipping and spraying, humming as she went, Buddhist affirmations floating over us every so often.

She asked if I lived on the island, and I explained what we were doing on our slow travels; how we wanted to spend time as a family and show the kids that the world is full of different people, living in different ways.

‘Ah yes. My family, we are spiritual. We believe in Buddha.’ She said.

‘Ah, I did wonder. I saw the TV and thought that was different. I know most people here are Muslim.’ I replied.

‘Yes. We not from Koh Lanta. We come from the north. The Buddha say if you want to learn about Buddhism then come, you learn — we welcome you. But if your friend, Muslim or Hindu, then that OK! You can believe different things and that is OK. We not have to believe all the same, not need to say: you must think same as we do! No. That not Buddha way. Buddha peaceful way, accept all things.’

‘Oh, that’s lovely. That’s what we try to teach our kids. That it’s okay to have a difference of opinion with someone. And to be different. That’s what makes the world a—’ I paused, searching for the word — ‘a colourful place.’

‘Yes! Colourful. Like you!’ She laughed.

‘And you.’

‘Oh yes, me too.’ She pointed to her shock of red hair. She let out another full-bellied laugh, then narrowed her eyes as she gathered up an especially long section of hair.

‘OK, say Bye bye dry ends!’ she said, making a triumphant snip.

‘Oh yeah, that bit gets like a giant mushroom,’ I was referring to the area of my hair which flops down and lose its curls when it gets too long.

‘Haha! Yes, like a mushroom. You grow in the forest!’ She laughed.

After a few more minutes of Ploy happily snipping my mushroomy fro, I asked about her family and whether she had any kids. She told me she had three children by two different dads.

‘My baby — first baby was a few months old when I met my husband. First husband, no good, bad man. I leave him. New husband, he kind to me. He take care of baby.’ There was a big age gap, she said — nine years; she was twenty-five when they met. ‘He very young, but he help me take care of baby. And he make me smile.’

‘Do you mind me asking — in Thai culture, was everyone okay with the age gap when you met?’

‘Huh?’ — she looked confused, and I wondered if I’d overstepped.

‘I mean, that you were older, and your second husband was so young?’

‘Oh yes! No problem. Everyone say — he a good boy. He kind. He good for you. You happy. Is OK.’ She shrugged and made another snip.

‘Ah, that’s lovely. And you’re still together?’

‘Oh yes! We have two more kids. My husband is the one who wash your hair. We be together until we old! He never get rid of me. Haha haha!’

We then talked about what her three kids were up to. One had moved away, a second one was just outside the shop with a friend of his, and her eldest son had just gone through conscription. ‘You know, in Thailand we have red card, black card?’ she asked.

I didn’t even know conscription was a thing in Thailand. Ploy explained it to me: every boy is called up at twenty and, unless he volunteers, it comes down to a lottery. Get a black card and you stay home. A Red one, you’re in for a year or two with the army.

‘All mothers wish for black card,’ she said. ‘But now he has red, I think — OK. Not be scared. Good experience for him. He come back strong man…’ There was a pause while she continued cutting.

‘OK. Mushroom gone! You just a baby mushroom now,’ she ruffled my hair.

I thanked her for the cracking job, and for sorting out the shroom. I was ready to leave but Ploy kept insisting on ‘just little bit more’ and got the buzz-cutter out to neaten up the edges around my neck.

She was busy banishing the final few wayward hairs when a delivery driver appeared at the salon door. Her husband went out to receive the package.

‘Ah! My husband, he order that — for snake,’ she said. ‘We find snake in our garden this week. He very excited to use it.’

‘Oh,’ I smiled. ‘A boy with a new toy, then?’

She laughed so hard that she put her buzz-cutter down and doubled over. She called over to the counter and translated the joke for her brother and son by the till. ‘Boy wit’ toy! Yes, he is like boy wit’ toy!’

When Ploy’s work was done, I handed over 350 baht (about £7) for the cut, plus a decent tip on top. I stepped back out into the street, new streamlined sides and now mushroom-free on top — wondering how her husband’s showdown with the snake was going to go, and hoping I didn’t meet any wrigglers of my own on the ride home. 🐍

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Bedtime Adventure Stories for Grown Ups 2:

True travel stories about freedom, family chaos and escaping the everyday.

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Hello Restless ones,

Happy Sunday to thee!

By the time you read this I’ll be on the way to our annual family get together at Henley Royal Regatta. Which sounds posh, because it is. But I can confirm it's the one day of the year when I run around the house looking for something un-crumpled to wear and questioning why I don’t own any knickers.

This week, I’m taking you back to Thailand — picking up the nomad-travels tale from that time we had to leave our apartment because of an intrusive monkey.

There’s a paywall towards the end of this week’s post but, free subscribers, you still get a good story.

🤘🏼No post next week because it’s a break week.

Back in your inboxes in two weeks time.

Enjoy and catch you then,

Anna xxx

💖 The Two Kinds of Friends You Make in Midlife

After the monkey evicted us from our apartment, the villa we moved into was… ridiculous.

Four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a chef’s kitchen, and an upstairs balcony with sun loungers (facing west for the sunset, daahlings). Plus, let’s not forget the palm-tree lined pool with a sculpture of an elephant climbing boulders.

It was impressive. Not only because I had never seen an elephant scaling boulders in real life, but also because, in real life, we would never book to stay at such a palace.

‘Is this what rich people do on their holidays?’ I said to Jamie as I sat down on one of the 12 chairs around the long outdoor dining table.

I was feeling a mix of icky-ness and joy at having scored such a pad. The icky-ness was because it felt like too much — more than we needed and it was a tad (a lot) over the top. The joy was because we had a fancy-pants house to enjoy for the next ten days for the same cost as a teeny apartment. And how often are you gifted a treat like that?

The two feelings sat next to one another, jostling for space, giving the other sideways glances, each of them — Icky and Joy — deciding who should win out.

There was also a third feeling; an overwhelming sense of ‘We have to share this!’ Our new friends Kara and Dan were leaving Koh Lanta soon, moving on to the next stage of their travels in Vietnam, so I dropped a message into a group chat we’d created with Kara and Charlotte, of The Mabbutts, of Lottie Pancake heist fame.

‘Errr, our new pad is redunkulous. I’m thinking we have a leaving shindig for Kara and Dan, Sunday afternoon? I can make pizza! (If I can be arsed).’

Both families were keen. Keener still when I sent them an MTV Cribs-style video of the villa, complete with commentary and a reveal of what was in the fridge — which was mostly Leo beer and leftover rice.

‘Holy moly! That is incredible!’ said Kara.

‘What an epic party house!’ Charlotte replied.

Kara noted there was enough space to put all the kids to bed and for us adults to party on. I liked that idea. Even if we only partied on until midnight, after which I would turn into a pumpkin.

Having friends over for some kind of dinner party felt so 90s and wholesome. As if I were taking the best parts of my slower-lived, pre-tech-boom, childhood and smushing it together with the modern-day family nomad life. All that would be missing was the Black Forest Gateaux and a box of After Eights dinner mints.

‘I’m having palpitations about all the stuff the kids are going to break in the house though…’ said my next message, referring to the ornate Buddhist sculptures, fine art on the walls and two shiny guitars. ‘I’ve already locked one guitar away…’

‘Oh a guitar! Dan says he can’t wait to jam!’ said Kara. Of course, Dan could play the guitar. This information only added an extra layer of cool to this already bodacious couple.

‘OK. I’ll get the guitar out again for Dan, if he promises to behave and not break things.’

Having shared the wonderment of the villa with our new friends, I turned my attention to a more serious matter.

A naked swim.

‘What! Mum’s naked! Mum, are you naked?!’ Storm gaped in disbelief on the patio, as I stood, poised, poolside in goggles and all my birthday suit glory.

‘I am absolutely naked.’ I smiled.

‘Ooh mummy, Nakey nakey!’ said Rocky, now standing next to Storm.

Jamie appeared. ‘Um, Anna — you know we have neighbours,’ he nodded toward the villa next door, which had floor to ceiling windows and overlooked our pool.

‘Yes, I know we have neighbours. They’ll love it. And anyway, it’s our pool — I’m not breaking any rules…. Fire in the hole!’ I yelled, launching from the edge.

The water was cool and skin-tinglingly glorious. There really is nothing like a skinny dip in the middle of the afternoon, in One’s villa in Thailand. Soon the kids were in the water as well (naked, of course). Jamie, swayed by four nudie members of his family, eventually joined in.

At 2pm on Sunday afternoon Kara and Dan rocked up with their three kids. If I could put the moment they walked in in Reservoir Dogs style slow motion, I would: Kara, brown dreadlocks piled on her head in a loose bun, strolling in with a red bucket of kids’ toys under her arm. Dan — blue-tinted shades, stubble beard, and a flat-peaked cap. Both of them tanned beyond measure. All they needed was a theme tune; I’d pick Little Green Bag.

I hugged them hello as the kids charged past us and headed off to check out the pool. Kara set the bucket of toys down and looked around.

‘Well, hellooo Villa!’ She cooed.

‘Niiiiice,’ Dan nodded in approval.

‘We brought gifts,’ Kara gestured to the bucket at her feet. ‘Oh, and do you want this?’ She held up a pink crop top. ‘We found it at the bottom of the ocean in Colombia. Rescued it. Washed it. It’s been great, but we’ve got way too much stuff.’

‘Oh awesome! We’ll take it, that’ll fit Storm, perfect’

‘Er… it was actually mine!’ Kara laughed, and I laughed too. Maybe I’d feel bold enough to rock the pink crop top myself one day soon.

‘Oh. Mine!’ Storm reached up and grabbed the crop top from my hands, running back inside before I caught her.

Ten minutes later Charlotte and Rob tumbled in with their four kids. And that really is how most families seem to arrive into any space, in a tumble of colour and noise. So there were now 10 kids and six adults — the perfect size for a low-key leaving do.

We’d only known these families for a month, but we’d become a tight-knit bunch, seeing each other most days. It’s hard to describe meeting people you really connect with, in a place so far from home. It’s a lusty feeling. Exciting. The kind of feeling that transforms you from a forty-something — low on energy, high on overwhelm and depleted of all the hormones you once had — back into a giggling, carefree teenager.

It wasn’t long before the older kids were clambering up the boulders and flinging themselves into the pool from a ledge at the top. Naturally, the younger swimmers followed suit, which put my heart in my mouth at first, but then (when I told my mum-fear to pipe down) I realised how magical it was.

Storm, who in the past would have been nervous jumping into the water, was doing it without question, on repeat and squealing as she went. Sometimes it takes being with others who are unafraid to keep fear out of the equation entirely.

We’d stocked the house with soda water, beer, and nachos, but it wasn’t enough to sustain all those hungry mouths, so at dinnertime we ordered Kin Burger, which is one of Koh Lanta’s few fast-food restaurants.

We did this because: a) I had not been arsed to cook pizza as I vaguely promised and b) Jamie loves that Kin Burger do 10 baht (25p) brownies. The Kin was a hit with all party guests, young and old. Even if Jamie did have to send the delivery guy back for the brownies.

‘Mum, what’s this?!’ Storm came out from the living room, holding a Ministry of Sound CD.

‘Oh! That’s a CD poppet. It plays music.’

‘A See deee?’ She turned the CD over in her hands, intrigued. ‘How does it work?’

‘Oh well, you put it in the player and… you see that shiny side? Oh, you should try not to touch that shiny side.’ I moved her fingers to the outside of the CD’s rim. I then led her into the living room, where I found a vintage sound system. ‘You put it into the player and… press play.’

Storm slotted the CD in, pressed a button (an actual button!) and her face lit up when banging dance floor tunes blared from the speakers. ‘It’s a see dee everyone! We have a see dee!’ she shouted, dancing around the room.

By 7 p.m. the sun was going down. The kids, now full of burger, were back in a pool that had gone decidedly murky from all the free-spirited, wild grime we three families had secreted into it. The leaves of Banana palms, which hung over the stone walls, were turning from green to gold, and the party vibe was slowly shifting from energetic to mellow.

I was in the kitchen chatting to Charlotte, when Dan began playing Drops of Jupiter on the guitar. I stopped to listen, then realised I was absentmindedly swaying. Beer in hand, on the spot, because that’s just what mums seem to do.

Jamie brushed past me. ‘Oh, he’s playing Jupiter’s song,’ he said, giving me a kiss on the cheek. I looked over to find Jupes — she was sitting next to Storm on the sofa, deep in concentration as she stuffed a snuggly toy into a backpack.

My mind wandered for a moment. Drops of Jupiter is a special song for our family — the lyrics are about the lead singer’s mum dying, and how he imagined her spirit going out into the universe and coming back to him with drops of Jupiter in her hair. We named our Jupiter after that song because that’s what happened to her at birth. We nearly lost her, but she came back. Her hair has a red-tinge to prove it.

Beyond Dan’s song, there was a low hum of contentment coming from the conversations of people who barely knew one another a month ago and were now up to the point of sharing their innermost thoughts. The villa was filled with laughter and the lingering aroma of Thai beer and fast-food (because the host was having too much fun to cook).

Such high levels of contentment meant the kids were happy to be still for once, and it wasn’t long before we grown-ups let them watch a movie. I say movie, but I mean movies. Three different age groups, spread across three different screens, in three different rooms — all of them up past bedtime.

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Hello Restless Ones,

Oooof we’re at the end of a scorcher of a week in the UK! We’ve been busying through lots of life admin… our house sale fell through for the second time in a year. Which is gutting and annoying and all those things, but we’re dusting ourselves off and forging on. Because let’s not ever pretend we have control over any of this stuff, hey?

The book-love continues and I’m doing lots of drop-ins on book clubs at the moment, who are getting stuck into Bedtime Adventure Stories For Grown Ups 2.

I know some of you have suggested my books in the past (gracias!), but if you do ever fancy one of my reads for a club — just shout. I’ll try my best to tune in or at least send a video howdy-do.

Which leads nicely onto this week’s tale…

A story of a thing I do to keep my adventurous spirit alive when I’m on a long drive. It’s a laverly way to continue to explore new pockets of my own back yard.

To the story! Read or hit the listen button above.

Big (sweaty) love,
Anna xx

⛰️ Mounds From the Motorway

It’s Friday lunchtime in the west of England and I’m driving through Cheddar Gorge. Back and forth, left and right I go, weaving between cliffs which shoot skyward on both sides. ‘Woah!’ I say, open mouthed, as a jagged wall of black rock looms large in front of me. It’s enormous. And intimidating. I skirt its base, driving through the rock’s shadow — in awe of a place that feels reassuringly ancient.

Today I’m passing through the gorge on my way to a hiking hen-do on the Isle of Portland. The Hen group is a mix of friends and strangers, but we’ve all got one thing in common (other than the bride-to-be): our idea of a good time is a hike, a run or a swim, one drink, and then… bed.

These are my kind of people.

Portland is a three-hour drive from Gloucester, which is a schlep, but I’m at peace with the distance because I’ve got a trick for breaking up long drives. I call it ‘Mounds from the Motorway’ and the concept is simple: Instead of driving for hours, getting a numb bum and stopping at a petrol station for a lukewarm sausage roll, I take my numb bum on a run, up a hill instead.

It’s a tradition started a decade ago, when I was driving to speaking events, and it seemed a waste to travel to a beautiful part of Britain, only to stand inside a theatre or a conference room.

So now, I find a spot along the route which looks green and inviting, and I head off for a run. Bonus points (awarded by me, to me) if the route takes in a mound you can actually see from the motorway.

I drive on through the meandering gorge. Passing a gravel lay-by on one side of the road, sweeping around another bend. As I near the town of Cheddar itself, the lay-bys get bigger, then paved. There’s the odd tourist milling about, a scattering of them at first, but soon there are dozens. By the time I reach the centre of town, the sides of the road are heaving with bodies.

Oh yikes. People. I think. Without realising I’m doing it, my grip on the steering wheel tightens and I clench my jaw.

Now, I’m fully aware that we live in a world with eight billion other people (even if I had to look up the exact number) but I’m in a mood to forget that today. Today, I want to run in a place where there isn’t a building or a person in sight. Sheep are okay, I’m down for some sheep-time. But people… nope.

I consider whether I’m being precious and should just ‘push through’ this feeling of mild suffocation, but when I imagine setting off from the car and passing throngs of visitors on the gorge trail, something in my gut says ‘No thanks, not here. Not today.’

So I drive on.

Past the entrance to Gough’s Cave and Cox’s Cave, a fudge shop and three ice cream shops (because one is never enough). Five minutes out of town, the roads are empty again, lined only with hedgerows. I pull into a campsite car park and let out a sigh — both amused and frustrated at my inability to stick with an idea if it doesn’t ‘feel’ right. A quick bit of research for an alternative running route leads me to a mound that I like the look of.

An hour down the road, I park outside the Queen’s Arms in Corton Denham — thinking this is handy because it’s a hot day and I can use the pub toilets to de-sweatify myself afterward.

I lock the car, smile at a trio of twenty-something women who have gathered out the front of the pub, and take off down the hill. Conscious that the youngsters are watching, I make long bounding strides. Ten steps later I realise I’ve run the wrong way. Back up the hill I go.

‘Oh yes, good on you!’ says the youngster in the denim shorts and white top.

‘Oof, it’s a hot one,’ says the one with long auburn hair.

‘Yeah! I’ll be like a salty potato at the end!’ I shout. And then wonder how and why this stuff comes out of my mouth.

