New Years Eve

Firstly a very Happy New Year to all my readers.

The last 12 days have gone in a blur. We have been busy on the house,  made a new orchid shade area. Its 6 meters by 6 meters, went up to Chiang Mai for Christmas, which was great catching up with a lot of old friends,  while there we went to Doi Interdon highest place in Thailand at 2565 m above sea level. Hardly super high but it is the foot hills of the Himalayas, and then we visited an aquaponics system under construction and now getting ourselves ready for tonight s party. Oh yes forgot.  We bought a small rice field.  Seemed like a good investment located along a small canal so always has water.  Shot a quick movie. Area is about 4000 square meters, about acre. Should be a good investment.

On our travels I saw a custom make chopper motor bike.  That's next years project, after the house, after the aquaponics and after the garden being tidied up and after changing our car etc etc. So maybe I'll make do with the photos of the bike and that project will get put back to 2014...

A few days back the local school had a camping weekend for 10 local schools. Very well organised. The whole sports area was taken with tents on the perimeter and a small fire set up in the centre. During the evening we could hear the singing and general sounds of a massive fun evening being had by all. I passed by to take a few photos. Surprise surprise the girl in the photo is my next door neighbour. She had great fun telling everyone I was the foreigner living next door... I think she got a bit of kudos from it all.

Took the dogs out and managed to tire them out. At least for now. I don't know where Tiger gets his energy. He can run at about 30-35 kilometers an hour.  Good job I'm on a motor bike.

Shade cloth took forever to get right. Kept catching on the concrete posts. Next up is installing water sprinklers and some power. Plan is to have extra storage water tanks and some solenoids to run a decent irrigation system. One more thing to do in 2013. Work seems to be coming a more and more distant thing.... Lets see what 2013 brings in that side of things.

Yesterday we added the lights to the Jetty. One either end. Difficult to see in the photo but they are there. One on left is 6 meters high the one on the right about 12 meters. The 12 meter one is for the UV, which can be seen from afar by insects. Yes I know weird, but the fish love it....

Tonight is party night.  And yes we are hosting it on our new Jetty.... ....Mainly family and a few friends. Just got to set up some lights and music and we're good to go. Others are organising the food and drinks. Wonderful here in Thailand. We need ice and it will be delivered form local shop. Beer and whiskey the same.  Food well everyone brings something.

I think I'll stop there with my ramblings. Seem to have covered enough for today. One last thing. We decorated the outside of our toilet yesterday. There had been a pipe coming through the wall. The hole was patched up with cement morter but Wanna yesterday added a flower to cover it.  Add on a few baskets etc starts to look good. Go on smile.....

Happy New Year.

Nearly The End Of The Year....

Between Christmas and New Year I had time to take several walks round our garden/farm. The place looked really good. Lots growing and it just felt good to be back and relaxing etc. Suffice to say it did not take me long to realise that I would soon be having to quite my farm walks and sitting around as in a few more days I’d return back to work!!! Before the dreaded day I know I have some good times ahead. New Years Eve, then Chang Mai, Pattaya to catch up with Owen and On, followed by a trip to Sydney and only then the flight into Gladstone (Happy Rock) as it is known locally. This followed by returning to the office, which I might add does not in any way resemble its TV’s namesake.

To give you some idea of our garden it is best to just upload a few photos. I’ve shown the main gate, the access road and some views across the rice fields.

Now I’ve done this upload I’m back to some more resting.

(Note:- Can't seem to upload my movie so sending through muy email account.)

April 2010 A Quick Month

I've been so busy over this month that I did not get time to record my travels or outline the bits and pieces that have kept me away from my key board.

Trouble with this approach is that now sitting down to write becomes a bit of hard work instead of a few enjoyable minutes spent typing and uploading a set of photos. How to cure this. Do a Vlog? Its a sort of easy/lazy way to get it all down on paper. I did one before and in making it I really enjoyed it a lot. Talking and having the video on the go seems to work well for me. Even had a some feed back from readers which is always good for the ego. (hint, hint).

Well, now enough of the introduction down to basics. April has been eventful. We have had a weekend in Chang Mai and another one in Khon Kaen. This along with the usual social events incorporating lots of food and beer. Not to be sniffed at I can assure you. All in all a good month and one I need to record for you and for me as a future trip down 'memory lane'. And God, I almost forgot I also went to Ha Noi, Vietnam for a weekend to see about some work. So you can see how for me time flies. I'll cover in a separate Blog.

Before I get you get to the Vlog one thing I noticed at Chang Mai airport was a sign advising not to carry 'copy' (means counterfeit) products into some European Countries. I though this concept applied to Thailand and ALL European Countries.

We had a great time in Chang Mai, did the usual night markets, watched Thai 'Pat Tong" a sort of football. (I took this clip on my phone.)

And apart from that we just generally relaxed and enjoyed ourselves. This time I did not take another set of Photos of the Wats, well only a few....

Interestingly the young Monks like their adult counterparts shave not only their heads but also their eye brows!

The main purpose of going to Chang Mai was to catch up with our friend Khun Pathan and his lovely wife Duan. They were having a house blessing and we had promised to go for so long that we just had to make it. And I'm glad we did. Great time had by all.

That's Wanna, Me and our Friend Khun Pathan in the picture above.
So apart from visiting Chang Mai, up in Khon Kaen there was April the 29th. A very 'lucky' day by all accounts and it therefore was taken as the day to commence the foundations of Wanna's parents house just down from ours. This is a separate subject. Construction is planned to take 6-8 weeks maximum, and I'll cover it over a series of entries and videos.

So on with the April Vlog....Just some ramblings.....Well maybe next time. I seem to have covered all I wanted in this here. Have the Ha Noi trip and Khon Kean house project to follow.