We’re in the depths of the school summer vacations over here in Vietnam.

Week 5 kicked off today, with Florence embarking on a course of dance classes each morning, and Martha re-engaging with any of her mates who haven’t already flown the nest for holidaying in Europe, Australia or elsewhere around the globe.

Last week I took the kids to Koh Samed in Thailand for 4 nights.  This post is mainly a simple collection of memories from the trip, for posterity…

In the absence of having further time this evening to postulate to any great length about the highs and lows of my first single parenting holiday experience, in a nutshell, a few notable moments and facts from the week:

1. Witnessing an old Japanese man who had sat in the sun for 3 days, barely even flinching, suddenly move, Ninja-style, at lightening speed from his sun-lounger to dive into the pool and fish out Flo, who had herself jumped out of her rubber ring.  The man clearly thought Flo couldn’t swim, and shot me a surprised glance as he emerged from the water clutching a fairly confused 4 year old (who can swim impeccably for her age.)  Much laughter afterwards as I explained my daughter’s aquatic credentials to him, and much bowing of apology!

2. Flo’s new pursuit (when not being ‘rescued’ by poolside Japanese sunbathers) = body surfing

3. Martha’s new pursuit = marauding, as usual, but this time to an adoring Thai audience.

4. In terms of accidents, we survived unscathed, despite the fact that Martha still falls over pretty much every minute (usually tripping herself up).  No serious breakages either, although I counted about 5 or 6  glasses turned over at tables (Martha), 3 bowls of cereal on floor (Martha) and two “toilet accidents” (both girls!)

5. Parenting low point: Flo’s episode in the toileting department was a particularly low parenting moment.  The incident happened on the beach, and then involved me helping Flo back to our cottage to administer the always fun activity of separating child’s swim suit from the unfortunate mis-hap smeared inside it.  All cleaned up, and on our heels back to the beach, only to then discover that most of exhibit ‘A’ had in fact fallen out of Flo’s swim suit on the main path outside, and was now adorned with blue bottle flies, and being stepped over cautiously by staff and hotel guests. Thank the lord for wet-wipes.

6. A beautiful 10 minute silence befalling the holiday each day.  Otherwise known as “time for an ice-cream”.  We didn’t miss one day.  A winner all round.

7. And finally, almost as effective as ice-cream…the joys of playing in the sand!

A fab week, and I hope these photos survive on the web – and the web itself survives – long enough to be downloaded by Florence and Martha one day…(in which case, let me apologise in advance to Flo for the toilet-gate story.)

I am now off to Cambodia later in the week for a few days to recover from the experience!

Some more for the archive in the meantime…