Rayong Christmas Eve

Enjoyed a lovely evening with Wanna and friends. My favourite food roast pork. All good food with veggies, potato salad and finished off with ice cake.
Then on to Karaoke.
Fun evening thanks to everyone. Happy Christmas to you all and best wishes for 2015....

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.)

Christmas In Ban Muang

Rushed posting. Thought I would just upload these photos of our arriving home and finding a Christmas tree, outside fairy lights and the house ready for us. Meals did not include a turkey but we had a super bar b q and grilled pork so all in all a couple of very good evenings.
Our dog Tiger was very happy to see us come back. Mem, Wanna's sister had been looking after him. Looking after him to well I can see as he is much too over weight. But he was excited to see us and has settled down and appears to have stopped running after our neighbours chickens, which you can imagine did not go down to well with them.
We plan to go up to Chang Mai tomorrow for a couple of days then down to Pattaya and Bangkok. All a bit hectic but we do seem to have a lot of people to get to see.

Tonight we take the Kids to the Khon Kaen night market for dinner and ice creams. Should be fun with plenty of activity and lots to see going on.

But for now I must leave posting Blogs and get back to my fishing....

Another Lazy Weekend In Gladstone

It’s beginning to warm up and today should reach 31^o Deg and climbing. Grass is brown and everywhere hot and dry. Having spent my youth in UK I can be forgiven for thinking Christmas time should be cold with everyone discussing the possibilities of a white Christmas. Well not here for sure, unless of course you are going to spent it inside a fridge!!! So imagine our surprise where we saw the real Father Christmas passing us by in a bright red fire truck. We chased after him and managed to get a photo. Still seems a strange setting!!!! But at least after all these years I can confirm he is alive and well and living in Gladstone, Central Queensland. And I’ve got the picture to prove it.