There are shortages every year, and it drives me crazy that the usual guttering seen elsewhere, up and down the land, isn’t on many buildings at all, here on this eccentric little rocky island, hours by boat from the Thai mainland.

I was away from my hut here, for a few weeks, and coming back was sweet but with one sharp shock in the garden – my water barrel was gone.  This upset me.  I’ve been catching thousands of litres of rainwater.  Now it’s dry season and I want to capture every rare drop that falls.

I remember the shortages from last year and the year before.  I don’t need this shit.  I want to way to save ahead a bit, this time.  It really is shit to turn the tap and get nothing, and to have no barrels in reserve.

But, I am a tenant, and it wasn’t me that purchased that barrel, or took it away again.  When I finally got one off Mr Landlord, it stood at one corner of my bungalow, under the end of a palm branch I’d hung from the roof as a gutter.  It filled that barrel every good rain.

But, Mr LL didn’t like it.  It’s ugly, he frowned.  It no beautiful.

Later I found this very blue water barrel (200 litre, not cheap – he has quite a few of them).  Mine was commandeered with others into saw-horse use on a building site up the track, the estate’s bungalow number nine.

My water barrel is half of his carpentry table.  Later that night it was a drying stand for freshly painted planks.

Fooey. I’ve watched five precious showers drain straight down the road.  It would have filled that lovely big barrel.

Here’s is where I need a serious Thai language study campaign, to work out how to ask him about this.  Can he use some other saw horse?  Is there a spare barrel?

It may not matter.  In these cases, he often looks at me with that look which says, “But this is my land and my work and my tools.  This is man stuff.  I’m sorry, you’re very nice and I know you need water,  but this is nothing to do with you.”  And he’ll smile.

Also, now is the season to double check which part of the fresh cashew nut and fruit is the mildly poisonous bit.  Once I get clear on that, it’s my next untried fruit to try.

More seasonal updates will follow.