Thursday 27th October.
I was so excited.
Dave had been working lots... throughout the previous weekend... leaving early before anyone had woken up and getting home late each night but now,
NOW it was time for some fun!
The kids were all on their semester break and it was Spencer's birthday plus we had two days together to complete the finishing touches to his upcoming party.
You may recall last year Spencer had been so sick we had to cancel his party and keep him away from other children because his immune system was so low.
After a relaxing morning with Dave and the children, I added the last few items to my shopping list and headed out to the shops with a little extra spring in my step.
I love organizing my children's birthday parties... can you tell?
And despite trying to tone things down this year, I made an exception for Spencer's birthday- given circumstances surrounding his celebrations last year. {ah hem} What?
Anyway, you can imagine my surprise as I began searching for the items on my list, eagerly anticipating the fun I would have getting everything home and beginning to create tasty little turtle and frog treats for 9 small and excitable party goers when I was faced with this:
You may remember that I wrote a few weeks ago about the flooding here in Thailand and maybe you have heard about the situation in Bangkok at the moment.
Well, in our big supermarkets, there is much less merchandise than usual and many shelves are empty.
In some stores, like 7-11, there is no bottled waters on the shelves (even the locals drink bottled water here as it is not safe to drink from the tap).
Other dried foods, oil and canned goods are also scarce. This is due to supply chain disruption as many of the major factories are under water and parts of Bangkok are being shut down for at least a month.
At that point, I kind-of felt a bit strange purchasing potato chips and pastries when I suddenly felt the urge to be stocking up on rice, baked beans and long-life milk!
So what's a party planning girl supposed to do in this situation? Why... think creatively of course!
I bought what I could find, scrapped the items that I couldn't find and quickly adjusted a few of my ideas to suit the available ingredients.
All in all, it went really well! There was no food shortage at this party and we are still finishing off the left-overs!
Regarding the food shortages in general, we're not quite sure how bad it will get but at the moment it seems that different stores seem to be getting products in at random times and it's all a bit hit and miss with what's available BUT we are totally fine.
There is no starving here so please don't start dropping us food parcels from the sky just yet!!
Comments please! If there was one item on your shopping list that you simple could NOT do without, what would it be?
Oh, I almost forgot, "U.N. Conference Promotes Insect-Eating. Crickets, caterpillars and grubs are high in protein and minerals and could be an important food source during droughts and other emergencies, according to scientists".
I'll keep that in mind! Not!
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