I Hope You Like Pictures,

there are lot of them in this post,

despite the rain we decided to pay a visit to the garden market on the Sukhumvit Road, it is opposite the Bangkok Pattaya hospital, we are standing in the car park looking back towards the hospital,

 standing at the same spot, I decided to see how well the zoom feature worked, I zoomed in from the same position that I took the picture of above, 

and still it kept going till it stopped here looking at the side of the building, I was well impressed even more so when with this Panasonic camera the f stop remained at a constant f2.8 throughout it's entire range, the three pictures were all taken from the same spot and the camera was hand held,

although there are many stalls there are a few mobile ones,

but most are under sun screens like these,

our first stop,

a stall selling bonsai tress,

I will refrain from telling my bonsai tree joke,

next a water feature outlet,

I had not seen this type before,

where the water appears to come out of the logs themselves,

the mobile stall had come to rest,

this stall looked so bright,

and colourful,

but then they were not real,

but I guess some one must like them,

but these are real,

carnivorous plants,

these perhaps the most famous, the Venus Fly Trap, 

followed by the almost triffid like pitcher plants,

also here were some examples of monkey cups,

so called as it was thought that monkeys drank from the water that had collected in the cups,

next past one of the aquatic outlets,

to a stall that sold different types of moss,

with some butterfly's, 

hovering over the plants,

the amaryllis here were flowering, I wonder why ours are not at home,

lots of waterlilies and lotus here, but more of those later,

there were also some stalls selling fresh fruit,

like these,

and of course garden furniture,

we have looked at a few of the plant stalls, 

but at the far end of the market there are large trees for sale,

I then noticed Diana taking a picture of me,

so I had to take one of her,

considering it had been raining all morning I was surprised at the number of stalls and people here,

I then chanced upon this orchid,

I had seen many plants of this type growing, but this is one of the rare times I had seen one in flower,

and beautiful it looked too,

next a stall selling garden ornaments,

some of the now famous short legged giraffes,

and big eyed crocodiles,

opposite an orchid stall,

and what beauties were on display there,

I nearly weaken and bought this one,

there were also lots of cut orchids for sale,

so many to choose from,

for restaurants I guess as table decoration,

the cactus stall with one potential customer,

when I see waterlilies like this,

I really miss having a fish pond,

the colours so bright when they flower,

there were 2 or 3 baskets with an assortment of blooms in each,

it was just a pity it was not sunny as the flowers would have looked so much brighter,

I wonder if the bee in this waterlily,

knows that some waterlilies close their petals when a bee is in them and traps them overnight? it is the flowers way of making sure the bee is absolutely covered in pollen,

another one of the aquatic stalls,

these I thought were quite nice,

the plant looks like it is a type of wide bladed grass, but then grows these flowers,

that almost look like they are orchids,

I was watching this lady for some time,

she is using a hot glue gun to make an ornament,

and here it is finished,

another plant I seldom see in flower,

Medinilla magnifica native of the Philippines, some times known a as the Philippine Orchid,

we then passed another water feature stall,

this one I guess a little more formal,

with the laughing lady on top,

making our to the far end of the market again we saw some of these Plumeria trees,

the flowers look lie they are made of wax,

and with so many colours,

and shades of just red alone,

the one and only pet stall, selling mice, hamsters and rabbits,

we made our way past more orchids,

and bromeliads,

our visit nearly over, we walked back through one of the aquatic outlets,

to the coffee stall,

having said coffee the number of drink permutations is huge, then we made our way home, but I guess I should tell you the bonsai joke before we leave the plant market,

Q: what do you call a big bonsai?

A: a tree!

well I thought it was funny,

back home as it was the first Saturday of the month,

 some water changes for the aquariums, 

 first the easy one,

 next the one where I have to hold the hose,

 all to soon we were out for our bar-b-q, a little later than usual as we watched The Chase, lots of smoke from the Bar-b-q as usual,

 and for some reason lots of sparks from the fire,

 but it soon settled down,

 the charcoal glowing a nice red,

'Cheers!', we ate outside, but then the rain returned with a vengeance, so we were inside a bit quicker than we normally are,

we watched After Earth, I have to say I was expecting a maelstrom of action and adventure, but it really was a millpond of calm and predictability, oh well at least we had the fun of watching Cheers and with that we were off to bed.