I Am Only Making One Post Today,

and it is a blast from the past,

all of these photographs are 30 or more years old, and yes that is Steve from Beckenham and myself!

along with my mother,

Steve very kindly brought all of these round for me to copy,

Steve and myself doing the dishes!,

Steve popped down to Hailsham where my parents lived, often enjoying a walk in the country, Steve here with my father,

now in Thailand,

preparing for a Hash run in Pattaya,

Steve, B1 as he was known preparing the run,

there are rules to follow, disobeying them has serious consequences, as Beckenham Steve found out, courtesy of a block of ice!

'Cheers!', from both of us,

coming back from a hash run,

we often went to the beach,

Steve trying out his new camera as the baht bus driver tries an emergency stop, and go,

Steve waiting for the boat to go to the islands,

back in the UK dad and myself,

and a few friends, from the left, Mick the fireman, now married to Pauline, Sue and her husband Lee,

Steve and myself back at my Mum and Dads house,

back to Thailand when I had a house in the jungle, my guard dog was great with myself, but the gardener and maid could only work if I was nearby,

the dog looks so peaceful, but looks are deceiving, the dog was never let into the house, as my place was in the jungle the dog was what it was, a guard dog, and would attack any one if I was not there, more than a few times I returned home to find the maid and the gardener sat on top of the perimeter wall, the dog having escaped from it kennel, it did not take prisoners!

around the wall of the garden I grew bamboos,

but I kept the stems clear of leaves,

so the stems of the plant could be seen,

 like this yellow one,

a few photographs of the back garden from the veranda, which led down to a platform for fishing, many thanks to Steve for finding these photographs from the past, back to today, we had a quiet day, Diana was at work, as I watered the orchids and did the house husband thing, then I was out, for the first bit of Christmas shopping, I looked on the Marks and Spencer web site, and there they were, Christmas crackers, then on the Waitrose site, Panettone Christmas cakes, so off I went to Marks and Spencer, 

1 year aged Christmas pudding in the trolley, whilst there I spotted their Panettone cake, 

so I bought one to give it a try, I then asked about the Christmas crackers that I had seen on their web site as being in stock, the main reason I was here, "Oh we never stock Christmas crackers here, you have to go to Bromley", always have a plan 'B' Dave, (from Rare Birds), and I did, I checked that Waitrose had the Panettone Christmas cakes that we like so much in stock, and they did, and here was my cunning plan, I also checked out their Christmas crackers, our local branch of Waitrose had finished a huge expansion to include John Lewis, and there they were Christmas crackers in stock, I grabbed a trolley and asked in the John Lewis section, you guessed it, "oh no we never get Christmas crackers until next month!' pity the staff there do not read their own website! still all was not lost, I made my way to the Waitrose Christmas section to the Panettone shelves, all of the £10.00 cakes had sold out, so I bought their entire stock of the £7.00 ones, and here it is,

yes just one of them, their entire stock!

anyway today's Christmas shopping completed, sort of, but I had another cunning plan, I ordered the crackers and Panettone on the Internet and paid for them, I will be calling back to pick them all up later in the week, if my plan works! in the evening when Diana was back it was feet up for a New Tricks, tomorrow we are off to London as it is Diana's day off, so we are out early to catch the bus, hence only the one post today, with that we were of to bed.