Saturday 17 April 2010

Water, Water Everywhere, So In The Truck For Us,

I had to send some papers to the UK, so it was off to the FedEx office in Naklua, on the way we drove past the 'Red' shirts stall outside city hall on Pattaya North, seemed that not much was happening, it just seems to be a Bangkok thing, I hope it stays that way as we are going to the Philippines soon, then along to the FedEx office, we were lucky tomorrow it is closed till the 20th. I have mentioned this before, if you want to send something the same day drop it off here before 3.00/3.30 in the afternoon as that is when packages are picked up to be sent to Bangkok, dust clouds, acid rain, bird/pig flu, airport closures or the end of the world, the papers should arrive in the UK on Monday, we decided to have breakfast at the front of the FedEx office at, you guessed it! The Balcony Terrace,
the fountain in the square was working for a change, very pleasant and clean, we were the only customers,
mango slushy and chicken with egg and rice for Diana, vanilla ice shake and tuna sandwich for me, 330 baht all in,
when we arrived home Juu and his wife called in with a couple of birthday presents, a Camel shirt and a bottle of vodka,
Mark and Anchisa also called in, Anchisa with her Songkran shirt all ready for the weekends water throwing, also Mick and Mass called in, Mick had just bought a couple of rod holders for his boat that he will be fitting over the next few days,
again not wanting to get wet we took the truck to the night market on Theprasit, there is a huge car park behind the market,
there are wheel clamps for those that chose not to park in the car park, you have been warned!
a little bit grey and we did have some rain later in the evening, but for now it remained dry,
I was reminded of the song, 'how much is that doggy in the window, arf-arf' looking at these kids, but in this case it was rabbits on a stall,
oh no! more bikes that I know Diana will like,
if only the 'wild child' one was in pink!
then on to the fish and plant shops, a Thai freshwater sting ray and fire eel,
a few orchids,
a new one for this week,
there are more and more of these 'T' shirts around, very colourful, I am just not sure if they would wash well, also to be honest I would prefer them in white,
then home where we settled down to watch The Boer War and Other Colonial Adventures, (for the Boer War it should have been called misadventures), Diana was captivated by the history of European power in Africa, I must admit I was a little hazy on The Boer War, so many years ago I purchased The Boer War, by Thomas Pakenham, a fairly heavy read at 580 pages but when you finish it you will realise why I say misadventure, one of the most humiliating episodes of British history, which I guess is why my history master did not give us much reading on it, if you want to buy it or look at the reviews click here,
Diana then asked if we could watch Zulu, we had seen it before but having seen the documentary about Africa it made much more sense to her, coincidentally the battle depicted in Zulu at Rorke's Drift resulted in the largest number of V. C.'s ever been awarded 11, the battle was between Wednesday 22- Thursday 23 January, 1879, when some 150 soldiers defended a supply station against some 4000 Zulus, John Chard was in commander at Rorke's Drift and was awarded the V.C. but there is some dispute as the the providence of the medal after it was sold, have a look here, then off to bed.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great blog Stan, and a belated happy 60th birthday.
The tuna sandwich you had looked like lovely fresh crusty bread. This was unheard of in Pattaya years ago, but thankfully now there are many bakers and pattisieres there.

PattayaStan said...

Dear Anonymous, many thanks for your kind wishes, as you noticed the bread was really nice, I think it may have been baked on the premises, but I am not sure, but there is an ever increasing number of bakers and shops having their own bakeries opening in Pattaya, thinking back just 10 years or so I can only recall one, best regards, Stan and Diana.