Ga Xao Xa Ot

It s Sunday evening and the batteries in my eyes need replacing after anther few hours transcribing and fiddling around with interviews on this computer.
It’s been a strange week. The Middle East a suppurating sore on the radio and the bizarre ghoulish discoveries at the old children’s home in Jersey. That story…..! I think back to how helpless we were as children at boarding school; parents 5000 miles away, letters checked by staff and no access to money or phones… I know how out of hand some of the house matrons got knowing that there would be almost no come back for the odd Chinese burn, an occasional slap, the sharp tug of hair, the cold words and constant threats of more violence or isolation. Who believes a 10 year old? And that was in the 80’s in a well known and respected school. How much worse for a child alone, in care, without even a relative to whistle blow. Those poor kids.

However one cannot stay under one’s duvet whimpering (well that’s a lie..of course one can.. that was whimpering –ist, sorry). Anyway the sun came out. I had a lovely weekend and I am still feeling a little smug after getting the right proportion of fish sauce in my Ga Xao Xa Ot chicken on Friday night. (What a bloody show off!!) An old school pal came up for a couple of days bringing wedding photos and gin. She's been living in a huge semi-derelict house at the very end of a valley near Bridgend in Wales. It is a wonderfully romantic, dramatic place with the hills rising up behind the old ramshackle 3 story building which glowers down over the town beneath but they can’t afford to heat the bloody place and she had forgotten what it was like to be warm. The prospect of a hot bath fair made her swoon. Anyway that was all the excuse I needed to put jack up the chilli in the Vietnamese chicken and invite the neighbours over.