We Woke Early At Nick & Maureen's,

so we started the day with home made crumpets,

 with lots of butter, then to the truck, but first we stopped off to see if the grasshopper was back at his usual place, 

 well he was not, but if you look in the centre of the picture another one was,

slightly better camouflaged as well,

 Nick had mentioned a new fishing tackle shop had opened up in Soi Siam Country Club Road just before the traffic lights on Sumkivitt on the left hand side, so I stopped to have a look, it was packed with stock especially lures, as always I thought the lures catch more fishermen than fish!

 then home feet up and the heavens opened, still it saved me from watering the plants, we then had a nice surprise, Jay and Precil called round, by now the rain had stopped so the girls were off to the market,

then returned to start a cooking fest in the kitchen first Diana,

 then Precil taking turns at cooking, judging by the noise also catching up on all of the gossip since they last met!

and this was one of the dishes they were cooking, pancit or pansit is the term for noodles in Filipino cuisine, now for the inside information, Nancy Reyes Lumen of the Philippine Centre for Investigative Journalism writes that according to food lore handed down from the Chinese, noodles should be eaten on ones birthday, they are therefore commonly served at birthday celebrations and Chinese restaurants in the Philippines often have 'birthday noodles' listed on their menus, however, she warns that since 'noodles represent long life and good health; they must not be cut short so as not to corrupt the symbolism', the strange thing is I have also heard that here in Thailand it is considered bad luck to cut noodles,


after Jay and Precil left we settled down to Monday nights television, most of this weeks new instalments of different series airing for the first time on Monday and Tuesday evenings, so out with the fresh fruit to snack on as we watched all of our favourites, Pawn Stars, Pickers, Kings of Restoration and Deadliest Catch, then for us off to bed.

If You Like Collecting,

and your favourite show was the Muppet's,

you will have to be quick to bid on these, created by Jim Henson for the first, pilot episode of the "Muppets" TV show, this collection includes Henson's hand-drawn "Muppets" illustrations, handwritten story ideas, and the very first introduction of several new characters, including "Piggy Lee," who would make her cinematic debut as "Miss Piggy" in the episode, which aired on 13 October 1974,


each illustration is affixed to a foam board and framed in a Plexiglass cube, five measure 11" x 14", four measure 14" x 17", there is some fading on the photos and handwriting and minor scratching to Plexiglass, the starting price was $1,000, but with less than 24 hours to go had already reached $7,423, any guesses as to what the lot will go for?

I Have To Say We Both Liked Avatar When We Watched It In 3D,

but is has taken an age for the 3D release on BluRay,

but the good news is that February 2012 was the last month Avatar 3D was part of Panasonic Exclusive rights, so later on this year Fox will bring out Avatar 3D for general release, (allegedly!), anyway when it is on general BluRay 3D release we will be stocking up on the popcorn at home that night!

in further good news about Avatar, Avatar 2 looks to be released sometime in 2015, which is a bit later than originally thought, but still something we will be waiting for, the New York Times claims that director James Cameron has bought 2500 acres of farmland near Pounui, New Zealand, the area will witness the bulk of filming on Avatar 2 and 3, yes I could not believe it either 2 and 3, even better he even makes mention of 4! while the motion-capture work will be done on a stage in California, Cameron is expected to move to New Zealand for 18 months to shoot the movies, back to the present, any day now and the 3D BluRay will be in our shopping basket!

Happy Birthday Nick!

straight on with today's post as we have just arrived home,

 we spent the day with Nick and Maureen and stayed the night, so on with the party, presents first,

 and of course we had to say hello to Ta-Taa,

 Diana joined Maureen in the kitchen, Maureen had made a chicken curry for our main course,

 but first prawn cocktails,

 and a quick 'Cheers!' from me,

 for some reason Diana thought I would look better with a hair clip on my head, but it failed to improve my good looks,

 delicious,

 then cheers from all of us,

 taking a break from eating we went for a walk outside, Nick mentioned there is always a grasshopper in one of the bushes by the wall, sure enough there he was,

 not very well camouflaged against his background,

 interesting looking though,

 one of the local cats came by to see what was occurring,

 so I said a quick hello to it,

 Diana then took the camera to take a few pictures of Nick and Maureen's latest banana crop,

 a few hands of bananas growing nicely,

 this is the part that Diana likes, the flower pod,

 on her way back Diana took a picture of me,

 then on to our desserts, Nick in case you did not know is an excellent chef, he made these fruit tarts, complete with raspberries, red and black currents and blueberries,

 they were delicious with icing sugar over them and cream,

 we then settled down for this evenings game,

 of Monopoly,

 Diana got into party mode as well with a strawberry Bacardi breezer,

 it must have done some good, she won!

