🐈 Oh Thai Cat, how could you?

👋🏻 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 💙 🗺️

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

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.