‘Ha! A potato, alright!’ she calls after me.

A few minutes down the road, I find a trail heading across a field. I push open a metal gate and follow the track upwards towards a place called (wait for it) ‘The Beacon’. Ripples of sheep tracks contour around the hillside, overlooking a small church and a rolling grid of fields, divided by hedgerows.

Onwards and upwards I go, chugging away, sluggish legs heavy with two hours of driving and the M&S vegetable samosa that seemed like a good idea at the time.

At the top of the beacon, a young farmer is working on a stone wall. Green plaid shirt, pointy nose, bright smile, and ice-blue eyes. He raises a hand in greeting. I nod and smile back. No words, just plenty of good vibes.

A ridge appears, and the trail invites me along it, the long grass tickling my knees. A swarm of white butterflies lifts from the green beneath my feet and scatters around my head like confetti.

The grass runs out at the bottom of the hill. There’s a stile and, on the far side, a back country lane. Past a farm and straight into the fermented pong of cowpat. I get a whopping lungful of the fumes, but strangely, I like it. It smells like the West Country, like England. Yes, I decide — this poo smells like a version of home.

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A village sign that says ‘South Cadbury’ makes me do a double take. Because I’m now wondering, is this the birthplace of Cadbury’s chocolate? Are the streets lined with Dairy Milk? Do the chickens here lay Creme Eggs? I follow signposts for the ancient site of Cadbury Castle, hoping that both things are true. (And thinking it would make a great idea for a children’s book if not…)

Ducking down the side of a white cottage, I’m onto a trail again — into the dark and cool of the woods. Ancient trees arching overhead and rough stones beneath my feet. The trail charges upward, through the woods and into a clearing where a hip-height tower of stone reads ‘Cadbury Castle 2000 AD’.

I learn that this place, sadly, has nothing to do with chocolate. Because I’m pretty sure British chocolate hadn’t been invented back then. Not in, as my daughter would say, ‘the olden days’ of 2000 AD.

On the far side of the tower, a rough track of churned mud tumbles into a gully. I climb over another stile, as an enormous green and black dragonfly rises from a hedge. It takes me by surprise — partly because it’s freakin’ enormous, and partly because it’s close enough that I can hear the hum of its wings.

Through another farm, accidentally into the garden of a kind lady who is having tea on her lawn. She points me back towards the footpath across the field. Up onto Parrock Hill and onto a sheep track along its eastern edge.

I’m getting tired now. A night of disturbed sleep (thanks to the summer heat) and a 5am start (thanks to the kids) are catching up with me. But there’s not far to go now — it’s only a mile back to the pub.

A buzzard circles overhead, brown and flecked with white, giving off a gentle, tuneful sound somewhere between a meow and a squawk. I wonder why it’s calling, and who it’s calling to. I think about how serene this is, how it’s exactly what I was looking for. How the internal landscape of my mind is so noisy most of the time that I need the external landscape to be quieter — filled only with the sounds of nature, and this graceful, meowing bird.

I stop to watch the buzzard weave back and forth, swooping between the treeline and the clouds, as if it’s stitching together the land and sky.

An hour after I left, I’m back at the Queens Arms. I go inside to order an orange juice and lemonade and do my best not to sweat on some fancy velvet cushions. I am definitely one salty potato, so I decide to order a bowl of them (also called chips) and let out a satisfied sigh. Happy again, as always, to have taken the opportunity for a mini adventure.

Post chip-fest and with legs still sluggish but now with good reason, I fold myself back into the car and head for the coast — just a tired and happy salty potato, en route to the next adventure.

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P.S 👆🏻❤️ Tapping the heart icon at the top or bottom of this post spreads good vibes and means that more people will read this tale. It also automatically dispatches a year’s supply of ancient, cow-pat infused chocolate from South Cadbury.

👋🏻 Hello, I’m Anna, an adventurer, speaker and author of seven books. Currently slow-travelling the world with my young family, writing about the colour and chaos of a well-lived, unconventional life. 💙 🗺️

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Hello Restless Ones,

Thanks so much for all the love and good vibes after last week’s launch of Bedtime Adventure Stories For Grown Ups 2. I’ve had a whale of a time connecting with readers and responding to messages about mad adventure plans being dreamed up.

If you’ve bought the book, thank you! If you have time to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads, that would be SHAMAZING.

If you haven’t got a copy yet, or haven’t a clue what I’m talking about — it's here in paperback or eBook, and the audiobook's here.

To this week’s tale…

Let’s go back to Thailand, shall we? And pick up the story where we left off, having found a magical community of world schooling families and everything going swimmingly. Nothing ever stays that way forever, does it?

Read or listen as you prefer and… roll the story!

Anna xx

🐵 When a Monkey Decides He’s BOSS

Everyone loves a furry friend, and I am no exception.

So when we checked into a new two-bedroom apartment we’d booked for the next 3 months, and the receptionist casually mentioned there was a family of monkeys living ‘next door’ — I was more excited than concerned. Being near the local wildlife was all part of Thai life, after all. You saw snakes on hikes, and you lived next door to monkeys.

Our corner apartment was on the first floor. Unlike the pad we’d shared with Nanny Annie, this place backed onto the jungle. It had a two-sided balcony — one part looked out over the pool, the other over a wall and into the trees. We’d been in the apartment for two hours when the neighbours showed up.

‘Kids, look!’ I pointed to a partly-cut-down tree on the other side of the wall. Its flat top made a neat little platform for a monkey to sit on.

The kids rushed onto the balcony, and we watched as a grey, slim-faced female monkey plucked a white flower from between her toes (where else would you keep a snack?) and nibbled on it. She paused momentarily and looked up, a quizzical look on her face.

There was a rustle in a nearby tree, and a baby monkey appeared. ‘Mum!’ Jupiter made a sharp intake of breath. ‘There’s a baby!’ The little monkey nuzzled up to mumma and playfully scrambled onto her back. Mumma, clearly hangry, batted the little one off and went back to her plant-based snack.

‘But where’s the Dadda?’ said Storm, and, as if on cue, a larger primate came prowling along a connecting branch and stopped next to mum and baby. I noticed he stayed standing and didn’t sit down like the other two.

Dadda monkey shifted his gaze toward the balcony, and my stomach did a flip, just a little one. His gaze said, ‘Hi, who are you and don’t mess with my family, okay?’ All in a split second.

So the monkeys stared at us. We stared at them. Mum finished eating her flower and began playing with her little one. Dad skulked off into the bushes.

‘What should we call them?’ I asked, thinking that if we were going to be neighbours, it would be nice to know these monkeys by name.

‘Flower!’ Jupiter said, without hesitation.

‘Okay — which one’s Flower?’

‘The baby,’ she said, with a look that read as ‘duh’.

‘Okay, so the baby is Flower, how about her mum?’

‘Mimi!’ said Storm.

We ran out of naming juice by the time we got to the dad, so we called him ‘Papa’ and moved on.

Over the following week, we got used to seeing the monkeys. We weren’t especially neighbourly in that we didn’t bake them a monkey bundt cake or deliver a chicken casserole to the cut-off tree, but we did smile and say hello whenever we saw them. And I looked forward to watching the monkeys from behind a window each morning, sitting on the sofa with whichever of the kids were awake.

‘Maybe we should feed them?’ Jamie said one morning.

‘Errr no, J.’

‘What? It’d be cool to feed them.’

‘Um, yes, but this is the jungle, not the zoo. And I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that you definitely shouldn’t feed wild monkeys. It messes with the balance of things — they expect food from you.’

I spent the next thirty minutes swotting up on monkey behaviour and specifically on long-tailed macaques. The research confirmed that if you give the monkeys food, they’ll see you as inferior to them. Then they think they’re the boss. And monkey-bosses can get aggressive.

I also learned that macaques are exceptionally clever. Given half a chance, they’ll take food from you, even when it’s not offered, then use intimidation tactics to restate their place in the hierarchy — AKA the boss.

Armed with new knowledge, I was ready to settle in for the long haul with our monkey neighbours. But then, one morning, the monkeys were gone.

For the next ten days we saw nothing of Mimi, Flower or Papa. I missed them and wondered where they’d gotten to. Had they jetted off on holiday? Maybe they’d found an especially delicious banana tree somewhere down the way and were hanging out there instead? I hoped nothing had happened. I hoped they were okay.

And then, suddenly, there was a new monkey in the tree next door.

He seemed younger than Papa, so I pegged him as a monkey-teen and, given that teens like to move in packs, several other boy monkeys soon joined him.

This new primate gang were more entertaining than Mimi, Flower and Papa, but they were also wildly unpredictable. Each morning, they ran amok — dancing along the low wall, leaping onto parasols, scrambling up the balcony of the apartment opposite and even, at one point, attempting to climb onto a Lilo in the pool. They wrestled, yanked one another’s tails and charged around as if their balls had taken over their brains.

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A few days later, we were enjoying a family breakfast on the balcony. With the teens in town, I’d taken to doing a pre-breakfast monkey check because there was something about this new gang that made me feel uneasy. The ‘lads’ weren’t around that morning, so we were eating porridge and nuts while the sun rose through the palm trees.

I heard a sharp noise, the sound of scraping claws on metal, and suddenly a monkey was perched on the balcony railing, right in front of us. I nearly pooped my pants and choked on a cashew all at once. Adrenaline shot through my veins — he could be on me or the kids in one easy leap.

‘OK, kids, stay calm and everyone back away slowly. We need to get inside.’

‘Huh? Why? What? Oh!’ Storm saw him first and then the others did too. We ushered everyone backwards and slid the balcony doors shut. I breathed a sigh of relief and then…

‘Oh no.’ I put my head in my hands.

‘What?!’ said Jamie.

‘The nuts.’

We’d left the nuts on the table. I was just wondering whether one of us could rush out and grab the bag when the monkey leapt from the railing to the table and began ripping into the packet with its razor-sharp canines.

‘Oh, crap.’

‘Oh, it’ll be okay. It’s just a few nuts,’ Jamie said.

‘No… it’s not okay. Once they get food, everything changes!’ I said.

The kids crowded at the window, and watched the monkey from behind the safety of the glass, intrigued as he put his face in a bowl of porridge. I was mad at myself — why hadn’t we grabbed the food? But I knew why, we were too busy rushing the kids inside. I was still running through the what-ifs in my head when there was a loud bang!

"Ahhhhh!" Rocky shrieked, stumbling backward as the monkey launched itself from the back of a chair and slammed into the balcony glass — like a pigeon hitting a window mid-flight.

We agreed we couldn’t use the balcony from then on. Even if we thought the monkeys weren’t around, you couldn’t be sure — that boisterous nut-muncher had sprung out of nowhere and we couldn’t take that risk.

‘Okay kids, I’m so sorry, but we can’t go out on the balcony anymore. And we need to keep the doors closed.’ I said, and they all shrugged, seemingly nonplussed.

The following day I left Jamie in the apartment with the kids over lunchtime, while I went to work at the coffee shop next door. Two hours later, I was back. I dropped my bag on the floor, and Jamie came into the living room.

‘Hi, how’d it go?’ I asked, half-distracted, and then I clocked his expression. ‘What, what is it? You’ve got that look on your face that tells me you’ve got big news,’ I said, and he smiled.

‘How did you know?’

‘I just know. Is it good news or bad news?’

‘I’m not sure. I don’t think it’s too bad. It could be not-so-bad. But it’s not… um, great,’ he said. I thought it was an email he’d got — something to do with work or our house sale back home.

‘Come on then, what is it?’ I asked, and Jamie told the story.

The kids were doing their usual middle-of-the-day chilling in the apartment. Storm was listening to an audiobook on her headphones in the living room. Rocky was playing nearby, and Jamie was in the bedroom reading with Jupiter. Suddenly Jamie heard Rocky yelp. ‘I knew the moment I heard the cry that it was something scary — it was a primal sound,’ he said. Jamie rushed into the living room to find a monkey standing there. The kids had opened the balcony door.

Rocky was over towards the kitchen, but the monkey was standing right next to Storm, who was kneeling on the sofa by the balcony doors, one leg trailing out behind her — completely oblivious to the monkey because she was lost in the audiobook.

Unsure what to do, Jamie gently called to Storm to come towards him and tried to shoo the monkey away. That’s when things took a turn. ‘The monkey put both its hands on Storm’s back leg. He leant over, close to her skin and opened its mouth — I could see its big fang things, I thought it was going to bite her but then, and it was the weirdest thing… it paused, with its mouth open and it looked right at me as if to say, I am going to bite your kid.’

In a gut reflex, Jamie screamed. The monkey dropped Storm’s leg and ran back onto the balcony. The first thing Storm knew about it was feeling something brush her leg, then turning around to see the monkey on the balcony. She hadn’t seen it poised to bite.

Settling from the shock, I told Jamie what I’d read about macaques. About the intimidation tactics. I knew Jamie hadn’t imagined the pause and a threat to bite. That was exactly what it was: a threat.

Crikey. My stomach did a flip. My brain raced. I let out half a laugh, but it was a nervous laugh, I was frightened. One part of me wanted to melt into a puddle of imagined catastrophe. I could tie myself in knots thinking about what might have been. A bite from a monkey. A screaming child in pain. A visit to the clinic for rabies shots.

Instead, I was taking the whole thing as a blessing, a warning. I was so glad I wasn’t there to see it unfold in real time; the image of the monkey with its big teeth so close to Storm’s little leg would play on repeat in my mind. I was grateful for that, at least.

I dreamt about monkeys that night, and so did Jamie. There was a strange feeling, a sense of not being safe. An undercurrent of unease. Even though we’d already paid up front for three months at the apartment, we couldn’t stay.

The building owners were understanding. A husband and wife team who had a family too, they said the monkeys had been a ‘problem’ for the past few months, and I got the feeling we weren’t the first people to move out. They did also offer to ‘sort’ the monkey problem so we could stay, but I wasn’t sure what that meant and I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t resent the monkeys; we were in their habitat. I didn’t want to be a part of any kind of monkey relocation or worse… a cull.

Despite it being high season, the managers agreed to refund us for the stay and move us to a four-bedroom villa with a pool for the next 10 days so that we had some grace in finding a new place to live.

Much as it was going to be a faff to pack everything up again and lift and shift us all to a new home, I had to laugh at the wonder of the universe. If the worst-case scenario wound up with us in an MTV Cribs-style villa, then maybe it was all one big ruse. Maybe Mimi, Papa and Flower had gone off to hatch a plan and sent the boys back to execute it. Maybe the monkeys had been on our side all along?

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Hello Restless Ones,

Today is the day! Bedtime Adventure Stories for Grown Ups 2 has scrambled, slid and pedalled its way onto bookshelves across the globe.

Available as an eBook, audiobook (narrated by me!) and huggable, sniffable paperback version.

Here is a picture of my excited face on launch day:

Buy eBook or Paperback

Buy Audiobook Direct From Me

Buy Audiobook on Google Play

🎧 Audiobook — out direct or on Google Play now, more platforms coming soon.

It’s a collection of true travel stories about freedom, family chaos and escaping the everyday.

These are my favourite tales from small adventures over the past five years. There are solo-escapes, friend-ventures, journeys with one kiddo, and some with all three kids in tow — like that time we ran 16 miles from Bristol to Bath, ahh memories!

For those who want to gather le vibe of the read before getting stuck in, here’s a taste:

‘Let’s Go Sleep on A Mountain’

As an independent author (i.e. I am the publisher) I would love your help to get the book into the ears, and onto the bedside tables of as many readers as possible.

Ways to help include, but are not limited to…

🛍️ Buying it. If you’re planning to spend your hard-earned cash, getting the book this week gives the algorithms a cheeky boost and shoots me up the booky-charts. Whoosh!

📣 Telling an adventure-lovvin’ friend. Much as I shout about all I do, I still get lots of messages from people saying ‘I’ve just found you… how have I only just found you?!’ Apparently I can only shout so loud, alone — so I would be super grateful if you pulled out a mini-megaphone and shouted (nicely) at someone too.

Paid subscribers — because you were the magic peeps who made this book happen, you should already have your free copy of the eBook or audiobook. Please drop a comment if it didn’t make it to your inbox, and I’ll load it onto an adventure-horse and gallop it to you.

Phew. That's the lot, and more than enough excitement for one day.

I'm off to have a cup of tea and lie face-down in a chocolate banana muffin now.

✌🏻 Until next week,
Anna xx

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👋🏻 Hello, I’m Anna, an adventurer, speaker and author of six books. Currently slow-travelling the world with my young family, writing about the colour and chaos of a well-lived, unconventional life. 💙 🗺️

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Hello Restless Wonders,

Greetings from a bright green Vauxhall Corsa, where I am sitting as I type this. Outside Nanny Annie’s house — having just enjoyed a Sunday roast. The green car belongs to my sister-in-law and it’s the only quiet place I could find amid the chaos.

In just over a week’s time a new book Bedtime Adventure Stories 2: True travel stories about freedom, family chaos and escaping the everyday will be coming into the world — available as a paperback, eBook or audiobook.

If you’re a paid subscriber you should have got an email from me with a link to a free copy of the ebook or audiobook. Hollar (or hit reply on this email) if that email didn’t make it to you.

Just after launch, I’ll be doing a 30 minute live stream for the launch at 7.30pm BST on Thursday 18th June. I’ll chat a bit, share some stories behind the stories and answer a few questions too. How lovely to see you in real time!

