We Were Having A Quite Day After The Weekend Birthday Celebrations,

when Mark and Anchisa called round,

so it was a cup of tea for Mark and myself,

whilst Diana opened her present from them, a evening hand bag, smiles all round! for the rest of the day we watched a couple of films, for the last time on True Vision (UBC) as tomorrow they are calling round to take the satellite away, no BBCE = no satellite for us! but the good news is that I have a few DVD's coming from the UK, plus of course we are now on Sophon cable, which is 24,300 baht a year cheaper than True Vision, so on Tuesday we will have to wait in for them to call round to remove the dish.

I Missed The Air Show At Biggin Hill In Kent This Year,

which was a shame for two reasons,

firstly the show included displays by the Cold-War era Avro Vulcan V-bomber which has been on the blog a couple of times and the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight with the Hurricane and Spitfire fighters and Lancaster bomber, secondly a fly past of one of Sir Richard Branson's 747's with a formation of the Red Arrows, who are renowned throughout the world as ambassadors for both the Royal Air Force and the UK, Sir Richard founded Virgin Atlantic in 1984, despite taking on the giant BA it now has a fleet of 38 aircraft, including thirteen 747-400s, six A340-300s and nineteen A340-600s,

Biggin Hill is still an airport, but in the second World war it was part of fighter comand, for pictures and the history of Biggin Hill over the past 100 years go here, British And Proud Of It!

Now I Do Like Aston Martin Cars,

but this one? I am not to sure about, it is small but still £20,000, called a Cygnet, it will do 65 to the gallon, but I wonder if Aston's, when they named it, remembered the story of the ugly duckling? it is Toyota based on their Toyota IQ city car but Aston has added a sporty grille, alloy wheels and luxury interior, it will be powered by Toyota's one-litre engine, so that makes it an Aston then? there is a slight snag to owning one however, to buy one you must also fork out for a traditional Aston super car, such as the £160,000 DBS, or already own one, oh dear I do not own one, so a BMW mini for me then!

How Do You Know When A Recession Is Really Bad?

go to a car boot sale and look at what the sellers are driving! the £150,000 Bentley Continental convertible stood out like a sore thumb in a sea of transit vans and hatchbacks at the sale in Edgware, North London, the unknown shaven-headed man and his blond companion were even selling wine glasses and picture frames, I guess they could have sold the car, but go home by public transport? perish the thought!

21 Today, 21 Today, She's Got The Key Of The Door,

never been 21 before! Diana is 21 years old, and in the great Thai tradition the day starts with a trip to the gold shop! apart from that it was a quite day,

then on to the evening, first it was the white dress, and very nice it looked to, then a change of mind and it was the metallic type of material dress,

ah so sweet!

then Mike and Riza called round for a couple of pre meal drinks,

and then it was off to Cafe des Amis

as it says on their web page, the most elegant French style bistro restaurant in Pattaya and it is!

we had a few drinks before the meal,

everything about this restaurant is just so right!

and great news for me, I forgot my glasses, but look at this, a full selection of reading glasses, how thoughtful,

complementary crab and shrimp stater, now here is a little photography tip from Mike, the camera I have has a flash, but, it is either on or off, so if I want to take a close up the subject is way over exposed, but following Mikes instructions I put a piece of the serviette over the flash, it worked! a nice picture of the starter and not over exposed,

for Mike and myself, pieces of crispy fried duck with a julienne of crispy vegetables served with a plum and hoy sin sauce and Caesar salad for Mike,

the girls had 6 oysters with crispy fried shallots and a chili and lime dressing and a seafood chowder soup,

then for the main course I had pork Normand, oven cooked pork fillet wrapped in bacon with candied apples and finished with a cream cider jus, whilst Mike had chicken breast stuffed with sausage & sage, wrapped in bacon with a whiskey cream sauce and spring onion mash potatoes,

the girls both had blacken salmon served with a julienne of vegetables and a spicy tomato relish,

then the surprise, I did not mention to Diana that the day before I called in to see Mark the chef and ordered her a birthday cake,

