Good News At The Hospital,

after having my wound dressed,

I was told that on Monday hopefully the stitches will be removed, I then made my way to the Friendship car park, regrettably yet another of my crowns had dropped out, a slight bit of bad news as I made my way across the road to the dentist as he was closed this Saturday, so I will call in to see him on Monday after my visit to the hospital,

 before I left for hospital I had arranged to meet Steve in the Punch and Judy for a late breakfast/early lunch,

 a cheese and Branston pickle sandwich myself,

 complete with side salad and coleslaw for just 100 baht,

 Steve went with the Saturday special of chicken Madras curry with pilau rice, poppadoms and other condiments for 210 baht,

 the Punch and Judy card,

with a map on the back,

 the afternoon just flew by then it was time for our evening barbecue, the new barbecue was quite a bit larger than our previous one,

 so I only lit half of it up,

 but like the previous one it still produced copious amounts of smoke,

 but thankfully the fire at last took,

 and soon the charcoal was glowing a nice cherry red,

 so now no more kneeling on the floor for Diana as she cooked our evening meal,

 after our starter of garlic bread the prawn kebabs were served,

 we normally spend the evening chatting away, but for tonight's entertainment the electrical transformer which is half outside our house and half outside the house next door,

 decided to put on a small fireworks display for us as one of the breakers/switches/fuses? decided to start glowing a nice cherry red,

 this might explain our power cut of yesterday evening, our next-door neighbour did say that the electricity company had already called round in the early hours of the morning, whilst chatting to her more droplets of molten metal fell from the piece of equipment,

 we sat back down to continue our meal but then in a grand finale sparks started flying out sideways, but then they stopped and unit seem to cool down to its normal operating temperature, since then we've had no further problems with it or power cuts,

 so we continued our meal, last Monday we had bought a couple steaks and let them mature in the fridge for five days,

 so we had them with garlic and onions, toasted bread and broccoli, I have to say in passing that keeping the steaks in the fridge rather like a butcher would hang the meat made them extremely tender, but despite that they were rather lacking in flavour, still at 77 baht for both steaks they were not exactly the most expensive to buy, never mind next week will have chicken!

 apart from the barbecue this was Diana's main birthday present,

 a gold ring which she was very pleased with,

 then what better way to round off the meal than a pastry horn filled with cream, 'Cheers!',

after moving indoors we decided to watch a film we had seen before The Odd Couple, made in 1968, for me a brilliant film, Diana also found many of the lines funny, the thing about this film is that it almost seems not to have dated, if you have not seen give it a try,

keeping to a comedy theme we then decided to watch Airplane, although dated I have to agree with one commentary that a viewer of the film said, 'It is my understanding that there are still a few people in the world that haven't seen "Airplane!" yet, those people probably are still waiting for electricity, indoor plumbing and all the other great advances in humanity, too', I have to agree, as I said a little bit dated but great fun to watch, with the end of that film we were then off to bed.

There Are So Many Times,

that I wish I was an artist,

especially when I see work such as this, entitled Meltdown it is the work of 40-year old artist Manabu Ikeda's and is his latest creation, it’s about 4ft x 4ft and took about 5 months to create, typically he spends years on a single creation, which is so dense in detail that a single 8-hour work day yields just a 4-inch square,

above is a small section of Meltdown, which explores the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake the work was recently on view at the West Vancouver Museum, next month he will embark on a 10 by 13 foot panel in Madison, Wisconsin which the artist estimates will take upward of three years to complete, I just wish I had this sort of talent.

First Thing And We Were On Our Way,

back to Nick and Maureen's,

 of courses stopping off at the pet hotel on the way to pick up Ta-Taa, thanking Nick & Maureen for looking after us so well when we were their guests I made my way home, as I drove away from their house I noticed this truck which I guess has got to be the ultimate way to hear music on the go,

 I mean just look at how many speakers there are in it!

 then a surprise for Diana,

 I had a couple of secrets,

 the first I had ordered a bouquet of flowers to be delivered at 10.00 am today as it is Friday and her birthday,

 and here is birthday girl, with most of her presents,

  first things first,

 some water and a vase for the flowers,

 next her choice of where she wanted to eat breakfast,

 she chose her favourite,

 so we ate over looking the sea and Beach Road,

 my diet going slightly to the wind as I ordered a big mac,

we then had a look around the shops in the Royal Garden Plaza, we both noticed one thing that linked all of the shops, every one had a sale on, beginning of season/middle of season/end of season sale, plus any that did not have one of those had a summer sale till the end of August, we nearly went on a shopping spree as we would have saved a fortune, but then decided against it,

 we were on a quest, so going down to the motor bike park I took a couple of pictures of one of the mobile bars that are around town,

 having said mobile, this one always seems to be here,

 the Volk Street Bar,

 we continued on our quest, to the shops at Wat Chai market on Pattaya Tai,

 to this shop in particular, yes you guessed it, the gold shop,

 a nice new gold ring and a pair of gold earrings later and we were home, Diana just could not wait to open her presents,

 the first one a box of hair clips,

 the second box more hair clips,

 lots of them,

 Diana said she was spoilt for choice,

only two more presents to go, the first a dress,

 then opening the next,

 another dress, OK I know buying dresses is not original, but her second surprise of the day I think was,

 it used to beak my heart seeing Diana cooking on our bar-b-que every week on the floor, so I bought her a new bar-b-que with legs,

I know what you are all thinking, I am all heart, but buying it was an adventure in itself,

the only place I could find that sold them with legs was a shop on Pattaya Tai, this is a view looking towards the Shell petrol station on the same side of the road a couple of shops away,

 there was a selection of them at the front of the shop,

 a view of some of the other merchandise on sale,

 the tricky bit was getting it on the bike,

 but there it was tied down and ready to go, but what a drive home, the thing made so much noise every time I went over the smallest bump in the road, as it was upside down the grill part of it and the bit the charcoal would rest on made the clash of cymbals in an orchestra sound quiet!

next time bring the truck! well a bar-b-que was not what I think Diana was expecting, but then she did not expect the set of ladders I bought for her birthday last year, but we are looking forward to trying it out on Saturday, Diana's birthday continues in the next post.