I’ll share links and more details in next week’s email, but save the time & date if you’d like to tune in.

To the post! Back to Thailand we go, and back to hangin’ with new friends on a Friday night…

📕 🎧 Read or listen as you fancy.

Big Love,

Anna xx

🦀 Crab Hotels, Friday Nights and a Pancake Heist

It’s 6:30 p.m. on a Friday night. I’m lounging next to Jamie in a thatched sala at The Thai Cat Bar & Restaurant, back against smooth bamboo, an icy beer in hand. I’ve just come back from my traditional Friday evening run along the beach and am basking in the post-run glow, feeling extremely chilled, if a little sweaty.

The low table in front of us is buried under what looks like a jumble sale (or a piece of modern art?) — more beer, a collection of kids’ water bottles and an open backpack with clothes spilling toward a plate of honey-covered pancakes.

Sitting with us are fellow Brits, Charlotte and Rob, a kind-hearted, down-to-earth couple, currently travelling the world with their four kids and no plans on when they might go home. As well as our new, laid-back American friends Kara and Dan — also on some extended travels with their three sproglets, but with a home in the forests of New Jersey to go back to one day.

Even though we’ve only been on Koh Lanta for three weeks, the Thai Cat has become our favourite place to hang out. Beyond its relaxed, sprawling, beachside restaurant with bamboo huts and wooden tables, there’s a playroom, a gym, a yoga area, board games, a small basketball court and a playground.

Plus, let’s not forget the row of caged birds, and a few raggedy-looking bunny rabbits. If you follow the sandy road past the animals, all the way to the exit gate and look up, the jungle-covered mountains are there — climbing toward the sky like a great green wave, frozen partway through its rise.

Now that the sun is close to setting, the restaurant’s solar lights have kicked in: great snakes of neon wrapped around each large tree — green, pink, blue, yellow — their glow colliding with the peachy hues of an island sunset. Brightly coloured lanterns dangle from branches overhead, a speaker blares relaxed dance music and the tables are alive with the sound of clinking cutlery and happy chatter.

Now, I realise that I may have made the Thai Cat sound like a posh place, what with all those facilities n’all. It is not. And that’s exactly why we love it so. Just like our family, The Cat is rough around the edges. The rules are… well, there aren’t any, really. Except if you want to use the gym, buy a drink from the bar. And you should always be nice to the staff there, and to the elderly owner if he’s around. But that’s about it.

And so, the Thai Cat feels like an outdoor living room for us, a place we can bring our kids to be their wild and unruly selves. And a place we feel free too. It also happens to be where the world schooling community — all twenty families meet on a Friday evening for chats and a relaxed (read: highly competitive) game of frisbee.

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A two-year-old who doesn’t belong to me climbs onto my lap and plonks herself down. She reaches for the plate in front her.

‘Oh Lottie! No, leave their pancakes alone. We’re going out for dinner later!’ Says her dad, Rob, but I don’t mind. We never mind. Lottie has become such regular at our own dinner table that we’ve decided that whenever we order food, we should order extra for Lottie too.

It fills my soul up to have Lottie tuck in — with her half-formed words, podgy hands and toothy grin — she reminds me of a phase we’ll never be going back to with our own littles. I also think it’s lovely to have the line blurred between who is looking after whose offspring when you’re a part of a community.

Lottie’s pancake smash and grab seems to have got Kara thinking about feeding her own kids. I watch as she slides a stash of peanut butter sandwiches out from the backpack and holds them under the table.

‘Do you think I can?’ she mouths, nodding toward the sandwiches.

‘Huh? Oh course — we’ve bought plenty tonight. And you’ve got beers!’ I say, thinking that the people of the Thai Cat won’t mind a little picnicking on their property.

Kara is the most determined person I’ve met when it comes to family travel on a budget. Koh Lanta is far from the cheapest place to visit and I have so much admiration for her ability to stretch out the family dollars. It also seems like she enjoys the challenge. It’s a game to play, and she plays it better than I ever could. When we’re panic-ordering waay more food than needed because our three are starving and their moaning has reached brain-explosion levels, Kara is calmly sliding out the bottles of water, peanut butter sandwiches and a giant bag of nuts.

The pancake feast at the sala hasn’t been enough to lure our kids to the table. They’re somewhere nearby, lost in their own Friday tradition of building crab hotels with friends. Over the past few weeks they’ve learned that hermit crabs live under the bungalows of the hotel next door. So they scramble over patches of twigs and leaves, and around a netted fence to collect them in plastic tubs, then bring them back to their ‘hotel’ in the grounds of the Thai Cat.

The Crustacean Hotel is incredibly eco-friendly — constructed entirely from driftwood and old pieces of tiles the kids have found lying around. With only the odd rusty nail for decoration. Watching the kids come up with ideas and then get swept up in a shared mission is just beautiful.

Acting like the Secret Seven, twelve mini-explorers aged between three and ten are charging back and forth, squealing when they find an extra-large scuttler or one of them makes a bid for freedom (the crabs, not the kids).

Jupiter is in a pink tutu and fairy wings, doing her Crab Squad duties by filling up the bucket from a tap for the hotel ‘swimming pool’. Rocky has completed so many hermit-gathering missions that sweat is dripping down his face, and he is entirely naked (as is often the case these days). I have no idea where his clothes are, I’ll worry about that later.

Maybe it’s the inner child in me who craves freedom, always, but to know that the kids are doing their thang, barefoot, carefree and gloriously happy on a Friday night makes me so content I could burst. I want nothing more for them.

I also want nothing more for myself because I have to do approximately zero parenting in this space. Other than to remind them that ‘crabs have feelings too’ from time to time and cuddle and kiss anyone who has fallen over or spiked their foot on an aggressive twig. I too am barefoot and feeling carefree, although I am (sadly) not as naked as Rocky.

‘Oh, we missed you at football on Tuesday…’ I say to Kara, taking a sip of beer. ‘Dan said you weren’t feeling so good?’

‘Huh? Oh yeah, football… Oh no. I was just PMS-ing so hard that I didn’t want to see anyone’ she says.

‘Oh, what?! Me too!’ I say excitedly. Perhaps too excitedly. ‘I was in THE worst mood that morning. You should have come. We could have made a gloomy corner together and hung a neon sign that said KEEP OUT.’

Kara’s confession is one of the things I love most about her. Her willingness to be open about the full spectrum of emotions that come with womanhood and motherhood. The joys and the struggles. There’s no performance needed.

I’m feeling so grateful for these new friends because I often feel like a weirdo in the UK — even more so in the past five years of trying to lead a more traditional home life. To spend hours and hours with people who are also looking for something else, something different… it’s a relief.

And so each week at the Thai Cat, I’m flooded with gratitude. The connection, the colours, the laughter. It’s everything I want.

By 7:30 p.m., the Crustacean Hotel is getting One-star reviews on account of its crumbling facade, and the kids have gone loopy. We box up all remaining pancakes, fire up the tuk-tuk and drive by the playground, calling ‘Taxi for the Mc’s!’ into the darkness. There are a few protests and calls back of ‘But Muum! I’m not even tired yet,’ Somehow we cajole them onboard and rumble down the sandy track toward home.

When we make it back to the apartment, the kids tumble through the door. There’s no shower because, well, they hate showers at the best of times. No reading to wind down. No teeth get brushed. I just wipe their black feet and run a cloth around their faces once they’ve passed out.

Within then minutes, they’re all face down and fast asleep. Gone into the land of Nod — sand still between their toes, dreaming about crab hotels, flower potions and Lottie’s pancake heist.

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Dearest Restless Wonders,

There’s no normal post this week because we’ve just landed back in the UK and my brain and body are not quite sure which way is up.

Instead of leaving your inboxes lonely on this fine Sunday I thought it was high-time to send you a well-deserved free copy of my new book Bedtime Adventure S…

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👋🏻 Hello, I’m Anna, an adventurer, speaker and author of six books. Currently slow-travelling the world with my young family, writing about the colour and chaos of a well-lived, unconventional life. 💙 🗺️

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Hola Restless Ones,

Coming to you this week from the island of Lanzarote! Yes, yes, we have left Thailand after six months 😢 and are now on a gradual return to England for the summer. We’ve made a pitstop for our annual family holiday at Club La Santa — because that feels like a nice tradition to keep up each year, if we can.

I’m very jet lagged but almost back in the land of the living and enjoying the transition from 40C+ heat to some more sensible 29C temps. And the cheese. Oh my the cheese. I cannot get enough of it, now that it’s readily available and doesn’t cost the earth. 🤤

I’m deep in the thick of getting Bedtime Adventure Stories for Grown Ups 2 ready for launch on June 16th, and in the meantime I’m going to keep the tales from Thailand rolling.

So here’s the next one about our budding five-year-old CEO.

Hasta la próxima!

Anna xx

💸 Foot Traffic, Mum. You Need Foot Traffic.

Since being in Thailand, Storm had taken more of an interest in money. It could have just been an age thing. It could have been because we were now living in a cash economy (just like the 90’s!) where the use of cards was few and far between and money in all its grubby and crumpled glory was once again visibly changing hands.

Or it could have been because she overheard us say things to Rocky and Jupiter like ‘please don’t hang off the curtain rail / draw on the bedsheets / throw that ornament across the room, because we’ll have to pay for it and that’ll mean less money for our family adventures.’

Ever since the Tooth Fairy had slipped 100 baht under Storm’s pillow on Christmas Eve, she’d been asking about money. At one point she’d announced to the twins that she would soon be rolling in it, because she was just going to wait for her teeth to fall out.

Having that crisp 100 baht note in her hand and having been allowed to spend it on whatever she wanted (a toy), she was now fixated on how she could get more of it.

‘Well, we like to think about money in terms of rivers and reservoirs, Stormy,’ I said over dinner one evening. ‘Lots of people focus on the reservoir — a place to store all that water, all their money. Some people work all their lives to have a nice big reservoir. But we like to think more about the river. The water that feeds the reservoir.’ I looked at Jamie, and he nodded in agreement. ‘Money comes, money goes, and there are always ways to make it. So yes, it’s nice to have a big reservoir to splash around in, but if the river isn’t flowing, then the reservoir will eventually dry up, and that can feel stressful. So we like to do things to keep that river flowing.’

Storm went quiet for a moment. She was thinking.

‘So, are there any waterfalls in this river?’ She asked, and I smiled.

‘Sometimes there’s a waterfall, Stormy, and sometimes there’s a trickle. So long as it’s flowing, we’re all good.’

The following morning, we’d just finished eating breakfast when Storm put her cereal spoon slowly and deliberately down at the side of her bowl.

‘Mum, I’ve got an idea.’ She said.

‘Go on.’

‘I was thinking about ways to keep my money river flowing…’

‘Yeah.’

‘I want to set up a shop.’

‘Okay — what kind of shop?’

‘An art shop. So… it goes like this…’ there was a pause for dramatic effect and to make sure we were truly listening. ‘I make lots of tiny little drawings on these bits of card,’ she gestured to a pack of green card in front of her. ‘And then I go and sell them, like, downstairs, on the street. It’s a good idea because I will have lots of them to sell, and they don’t take me too long to make.’

I loved this idea, but it wasn’t even 8am yet. I wanted my daughter to be fearless in anything she tried to do, but I wasn’t feeling brave enough myself (nor had I had enough caffeine) to sit on the street and sell her art.

What would the locals think? A middle-class white kid out on the streets of Thailand, trying to make some money? The taxi drivers all sat in groups out the front of the apartment blocks, and I could see them watching her sell her wares. Would they think we were taking money that was rightfully theirs?

I was acutely aware that these were my hang-ups. So I kept my mouth shut. These weren’t thoughts I wanted to pass on to my bold-thinking little artist. I paused for a moment.

‘So Mum. Can I do it. Soon?’ Storm pleaded.

‘Um… I know Daddy would love to go down and be your assistant in the shop.’ I looked over at Jamie and raised my eyebrows. ‘What’s that? A shop on the street? Oh yeah, I’ll be your assistant. Let’s do it.’ he said, and I mouthed a thank you. Hooray for Jamie and his lack of giving any sh*ts about what anyone thinks. One day, I’d get there too.

For the following hour, Storm worked on what she was now calling ‘her collection’. Each drawing was on pale green card and a two-centimetre square. In a mixture of gel pen and pencil, she’d drawn a teddy bear, a variety of swirls, a moon and stars, a tree, a flower and a cat sitting under a sun. She said she needed a sign to ‘avver-tise’ the art, so we made one in purple felt-tip pen which read ‘FOR SALE SHOP’ with an arrow.

‘You want to give them a hint on the sign,’ Jamie said. ‘Just something to let them know what the shop is selling.’

‘Like some swirls or something, Dad?’ She asked.

‘Swirls would do it.’ he replied.

There was some discussion on pricing, and we agreed that making each piece 10 baht (25p) was a good place to start. ‘You can try that and see how people respond to it, Stormy.’ Jamie said.

‘What, like, test it out?’ She asked.

‘Yeah, test it. Although because you’re selling locally, you’re going to want to keep the price the same each time you sell, or your customers might get annoyed that someone else got it cheaper.’

‘Oh yeah, we don’t want them getting annoyed!’ she said, shaking her head.

And so, with a sign in one hand and a recently-washed-out yoghurt pot filled with her ‘collection’ in the other, Storm and Jamie went down to the street to sell her wares.

I busied myself playing with the twins while Storm and Jamie were out. I felt nervous and hoped her efforts would be met with kindness. But I reasoned that this was life — I couldn’t protect her from the realities of it, and in trying to, I’d only be depriving her of a real experience. I wasn’t there to control what happened in her world, after all. Only to help her make sense of it afterwards. And offer cuddles or congratulations, whenever needed.

Thirty minutes later, Storm breezed through the door, with Jamie close behind. She looked tired but her face was deadpan. I couldn’t get a read on whether she’d had any success and I couldn’t wait to find out. ‘So? How did it go?!’

‘Oh, really good, Mum. People were loving it…’ Storm put the yoghurt pot on the table and slumped into a chair.

‘We chose a spot where we thought there’d be a lot of people…’ Jamie said.

‘Foot traffic, Mum, you need foot traffic.’ Storm said.

‘…Right by the 7-Eleven,’ Jamie continued. ‘There was an empty table there — the one with the reddy-brown cloth over it. I think from someone who sells stuff at night?’

‘Oh yeah, I know the one.’

‘So we stood next to it, laid all the art out on the table and put the sign out, and right away someone stopped.’

‘And they asked the price, and I said ten baht and then I said, ‘oh it’s a lucky dip,’ and then the people were saying, ‘oh this will make me lucky!’ Storm beamed.

As it turned out, Storm had come up with a genius move. Offering for the customers to pick a painting at random as part of a ‘lucky dip’. That had led them to think the art would bring them luck. The pieces were so small that they could keep them in their wallets and stay lucky.

I knew Jamie would have been in his Del Boy element on that street. And he was: ‘I showed Storm how to make sure that people knew you were there. To smile at them and say hello and ask people if they were interested in buying some art,’ Jamie said. ‘And there was this one guy, an older guy in a baseball hat and glasses — he was loving it! So much, that he gave Storm 100 baht for the flower drawing.’

‘What, no way?!’ I said.

‘Yes way, Mum!’ She beamed.

‘He was lovely. And a Canadian.’ Jamie said.

‘Of course he was.’ I smiled.

‘Oh, and then there was someone else who was really interested but only had seven baht, didn’t they, Storm?’

‘Yeah, we cut them a deal, Mum.’ She shrugged. ‘You’ve gotta do that sometimes. It’s good for business.’ She said and I had to hold back from kissing her from head to toe, on account of the cuteness of it.

‘So how much did you make overall?’ I asked.

‘Ooo, about one hundred and forty baht,’ Jamie said.

‘What?! Right, the Milky Bars are on you today then, Storm!’

‘I’ll buy us some lunch or something.’ She smiled.

The following day I overheard Storm on the phone to Nanny Annie, who was now back home in England. Nanny was talking about decorating the living room.

‘And if you run out of money for paint, Nan, it’s okay — I can give you some. Because I can always make some more through my business.’

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👋🏻 Hello, I’m Anna, an adventurer, speaker and author of six books. Currently slow-travelling the world with my young family, writing about the colour and chaos of a well-lived, unconventional life. 💙 🗺️

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Hello Restless Wonders,

Happy Saturday to you from Koh Lanta, where we’re enjoying our last 10 days on the island before we head back to England for the summer. That’ll be us having lived in Thailand for six months… wowsers. I’m feeling a swell of something brewing. I think it’s pride.

In other exciting news, not long after our feet touch down on UK soil, I’m putting a new book into the world. Hurrah!

Bedtime Adventure Stories for Grown Ups 2, will be released on June 16th.

The stories in the book have been shared in this newsletter over the years at some point, so if you’re a paid subscriber on June 16th I’ll be sending you a free copy of the eBook. Fair’s fair. You helped me sit my booty in a seat and write it, after all. Thank you muchos for that. 🙏🏻

It’ll also be released in lovely, sniffable, huggable print format and on audiobook too. Something for everyone? I hope so.

The illustration for the cover by Cai Burton is just… CHEF’S KISS. Check it out below. It makes me want to do the adventures all over again. And eat a giant pasty.

A heads up that there’ll be no story in your inbox next week. This was supposed to be the break week but I didn’t want to leave you having just arrived on Koh Lanta and feeling less-than-jazzed about it.

