The Art of Noticing Chairs – 14th April 2021

Inspired by the email newsletter from Rob Walker I’ve been trying to take notice of simple and mundane things. A nice practice to remind oneself that everything is now.

This first post is chairs. This was pretty easy – it’s actually the second thing I chose to start noticing but completed (finding 10 items) first. I’ll post more of these as they are completed, which may be a while as we are back in a lockdown situation again due to the rising number of cases of Covid 19 across Thailand.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that we have a car and that we can take Kim back to the vet this morning as she isn’t recovering from a cold and can’t breathe properly. It’s lockdown time and we’re a little worried to go out but at least this negative aspect gets us out of the house briefly. So somewhat grateful for this trying time.


A beautiful sleep last night, with the windows open and a fan sucking in the cool air, sourced from a thunderstorm that slowly developed over the mountains and brought us some rain, not too much but steady and nutritious for our plants. Dosing off to departing claps of thunder was soothing and restful.

I felt slightly tired and anxious yesterday, for no particular reason at all and today is the opposite, for no particular reason too.

Everything I do makes me happy.

We got that attitude! – 13th April 2021

I am so happy and grateful that I have so many TV shows and movies saved that I can watch anything I want, whenever I want. Last night I started watching The Deuce which is really good.


Our trip worked out spectacularly timing-wise as the day we got back Thailand announced a lockdown (of sorts) so we are back now and quarantining ourselves as much as we can, which means I’m struggling through on instant coffee.

I made cannabutter yesterday and today Amy baked brownies, of which I ate one, and I’m pretty happy and high at the moment.

Got to get my sheets off the line – had to wash everything as I’m sleeping in the bedroom where the aircon is out of order, so before it cools down early in the mornings, I’m sweating out and soaking the sheets. I hope someone can come and fix that aircon soon, though I can make it through with just the fan and window open.

We got that attitude! – 10th April 2021

I am so happy and grateful for Aing and Manow for taking care of our house and cats whilst we were away. Aing is a responsible friend who we can trust and it is by chance that we met when I advertised free English lessons for uni students and she was one of only a couple who responded. I’m also still in contact with the other, K.P., so that was a worthwhile chance to take at the time.

Well boy, you’ve got to listen to me, promise her you’ll rise this day next year, from this very bed – 9th April 2021

Everyone was asking me why I wasn’t drawing pictures of Amy, so I thought I’d prepare a little surprise for our 11th wedding anniversary. I started with one of us together and then ones with Amy and one of her friends. I then sent these digitally to her friends and asked them all to send them back to Amy digitally today. It was fun to plan all this and it got me a lot of practice with sketching.

Shaun and Amy
Amy and Jessica
Fern and Amy
May and Amy
Amy and Muey
Amy and Grace
Billie and Amy
Mai and Amy
Amy and Bookie

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for the TV in our hotel room last night. The porter switched it on when bringing in our bags and I thought it was weird to turn on the TV. As I was waiting for Amy I switched channels by total coincidence they had the ABC Channel and the Swans game was being shown live. I managed to watch the first half before we had to go out for dinner.

We got that attitude! – 7th April 2021

I am so happy and grateful to the boat driver yesterday who took us around to snorkelling locations and to a quiet beach to eat lunch – he showed us many things and I could feel he was a good person despite not being able to understand each other’s languages. He picked up garbage wherever he could despite knowing that it’s a losing battle and the only way to fix it would make him jobless.