Abstract Thursday: Celebration (missed)

Our journey back from Rayong today should have taken a couple of hours; it took ten and a half.

Our local colleague Fon was driving the rest of us, and we were about halfway back to Bangkok when her (lovely, seven month old) car got a puncture.

This stranded us on the hard shoulder of the motorway (see extra), where first the motorway rescue van showed up, then an insurance agent arrived, and after he'd filled in forms and taken lots of photos, he called a recovery team to come and take the car back to Bangkok.

As it was Fon's birthday today, she was due to meet friends and family to celebrate at 7. Having got her car to the garage, and a taxi to drop the rest of us off at our hotel, it was 10.15pm before we saw her off on her way home and judging by the the traffic even at that time of night, I shudder to think how much longer it took her to get there.

So: when poor Fon should have been celebrating, we were all in her car, on the back of the tow truck. And that's when I took this picture. You're seeing my view from the back seat, through the rainy windscreen (did I mention there was a thunderstorm and heavy rain on the way back?), through the back window of the truck to the red brake lights in front (in gridlocked traffic). 

Robert: congratulations on a full year of inspiring and entertaining Abstract Thursdays! I hope you're celebrating in style.