So onwards we go…

We left our intrepid adventure fam (plus Nanny) in a two-bedroom apartment at Long Beach, in peak tourist season, with an unhappy neighbour… roll what happened next.

Anna xx

🛺 The Nanny Wagon

‘You know, Mum, I’m not really a fan of the beach, there’s just so much sand.’ Storm sighed one afternoon. Which is, of course, a minor point when you’ve decided to live on a tropical island for a few months.

Storm’s lack of beach love was more than compensated for by Nanny, who loves the beach. Because Nanny, as I was fast learning, is a big kid.

I’ll confess that I was nervous about how the dynamic would work, bringing my mother-in-law into our chaotic travelling world, but it was the healthiest thing to have her join us. It brought out the best in her; the kids loved having her around, and that brought out the best in me.

So, with Ann’s help, most days we cajoled Storm down to the sandy shores of Long Beach. Our apartment was right by where a small river flowed into the sea, and the kids could play there for hours. Then, of course, when it was time to leave, Storm never wanted to go.

We settled into a rhythm with Ann around. Playtime in the morning, grab some food from a local Thai place on the way home, chill time in the apartment through the heat of the day (34C) — when one of us would nip off to do some work in the coffee shop downstairs. And then out again in the late afternoon for more playtime.

We’d made a few trips out to connect with the world schooling community we hoped to be a part of, and Ann was in her element — meeting new people, making up affectionate nicknames for them (because she couldn’t remember their real names) and showing off her grandkids.

Ann was getting so settled into island life that she was even wandering off up the street on her own, after dark for shopping trips. ‘You know, I’d never go wandering around alone in the dark in Gloucester’ she said. And I did know that. She wouldn’t walk home from our house, half-a-mile away, partly because she had to go past a creepy graveyard but also purely because she was a woman, alone on the streets, in the dark.

I hadn’t even considered whether I felt safe or not on Koh Lanta until that point, but of course I did. Ann’s comment made me realise that wasn’t always a given. Yes, the place may be overrun with tourists and there were waay too many sun-burned bum cheeks peeking out of thongs for my usual liking, but it was also a safe, snuggly, palm-tree lined cocoon.

Suddenly, Nanny was a few days away from going home, and we’d spent so much time at the local beach that we hadn’t really seen much of the island. I’d read that Koh Lanta’s Old Town was a lovely place to wander around and visit some shops (Nanny loves to shop) so we hatched a plan for a trip over to the eastern shore.

It took us 35 minutes to potter slowly up and over the mountain to the other side of the island in our tuk-tuk, which we had temporarily, in Ann’s honour, named ‘The Nanny Wagon.’

Getting off the main busy road with its central reservation and climbing up and into the jungle was just what my soul needed. We passed small homes on stilts, shack-style eateries, laundry hanging on lines in front gardens, small shops that looked nothing like a 7/11 and with plenty of green space in between.

It was a world away from the where we were staying, and it felt like the first glimpse of the real Koh Lanta.

We parked the tuk-tuk under the shade of a tree near a small playground, next to the impressive Old Town pier. There was a giant sculpture of a blue lobster at the start of the pier which the kids thought was, and I quote, ‘mental’.

From the pier, I could see out across the ocean to the island of Ko Por in the distance. Beyond the lobster, I could see that the main street was lined with restaurants and shops, all built out on stilts, which stretched into sparkling steel-blue waters.

It was 10am and everything was opening up for the day as we wandered to begin our Old Town mooch. There were way more Thai locals than tourists about, some of then sitting under the shade of the trees, others opening up their shops or tinkering with their scooter. A few kids were riding rusty bikes on a nearby patch of grass.

Immediately, I liked Old Town’s sleepy vibe. It felt peaceful. Quieter. It felt more… us.

We’d promised the kids they could do some shopping, and it was so cute to watch as they ran ahead with Nanny, strutting down the street side by side, each of them with a small shoulder bag slung across their chest — a fluffy rainbow unicorn number for Jupes and Storm, a black and green dinosaur bag for Rocky.

These bags contained their purses, and in those was some money which Auntie Chan and Uncle Lee-Lee had sent over. They had a whopping 500 baht (£11.50) to cut loose with. Old Town retailers — hold on to thy hats. The McKids were in town and they had funds to burn!

‘I want a monkey, Mummy!’ Jupiter pointed up at a carousel of stuffed monkeys with long arms which had Velcro on their hands for dangling around your neck. We’d made it approximately ten steps down the street and were at the first shop.

‘Okay Jupes — we can have a look. Are you sure you don’t want to see what else there might b—’

‘No. I want the monkey.’ She said, resolute.

And so Jupiter bought a stuffed monkey with purple fluffy fur and bulbous, shiny eyes. Storm, who was out in the street with Nanny, then saw Jupiter’s purchase and wanted a monkey too. She got a rainbow one. Rocky saw Storm and Jupiter’s monkeys and got monkey envy (this is a real thing), so he bought a blue one.

The shopkeeper found this all very entertaining — us going back to him every few minutes with a new child, clutching a new monkey. I think he sold a month’s worth of monkey inventory in ten minutes.

After leaving the monkey shop, we made great progress. We had walked for at least a full minute before Jupiter stopped abruptly. She dropped her arms to the side, looked at the sky, and let out a wail. ‘Mum. I wanted the pink one, with the baby on its back!’ Her mouth was down-turned, ice blue eyes now staring up at me.

She was, of course, referring to a monkey she had not chosen from the carousel. Given how much Jupiter loves baby animals, I was surprised she hadn’t chosen that monkey in the first place.

I wondered for a moment if this was a time to instil the idea that we have to live with the decisions we make. And then I remembered… she was three years old. And besides, we all make mistakes. Sometimes, even, when purchasing monkeys.

So I went back to see the shopkeeper and launched into an A-level drama performance — acting out Jupiter crying so that he would understand the need for the exchange. He thought I was unhinged, but he laughed and allowed me to make the swap all the same.

And at last, my three monkeys and their three monkeys made it down the street. The whole street. Nanny scored herself some lovely bowls, a tea towel and a few items of clothing, all of which she said were even better than the apple juice on the plane.

Rocky used his change from the monkey purchase to buy a miniature tuk-tuk which he played with on a mound of dirt by the edge of the playground for 30 minutes, and everyone left Old Town as happy as could be.

It was only later that day, back in the quiet of the apartment, that Storm accidentally sat on a monkey and there was a deafening noise — half howl, half squawk. ‘What the heck was that?!’ Jamie cried.

‘Hang on, Storm, give me that monkey — I think they make sounds and… oh god.’ Not only did these monkeys screech, but their bulbous eyes glowed red at the same time. They were devil monkeys. I put my head in my hands. The lady downstairs was going to love these.

The day before Ann was due to go home, there was a lot of chat about rain coming to Koh Lanta. We’d had wall-to-wall sunshine and plenty of heat since arriving on the island, so a storm was big news.

Ann, in her newly brave and always playful state, was very much up for the rain. By their predicted arrival time of 6pm, she’d even had a shower to get ready for what she was calling ‘the show.’

So, we waited, but no rain came. The kids tried a rain dance in the living room. Still no rain. We did the bedtime routine and tucked them all up for the night, then went expectantly out onto the balcony to survey the skies. Dark and moody, but still… no rain.

‘Well, I don’t know where this bloomin’ storm is!’ Ann said, disappointed.

At 9:30 p.m. we all agreed the rain must have passed us by, so Ann and Jamie went out to get a late-night snack from the pancake shack. They’d been gone for five minutes when I heard a deep rumble. There was a flash of lightning and then the deafening roar of droplets hammering onto surrounding roofs. My first thought was, ‘Yes!! This is so cool!’ followed quickly by… oh crap — those two are going to get drenched.

Ten minutes later Jamie and Ann tumbled through the door, Ann’s blonde hair plastered to her face, black dress clinging to her body and glasses steamed up. ‘Woo hoo!’ she beamed ‘Look at the state of me!’

We all stood together on the balcony to enjoy what felt like a mini-monsoon. Palm trees swayed, bedraggled street cats ran for cover and every roof became a waterfall. This is one of the things I loved most about Thailand. When it rains — oh my, how it rains! Jamie and Ann went back inside, and I stayed out there for a while, alone, watching the pathway below turn to a river and listening to the rat-a-tat-tat interspersed with deep rumbles from the clouds.

After the disappointment of arriving in a place that wasn’t quite what I’d expected, and all of the wonderings that came with that, the rain felt like a cleanse, a purge. As if the world was saying: let it go Anna.

Let the rain come.

And I realised, this was not a place we would have chosen, but I was glad we were there. And I meant that in a broader sense — there on the island, there with my family and a nanny who loves her three beautiful, healthy grandkids.

I was so glad Nanny got to see her first ever Thai storm and it came just in time. The following day we packed her off on a two-hour taxi ride (on her own!) back to Krabi Airport. Gone was all that extra energy and childcare support and it was back to just the five of us. Now gearing up to take our Koh Lanta stabilisers off…

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👋🏻 Hello, I’m Anna, an adventurer, speaker and author of six books. Currently slow-travelling the world with my young family, writing about the colour and chaos of a well-lived, unconventional life. 💙 🗺️

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🏝️ The Great Arrival

We rolled off the car ferry at Saladan pier and onto the island of Koh Lanta. Compact, colourful shops and restaurants lined either side of the street, brightly coloured signs and decorations framing places that looked cool and dark inside.

‘Here we are, on the island!’ I said excitedly as the minivan started moving again.

‘What? This is the island?’ Said Ann from the seat behind me.

‘Yeap — short crossing, wasn’t it?’

‘Oh. I thought we were still waiting to go across. I didn’t even notice we were moving!’

Ann, so immersed in playing with the kids and keeping them entertained, had completely missed that we’d driven onto a car ferry and that the ferry had taken us across a large estuary. Such is the dedication of a nanny.

Koh Lanta, an island at the very southern tip of Thailand, reaches out into the Andaman Sea, towards Sumatra. It’s a place I’d been researching for years. We nearly visited in 2021 after COVID hit, but ended up on the nearby, larger island of Phuket instead.

We had friends who had lived on Koh Lanta for six months with their young kids. I’d read about it countless times, and each time it came across as a haven for digital nomads who like the quiet life.

‘Unlike many other Thai islands, Koh Lanta has resisted development and maintained its quiet charm.’ Said one article. Perfecto, I thought.

After all the travelling, I was relieved at finally being on the hunk of land where we’d stay put for three months. And yet that relief was mixed with a bubble of nerves. I hoped the migration south was going to be worth it and that we’d picked a good spot for us and for the kids. We’d pre-booked and pre-paid for all of our accommodation, so the stakes were high.

I pressed my face against the window, doing my best to take it all in.

We passed large, open-fronted shops selling household items, fans, rubber rings, clothes and… lots of plastic things. Restaurant after restaurant, small shacks interspersed with more upscale places. Corrugated roofs and flimsy-looking structures mixed with roofs made from palm leaves — old tyres laid on top to keep them in place.

A hotel. Another hotel. A resort with a large barrier, its paved driveway snaking down to the beach. More people walking. All white people. Skimpy clothing, thongs in many cases, and large beach bags. Pale skin, sunburned in patches.

Huh. Not what I expected.

We pottered on. Past a place called High Siam, a chain of smart-looking cannabis dispensaries where you could smoke or eat weed. A few open-fronted Muay Thai gyms, one with a big, faded figure of the Hulk out the front. ‘Hulk smash!!’ Rocky shouted as we zoomed on by. Past the ‘Get Wet Bar’ with a large neon picture of a tongue poking out of a mouth.

The concrete-paved road was reflecting the sun’s glare, now seeming as loud as everything that surrounded it, as we moved through Klong Dao and towards Long Beach. People, people and more people, mopeds and cars steaming down a busy dual carriageway with a black-and-white striped central reservation.

Past the Irish Embassy, a bar advertising Guinness and live music on a Friday night. Hustle and bustle and… was that a guy on a moped steaming the wrong way down the carriageway? Yes, yes, it was. Our driver casually swerved to avoid him, without so much as a flinch.

My heart sank.

I had flashbacks to being eighteen and cruising along ‘the strip’ in Malia on the island of Crete. Ready to party. Ready to be anywhere other than school. Ready to be on a beach with friends, but it not mattering where in the world that beach was. It felt like we had dropped ourselves right in the heart of a holiday destination like that.

‘Oh, wow, this is busy.’ I said to Jamie, my mouth a floodgate, trying to hold back everything else I was thinking.

‘Yeah… it is isn’t it.’ He said, also sounding like he was thinking more than he was saying.

I tried to override my disappointment by focusing on the practicalities of life here and began looking out the window for transport options. We knew we wanted to hire a Samlor if we could — a moped with a side cage and a third wheel. (We later learned the Lanta locals just call these tuk-tuks). They are similar to our beloved moped, Pineapple, in Pai, only more rustic.

I was happy to see that these Samlor/tuk-tuks were everywhere, being used as taxis. Then I spotted a couple of hire places with them parked outside.

‘Great news, J! Looks like we can hire one of those cage moped things,’ I said, brightening a little.

I was glad we’d already solved the puzzle of how to get around the island. But by the time we made it past the next crowd of tourists and into the apartment, I already knew something I was trying to deny.

This wasn’t our place.

I tried to shove the thoughts of having made a major mistake in choosing such a tourist hotspot to the back of my mind. We settled into an airy two-bedroom apartment at the bottom of Long Beach, and into life with Ann around.

The apartment was lovely, high-ceilings n’ all — except because there were four giant gaps in the balcony which could fit either of our two, three year olds through, should they choose to launch themselves from the second floor.

I was on edge every time they were near the balcony, so we asked the hotel for a fix, and two days later a man came and hammered a length of thick bamboo into the gaps. They didn’t budge an inch, and I admired his genius solution.

I passed fix-it man in the corridor the following day — because he was also, of course, the cleaner.

‘Bamboo! I do. You like?’ He said.

‘Oh, yes. Very clever! We like, khob khun kha’ I replied, making the prayer hands and bowing my head — he beamed.

Safety in Thailand, I was reminded, was loose and free.

A few days later, at 7 o’clock in the morning, there was a knock at our door. I opened it to find a woman standing there. She had tanned skin, a long t-shirt on, and dark circles around her eyes.

‘I’m so sorry to disturb you…’ she began, and I detected a Spanish accent.

‘Oh not at all — we’re up, anyway.’ I gestured to the twins, who were both naked and playing in the living room behind me.

‘I think your kids wake up early — six o’clock — yes?’ she said.

‘Um, yes. They do.’ I said, thinking technically it was more like five-thirty but now I was getting a bad feeling about where this chat was going…

‘We live below you and they are waking us up. I have a daughter who goes to school, and she’s so tired. And I have a three-month-old baby as well.’

There was a short silence, during which I wondered how much quieter we could be. I couldn’t remember them shouting that morning, but maybe I’d forgotten already. ‘It’s not their voices,’ she clarified. ‘It’s them running. Their little footsteps. The ceiling is shaking.’

I felt the prickle of shame go up my neck.

‘Um, okay, I will try my best. I know there are two of them, so that’s double the sound…’ I said, thinking out loud. The woman nodded. ‘If you do hear them, please know I’m up here doing my best to keep the steps down.’ I put my hand on my heart. I wanted her to know I’d heard her. But I hoped she heard me too.

As I shut the door, my mind caught up. And it nudged the shame aside. Hang on, what the heck?! The kids don’t run around the apartment. They just walk. Yes they walk in the way three-year-olds do, which is clunky and sometimes excitable. But they are just… walking.

‘What was that about?’ Ann asked. So I told her. And then Ann, a no-nonsense landlady more than used to managing multiple people living in close confines, went off on one. ‘Next time she comes to the door, let me answer it. I’ll tell her what’s what!’ I laughed. You can take the landlady out of Gloucester, but…

Jamie told me not to worry. But I couldn’t help it. I now had this new information lodged in my brain: that there was someone living in the same building as us, unhappy with our family.

It’s something I’d been constantly battling since we started this trip — this tendency to overreach, spending energy on making sure others were okay, like I had buckets of it to spare. But there comes a point when you learn to recognise where your own problems end and someone else’s begin.

The following afternoon, the apartment manager brought up the ‘footsteps’ issue with us. The woman had now officially complained. The manager told us that this guest had already moved apartments twice. Still, I felt for her. She looked exhausted. As a mother, I wanted to gift her some rest, but we had met at a time and place where we were both at capacity. We had no space for one another — only to do what we each needed to, to get through the morning.

Needless to say, life on Koh Lanta didn’t get off to the greatest start.

That said, we didn’t leave. It would have seemed like giving up to do that, not to mention the fact that it would ruin Nanny’s holiday. Can you imagine? ‘Oh hey Ann, thanks for overcoming some of your greatest fears and flying halfway across the world to meet us, but nah - we don’t fancy this place after all. We’re off!’

There was just no way. And besides, I reminded myself that we weren’t on Koh Lanta purely because of an idea of the place itself. We’d chosen it because of the possibility of the people.

The same pop up community of world schooling families we’d hoped to find in Pai (but hadn’t materialised) was also running a group down here. There were new faces to meet, activities to throw ourselves into, and playmates to get to know. I wasn’t in any rush because time with Nanny was the priority for now, but I hoped that community would help anchor us in the months ahead.