 then time for second dessert,

 a Swensen's mocha almond fudge ice cream cake,

we settled on just the one candle, all too soon it was 02.30 in the morning, so thanking Nick and Maureen for such a lovely day we wished them a goodnight and we were off to bed.

We Had A Quiet Day In,

Mark called round for a coffee and a chat,

we put a couple of DVDs on to watch as we all like Top Gear, we chose this one form The Great Adventures, Vietnam Special, in this 84-minute DVD, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May head to south-east Asia to Vietnam, all they have to do is travel from the south to the north of the country, in 8 days purchasing transport locally, the problem that the money they have only allows for the purchase of small motorbikes, the second problem being being Jeremy not only hates motorbikes but has never driven one, trying to get him to ride one was like pushing a piece of string uphill! the episode follows the trio’s journey to their destination in what is one of the most spectacular road trips the show has managed to produce,

Mark then made a move for home so we settled down to another adventure, this time from the same series, Botswana Special, again they have to buy a budget vehicle locally, this time to buy a car for less than £1500, and use it to travel from the Zimbabwean border to the Namibian border, a trip of 1,000 miles, but it must not be 4 wheel drive or be designed for off road use, it sounds easy but they had to transverse the Makgadikgadi salt pan, it has a thin solid crust, under which lies a mud like substance, it is the worlds largest salt pan, no prizes for guessing if the cars got stuck or not, the trail also went through the Okavango Delta, inhabited as one said 'by lions and tigers', so what better than to place a cows head and pieces of steak into Jame's car to attract them, I kid you not! great fun, we then watched a couple of shows on satellite television then we were off to bed.

I Have To Say I Am Not Quite Sure About This One,

whilst I would be delighted to own a Lexus LFA,

I am not to sure I would like one in chrome, just 500 are being made with car number 304 to be wrapped in chrome, the Lexus LFA comes with a heady list of goodies, for the technical it has a 4.8L V10, producing 552 HP / 354 LB-FT putting on the road through a 6-Speed Sequential gearbox, what this all means is that it will do 0-60 in 3.7 seconds with a top speed of a tad over 200 MPH, for the non technical it has a guide price of £336,000, ($530,000 at today's exchange rate), but back to the question, would I like one in chrome?

After A Quiet Day,

we were off to the Friday night market,

 we were a bit late so most of the stalls had already set up,

 making our way through to the centre road of the market the new Za Sha outlet was now open,

 the skies looked a little overcast,

 we had bought a couple of these lights in white some time back, quite nice they are late at night,

 no stalls opposite the bar tonight, but the table will be set up for a charity, so shoppers can give donations,

 the pet aisle almost deserted this evening,

 the clouds now beginning to thin,

 a few customers at the bar,

 Diana returned form some shopping, fruit to nibble on later in the evening,

 we were joined by Brian,

 and later Mr. Tony who had been in town,

 Brian's wife Sa also called by with some of her family,

 then home to 388 for our evening meal and a couple of after dinner chocolates from Diana's secret chocolate store in the fridge, next feet up to watch a couple of movies,

 first Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, great fun movie, Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire are three young children who receive terrible news that their parents have died in a fire, they are sent to live with Count Olaf, a greedy distant relative, who is after their fortune,

 followed by The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, it was a great all action film to watch again, adventurer Allan Quatermain with friends takes on Moriarty in a fight to the death,

we said our goodbyes to Mr. Tony then settled down to Jeff Dunham: Spark of Insanity, both Diana and myself found this show to be so funny, for me Walter steals the show, walterforpresident.com just about sums it up, well worth every penny, just make sure you have a tissue box near you to wipe away the tears of laughter! the as it was late we were off to bed.