Last Post before 2013 ...... Promise

We, are as I told you are hosting the family New Years Eve party at our place.   I took a few moments to take a quick movie before things kick off.  Made a point of leaving everybody out of it. Just me,  doing a bit of talking over the video. Hope you can hear me over the music.  Photos tomorrow.

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.

House progress

Well the guys continue with the roofing and varanha. We finished the septic tank installation and associated pipe work.  Today we erected the orchid garden. Its 6 meters by 6 meters. Or 360 square feet. Size of a small house in UK. Orchids go intomorrow. We also added a small wall to add definition and help us level the orchard area and adjacent garden. Plenty to do but I think only a few more weeks and well have the walls up and bathrooms completed. So I'm allowing 6 weeks to completion including down time for New Year.
And to round the evening off I went out to take these pictures and saw our dogs enjoying the jetty. Lovely.

House and an evening break away from Construction

We have been continuing with the house but progress is not the sort of reportable stuff. You know finishing off plumbing, more smart board and placing drains etc. However Steve was round to do some plumbing and then tonight we had dinner with him at his place. Wanna and he had cooked to dishes. Both Chili concarne.  I had to choose the best one!!!!1 Bit of Master Chef type stuff. Difficult chose as they Well they both got 9 out of 10 but almost really should have been 10 each.... Only separated by a hairs breath. Wanna's hair was in hers!!!!!!!were both superb. Anyway good evening.

Soi Siam Country Club Road

Quick birds eye view of Owen and I driving down Soi Siam Country Club Road. Nothing terribly exciting and the video is unedited. Just a quick 'snap shot' along the way, but interesting never the less it shows a typical street scene. Hope you all have a good weekend.