🏝️ To be continued… next week

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👋🏻 Hello, I’m Anna, an adventurer, speaker and author of six books. Currently slow-travelling the world with my young family, writing about the colour and chaos of a well-lived, unconventional life. 💙 🗺️

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Hello Restless Ones,

Sawasdee Ka from Thailand, where I have emerged from the cocoon of solo parenting as a beautiful butterfly. I’m kidding, I’m exhausted and more like a splatted fly on a windscreen. But having Jamie back from the USA and on this side of the world is marvellous.

We’re even gearing up for a date night here tonight — which, of course, doesn’t involve actually leaving the apartment (what madness would that be?), but instead sitting on the balcony, with a beer, looking at the stars. It’s good enough for me.

Here’s another tale for you all — about the final leg of our 1,300 mile journey via trains and taxi from the mountainous north to the islands of the south.

Most of it is free to read, there’s a paywall on the final section when Nanny sashays in.

Catch you next week with another window into this weird and wonderful life!

Big Love,

Anna xx

🧡 ‘It’s For My Bum Hole, Mum’

After leaving Hua Hin we continued our 1,300-mile journey south through Thailand, taking a six-hour train to Surat Thani. I had gifts of coloring pads and sticker books to surprise the kids with when they struggled. They wavered at points, but overall they did amazing.

Out of the window, I noticed the landscape change. There were fewer of the crop fields and rubber plantations I’d seen south of Bangkok and these were replaced with dense forest or clusters of wild palm trees.

Just north of Chumpon the earth turned a rusty red, and that made me think of Pai, fondly. I passed the time with the kids on my lap in rotation. We discovered that if you put gel pen on the laminated cardboard backing of a colouring pad you could smudge the ink with your finger.

So we made Smudge Art (trademark incoming), then tore it out and displayed it on the back of the seat in front.

Passengers stopped at intervals to ooh and arr at our mini-Monet-esc masterpieces. The blur of green trees and red earth beyond the window rattled by. Fans whirred overhead, and the Thai lady in the seat across the aisle snored.

This being our third long train journey, I’d now figured out how to order food and drinks to our seat. A man with a clipboard came around, showed a laminated menu with four items on it and passengers handed over cash. When it was our turn, I pointed to a dish, handed over 40 baht and waited for it to arrive.

Storm found the prospect of a hot meal being delivered to our train seat very exciting! I also found it exciting because I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d ordered.

Not long after placing the food order, another man walked down the aisle with a clipboard, calling out in Thai. This was Drinks Man. Not to be confused with Meal Man, although both of them were smartly dressed in a brown shirt, black cap and khaki trousers. And then there was Snack Lady, who offered snacks and… pot noodles — which I would actually consider a substantial meal, but apparently it belonged in the snack category. Why? Because Snack Lady said so. Her word is final.

Beyond figuring out how to buy food on the move, I’d also learned that Thai train carriages were quiet places. The kids were doing a great job at keeping shouts to a minimum, and we were doing our best to keep them well fed and, equally importantly, well hydrated.

The previous week Jupiter had been complaining that her ‘wee hole’ was sore when she went to the toilet and we thought she might have a mild urinary infection.

To stave off things getting worse, we’d bought a ‘special’ drink for her in the form of orange-flavoured rehydration sachets. Somewhere along the way the kids had translated us talking about Jupiter’s ‘wee hole’ into the drink being for her ‘bum hole’. We didn’t correct them — she was drinking lots, regardless of what hole it was intended for, and that was all that mattered.

We’d been on the train for a couple of hours and things were especially peaceful in the carriage. It was hot, even with the fans going above our heads and, on account of how much Rocky was sweating, I offered him a drink.

‘I want the speshial orange wun.’ He gestured to the bottle with the rehydration sachet in it. I passed it over. He took a swig.

‘It’s for my hy-draay-chun you know, mum.’ He said, his voice now louder, as if making an important announcement to the carriage.

‘You’re right, it is, and it’s warm today, my love.’ I ruffled his sandy-coloured mullet. He took another swig, then stared ahead.

‘Yeah, it’s for my bum hole.’ He shouted.

I stifled a laugh and looked at Jamie. Jamie coughed his water out. Rocky took another glug. ‘It’s good for Jupe-ter’s bum hole too, you know mum.’ He continued, matter of fact.

It was a good job all holes were well hydrated because our next port of call, via private taxi from Surat Thani, was the hot n’ humid Khao Sok National Park. We’d been told it was like Jurassic Park, with caves, the oldest evergreen rainforest in the world, and limestone stacks rising from a vast lake.

We had grand plans to go exploring but sacked off the idea of tours or boat trips and instead simply… hung out at our low-key, rough n’ ready hotel.

On the second afternoon, the skies were thick with thunderous clouds, and a storm rolled in. It was our first daytime downpour since arriving in Thailand, and that in itself was lovely.

Lovelier still is that I have the most beautiful video of the kids playing in the rain — all of them naked, running down the river that had formed in the gravel track between the bungalows. We could have been out on the lake, ticking boxes on a tour, overheating, and instead there we were, naked in the rain.

From Khao Sok we caught another private taxi to Krabi, and this taxi was very Pimp My Ride. A shiny golden ceiling engraved with swirls and stars, a fitted boom box, and a TV that descended from the ceiling and kept the kids entertained with learning Thai words for two hours.

Krabi was a place we’d been looking forward to for a while. Not only because it was the jumping-off point for our final destination — the island of Koh Lanta — but also because we were about to be joined by the newest member of our travelling party…

Enter… Nanny Annie.

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👋🏻 Hello, I’m Anna, an adventurer, speaker and author of six books. Currently slow-travelling the world with my young family, writing about the colour and chaos of a well-lived, unconventional life. 💙 🗺️

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Hello Restless Ones,

A later post this week because we’ve been readying for Jamie to fly to America for a speaking gig. So I’m now flying solo with the kiddos on Koh Lanta for a full seven days. Help! Well, actually I do have help — in the form of a local Thai lady. One day down with her on the McTeam and so far, so good.

I won’t post next week because getting to writing amid the extra child-juggling is tricky but here’s a bumper tale to tide you over.

We’re also gearing up for Songkhran here — a buddhist celebration to see in the New Year. Water is THE thing and apparently it’s one giant splash fest. I can’t wait to get stuck in and… soaked.

Enjoy the story of our journey south and catch you in a few weeks,

Anna xx

🚆The No. 14 Train to Bangkok

We boarded the No.14 night train to Bangkok half an hour before it was due to leave. Most of the carriages were second class, with rows of beds behind thin curtains, but I’d opted to posh-it-up with first class so that we could have our own private family space in a couple of connecting cabins.

While shuffling down the narrow passageway towards our beds for the night, I peered into another cabin and saw three monks sitting in there. Ooh monks! Was my first thought. Followed quickly by Huh, monks? As I noticed each one was scrolling social media on their phone.

I should add that the cabins were not actually posh. The brown leather benches were old and tatty, there was a leaky sink and bubbled pastel-blue linoleum floor but they were private. And also strangely glorious in their own rustic way. The cabins had character, and we had the chance of getting some sleep. It was a win win.

Shortly after settling in, the twins announced they wanted to visit the toilet. Not because they needed a wee but because, apparently, the toilet was a major attraction that simply must be seen. Jamie took them off to experience the wonders of le bog.

Ten minutes later, Rocky was back with a big grin on his face. ‘Mum! Monks gave us these.’ He held out a fistful of snacks. The monks had seen the kids running up and down the corridor and wanted to share their food with them.

I was touched, and also intrigued — what did monks like to eat on a 13 hour train journey through the night? I wondered. The answer… cheese crackers, cookies, and salted fishy crisps. Fuel for enlightenment, indeed.

At 5:35 p.m. the train rolled out of the station. Clickety-clack, clickety-clack. We were on our way.

Rocky and Jupiter were off down the passageway again with Jamie, making friends with an Australian family in a nearby cabin. So it was only me and Storm at our home on the rails as the train picked up speed through the outskirts of Chiang Mai. Storm happily immersed herself in drawing the sunset, which gave me the chance to watch the city slide slowly away.

We passed apartment blocks, billboards, a cluster of ramshackle homes with clothes strung on lines in the front garden. A temple with a golden spire, reflecting the last of the early evening light. Soon the buildings thinned out, the gaps between them grew, the space now filled with patches of scrub, a rubbish dump and a row of palms. A young boy sat astride his red bicycle and watched us pass.

On a frontage road alongside us, a man on a scooter kept pace for a moment — no helmet, a navy shirt and a plastic bag hanging from one handlebar. I wondered if he was going home, or going out. Or heading to his sister’s house for tea? I’d never know. He soon fell away too, his navy top transforming into a smudge of colour beyond the window.

We moved out into open farmland now and a range of mountains came into view. Rising and falling, tracing a line across a hazy, tangerine horizon.

I sat back in my chair and exhaled. I was beyond happy to be there because I bloomin’ love a night train. I find the idea that you can fall asleep in one place and wake up in another, wildly exciting. As if your body gets to have an adventure without your mind knowing anything about it.

So I watched the world whizz by. There was nothing I could or should do, that felt wonderful. Underneath the relaxation there was a bubble of excitement. I was waiting for something. For darkness to fall. For the adventure to begin, for the world to shrink down to just us, in two tiny rooms, streaking through the night towards Bangkok. I was waiting for sleep.

By 7pm the guard had come around and transformed our seats into beds. After some debate about who was sleeping where, we crawled into our bunks. How lovely it was to whisper our night-nights and I love you’s into the darkness and fall asleep to the gentle sway of the carriage. The creaking of doors, the screech of the brakes, and a light smell of burning.

I woke up a few times in the night, but I didn’t mind one bit. It allowed a moment to remember where I was, how cool it felt, and to be gently rocked back to sleep.

At 6am, a guard tapped on the cabin door. ‘Good morning! We arrive Bangkok!’

I looked over to Rocky, who was already kneeling up, face pressed against the glass, looking out at the suburbs rolling by.

‘Mum…’

‘Yeah?’

‘There was a train, and I was sleeping on it!’ he beamed.

Onward and upward?

After two nights in Bangkok, we caught an express train south to Hua Hin.

The four-hour train ride was dreamy. No meltdowns. Lots of audiobooks. Some toddler trash on Netflix, a small doze, and the chance for me and Jamie to have an uninterrupted conversation.

In Bangkok, we’d had a little wobble of confidence about the journey and had seriously considered scrapping the trains south and flying instead. Jamie said we simply had to adapt to being on the move so much, I was less sure. But somewhere between the audiobooks and the jungle rolling by beyond the window, I was beginning to think he was right. Things were going much better now. We just needed time. The only way from here was onward and upward.

In Hua Hin, I’d found us a stellar deal at an apartment block near the beach. £36 a night in a complex with the most enormous swimming pool, complete with a lazy river and splash pad for the kids. It wasn’t exactly our usual style because we may as well have been anywhere in the world — Florida, southern Spain — but I was up for something easy.

The complex was gigantic and full of exciting nooks to explore, so the kids scattered on arrival. The security staff thrust us a supermarket trolley to transport our luggage, but it didn’t take me long to decide that the kids were going to be more of a challenge to get into the apartment than the bags. So Jamie dragged and carried the luggage while I used the trolley to round up the kiddos.

I found Jupiter knee-deep in an ornamental fountain, Storm was charging back and forth across a small footbridge over the lazy river, and Rocky was at the edge of the kids’ pool; loitering with intent to plunge. ‘Taxi, taxi for the Mcs!’ I called, loading them in one by one and pushing them along a winding pathway to our apartment block.

We tucked our trolley into a cove by a vending machine and rode the lift up to the 7th floor. I noted an official-looking sign that detailed the decisions residents had made at a recent annual general meeting. What followed was a list of 10 rules.

These rules included not hanging clothes from the balcony, not smoking marijuana outside your room, and promptly returning any trolley used for luggage to the security area. The fine for breaking any rule was 500 baht. I read that last one and winced. Although, to be fair, it did specify if the trolley was used for luggage.

After a swim, the kids were tired and hungry, so we set the bar as low as possible and went to eat at the restaurant next door. It was then that things took a turn.

Bitemageddon

Partway between deciding whether to have stir-fried chicken cashew or spring rolls, the twins started fighting. I tried to manage the disagreement (which was over who stood in a specific spot behind a glass door) while Jamie ordered, but it escalated to where their faces were centimetres apart, both of them red with rage and screeching at one another. Jupiter, overwhelmed with frustration, then bit Rocky on the arm. Hard.

All hell broke loose as Rocky retreated from her, wailing. I comforted him and Jupiter — not feeling great about what had just happened — didn’t want to leave me alone while I was cuddling Rocky, which made Rocky cry even more.

So they both wailed and screeched while I tried to usher us all to a quiet corner. Obviously, the whole restaurant had stopped eating at this point and was looking at us. Above the din, Jamie and I agreed to bail on lunch — there was no way we could stay. So out we went with a twin under each arm, both of them screaming and Storm trailing behind, now also in a huff because she didn’t want to leave.

Jamie went back to collect the food as a takeaway, and we attempted to eat it in an area of outdoor seating near the playground. Before, of course, being told off for eating at an outdoor table. (How ruddy dare we?) According to the smartly dressed residence manager, the only place we could eat food was in our apartment. I had clearly missed seeing that on the list of rules.

From that point on, the day tanked downhill.

The kids continued to go at each other. Rocky got scratched a few more times. Storm got kicked. Round and round it all went, with us in the mix too, like a toxic tornado.

That evening, I wrote in my notes: ‘I can say without a doubt that this has been the most hideous day of this trip, possibly of the past six months, maybe even of the past year.’

From an outsiders perspective we were in a lovely place — a posh complex with everything the kids could need. But that made it worse. When your brain tells you that you should be enjoying something. To not be having fun feels even worse. As if it is, somehow, all your fault. That you are imagining quite how shitty things are at that moment in time.

That night, with the twins asleep on a mattress on the floor (Rocky sporting his bite and scratch marks) and Storm snuggled up on a sofa bed (with her bruises from being kicked) Jamie and I lay down next to one another in the darkness.

I reached for his hand, interlocked my fingers with his, and exhaled. Suddenly, it was quiet not only in the room but also in my mind.

‘Well, that was a shit day.’ I said.

‘That was a really shit day.’ He replied, and we were silent for a while.

‘Do you ever feel like we’re messing the kids up?’ I asked. It was a question that had been looping on repeat for the past few hours, getting louder every time the chaos intensified.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know. When the days go like they did today I just think they’re out of whack and it’s because of what we’re doing — like we did this to them because we chose not to just fly south like… I don’t know — normal people?’

‘No, I don’t think we’re messing the kids up. And really, when you think about it. The first half of today was great. They loved being on the train, and the swimming pool was brilliant. So it was only half of it that was shit.’ He said, and I laughed. He was right.

‘So maybe they’ll just be fifty per cent fu*ked up then?’

‘Yeah, fifty per cent. That’s not too bad, is it?’ He squeezed my hand, and we laughed.

A little lightheartedness had broken the tension. And so now we turned to practical things — a discussion on exactly why we weren’t enjoying the extended travels south as much as we’d hoped we would.

The setup we had in Pai — being in one place for a few months — had worked for both of us. Being on the move every day or two meant that neither of us had time to do any work, there were no opportunities for exercise, the kids didn’t have any consistent playmates and they were constantly in new environments with a lot of rules — there just wasn’t the scope for free flowing play.

We were, as we call it, ‘on them’ all day. Hovering over them, hopping from one request to the next. ‘Please pick up that broom’, ‘don’t throw rocks in that fountain’, ‘don’t put your chocolate-smeared fingers on the white walls.’ It was exhausting for us and them.

And so we concluded that train and taxi travels south were not a good idea. Unfortunately, we’d just gone past the point of no return. It would now take us just as long to retrace our steps and fly as it would to press on. The only way was… through.

🐘I Love Phants Lodge

The morning after Bitemageddon, we were trundling down the main road through Hua Hin in a private minivan.

Way back in England a friend — — had recommended a place called I Love Phants Lodge. The name alone had intrigued me and, in reading about it, I’d learned it’s a small eco-lodge with rooms where you can stay overnight at a rescue and rehabilitation centre for elephants and other animals like gibbons, tigers, and bears. A place where the fees for a stay go towards supporting the park and the volunteers.

It sounded as close as we were going to get to going on safari, so I had purposely used I Love Phants Lodge as the original inspiration for the trip south. Considering the success of the southbound journey was currently teetering on the edge of UN-FUN, there was now a lot of pressure on the ‘Phants and the lodge to deliver.

It was strange to rumble down a dirt track, past shanty-style homes and then, after many twists and turns, pull up at a lush lodge. And it really was lush. Lots of dark wood and tall tables made from funky-shaped sections of tree trunks, all varnished to perfection.

The lodge was set up high, offering a 180-degree view of a vast, tree-filled landscape and, I guessed, elephants.

‘J! kids, look!’ I pointed over the edge of the balcony. Just in front of us, some twenty metres away, three elephants were walking in procession, trumpeting as they went. Real, live, majestic elephants! I couldn’t believe it. I’d never seen an elephant outside a zoo before, and this was also the first time I had heard one trumpet.

‘Can you see them, kids?’ I asked as Storm appeared at my side. ‘Woah.’ She said as Rocky cocked his head to one side.

‘Mum?’ he asked.

‘Yes poppet?’

‘Are those real elephants or not?’

‘They’re real, my love.’

‘Oh,’ he said.

