Water Water Everywhere But Not A Drop To Drink!

Wednesday evening I was told that the supplier of our drinking water (Sprinkle), could no longer provide us with water as their factory had been flooded.

That was followed by the news that some of the drinking water in BKK had become slightly contaminated by flood water.

On top of that, we were then told that we were going to be hit by the flood water today or this weekend.  I have to say at this point, it feels bizarre talking about the place flooding.  It is bright sunshine and hasn't rained in a couple of days.  I am positive that the rainfall in BKK itself is lighter than normal.


Anyway, as it was evening, I decided to wait until the next day to buy a few bottles of back up water.



Off I trotted to Big C, only to find that there was no water.  There was some of that glass bottled soda water and some cases of Perrier ('she sipped on lightly chilled Perrier, as BKK slid inexorably into the flood').  There was no regular drinking water.  I did however,
count 26 tines of fish in one man's trolly!


I shot up the road to Emporium.  Water?  What water?  There was none to be seen!

I crossed over to Villa and found them putting out what was to be, they last few cases of water near the door, and those were half bottles.  I grabbed a trolley and managed to load 7 packs.  I would have taken more but I couldn't get more into the trolly, and there were other people also trying to get some water.  It was quite amazing to be part of the panic crowd.  You know me, coup rations hidden away in the cupboard.  I just hadn't calculated on Sprinkle's production being interrupted.

I went to Emporium again today and the panic is even worse.  To be honest it has been like this all week, with the tills having long queues behind them, worse than on a weekend.  Anyway, no water, nearly all the toilet paper gone, and low on milk.  Oh yes, the little bread shop to the side of the cashiers had only a few loaves of bread left.  I went back over to Villa.  It isn't so crowded there, but only a few bottles of expensive water left on the shelves.

As I said to Angela yesterday when she popped over, you can have a glass of wine, a gin and tonic or champagne.  Just don't ask for a glass of water!

I asked Jill, who is out in the neighbourhood next to Nichida about the supposed evacuation there.  She sent me this picture taken a few kilometers away, at her son's old school.  It hasn't flooded yet in Nichida or where Jill lives, but it appears they expect some flooding in Nichida tonight, and have been building protection ramps.  Embassy staff have been offered the option of going downtown and some have left of their own accord and gone to Pattaya.  There is no actual evacuation.  Thanks Jill for the update.

Our friends the Chalmers are in town (well will be any moment now) - apparently they got a cheap deal on flooded hotel rooms!  I thought I'd bake a cake for them.  This was a bit spur of the moment.  On went my Woman's Hour podcast, on went the oven and on went my apron.  It is one of those recipes where you melt the butter in a saucepan, then just throw everything else in and stir.  I did that, but thought it looked very stiff.  I ended throwing in a lot more milk then the recipe required.  I poured it into the baking tin, which of course was lined (both bottom and sides) with parchment paper.  LUCKILY, I am a filthy cook, so I licked the spoon I used on the mixture.  Yikes, what was wrong with that.  DING!  No sugar!

I then had to try and get all the mixture out of the pan (ended up throwing out the parchment paper and doing the tin again) and back into the mixing saucepan.  To save time, I put the pan on the scales and added the sugar.  Boy I was adding and adding but it still hadn't reached the amount I needed.  That was when I noticed that the scales were stuck at 120g.  Obviously the combined weight of the mixture and a heavy saucepan, took my scales to their limit.  I knew one thing for sure, there was way too much sugar, now sitting in a pile on top of the wet cake mix.

I spooned loads out, and of course had no idea how much had sunk to the bottom of the mixture, or indeed how much I had in total added to the cake.  I took a moment to think about whether to throw the whole lot out, but then decided to just carry on.  By the time I mixed in the sugar, the mixture was very runny.  I then had to throw more flour in.  Oh sod it.  I just put it in the oven and hoped for the best.  Well, it looks alright - sort of.  I have decided to rely on the kindness of my guests and that they are all way too well behaved, to do what I would do, i.e. spit it out and say 'what the fu, fu, fumigate was that?!

Over in Central World, Tops supermarket has been having guest in to demonstrate various cooking things.  The most boring one is the French chefs rolling frozen croissant pasty around nasty looking frankfurters, brushing them with egg ("you 'av to be gentle like this, not like this - really!) and shoving them onto the baking trays.  Yawn.  The most exciting has been up for a few weeks now, and I am drawn to it every time I go in there.

A group of funky looking young men (all spiked hair and casual disdain for the onlookers), are making what we call rock in the UK and I think Americans call hard candy.  They are in a big glass booth, where they boil up the sugar mixture, colour it and turn it into slabs of brightly coloured and somewhat malleable candy.

Rolling out the candy

They take sections of this candy and rub it (which I think must warm it slightly), smoothing it out into long blocks.  These blocks are arranged on top or beside each other.  All the time the candyman (isn't that a drug dealer?), strokes and tugs and rolls the candy into shape.  Eventually when you look at the candy end on, it has a picture or word inside.  It is so amazing to watch them doing it.

 This large strand of candy, is tugged and rolled into very small canes of candy, which are sliced to length with a chopper.  Here you can see the guy rolling the canes still.

And here's several he prepared earlier!   Hey, nice watch dude - see I could get a job with them, I know all the lingo!

See how the candy is pulled longer and longer.  The guy in white, took some of the canes and twisted them (see bottom right).  Hey, you at the back, stop picking your nose!

 The candyman uses the twisted candy to spell out a message on a giant candy lollypop.  Fun Huh?