The Day Just Sort Of Flew Past,

all to soon it was time to meet Mr.Tony,

so it was on with the glad rags,

and off to the 99 baht Sunday lunch, if you look at the menu there is a different menu every day, although I do not like it myself I have been told by more than a few friends that the Thursday lasagna is one of the best in town,

the bar where we normally meet up across from the restaurant,

with all of those signs it is not easy to miss,

looking towards, Soi Bukoaw,

a papaya poc-poc maker, whilst at the bar there is a none stop procession of people selling food, watches, DVD's etc,

I kept my distance, some thing he was using to me did not smell so good,

then Mr. Tony arrived,

a lady selling goods from the hill tribes in the north of Thailand,

inside the restaurant, it was not so busy today,

the blue slushi was sold out so a red one instead,

a full roast dinner, only 99 baht including a salad, it was delicious,

"Cheers!" from all of us, after the main course no one could eat a desert, so then time to head home feet up and watch a few DVD's,

and what better way to round of the evening that some British humour, not to every bodies taste but Diana and myself find the antics of the 4 students in The Young Ones highly entertaining, after a few shows then to bed.

How Often Has This Happened?

a child or adult for that matter has gone 10 pin bowling in the UK, walked the length of the alley and got injured in the machinery that sets the pins in place in say the last 40 years? 10? 50? no the answer is none, but that has not stopped Health and Safety from coming to a number of time consuming and expensive conclusions, the most dumb of which was the idea to put barriers across lanes, but they were forced to admit defeat - after realising that bowlers must be able to see what they are aiming at,

John Ashbridge, of The Ten-Pin Bowling Proprietors Association, said: 'I have been in this industry for 40 years and I have never known any member of the public injured by a bowling pinsetter. I have never heard of anybody going near the pins.' Mr Ashbridge said he had watched HSE inspectors examining a bowling centre and he found their attempts to detect possible dangers 'hilarious', He added: 'Some operators have now fitted photoelectric beams, they don't cause any problems - they don't stop the machines because nobody ever goes near the pins.'

it's a peril that only a crack team of health and safety experts could have uncovered, after two long years and a huge £250,000 bill, that we have all paid for, they found that ten-pin bowling alleys up and down the country could be a 'very dangerous' environment for families,

please, please do not let anyone on the same Health and Safety team go any where near a ice rink! imagine how much it will cost to tell us how it is a dangerous environment for families, they might fall down on the ice!

First Day With The Sony,

and of course the first picture Diana,

I am not sure if the image is any clearer on the blog page,

but viewed through the back of the camera and the computer they are a lot clearer and appear to be in sharper focus,

trying to find something to photograph I chose the shrine in Friendship car park,

we arrive back with the shopping for this afternoon,

first to arrive were Jay and Precil,

followed by Mike and Riza, Mike had just returned at 3 in the morning form his trip to Laos to renew his visa,

Mike and Jay,

then Mr. Tony arrived,

followed by Mark and Anchisa,

and Mick, unfortunately Mass was a little under the weather so Mick only stayed a short time,

Diana had decided to do a bar-b-q, but also Mark, Jay and Diana had bought some shrimps to steam,

in season now are these star fruit, some of the biggest I have seen,

Precil and Anchisa preparing some of the goodies,

like these small clams, guess they go in a soup,

Anchisa and Riza at the bar-b-q,

Mr. Tony said that he was not on his diet today, so he was really hungry!

there was so much food, Big Jim prepared some mushroom and vegetable dishes which were pronounced by all as delicious,

Diana and Anchisa with steamed shrimps and a sweet dip,

it is great that all of the girls get along so well and that they enjoy their food!

whilst downstairs I thought I would try out the camera on the fish tank, I was well impressed with the results,

the girls were having a whale of a time,

then all to soon it was time to say our goodbyes, naturally we all put the world to rights, the state of the world economy, the next mission to Mars, the fundamental rights of man, then we got onto the serious stuff,

like the blond that could not sell her car because it had 180,000 miles on the clock,

her friend said she knew a chap that could turn the clock back,

a few days later her friend enquired if she had sold the car,

'no, well I do not have to now, it's only got 25,000 miles on the clock!' boom-boom.