We couldn’t check into our room right away, so off we headed to, as Storm put it, ‘save some elephants’. Elephant rescue began with sitting on an open-sided bus with our excitable and lovable guide ‘Jam’.

Short black hair, a small top bun, arms full of tattoos, a stellar smile and buckets of energy, we loved Jam instantly. I’m sure Jam wasn’t their real name (a more abbreviated version of the Thai original for the westerners) but Rocky didn’t care. He said, ‘I like strawberry jam, and I like this jam too.’

The bus ride didn’t last long as it was only a means to get to the start of a 90-minute walking tour. I thought this would be a great idea, and it was, sort of. It was a walking tour for Storm. It was more of an endurance hobbling tour for Jamie and me, who had to carry the twins for most of it — in 32C heat and humidity. I have never sweated so much in all my days.

A we wound our way through the complex, I learned a lot. Like the fact that gibbons travel using their arms and swinging, and monkeys are more the dance-along-the-branches kind of primate. We also met some langurs (a type of monkey) who couldn’t have too much sugar or they would die, a fact which blew the kids’ minds.

My favourite resident was a small, innocent-looking slow loris, who are apparently far more deadly than they appear. They store poison in a gland in their elbow and, if threatened, they will lick their elbow and bite you. That must be some speedy lick. If you ever see a slow loris lick its elbow and glance in your direction — run for your life!

Of all the stories Jam told that day, the one that put a lump in my throat was about the elephants. They spoke about the process of removing a baby elephant from its mother at a young age, putting it in a cage, building trust, then gradually withholding food until the elephant only gets to eat when it does what its keeper wants.

‘They call this process breaking the spirit,’ Jam said, and my stomach did a flip.

That night, we retreated to our room, which was on stilts close to the gibbons enclosure and on the edge of where the elephants roamed. We wasted no time in heading out onto the balcony to see if we could catch sight of an elephant. I wasn’t hopeful. It was an enormous park, some 500 acres, and there were only a dozen elephants living here.

But then, there she was. Just having a munch on some sugar cane right in front of our room. We called her Nellie. I have the loveliest picture taken after calling the kids outside. They grabbed the stuffed toy elephants that were sitting on their beds and stood to watch Nellie have her dinner, ten metres away.

As a bonus, six large tortoises were living under the room next to ours. Across the road was a spectacular hornbill, and then there were gibbons, who we could visit whenever we liked — one non-swinger and a lot of swinging ones. All… very loud.

‘Oh, you’re going to get woken up by those gibbons at dawn!’ some Americans had warned us earlier in the day. Little did they know we live with three little gibbons who wake us up pre 6am. If anything, it would be the real gibbons filing the noise complaint.

The following morning we were enjoying waffles, coffee and fresh fruit, looking out over the park and watching a line of elephants move across the land in the distance. It felt so peaceful. The air seemed charged with magic.

I waited until the kids were out of earshot, then called Jamie over. ‘J… I’m wondering if we should stay here another night instead of going back to the apartment in Hua Hin?’

We asked about extending our stay but the receptionist said there was nothing available, so we sighed and decided it wasn’t meant to be.

An hour later, a familiar face walked into the bar. It was Edwin, the man who founded the park. Jamie, being Jamie, went right up to him and started chatting. I retreated to look after the kids. Ten minutes later, Jamie was back.

‘Do you want the good news or the really good news?’ He said.

‘Err, give me the good news.’

‘I met Edwin and had a great chat.’

‘Ah, fab — he seems like a cool dude.’

‘He is.’

‘‘And the really good news?’

‘Edwin said there’s not really any space but he’ll open up a special pool villa that’s usually $400 a night, for the same cost as our little room.’

‘What?!’

‘Yep! We can move in thirty minutes.’

I was learning a lot from Jamie on this trip about asking. Even if you thought the answer would be no, it was always worth a crack.

And so we spent another night at I Love Phants Lodge. In the most ridiculous villa, with an infinity pool overlooking the elephants. We swam until the sun went down, stopping to munch on crisps at the bar (yes there was a bar in the villa) and retreating only when the mosquitos came out to munch on us.

In the taxi on the way back to Hua Hin, we were feeling refreshed, connected as a family, and reconnected with nature. It was a reminder that I wasn’t going nuts and that we could thrive given the right environment — we just hadn’t been where we felt most at ease. In gigantic villas — only kidding. I mean, out in nature.

I Love Phants Lodge was the gem that turned things around. We still had a six-hour train journey, a 90-minute taxi and a two hour taxi to do from that point on, but this seemed less daunting now. We were closer to the end of the journey than the start of it, and with a top-bobbin’ experience under our belts.

We’d moved from ‘is this even worth it?’ to ‘this is definitely worth it, whatever happens from here on in.’ Largely because we could say, around the dinner table in years to come:

‘Hey kids, remember that time we watched gibbons swing from trees, an elephant wandered past our balcony and a slow loris could have killed us with its elbow?’

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P.S 👆🏻❤️ If you too like elephants, tapping the heart icon at the top or bottom of this post is the equivalent of trumpeting, with your trunk.

👋🏻 Hello, I’m Anna, an adventurer, speaker and author of six books. Currently slow-travelling the world with my young family, writing about the colour and chaos of a well-lived, unconventional life. 💙 🗺️

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Hello Restless Wonders,

Here’s is a pic of where I wrote this week’s post.

I don’t always find such glamorous places to write, but Coco Cape on Koh Lanta Yai is providing the goodies today.

Grandad Don (Jamie’s dad) has been visiting = extra childcare, so I’m down at a Sala, the sea breeze rustling through.

My weather app tells me it feels like 41C, although I’ve stopped checking these days because it’s just… hot or hot-hot. I’ve got my all-important electrolytes on hand because I did a big run yesterday and sweated out enough salt to fill a swimming pool.

The kids are in a pool behind me, up a small hill — they pop their heads over the edge of it now and then and shout loud enough so I can hear them through the noise-cancelling headphones. I smile and make the ‘I love you’ sign.

They are yet to come down and pull me away, which is a miracle (it must be the power of playtime with Grandad Don).

So here I am, writing to you.

Before I pick back up with the tale of our MEGA-journey south through Thailand, I wanted to share the truth of the insides of my noggin. As a midlife woman, with a public profile, choosing to take life in a new direction.

There’s a paywall on it because it’s personal.

Free subscribers, you can catch up on all past nomad tales on the homepage here. And I'll be back next week with the next chapter of our journey south — it's a goodie.

Big love until then,

Anna xx

🤫 Quietly Unbecoming

One night, in the midst of our travels, I was alone in the bathroom, staring into the mirror. Jamie was out in town, meeting a new friend for a drink and indulging in some man-time. Earlier that day, I’d been on Instagram —something which is more rare these days because I delete my social apps for days at a time (I am under no illusion about my lack of self-control… I have none)

Anywhoo, while scrolling The Gram, I’d felt a pang of envy. I always pay attention to envy. Because the green-eyed monster is often standing in front of the thing we really want to explore.

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👋🏻 Hello, I’m Anna, an adventurer, speaker and author of six books. Currently slow-travelling the world with my young family, writing about the colour and chaos of a well-lived, unconventional life. 💙 🗺️

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Hello Restless Ones,

Happy weekending to thee. It’s 8.30pm as I hit send on this in Thailand. We are having the loveliest week, doing our worldschooling thing alongside some other families here. The bonds are getting tight!

Jamie has taken Storm for a ‘Wild night out’ with her friends aged 5 - 13 and she’s the happiest girl on the planet to be staying up so late.

The twins are asleep and I’m a happy mumma to be curled up on the sofa in a quiet house with my laptop.

A reminder that there’ll be no post next week, but I’ll be back in your inboxes at the start of April.

In the meantime, enjoy this tale of the first stop on our 1,300 mile journey south.

🎧 Listen or read as you fancy,

Big love and catch you in April,

Anna xx

We Weren’t Alone in Room 902

We are in in a minivan, thirty minutes into an eventful journey through the mountains from Pai to Chiang Mai, navigating a new toddler challenge.

Over the past few months we’ve been potty training Jupiter… I say ‘training’ — we’d tried for half a year and not got anywhere because, clearly, Jupiter was going to decide when she wanted to wee in a toilet and not on the carpet. And no amount of cajoling, stickers, or even the promise of chocolate was going to sway her.

But recently that had changed. We’d been having some success with the toilet (her poo in a bush aside).

So anyway, there we are on the bus on the road from Pai to Chiang Mai, winding our way along its 762 curves. Despite having taken my travel sickness pills, I’m feeling nauseous. It’s then that Jupiter announces she needs a wee.

‘Ah, it’s okay, Jupes — we put on a special nappy for the taxi, remember. Do you think you can go in the nappy?’ I ask. She falls silent and stares ahead. Even though she’s only three, I know this is a clear sign that says ‘No mum. I will not go in my nappy, how ruddy dare you even suggest such a thing?’

Still, I try to get double-confirmation. ‘Jupes? Can you wee in the nappy?’

She shakes her head, still staring ahead.

And then I think, well, fair enough. That would be like asking me to sit in a pool of my pee when I really prefer to use the toilet. Luckily, I have a travel potty with a lined bag to go in it.

There’s plenty of space in the minivan’s footwell, so Jamie gets the potty out, and we attempt to have Jupiter do a wee while on the move. It’s almost impossible for me to keep her in one place, she skids across the floor as if her potty is on ice.

‘Can you relax and go wee-wee?’

After five minutes of her sliding from one side of the van floor to the other, we give up.

With all the looking down and trying to keep Jupiter upright, I now feel very sick. I’ve reached the point where I need to close my eyes and take life one breath, and indeed one curve at a time. Jamie rubs my shoulder — he’s seen me in travel sick mode many, many times and is always understanding.

The journey continues, and Jupiter tells me her tummy hurts. I think that maybe that wee she’s been talking about is actually a poop and so she just really needs the toilet. I utter some reassurring words about stopping soon and continue to feel sicker. Jupiter carries on:

‘Mummy, my tummy hurts…. Mummy, my tummy hurts. Mummy my— blurgh.’

I open my eyes just in time to see a cascade of orange vomit leave Jupiter’s mouth and land on her top, the car seat and her shorts. I quickly whip the still dry potty bag off the portable potty and put it to her chin in time to catch the second chund.

I’m just wondering if the driver has heard the puking when he shoots his hand backwards with a roll of tissue. He doesn’t even take a breath. I get the feeling this isn’t his first rodeo.

‘You feeling better, Jupes?’ I ask. She nods and then I hear. ‘Mummy!’ There’s a cry and Rocky retches. Jamie, in a lightning-fast move, takes the bag from Jupiter and puts it under Rocky’s chin just as he pukes too. Miraculously, the bag catches everything.

When we leave the van at the hastily requested rest stop, there is only a tiny spatter of vom on the seat — everything else ended up on the kids’ clothes or mine. It really was quite impressive. Storm is thankfully still standing strong. As Meat Loaf said… two out of three ain’t bad.

So the start of the journey from Pai wasn’t entirely straightforward, but that was okay because I had booked us into large connecting rooms at a solid city centre hotel for the five nights we were in Chiang Mai.

Fortunately, the hotel was on the northeastern corner of the wall which surrounds the old part of the city. Unfortunately, the hotel was on the side of a busy three-lane road, with no pavement.

Crossing the road to get to the pavement on the other side was like running a gauntlet. And once you made it across the traffic, there was the city moat, running the entire way along the pavement. So if we did walk out from the hotel, we had to choose between worrying if the kids would get run over or fall in the water. I, being mum, chose to worry about both.

Compared to Pai, the change in environment was stark. We’d gone from morning and evening birdsong to the heavy hum of traffic and the honking of horns. All of a sudden, it seemed as if the world was shouting at me.

The hotel was large; we were on the ninth floor. We had to wait three hours to check in and immediately everything just felt colder, more disconnected. The reception staff looked tired. Fellow guests in the lobby seemed stressed. There were a lot of rules about things like breakfast tokens.

Inside the rooms, the walls had patches of damp; the paint was peeling, and the pièce de résistance was that we weren’t alone.

On the underside of the roof, just beyond our window, was a hornet’s nest. A pulsating, buzzing semicircle of potted compacted mud with hundreds of hornets.

It reminded me of a hideous horror film I’d watched as a teenager, ‘The Candyman’. It was right next to the vent to the bathroom, but luckily the fan spun quickly enough to keep the hornets out, but when the light was off the vent span slower, so we kept the bathroom door shut at all times, just in case.

On the second day in the city, Jamie said that he felt strangely wiped out, and I did too. I wondered if it was just because of the travelling — I mean being puked on twice was enough to blow anyone out, but it felt different to that.

I did a quick bit of research on what the air quality was that day. The pollution level was 7.6 x higher than the World Health organisation recommendations.

They recommended that kids and older adults shouldn’t spend long periods outdoors, and healthy adults shouldn’t exercise in it — certainly not after 8am. The start of burning season had only just been noticeable in Pai, but in Chiang Mai, it surrounded the city.

If you looked in any direction at the horizon, there was a wall of dark grey, as if the world simply ended there. Or Mordor began. I couldn’t tell which. It was bizarre. Even though the smoke was a way off, it felt oppressive.

There is no lonelier place to be than in a big city surrounded by people. Never can you feel more invisible. I looked out at the billboards — one of them selling a new SUV. Another advertising a probiotic drink, a third one selling crab-flavoured crisps.

Did I really need to be told that I must have these things in my life? For some reason I just felt… icky. Jumpy. Anxious. There was nothing to soothe my nervous system in my immediate surroundings — like the mountains or some birdsong or the rustle of leaves through the trees.

The surroundings drowned out nature. And that’s how my body felt too, as if it were drowning. In noise, in dirt, in people.

It took me a day or two of being grumpy, and the kids were royally out of whack. But by the end of those 48 hours, both Jamie and I were tired of being grumps and so were actively searching for silver linings.

One morning, on account of all the smoke, we had the most surreal sunrise — the sun appeared as a giant orange, cartoon esc circle. It blew the kids’ minds to see it rising like that. ‘Mum! Mum, it’s actually moving!!’ Storm said, her gaze fixed on the horizon. ‘That’s crazy!’

So the sun in the morning, through the smoke, was very cool. Also cool was the abundance of kids’ indoor playgrounds and children’s cafes around the city. These were pricey but lovely.

Okay, the ones in the malls were a full-on hideous with bright colours and flashy lights and singing the ‘happy-happy’ song every hour, but the other ones had wooden slides, a shaded playground, a sandpit in the garden and loads of cute wooden toys. They were calm and pleasant spaces to hang out in, away from the heat of the day.

The kids could spend hours there; one of us could work and the one not working usually got to relax a little too.

On our third night in Chiang Mai, there was a straw that broke the camel’s back…

Jamie got up at 1am for a work call. By the time he was done, Rocky had woken and was shouting for Mumma, so we did a 2am bed swap: Jamie took Storm’s room, I snuggled in with the twins.

In the morning, I heard Storm awake next door — she and Jamie were chatting and laughing, so we all piled in to say hello. Storm had a smile on her face.

‘What are you two talking about?’ I eyed them both suspiciously.

‘Shall I tell them, Dadda?’ She looked at Jamie. He nodded.

‘Daddy wants to know if you heard footsteps last night?’

‘Footsteps?’ I said, thinking that Jamie must have had someone come into the room, the thought of which freaked me out.

‘Yeah. Little foosteps. A rat.’

‘A rat?’

‘Yeah, I thought I imagined it, then I got up to go to the toilet and when I came back he scurried across the bathroom doorway in front of me.’

‘No!’

‘Oh yes. It was bloody enormous. I was too freaked out to turn on the light, so I got back into bed. That’s when I saw it climb the curtain and disappear into that gap.’ He gestured to the corner of the room. I looked at the shiny grey curtains and imagined the silhouette of a large rat scaling them, thick tail trailing behind.

Rats didn’t bother me too much if I was alone; I’d slept close to plenty of them in backcountry huts in New Zealand. But we had the kids to think about. Rats carry diseases. There was no way either of us could spend another night in that room. And if the rats were in one room, surely they would be in others.

I paused for a moment and wondered if we should hide our conversation about whether or not to leave the hotel from the kids. I decided not to, this was the reality of life and travel, after all. Storm got it. She seemed nonplussed.

I’m not sure the twins fully got it but they also seemed unbothered — except for Jupiter, who kept tugging Rocky’s sleeve. ‘Rox, Rox, there was a wat in our woom! Can you bewieve it?!’

Ten minutes later, Jamie moved toward the door.

‘Right then. I’m off to chat to the desk about our friend Roland.’

‘Roland?’

‘Roland Rat. Wish me luck.’

He came back twenty minutes later. Apparently, Roland was not news to them. Perhaps he even had his own key card for room 902 at this point.

We declined the staff’s offer to move us to another hotel they owned across town. They refunded us a couple of nights, and we found our own new place, right across the street from the train station. It was somewhere our Pai hotel manager-turned friend Khwan had recommended (hooray for Khwan).

There were clean sheets, the decor was fresh, and the only animal in the room was a giant stuffed teddy bear, which the kids were delighted about. It was the perfect place to regroup, recharge and take a breath before our 13-hour train to Bangkok.

That night as we sat having a Singha Soda, with the giant teddy next to us. ‘Let’s make a rule that we only ever pass through cities from now on, yeah? Two days max.’ Jamie said and I agreed.

Somehow, in just a couple of months, we’d become people who couldn’t stand to be in a city. Roland’s late-night visit had just made the decision a little easier.

