After Finishing The Blog,

I was off to town,

to the Kodak shop in Pattaya Tai, I had to pick up the first of Diana's Christmas presents, they have a great gift wrapping service there,

also I like going there to look at their marine aquarium, the problem with keeping marine fish is the amount of equipment needed to keep them successfully, most of it is kept under the aquarium in what is known as a sump,

this is a filter and chiller, to keep corals growing lots of light are needed, this unfortunately warms the water so it has to be cooled down, in this case to 26.9 Centigrade,

going from left to right, the pump that circulates the water, a protein skimmer to remove fish and coral waste before it becomes a problem in the aquarium, a seaweed filter, the seaweed exchanges harmful products and converts them into growth, coral gavel to help keep the p.h. of the water at its optimum level and finally a mechanical pre filter to physically stop any debris from contaminating the rest of the filter system,

as they say the proof of the pudding is in the eating, if you look at earlier posts you will see that same fish are here, this a Regal tang

 a clown fish,

 amongst others, also the corals are doing well,

when Phil called in he brought Diana a computer game with him so Diana spent the day playing with that, meanwhile I played with my stamps, then it was time to go shopping, 

 lots of foods on offer,

 but first some pineapple,

 another kilo of small oranges,

 I was thinking of some bananas as well, so many varieties to chose from,

 all set and ready to go, I thought,

 but Diana wanted some food on a stick,

 then remembered we were out of potatoes,

I always, well nearly always start my day the same way, unlock the gate, water the plants, open a bottle of soda and write the post for yesterday, but I am down to my last two bottles of soda, so as we were out we stopped off at the 7-11 to buy another 10 bottles, but they were out of stock, as was the next 7-11, next to the Family Mart store, none, then to Tesco, above, but still no soda or soft drinks like diet or zero coke, I wonder why?

during the day Harvey called to say he was back in Thailand, so as it was Wednesday we arranged to meet him at the Ali Baba restaurant, so it was glad rags on,

 we were ready a bit early so I carried on playing with my stamps,

 the page I was playing with are these Prince of Wales hospital stamps,

 there were issued for two years with different designs for 1897 and 1898,

 although not real stamps they were fund raisers, patrons could buy a book to keep the stamps in and contribute to the building fund,

this is the 10/- stamp, to put the cost in today's perspective a labour/farm worker in 1898 would earn 14/1½ a week, so the stamp in effect is about two thirds of his weekly pay, a mine worker would earn 23/- a week, so we are looking at a substantial act of charity, the stamps themselves are beautifully engraved and are sort after today,

my playing with stamps also gave Diana a chance to shake, rattle and roll her present, trying to find out what it was,

 then to the Secrets taxi,

and off to Ali Baba, inflation of course has caught up with Secrets, the cost of a short journey had risen from 150 baht to 200 baht,

 we started with chicken chat,

 meanwhile Harvey's brother Mike and his friend Pat had the thali meal,

 Harvey had the vegetarian thali,

 by now another of our starters had arrived, a prawn puri,

followed by our main course, we all remarked how excellent the food was here, it is Harvey's favorite Indian restaurant over here and ours as a matter of fact, 'Cheers!',

then home feet up and the first of three DVDs in the series The Great Adventurers - Columbus/Drake/Raleigh, we watched the first one,

about Christopher Columbus, fascinating stuff, but remember he never set foot on mainland America, it is strange that so many believe he did,

 I had to put in a picture of Diana's new game, the Choclatier, what better game for Diana with her love of chocolate?

we also received the complete double box set of Travels with Palin, we settled down to watch them in order even though a long time ago we had already watched the first in the series Great Railway Journeys, first aired in 1980, it was at Mallow and Cork station, the longest in Ireland, (not a lot of people know that),

when we saw it, a Billingham bag, again in a splendid product placement for it, those bags get everywhere! a great start to what we hope will be a great series, then for us off to bed.