Blu and Pia, the perfect host and hostess,

and of course lots of presents, this picture was taken by Blu with a proper camera, many thanks,

now time for the presents, a dress,

then a small present,

a girls best friend!

and next,

another dress,

and a hair curling set from Mike and Riza,

I should have said we left 2 presents at home to open when we got back, in one there was 4 sets of necklaces with matching earrings,

and in the other - a dress! no excuses for not having any thing to wear now!

and of course Diana just had to try them on,

I suppose now I will have to buy matching shoes! a truly great night out and I can not recommend Cafe des Amis highly enough, for any occasion the food, service and ambiance can not be beaten, we all thoroughly enjoy it, we will be back!

How To Make 20p Into £50.00!

just look in your pocket! in an embarrassing mistake the Royal Mint put hundreds of undated 20 pence pieces into circulation, There is an unwritten convention that designs should be changed at least every 40 years to keep the coinage fresh, the change of the 20p design meant moving the year date from the tails side to the side with the Queen's head, however, thousands of coins were minted using the old version of the Queen's head, which does not have the year date, and the new version of the tails side, which also does not have a date, this created thousands of coins without any date, a rare and valuable mistake in the world of coin collecting, out of interest this coin is called a 'mule' the Royal Mint's usually impeccable quality control somehow slipped up and the so-called 'mule' escaped into circulation, a 'mule' is a coin that has mismatched sides - a reference to the mule being a mismatch of a horse and donkey, no one knows how much the undated 20p is worth, however, The London Mint Office, which is a private company with no connection to the Royal Mint, is offering £50 a time to anyone who has one.

We Have Just Had A E-Mail From Mick And Mass,

they are looking forward to coming back to Thailand, and wish Maureen and Diana a happy birthday, these are some pictures from the Borrowash county fair they went to this weekend,

if you have never been to a county fair it is where sheep, cattle etc are shown in competition, national and regional handicrafts are also demonstrated,

I have been to several in the past, some of the bigger ones also feature some of the old steam traction engines, which for me was the best part, I just love things powered by steam, but back to Mick and Mass, they are both well a looking forward to being back here, so, see you both soon!

This Is Edgar Mueller The 3D Pavement Artist,

I have featured his work on our blog before,

he very kindly got in touch and gave me his web page address, so if you want to be amazed by his work,

like this street waterfall, go to http://www.metanamorph.com/ the images are breath taking, I will be going back to the UK in a couple of weeks and I hope to see "The Cave" in docklands,

absolutely stunning, I just hope it will be there for the rest of the summer.

Happy Birthday To Maureen!

and tomorrow to Diana!

so it was into a baht bus,

and off to Ban Ampur,

it is about 5 or 6 kilometers along a very quite Sukumvit highway, past the Ambassador hotel,

the Sukumvit is now 2 lanes,

then turn right as you get into Ban Ampur with the police station on your right,

then bare to the left and hey presto! we are at Precha seafood restaurant,

although we are at a seafood restaurant these blue legged prawns are in fact a freshwater species,

these are saltwater prawns, we will be seeing more of these later!

small clams,

the tables and chairs are where last week Mark and Anchisa joined us for a meal when Precha was closed,

boiled crabs legs and steamed mussells,

prawn doughnuts and salt water prawns, this week the prawns were huge,

more food has arrived,

and "cheers!" from Diana and myself,

fresh coconut drink for Diana,

the prawn doughnuts were so nice we ordered some more, along with some small clams in a pepper sauce,

asparagus and shrimp in oyster sauce,

and rock lobster in garlic,

then present time!

smiles all round,

it was a day early for Diana, but she will have a few more presents tomorrow,

just what Diana wanted, a new dress and a trip to the gold shop in the morning! Happy Birthday Diana!