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👋🏻 Hello, I’m Anna, an adventurer, speaker and author of six books. Currently slow-travelling the world with my young family, writing about the colour and chaos of a well-lived, unconventional life. 💙 🗺️

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Hello Restless Wonders,

Dropping into your inboxes on a Sunday this week. A Sunday that I forgot was erm… Mothers Day in the UK (sorry Mum!)

This is what happens when you aren’t surrounded by card shops reminding you, don’t watch TV and happen to be living among people who are from countries where it isn’t Mother’s Day. Oops.

This week’s post is a love letter to a place that stole our hearts.

I’m sure we’ll go back one day, and by then we will be different and so will Pai. Isn’t that the wonder of travel though? You can never really… go back.

Enjoy, and catch you next week with the story of that trip south…

Anna xxx

⛰️We Didn’t Want to Go

‘It’s not the same without them, is it?’ Jamie said one morning at the Saturday market after Team America had left town.

‘No, it’s not. There aren’t as many familiar faces in the crowd today.’ I said, taking a sip of coffee.

‘It’s not like we even talked that much on a Saturday…’ Jamie was referring to the fact that the Saturday market is usually just a kaleidoscope of chaos, hopping from the needs of one kid to the next. No one actually gets to chat. It just felt nice to know there were friends around.

And so we returned to our Pai baseline. To the place we were before Team America rolled into our lives.

We celebrated Rocky and Jupiter's 3rd birthdays with cakes and sing-songs, and hotel manager Khwan outdid herself again by producing enormous gifts for them both, along with a present for Storm too.

A few days later Jamie was back at the cake shop, picking up cupcakes for the 7th birthday of a South African girl from the community. There was going to be a gathering in the park, some games, and all the kids were going to shout ‘6-7’ at her (which, as far as I can gather, is something to do with K-Pop Demon Hunters?).

Storm continued to see her new friends at youth group meet-ups a few times a week, me and Jamie took turns working whenever we could, and there was plenty of time at the big shady playground in town for the twins.

Each day, we would rumble away from the hotel, down the long gravel driveway. We’d pass workers in the rice paddies to our right, and say hello to the familiar things on the drive, the kids repeating the hellos in chorus:

‘Hello little windmill.’ I’d say.

‘Hello little windmill,’ they’d reply

‘Hello giraffe statue,’ I’d say

And onto… ‘hello coffee shop, hello cows…’ at which point Jupiter would flick her head from one side of the road to the other because the cows were on both sides and she didn’t want to ‘leave any of them out’.

Together, we flowed through the days, navigating the ups and the (melt)downs.

Life pottered by.

Around this time, Storm became friends with Khwan’s 12-year-old daughter Mali. Although Mali didn’t say many English words out loud, she knew plenty. Mali would sometimes get out of bed early on the weekend to meet us for breakfast and, some evenings in the week, after 3:30 p.m., Storm would rush up to the bar to ask if Mali was home from school yet?

If Mali was there, the girls would skip off down the hotel driveway, heading to the row of golden trumpet trees. These trees are gorgeous. One of those things that you can’t quite believe nature created because they are so darn beautiful.

They have thick silver-grey bark, often low limbs for climbing on but, best of all, during the dry season they drop all their leaves and then Bloom. In. Style — bursting with hundreds of large, bright, round yellow flowers, which drop to the ground.

Some evenings, the twins and I would join Storm and Mali at the trees. Other evenings we’d leave the girls to it — checking in on Storm now and then from a distance so she felt like a big girl, out on her own with her mate.

One Sunday afternoon the pair of them set up a flower shop — collecting the many-petalled puffs of yellow and stockpiling them on a flat concrete circle near the trees. They made signs for their shop, written in English and Thai, and charged 20 baht per three flowers. I went down to buy a few for our room. Jamie and Khwan followed suit.

The following week, I was out in town with Storm, finally getting her some hair braids done as promised (and blue nails to match), when I got a text from Khwan which said:

'I made Tom Kha Gai green curry for your family. Can you have dinner here?’

So we joined Khwan and Mali for a homemade dinner. It was hands down the most delicious curry I’ve ever eaten, and we have eaten a lot. The lemongrass flavour was popping; the veggies were fresh, and the coconut cream was creamy-dreamy. Khwan also somehow made it spicy but not too spicy (so the kids could eat it too).

Just as we were finishing up a second bowl, another staff member, Dao, came by the table. ‘Aroi maí ká?’ (Is it delicious?) she asked in a tone that was sweet and tuneful, as always. She tickled Rocky’s cheek as she said it and he smiled. ‘Aroi mâak!’ Jamie and I said in unison. (It’s delicious!)

Compared to the reservations we had when we arrived in town, I had grown to love Pai very much. I adored it, in fact. It was busy enough to have a vibe, but quiet as soon as you left the main road. The stars were bright at night. The mountains, always there, and there were so many trails and waterfalls and little pockets of nature to explore.

‘It’s a shame we can’t just stay, isn’t it?’ I said to Jamie one evening on the porch.

‘It is. I’d definitely stay for longer, would you?’ he asked.

‘In a heartbeat.’

It was now the middle of January. I knew we were planning to leave at the end of the month, but I felt I had unfinished business with Pai. We hadn’t done even a tenth of the stuff on a tourist’s bucket list; we’d chosen to take things at a slower pace and to simply ‘be’ there. I valued that much more than anything listed in ‘top things to do with kids’. And yet, I was working on my own, separate ‘must-run’ list…

I had managed one big run to the top of a mountain and also the full trail to Mae Yen waterfall and back (I moved a lot faster without six kids in tow). But a lot of the routes I’d excitedly drawn on my GPS app remained un-run. There is nothing sadder than a hopeful line on a map, plotted but never visited.

I wanted to stay, and so did Jamie, if only for a few more months. But we couldn’t. Not only because we’d already pre-booked and paid for accommodation in another area of Thailand (a rookie mistake we wouldn’t make again) but also because burning season was coming.

This season rolls into northern Thailand every year from January onwards. Farmers in the local hills, and across the borders in Myanmar and Laos, burn their fields after harvest to clear the land for the next crop. It’s quick, cheap, and for many, the only option they can afford.

It makes the air pollution index soar and we were told that Pai is no longer such a lovely place to be. Having watched the farm workers go about their daily business on the land just beyond our room, I could see how hard they grafted to make a living. I understood they had to do what they needed to survive each year. Even if that meant the skies (and their lungs) suffered.

I was glad we’d be missing all that smoke, but not so glad about the many other things I’d be leaving behind…

Like sitting on the porch in the early evening, sometimes with a child on my lap, sometimes alone. Watching the tree-covered mountains turn rose-gold at their tips where the fading light met the forest. I would miss how the deep red earth seemed to catch fire at dusk, its glow rising through the green.

I would miss the white birds that flew across the horizon, a new flock passing through the valley, mysteriously often 90 seconds apart — the way planes come in to land at London Heathrow. I would miss sitting there until the clouds turned from peach to blue to smoky grey.

I would miss the rare rainfall and the sound of it rattling on the roof. My bare feet on the still-warm concrete, feeling so grateful for it, taking it as a direct reminder that the world around me was very much alive.

I would miss my beloved four-mile running loop — down Rural Road, through the rice paddies, and back through town. I would miss all these things.

One morning at the end of January we were sitting at our usual breakfast spot — making our coffee order with Dao and Hom. They were, as always, putting up with our attempts to order it in Thai. ‘Gaa-fae song, nèung sài nom ká’ (Two coffees, one with milk). They knew our order, of course. But we enjoyed saying it every day. Especially Jamie, in his thick Gloucester accent.

Dao and Hom were still giggling away at our terrible Thai when I looked over to the pool and noticed some featherlight patches of black floating down from the sky. Soon, flakes of charred leaves joined them. They settled on the table, on the water; one even landed in the coffee. It took me a while to work out what they were, and then I realised — burning season had started. After that, the air became thick and smoky for an hour or two each day.

It was time for us to leave.

A monstrous amount of logistics had dominated the week leading up to leaving, so I couldn’t fully indulge in the bittersweet sadness of moving on — I was too distracted with the weeks ahead.

We were due to make a long journey down to the other end of the country, to an island called Koh Lanta some 1,300 miles away.

We could have flown the bulk of it and been there in a day or two. But that seemed… I don’t know, a waste, somehow. I always liked to really get under the skin of a place — years of running and cycling through countries had gifted me a love of being in the landscape wherever I could, as opposed to flying over it.

I thought that if we were going to be here, in Thailand, we should try to really see the country.

So instead of a flight, we were going south via taxis and trains. We’d take two and a half weeks to do the journey and stop off in many, many places en route.

As we readied to leave, I was bubbling with excitement, but there was a nagging feeling which tempered that enthusiasm. Maybe the drawn-out journey south was a tad ambitious with three kids aged five and under? There was only one way to find out.

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👋🏻 Hello, I’m Anna, an adventurer, speaker and author of six books. Currently slow-travelling the world with my young family, writing about the colour and chaos of a well-lived, unconventional life. 💙 🗺️

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Hello Restless Ones,

It’s heating up here on Koh Lanta, at the very bottom of Thailand. Our apartment looks out on the Andaman sea and I haven’t seen the same sunset twice — I’m feeling very connected to the big gentle orb in the sky these days.

In between trying to find our feet here, we’re also managing our house sale back home in the UK (hopefully🤞🏼) going through. Second time lucky, right? Can you believe, it’s now been a year since we put it on the market?! Best laid plans and all that…

It’s busy on Koh Lanta. Perhaps too busy… but we are at least inundated with nomad families to hang out with down here. For those of you who’ve been following for a while you’ll know that having plenty of playmates wasn’t always the case.

Cue this week’s tale about a nomad family playdate in Pai…

🎧 Read or listen as you fancy.

Big love and catch you next week,

✌🏻💙 Anna xx

Six kids. One Trail. A poo in a bush.

It’s Sunday afternoon and three-year-old Jupiter is legging it through the jungle. She’s got quite the pace on her, and I’ve had to break into a run to keep up. I call after her — she stops, turns around, and puts a finger to her lips.

‘Ssh mummy... the snakies will hear you.’

Giant banana leaves and palm fronds fan up and out above our heads, letting through glimpses of bright blue sky. To our left, I can hear the Mae Yen river, although I can’t see it — it’s hidden somewhere behind dense bush. We’ve already crossed it several times and (what with the faff of shoes on/shoes off) all of us are now barefoot. The soft brown-red mud is cool and glorious beneath my feet.

Up ahead are not only Jamie, Storm and Rocky, but a whole other family unit too. Three girls at similar ages to our brood, and their parents. We are, for all intents and purposes, on a hiking-playdate. My first ever one and, so far, I’m loving it.

Even though things were initially quiet on the community front in Pai, as the weeks went by we made some casual friends — people to say hi to in passing, a few familiar faces in the crowd.

After we’d been in town for a month, Team America showed up.

We originally connected with them through the worldschool community WhatsApp group. They too were feeling disappointed at the number of families in that group, so we went rogue and arranged our own meet-up at a pool one afternoon for a swim and a chat at a hostel in the town centre.

The heated-but-not-really-heated pool was freezing cold, and the kids only swam for 15 minutes before getting out, teeth chattering. And yet, three hours later, we were still at the poolside. Us adults nattering away, the kids running around — getting told off by the owners for wandering into areas of the hostel they shouldn’t and making beds out of towels in the luggage storage area. You know, the usual.

Team America’s mum, Kimberly, was kind and funny, with a mind that seemed to work like mine — running at a default speed of a million miles an hour. She was also a ‘tell it like it is’ sort, and I always liked to be in the company of those kinds of people. As much as I appreciated her vibe, she seemed to like ours too:

‘When I messaged you this morning to meet up this afternoon, and you said yes, I thought, ‘now that is an agile mum’. Some people need a few days’ notice...’ she said.

‘Oh no — we’re always up for a last-minute plan, and we also completely understand if that plan goes to shit before we even get there.’ I said.

We laughed. There was a shared feeling of: hey, we’re all out here, waving the frazzled mum flag, doing our best. And no one’s judging. That was lovely.

Kimberly’s husband, Vimal, was the chilled sort. He reminded me a lot of my younger brother — a dry sense of humour, a methodical thinker and a big fan of finance and numbers.

As a couple, they seemed very go-with-the-flow. Most importantly of all, with three kids, they matched our level of chaos. There was always something to be dealt with, someone who needed attention. Conversations happened half a sentence at a time with plenty of ‘sorry, what were we talking about?’ thrown in.

After getting to know our American friends a little, we arranged a hike along the Mae Yen River. The trail actually goes all the way to a big waterfall if you follow it for three hours. With six kids aged seven and under between us, there was no way we’d make it that far, but that didn’t matter.

We’d headed to the trail the week before, thanks to a tip from hotel manager Khwan, and the kids had had a blast playing in the shallow, shady waters within the first mile.

Eventually, I caught Jupiter up in the jungle. Together, we tracked down the rest of the group (taking care not to wake up the snakies along the way) just as the trail popped out into a clearing alongside a small bamboo shack. The river was narrow here and deeper, flowing around small boulders and tumbling over mini waterfalls before weaving between three cairns — single smooth pebbles stacked one on top of the other, designed to mark the way.

Our two families carried on, hiking in the syncopated beat that comes only from travelling on foot with small humans. We passed hippy-looking types sprawled on towels, lazing on the banks in the sunshine. Just around the bend, a group of Brazilians were designing a makeshift bamboo bridge on the opposite bank, and a young curly-haired man was standing waist-deep in the river, facing the sun with his arms out and his top off, eyes closed. Having been in Pai for a while, I didn’t bat an eyelid at a little sun worship.

Further upstream we passed a woman sat shallow in a pool, playing a steel drum, reflected fragments of sunshine dancing across her shoulders.

‘Oh, that looks nice. I want to get in there with her.’ Kimberly said, and I felt the same. She looked like she was having a good time, without two hyperactive mums crashing her drum-party so we decided not to ask about joining in and we hiked on.

As the kids walked, they squealed, splashed and tumbled through the crossings. ‘Oh Rocky — you’ll love this one, it’s shallow, remember — you can really smash through it!’ Big sister Storm urged, and Rocky stomped on through the water, arms wide, knees high, and a big grin on his face.

The river was cold. Colder than on our last visit, but I loved it. That feeling of icy water rushing over my feet immediately transported me back to New Zealand and the Te Araroa trail, which I’d run along once upon a time. I was always happy to be reminded of the glacial waters of New Zealand.

‘Guys, guys! This is where I made my dam last time!’ Storm shouted as we stopped at a wide, shallow section. ‘It’s so good that you’re here because you can help me finish it!’ She exclaimed, ever the organiser. There was some discussion about whether the others fancied building a dam or not (mostly… they didn’t) but we agreed it was a good spot to sit for a bit, have some snacks and play, anyway.

While the kids floated makeshift boats down the river, the grown-ups chatted. I realised how great it was to have two different snacks — double the options for the kids to choose from, or refuse, depending on which way you looked at it.

Rocky, our soft-hearted fella, is often apprehensive and quiet around people he doesn’t know well and, at first, he wasn’t too keen on chatting to the American grown-ups. But when Vimal pulled out a peanut butter sandwich and offered it to Rocky, they solidified their bond. Man to man — the boy wanted that nut butter treat.

After the snack stop, the kids were in good spirits, so we pushed on, going further than we’d ventured last time. We must have been past the one-mile marker on the trail by this point — an epic achievement.

Upstream, we found a section of river with a large log in the middle that wouldn’t look out of place in the Jungle Book. The kids enjoyed balancing on it and leaping off into the shallows, (so did Jamie) and Team America’s oldest girl even went for a dip.

It was at this point that Rocky transformed into a character we now refer to as River Man. He was one with the flow and wanted to walk in the water as much as possible. I only had to take my eye off him for a second and he was gone… not down the trail, but straight up the river. Head lifted, eyes gazing ahead, arms outstretched as if he were being drawn forwards by some invisible force.

‘Rocky? Rocky? Ro — Oh god, Jamie, he’s gone. You got the girls? I’ll chase him down’ I’d say before taking off after him.

After log balancing and river dips, we had one or two moans from the younger members of the group. The five and seven-year-olds wanted to push on, the two and three-year-olds wanted to go back. This is where things took their first turn.

There were protests about sand in shoes, the water being cold, and needing another snack. The American kids did a bit of grouching while ours seemed happy.

‘Look at your kids being all self-sufficient…’ Kimberly said, and I assured her this wasn’t the usual order of things.

Then, as if on cue, an invisible baton was passed between the families. We didn’t even see it happen. One moment the Team America juniors were unhappy and Team UK were fine — and then, just like that, it switched. Clearly, they were taking it in turns to recharge their complaining energy before coming at us with a fresh burst.

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‘Mummy. I tired.’ Rocky let out a huff and sat down in the dirt, refusing to move.

And so, it ended as all great hikes with kids do. At least with our kids. All three of them begging to be carried, and us being outnumbered.

I did a stint with one twin on the back and front (not easy, not recommended — especially while trying to cross rivers) and Jamie rounded things off carrying both Storm and Rocky, beads of sweat rolling from his forehead and dripping onto the floor.

There was one last wander up the shallow water for River Man Rocky before we all agreed we were (despite the protests) still having a nice time and that we should all grab some dinner together.

We headed away from the jungle in convoy at 4pm — Team America on their two scooters and us piled into Pineapple the moped.