Youth And Youths Are Now Officially Banned,

from where I hear you ask, from the English language, the present government who it would appear has far to much time on it's hands have declared that the term 'youth' has got to be dropped from all official papers, officials at Jack Straw's Ministry of Justice and Ed Balls's Department of Children, Schools and Families said: 'a number of responses suggested the term "youth" had negative connotations and should be replaced by "young persons".' as I said some people who should know better have far to much time on their hands, in my opion the move to ban the term 'youth' is a total and utter complete load of -------- (fill your own word in), is this all that ministers can think about? and we are paying them for these pearls of wisdom! the comment from Shadow Justice Secretary Dominic Grieve sums it all up, 'Yet again, ministers have shown that they are more bothered about pandering to political correctness than coming down hard on the crime and antisocial behaviour that blights communities.' did I mention that another matter that has been given great thought, in Labour's years in power was its Youth Justice Board's decision to prevent the word 'gang', in case it criminalises youngsters who gather together, it prefers crime committed by such gatherings to be described as 'group-related', similarly, Scotland Yard refers to 'group rape' or 'multi-perpetrator rape' to avoid 'emotive' language, words fail me.

Now Here's A Guy That Like Me Loves His Cars,

Chris Evans, seen here sprinting away from his 'Coburn Spyder', a convertible 250 GT that cost Evans more than £5 million at auction last year, his collection includes a Lamborghini, a Rolls-Royce, a Land Rover and a Mark II Jaguar and seven classic Ferrari's in order of their number plates: ENZ 1000, ENZ 2000, ENZ 3000, ENZ 40, ENZ 250 on the 250 GT Lusso and ENZ 246 on the 246 GT 'Dino', the car has a three-litre V12 engine, 280hp, 2,953cc with single overhead camshaft and three Weber carburettors, bodywork was by Pininfarina and built by Sergio Scaglietti, one of only 56 built this is number 13 built in 1961, Ferrari's - like Chris, I just love them.

We Had More Than A Few Friends Call Round Today,

but in the morning we went to the TUKCOM Com center,

after dropping my Fuji camera (again!), it was in need of a slight repair, so off to the shops, I did not do a comparison on the Internet, but I had one priority, to buy a camera with a Carl Zeiss lens, going back to my old camera days they were always the best lenses, the only camera maker that I could see that had this was Sony, so that was the one I bought, so as from tomorrow all of the pictures will be taken on it, the price was 8,499 baht including a (free) 2 GB card, but here is the rub, I always like to have a spare set of batteries with me, in this case it is not a AA or similar but a special battery a NP-FG1, a catchy name, but a we caught you price, 1,990 baht! I have just looked up today's exchange rate, £36.28 for a battery, I know it was my choice but it feels more like assault and battery!

Mark, Mick and Alex all called in for chat and a cup of tea, so the day just flew past,

then it was off to the market, Diana wanted a new hair grip thing, so I left her to it and started my usual wander around,

we were quite early so not many crowds to get around,

so many clothes stalls, the one problem here is to get shirts and trousers big enough, there are some stalls that cater for people of a larger frame, but typically most sizes are smaller than I can get into, larger sizes are more commonly available in the Soi Bukoaw market,

lots of small stalls like this one, every thing 10 baht, the sign says it all,

in the pet section this is the first saltwater aquarium I have seen there, I hope he makes a go of it, saltwater fish are much harder to keep than their freshwater counterparts,

then on to the orchids,

these large flowering ones are very popular,

as are these slightly smaller ones,

in a variety of colours,

this shop at the other extreme also has some cactuses,

back to the food stalls, an abundance of shrimps,

and Diana's favorites, bugs!

then just as I was going to the bar I noticed Sai Ja, I guess with her great granddaughter,

she has a small stand selling home made hats and things that she makes herself,

Diana returned with the hair thingy that she bought 10 baht, what a bargain!

all say 'Ah!',

we were later joined by Rizza and Goh, Mike wanted to be here as well, but he was still on the mini bus coming down from Lao where he went to get his visa,

Diana and the girls popped back to say hi to Sai Ja and bring her a green tea,

Sai Ja with Riza and Goh,

on our way back to the bike Diana saw this one, of course she wanted one straight away,

she said she would feel safe with this one as it has 3 wheels, I said 'if only they did one in pink',

well that was a dumb thing for me to say, parked by the truck there was a pink one!

we decided to stop at the food stalls, I did not fancy sushi , so I went for the chicken soup, the girls had already bought their supper,

we also bought a couple of halves of roasted chicken to snack on later,

Diana then decided on a few Thai deserts,

I am not sure what they are, but the girls seem to like them,

the girls decided to eat outside, I think they had some smelly stuff, so I was thankful for that, after Rizza and Goh left we settled down to watch The Tudors, but something did not make sense, it was all wrong, then it dawned on us, the labels on the DVD's had been stuck on the wrong discs, disc 3 should have been disc 2, and of course disc 2 was really disc 3, now it all made sense! we were totally engrossed in it, we watched it all, so now we will have to wait till series 4 comes out in the spring, by now it was well past 2 in the morning so it was off to bed, the chicken tasted great.