Thursday, January 10

Leo Restaurant, 18:00
I woke up at 8:00, after a disturbed night of odd dreams. I was helping someone to create a dummy version of the Evening Standard to tell their boyfriend why they wanted him to leave, but the Standard kept changing design faster than we could make the dummy. I tried to persuade her to retitle it Once Only so the design changes in the Standard wouldn’t matter. Denise and Heidi from Arcada insisted on strapping bandages round everyone’s knees, over their clothes, “as a precaution”. That sort of thing.
We had breakfast and began sorting out what was going home and what was staying. At noon Irma and I agreed we needed another tin trunk to leave here. There is no point taking flip-flops and vests home to bring them back next Christmas. Irma phoned Aju and he drove us to Chalai Bazaar.
We went to the same shop as last time and bought a trunk, then visited the coffee shop and chatted with the men there. Back home Irma asked us all to go to Spoonbill while she packed. I finished syncing my work.
Now Irma has joined us and we have walked to Leo’s. Åke arrived yesterday and he is there waiting. We sit watching the sun going down before saying goodbyes to Michael and Harri, who appears suddenly and then disappears the same way.
At home Irma will be cooking the barbecue leftovers when Sreni arrives to take us to his house for a meal. We specificslly said we couldn’t come on Thursday, which he neatly inverted. We will apologise and he will shake hands and leave us to our leftovers.
Later the dog that has taken to lying on the steps will unexpectedly race in and attack two of the cats while they are eating. My hand and feet will get scratched in the general panic.