I arrived at the agreed dinner place a few minutes after Kimberly. ‘It’s a bit fancy,’ she said quietly and, looking at the menu, I could see was right. It featured things like; in house macrobiotics, fermented tea leaves, and caramelised mushrooms — all things which I couldn’t be sure whether they were for eating or smearing on your face.

Everyone already at the restaurant appeared to be doing something that was no longer an option to us parents – they were quietly relaxing. There was also a narrow, sharp metal spiral staircase up to a top level, which three of the kids were, of course, already scaling. Against the backdrop of peace and calm, our contingent was a herd of bulls in a (mushroom-infused) china shop.

We agreed that having to deal with the death stairs at the end of a long day was just one step too far. We opted to try the cafe next door.

It was a much better pick. There was space to roam; the stairs that were there were solid, and the only slight obstacle for the kids to navigate was a bridge across a stream. Them falling into shallow water was preferable to them falling down the stairs, so we chose a couple of camping tables next to deck chairs at the bottom of the garden, and Jamie and Vimal headed off to order food.

It’d been a big afternoon out. The kids were tired and hungry, and therefore began fighting about who got to sit under the umbrella. There was also a touch of cross-family squabbling thrown into the mix. You know the kids are bonding when that happens.

I was taking deep breaths and trying to stay calm as I broke up the fights when Rocky accidentally put all of his weight on the camping table and toppled the whole thing, drinks included. I leapt up to save the table and kicked over my celebratory end-of-day beer. Soon there were wails from the kids and a few unrepeatable words from me. It was a smorgasbord of calamity.

When Jamie brought the food to our now-reconstructed table, it looked and smelled delicious. Chicken quesadillas, crispy tofu, fried rice. My mouth was watering. Of course, I couldn’t tuck into it right away because it was Rocky’s turn to have a monumental meltdown.

After I returned from managing him wanting to get water from ‘next door’ — the cafe with the death stairs — I finally took my first bite of quesadilla. It didn’t even matter that it was cold.

Somehow, there was a moment of calm. Kimberly was managing a few mouthfuls at the table next to me, too and I wondered whether we were in the eye of the storm. Either way, I’d take it.

‘Oh my gosh, this is so freakin’ good.’ I said, enjoying the melty Mexican goodness.

‘It is.’ She agreed.

‘Another cafe in Pai with incredible food. We keep finding them; we never go back to the same place twice.’ Pai was a mecca for foodies.

‘Yeah, and the view is awesome too.’ Kimberly nodded toward the garden, and I looked up.

Beyond the small patch of grass, jungle-covered mountains stretched the entire way across the horizon. The sky had gone that dusty shade of indigo you only seem to notice once it’s already happened. It was as if the world beyond the restaurant was quieting itself down. Patiently waiting, while I wrestled with the noise and had a chance to find a moment of peace too.

‘Oh wow. Do you know, I hadn’t even seen the view until now. That is ridiculous!’ I said, shaking my head and wondering how I could have been so absorbed in the shenanigans with the kids that I hadn’t even looked up.

I sat back in the deckchair, now taking my turn in the spot under the umbrella, and took another bite of quesadilla. I was just trying my luck with the fried tofu (also delicious) when, out the corner of my eye, I saw Jupiter get up and toddle over to a nearby bush.

‘I just doing a poo mummy.’ She dropped her pants and right there, three steps from the dining area, delivered a gift of some compost to the earth. I had to hand it to the girl for being swift; I didn’t even have the chance to put my food down and get to her. The deed had already been done.

The rules of restaurant etiquette say that I should have been embarrassed, but I was crying with laughter. Although through my tears, I was trying to make sure the two guys eating dinner at the table next to ours hadn’t noticed. Nothing like a giant turd to put you off your papaya salad.

Still laughing, still crying, I wrapped Jupiter’s warm deposit in a couple of leaves and took it to the toilet, smiling at the wait staff as I passed and doing my best to hide it from them.

What followed was the crescendo of our playdate — an attempt to bundle six tired kids onto scooters for our respective journeys home, but somehow, we managed it.

It was a far from perfect afternoon, but it was perfectly… us. There was nature and snacks and meltdowns, and a poo in a bush. I’m very glad we did it; they had fun. So did we. What more could we ask for?

Kimberly, Vimal and their family were just the kind of people I’d hoped to meet on our travels. And it was only in meeting them that I realised family-friends are a mystery. It’s all about chemistry. A mix of vibes, being at the same point in your lives and, ideally, having an equivalent amount of kids to juggle.

In the two weeks that followed, we saw our American friends more than I’d see my closest friends back home in a year. I love those home friends, deeply, and wouldn’t change them for the world, but keeping friendships alive when everyone is spread out takes effort. There’s diary coordination, long drives, and often a mismatch in rhythm between the kind of lives you’re living. In Pai, there was just the snuggly feeling of proximity. The old-school simplicity of people being around town, and you being there too.

Plus, when you do run into one another, there’s no specific agenda, no need to ‘catch up’ on each other’s lives because you’ve only just met. It’s slow. It’s un-purposeful. You’re just passing a baton of curiosity back and forth in between nappy changes, fight dissolution and ordering chips (because no one’s kids fancied eating rice that day). That, for a midlifer, when new friends are few, has been quite marvellous.

The only downside to this nomadic life is that the moment you find your people, the clock’s already ticking… you can’t hold on to them, and they can’t hold on to you. Because as quick as the connection is made… kapoof! it disappears again — leaving nothing but a beautiful memory of a short-lived time together.

Somewhere down the road, in the UK or the US or wherever our paths cross again, I know we’ll see them. And as I said to Storm as she made a card for her American friend. ‘It’s never really a goodbye, Stormy, it’s always just — so long for now.’

P.S 👆🏻❤️ Tapping the heart icon at the top or bottom of this post helps spread this story to others. It also magically tops up my writing juju for the following week.

Hello Restless Ones,

Sawasdee ka from the island of Koh Lanta 🌴 We’ve just finished our 3 week journey the length of Thailand and are getting settled in for a few months down here.

The first week jitters are in full swing as we figure out how everything works and find our groove, but find it we shall.

In other news, I’ve been working with an illustrator on the cover of Bedtime Adventure Stories for Grown Ups 2 - a collection of short adventure stories coming out this spring.

I’ll share a sneak peek of that cover as soon as it’s come to life. The colour is being added to the sketch as I type. How very exciting!

To this week’s story…

Which is part two of a day that went sideways, and then, surely, from the depths of a highly public meltdown, the only way was …up?

Catch you next week,

Anna xx

✨Grilled meat, lanterns, and a five-year-old on the loose

A few hours after the restaurant incident, Storm had a plaster over her knee and we’d retrieved the laptops from where we’d left them at the park.

With her now in higher spirits, we spent the afternoon relaxing back at home before the attention turned to an evening out at the Pai night market. This was something I’d promised Storm we’d do together that night, long before she smashed her knee on a step.

At 4:30 p.m., I kissed the twins goodbye, left Jamie to put them to bed, and we motored away from the hotel, warm air rushing past our ears as we rode Pineapple down the main road and into town. Sunset wasn’t until 6pm and so it was still light when we parked up at the end of Walking Street.

Really, we were too early for any of the market to be set up, but I didn’t want to be late back and I also wanted to make the most of this, our one and only mummy-daughter date in the past two months.

Storm had been so excited at the prospect of ‘just’ me and her, going out into the night alone. Couple this with the fact that doing anything while its dark is wildly exciting to her, and I was in the company of one very happy girl.

Walking Street still very much looked like a driving street when we arrived. Dodging scooters made walking down it nigh on impossible, so we retreated to a restaurant for a chocolate milk and waited for someone official-looking to pull the barriers across the end of it and close it to traffic.

As with many things in Thailand, timings were approximate, so by 5pm we were still watching scooters and cars zoom by. I slurped down the last of our chocolate milk and looked across the street.

‘Storm, do you fancy getting a foot massage together while we wait for it to get dark?’

‘Ooh! Yes, please!’

‘You’ll need to sit still while a lady touches your feet — you okay with that?’

‘Oh yeah, sure, Mum.’ She said, nonchalantly.

And so we went for Storm’s first ever Thai massage. Two women greeted us with a warm sawasdee ka. They tried to convince me to go for an hour massage, but I decided that 30 minutes was more than long enough to ask a five-year-old to sit still.

We reclined in padded wooden chairs while the women sat on low stools at our feet, each with a small basket of oil, a towel, and a wooden stick that looked like it might inflict some pain. Storm fell quiet within minutes, and I reached out to hold her hand. ‘This okay?’ I whispered. She nodded.

From that point on, I couldn’t tell if she was enjoying it or not. She seemed to go into a trance; there wasn’t a flicker of a smile. But I’d asked her if she was okay, and she’d said yes, so I sat back to enjoy my massage — watching the woman’s strong, rough hands move expertly from one part of the foot to the other.

This was my first massage since arriving in Thailand six weeks earlier. What I loved more than the massage itself was listening to the ladies natter back and forth in Thai. I adored the sound of the language anyway, but to hear it for so long, in the quiet of the shop, it was beautiful.

Their expressions and tones flowed back and forth — one mimicking the other, a noise of concern, a gasp of alarm, then a cackle of laughter until they were both belly-busting about goodness knows what. I had to stifle a laugh myself at one point and pretend I wasn’t listening in.

I turned away from the women and looked out through the open doorway, noticing how the street beyond it was framed like a moving picture. I could see scooters, tourists, stalls being set up, but I was separated from it, in the company of my ‘big’ girl and two great mates as they talked and laughed and worked.

When we left, Storm had still only said a few words since we’d left the restaurant. As someone who likes to over-communicate, I had therefore convinced myself she hadn’t enjoyed the massage at all. Three steps from the door, she broke her silence.

‘I’m so glad we did that, Mum, and for the first ever time together, it was a lovely experience.’ She said, with all the eloquence of a twenty-year-old.

Is she shitting me?! I thought. Apparently not. She said the massage made her feel sleepy, and she really loved it. She even asked if we could do it again one day.

The foot massage was the perfect way to pass some time. Walking Street was ten times as alive as it had been when we’d gone in.

It was now 5.45 p.m., dusk had fallen, and the barriers were closed. Street vendors lined the street and only the odd scooter weaved slowly through a growing crowd of pedestrians. Above it all, dozens of intricate multi-coloured paper lanterns were strung from one side of the street to the other.

‘Okay, Storm, let’s have a mooch.’ I smiled, taking her hand in mine.

‘Yes! Oh, hang on, what’s a mooch Mum?’

‘Oh, it’s slowly moving through shops, stopping a bit, thinking a bit, not having to buy anything — just following what’s interesting to you. It’s one of my favourite things to do.’

‘Oh great, I like the sound of moo— Mum! Chicken skewer!’ She interrupted herself and pointed at a stall. ‘Can I have one?’

‘Yes, of course. Eating can be very much a part of mooching too.’

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Pai’s Walking Street is a visual feast, but the smells hit me first: grilled meat, sweet coconut, frying oil, peanut sauce, fish sauce being drizzled over steaming rice. I could hear the scrape of metal spatulas on pans, chatter from backpackers, music drifting from bars — Thai voices singing English lyrics with thick accents: ‘I lubb yoo baibeee.’

We walked on past hand-painted signs with wonky English advertising ‘Freash juice’ or ‘tattoo here — no regrests’, clothing stalls selling many, many elephant print pants, an art gallery, a jeweller. The air was warm, the vibe buzzy, and above it all, those paper lanterns swung lazily against the darkening sky.

I always love spending time with any of my kids, alone. In a one on one scenario, I can hold a train of thought, tune into our conversation, and be present with them in a way I just can’t when we’re all together.

I was getting such a kick out of showing Storm this side of Pai — the part that comes alive when she goes to bed each night. When I was alone with one of them like that, I had so much more to give. Love and energy and attention to spare. So much that it was overflowing. That felt glorious.

Storm started the walk with an excited skip — darting off to shiny things that caught her eye: a small toy, a bracelet, a hair slide. The good thing was that before she could stand there long enough to decide if she really wanted to buy it, she’d spotted something else.

Then her energy settled. She went into quiet observation mode — walking slowly, her hand now again in mine, head moving steadily from one stall to the next, her eyebrows furrowing as questions passed through her mind. I matched my pace with hers. Because, in mooching, there was no rushing.

‘What are those?’ She pointed to some spiky meat laid out in rows.

‘Chicken feet.’

‘Chicken feet?’ She wrinkled her nose.

‘Yes. The feet of a chicken.’

‘What. They kill a real chicken? And then take its feet off?! Ha!’ She found this both hilarious and preposterous. ‘That’s crazy.’ She shook her head, still laughing.

We walked on, snacking as we went: a sausage, a mini coconut pancake, and then we passed a stall selling vegan cakes.

‘Mum! Lime cake!’ Storm pointed to a bright green sponge on the top shelf, topped with a slice of lime, moist and enticing.

‘Ah, do you fancy getting a slice?’

She looked at me in disbelief, as if all her Christmases had come at once. We read the numbers below it to see how much it cost, and I helped her pick the money out of my purse to pay for it. I always encouraged the kids to do the buying from vendors, if I could.

Along with the lime cake, we bought Jamie a vegan brownie to take home and then sat on a pillar at the entrance to Pai’s central temple, picking at pieces of lime cake and accidentally dropping some on the floor. ‘That can be for the ants,’ Storm said. ‘They’re really going to love it.’ She smiled.

At 6pm, we finally sat down for our ‘proper’ dinner of burger and chips (Storm’s choice). I say, ‘sat down’, of course there was no sitting. ‘Mum look! Look!’ She darted across the street from one side to the other, repeatedly slamming into a metal sign which made a loud clang.

I caught the eye of the lady who’d cooked our dinner and she smiled. Storm grabbed dinner in mouthfuls between street-sprints. The effects of a long day and some pre-bedtime loopiness were now in full swing.

Leaving the burger stall, we turned around to make our way back towards the moped but soon passed a hair-braiding shop.

Originally, getting some braids had been one of the primary missions for the evening. Ever since Storm had met Freya, a girl from England who had purple braids, Storm had wanted some too. The shop hadn’t been open earlier, but now it was. I looked at my watch. It was 6:30 p.m and getting close to going home time.

We stood at the shop’s entrance, perusing a laminated menu of hair options, but there was no one about. We hung around for a couple of minutes, and then I heard a voice.

‘Hello. Hello?’ It was barely audible above the noise of the street. At first, I thought I was imagining it.

‘Hello. Baby? I see you, baby. You want hair?’ I looked up to the right and saw a camera. The camera moved. Baby meant Storm — any young child was called baby in Thailand.

‘Yes, yes. Hello. I see you. You see me now? Good. You want hair?’

‘Umm yes — can she have braids?’ I asked, feeling like a lunatic, talking to a small black box.

‘Yes, you wait. Sit baby, sit.’ We sat. ‘Yes, baby — good girl. You wait now.’

We sat there for ten minutes until the voice came on again.

‘Okay. Sorry, I busy now. You come back. One hour okay. You come back?’

I softly explained to Storm that we couldn’t wait an hour because it was almost bedtime and we needed to get home. Storm’s bottom lip wobbled. I was bracing for a meltdown as we passed a stall selling brownies and cookies.

‘Can I have one of those?’ Her eyes lit up, fixated on a heavily loaded brownie. The braids were forgotten.

‘Umm, that one looks like it’s got a lot of sugar in it. How about a chocolate chip cookie instead?’

Cookie in Storm’s hand, we walked on more briskly than we’d travelled out, while Storm picked all the chocolate chips one by one and then handed me a pitted shell of dough.

‘Here mum. You can have this now.’ She smiled as if she was giving me the most generous gift. I put it in the bag with Jamie’s brownie. He would appreciate it more than I would.

Storm stopped again at the very last stall before the moped. ‘Oh Mum! Corn on the cob! My favourite! Can I have one?’ She asked, in a tone that said she knew she was pushing her luck, but she’d had a lot more yeses than usual that night, so it was worth a try.

I asked if she was full. Because surely the girl was full to burst by now? But she calmly informed me she has a special space in her belly, reserved solely for corn on the cob.

We ordered a corn on the cob and then pulled her jumper on because the air was cool now and it’d be colder still on the ride home. The lady chose the most freakin’ gigantic piece of corn for Storm, and she munched happily on it all the way back.

The following morning, Storm announced she wanted to draw me a ‘special’ picture. I wasn’t allowed to enter the bedroom until it was finished, only Daddy.

She explained that when I finally saw it, it showed me and her holding hands (with our three fingers each), with big bright stars in the sky, and she had scribbled the sky in black to show it was nighttime. In the corner was a crumb of cake and a few ants tucking into it.

‘And do you know what we’re doing, mum?’ Storm asked, gesturing at the drawing.

‘Tell me.’ I smiled.

‘We’re walking! Look, because it’s walking street! And it’s closed to all the cars, isn’t that amazing?’ She laughed.

As Storm walked off, chuffed with her artistic efforts, Jamie turned to me. ‘I think you’ve made a core memory there.’ He said, and I knew he was right.

Because the same girl who had melted down at the restaurant earlier in the day was also the little girl who noticed every detail at that night market. Right down to the stars above her head and the ants beneath her feet.

I saw so much of myself in her. I couldn’t stop her from feeling everything so deeply, nor would I want to. But I could at least guide her, let her mooch her way through life, and help her to see what a gift it really is.

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