Saturday Already!

so time to go shopping,

for food and some drinks for this afternoon's get together,

Big Jim called round first, he brought round a couple of early birthday presents, I am not having a party as it falls in the middle of songkran but when I get back from the UK on June the 28th or near to it, we will have a double party as it is Diana's birthday then, it was a box of See's chocolates or as they are called in the States candies, this was a box of truffles, and very nice the one we had was too, Diana put the rest in the fridge for safe keeping! also due to my lack of cooking skills, a cook book and a very nice one, Eric commented later it was one of the better cook books on the market and is very good, so I will have a look in the week and see what, (with Diana's help) I can do, note to self, check fire insurance is paid up to date!

Riza joined Diana helping with the food, for tonight small chicken legs and chili-con-carne with rice,

the drinks station in the kitchen,

Eric called in this evening with his girlfriend from China, Channel,

Mike of course was also here, the evening went swimmingly well, Eric had brought around amongst other things a bottle of red wine that went perfectly with the food, we talked a lot about China, Channel is a English teacher in China so her English was very good, we particularly spoke about that great export from China, tea and how an audacious plan by Robert Fortune (1813-1880) broke the Chinese monopoly of it, what Fortune did was change the wording on a official order for the growers to supply Fortune with tea seeds instead of mulberry seeds, it was a dangerous move, exporting tea or the knowledge of how to grow it in those times was death, but because of the short viable life of tea seeds he had to grow the seeds on board the boat he was leaving China in, he used a number of the newly invented Wardian cases, the inventor Dr. Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward (1791-1868), is hardly known today, but horticulture has a lot to thank Dr. Ward for, going back to Robert Fortune his exploits have been made into a DVD, Robert Fortune the tea thief, then as our friends left it was time for bed.