It wasn’t the best introduction to the food of Siam. Standing in Battersea Park huddled under umbrellas watching the rain. In fact it was more like a monsoon which was a little more in keeping with the event, the Annual Thai Food Festival, but rather unseasonal for August in London.

Unlike previous years there was a crowd of us. Martin, Fhai and the kids; Gam and Michael, their daughter and his parents, Mouse (it being the weekend Dave was away working) and K and me. All of us standing under the trees and wondering why were here and not, perhaps, in Thailand.

Eventually the weather broke and the sun came out and we headed to the beer tent to try to cheer ourselves up before we explored the food stalls.

I always associate smells with places. Charcoal is forever the smell of Thailand. Either the bustle of China Town in Bangkok or the stalls which surrounded the temples in Chiang Mai. Today, with the cloth banners above the stalls steaming slightly after the rain and the cooks wafting the burners with pieces of cardboard to get heat into the coals I was back there again for a moment. The chicken cooked slowly on the barbeques and the smell mixed with papaya and durian as I used my few phrases of Thai to get food for K to try.

Richard, however, was more interested in the Western Union stall where you could burst a balloon to reveal a number and win a price. He’d already work his way through the lower grade prices of sweets, paper hat and pen and had his eyes on the more select goods of baseball cap, DVD and radio. One by one we were led to the stall to try our luck, under his direction, and see if we could add to the haul.

Eventually we left before the rains came again (which they did as we drove back, flooding the road and making the traffic crawl) but for a few hours I was back in Thailand. The need to travel is still there.