Bloody flowers

The words of Python Lee Jackson's Broken Dream are called to mind with this image. Perhaps it's unconsciously inspired by the following...

My stepson, Harley (20), went off to Australia on 25 January and in June flew on to Thailand & Laos to meet up and travel with two friends. In that time he has:

- Booked into a swanky hotel ("go straight to the Koh San Road hostels" we said "do not deviate" we said) to await his friends' arrival in three days This cost him £500

- Somehow got talked into buying five (yes, 5!) suits in Bangkok costing a further £500

- Ran out of money £500 transferred by both his mother and his father

- Lost his Aus phone and sim card

- Lost his passport (in a separate incident to the one above)

- Lost his flight tickets (possibly in the same incident as the one above)

- Was witness to a boy, who he'd met on his travels, smoking a café-produced joint, going psychotic and then ending it all by jumping off a bridge into swollen rivers

- Ran up a £600 phone bill on his UK phone and sim card (obviously this wasn't his fault as he needed support and was receiving calls from Police, his parents, his friends etc but it wouldn't have been nearly as high had he not lost his Aus phone)

- Unfortunately had to identify the body and subsequently got quite involved with the boy's family, police, foreign office etc.

- Lost his UK phone and sim card.

- Lost his UK bank card... therefore...

- Ran out of money so unable to purchase Emergency Travel Documents in order to get back to Sydney (we hadn't at this point discovered Western Union) so (luckily) were able to engage the services of a friend of a friend of a friend to give him some money to pay for the ETD to get a flight later that same day...

- The airline wouldn't let him board the flight... we had to insist via Facebook (our only method of communication by this time) that he HAD to get on that flight... it was only when he broke down, cried and told them his story that they let him on (and upgraded him)

- No money to pay his first night's hostel fees back in Sydney (Western Union - immediate transfer of money just about anywhere in the world, so very useful to remember!) £450 transferred

- Yesterday missed his internal flight from Sydney to Perth in order to get flight back to UK

- Which necessitated more funds to be transferred to him via Western Union to pay for a new flight

- He is now transferring from Perth airport to Perth International airport in order to get his flight back to the UK in 8 hours.

And that's just the stuff we know about! Steve has aged several years, we've lost nights of sleep with worry and stress. But... we're grateful and relieved that he's safe. Grateful that Facebook is such an effective way of helping out in difficult situations, that it is (after all) easy to transfer money, that mobile phones exist to give support...

We're collecting him from Heathrow tomorrow at 8pm. And we're taking him straight to the Isle of Wight (where his mother lives) until he has regained his strength... the general consensus is to lock him in his bedroom!