Whisky doesn’t like thunderstorms. When thunder is in the air he’ll cower under my desk or the dining table, and he’ll be off his food. Unfortunately, at the moment there are thunderstorms almost every night. I’ll be woken in the small hours of the morning by the sound of his padding outside my bedroom door. I’ll let him in, and he’ll lie down on the floor close to me until the storm has passed. Then he’ll start padding around the bedroom wanting to go back downstairs. Oh, for an unbroken night’s sleep!

The heavy rain hasn’t been good for Thailand or Bangkok. Currently 11 of the country’s 76 provinces are experiencing flooding. 179,074 people in 1,763 villages are affected. At the weekend an industrial estate in Bangkok flooded when its defences broke. Sukhothai, Thailand’s historical capital before Ayutthaya and home to stunning temple ruins, has so far been flooded twice this year. 130 billion Baht notionally spent on flood defences since last years’ floods (that’s £2.4 billion or $3.9 billion) yet nothing seems to have changed (apart from the bank balances of certain influential people which have become as swollen as Thailand’s rivers and canals).

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