A few days ago, whilst wandering around the earthquake stricken pagoda Brian got a small but persistent thorn attached to the bottom of his foot that evaded all our valiant attempts to dislodge it. To be fair, this mostly involved him lying on the bus mewling pitifully as I approached him with my sharp fingernails. As you may already have gathered from previous blogs, he is not the most robust, or indeed patient, of patients and, after thirty seconds of me prodding him with my 'claw-like talons' he pronounced me heartless, uncaring and insensitive, not to mention a few words not fit for a family blog. Finally he hobbled off declaring that he would take his foot 'elsewhere'. I'm not too sure what he means by this. After all, who else is going to go anywhere near his cheesy feet? I don't think there'll be a queue.

And so he bravely limped off the plane at the brilliantly named airport of Heho, (which reminds me of my lovely niece Alice who, when she was little, always called the seven dwarves in the Snow White story 'Hi Ho's - because of the song they sang).

We are now at Inle Lake; a spectacularly huge lake which is home to whole communities of fishermen who build their stilt houses on arduously reclaimed mud, that they dredge from the bottom of the lake, and pondweed. They row their small wooden craft standing on a small platform at the back and using their leg to manipulate the oar. Using conical fishing baskets they trap the fish, and then kill them by inserting a harpoon through the neck of the cone and expertly spearing the wriggling fish. All whilst balancing on their tiny little boats. Incredible.

We took a couple of boat trips across the lake, visiting stilted villages and watching various handicrafts being made, including a silversmiths and a silk weaving cooperative (where the prices in the on-site 'sales centre' would rival Harrods - $180 for a scarf anyone? No, not even me). We made our excuses and left. Far more reasonable, and way more interesting, was a visit to a family run parasol workshop. Dad demonstrated his skill at turning a disparate collection of bamboo pieces into an intricate mechanism for opening and closing an umbrella, including slicing bits of wood with an evil looking machete. As he did so his four year old son climbed all over him chattering and laughing, oblivious to the fact he was in imminent danger of losing a finger or an ear if he wasn't a bit more careful.

His skill, and the ease with which he demonstrated to us the complexity, yet simplicity, of what he does was so inspiring that most of us felt the immediate urge to purchase at least one of his creations. Not that it takes much....

Meanwhile the rehabilitation of Mr Grumpy is complete. He astounds us all on a visit to a (not very) remote but poor village where we have been instructed to distribute small tokens such as sweets, toothbrushes, soap we've repatriated from the hotel and the like. He, however, opens his backpack to unveil the contents of an obviously pre-planned shopping bonanza; Thomas the Tank Engine colouring books, sets of brightly-coloured pencils, rubbers and sharpeners. He's turned into Father Christmas now. How many more incarnations will we witness?

Brian is now muttering that the splinter may have entered his blood stream and he is fully expecting it to start roaming about his body any day soon, causing untold devastation and long term medical complications no doubt. According to the O'Toole medical diagnosis he could be suffering from tetanus at the very least, and I should prepare myself for a lifetime of wheeling him along Hove seafront in a bath chair. I make a note to buy a tartan rug and a new thermos.

On top of that he can feel a(nother) cold coming on. Thank goodness I never considered a career in nursing, I know now for a fact I would be completely and utterly rubbish at it.