We Had Another Day At Home,

during the day there was always the ominous rumble of thunder in the distance,

in fact in the house it was so dark due to the clouds that we had the interior lights on, but as the day neared sunset it was time for us to get ready, so it was glad rags on as we prepared for our evening out,

 we had all decided on Le Bordeaux for our meal this evening, we were joined by Mr. Tony,

 we were quite early and in fact the first guest here,

we made our way past the well-stocked bar into the room that we normally sit in when dining here,

 whilst we were looking at the menu with the served with an amuse-bouche,

 I should have said two each,

 Diana decided on a lukewarm bacon and croûton salad,

 topped with an egg,

 'Cheers!', form Mr Tony and myself,

 we had both ordered the same starter, avocado and seafood salad with an ursin dressing,

 for his main course Mr. Tony ordered a beef bourguignon,

 Diana decided on a steak,

whilst I decided on lamb chops,

 'Cheers!', from all of us, 

 after our meal Diana decided to show us how to make a shirt out of a napkin,

 it looked really neat,

 we were all by now full to bursting, so we decided against a dessert, but we did enjoy the complimentary chocolates,

 but both Diana and Mr. Tony ordered a coffee,

 and nice it looked too,

 our waiter for the evening who took good care of us,

for me I settled for a latte coffee, once again a very enjoyable meal in pleasant surroundings and if you look at the menu by following the link to the restaurant you will see the prices are quite reasonable, we then made a move for home and said our goodbyes to Mr Tony, for us we settled down to watch some more of the Crime and Investigation network programmes, then as it was late we were off to bed.

I Have Never Been A Fan Of Graffiti,

but occasionally I find a piece I really like,

like this painting seen today for the first time on Rue De Julienne, Paris 13th,

it is the work of Julien 'Seth' Malland, who was born in Paris in 1972, he specialises in painting characters on walls, Seth is also the Television Director and onscreen Reporter of the documentary series “Globe Painter’ the Globepainter project has been documented in the book with photos, sketches and anecdotes from his travels, well I thought the painting was neat.

I Must Admit,

I do enjoy a latte coffee,

 and have featured artist who make latte art pictures before, Osaka-based Kazuki Yamamoto is being called the chief pioneer of the art and has brought us some more 3D examples of his work on his twitter account, Yamamoto has amassed more than 100K followers by posting “daily leisurely cappuccino” pictures of new pieces like Snoopy,

and the melting clock from Salvador Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory,” (if you like Dali's works have a look at this excellent BBC site as you can scroll through all of his works),

but this one has got to be my favourite, two cups featuring a cat in one looking at fish in the other, if you really want to see the artist at work you will have to check his blog regularly, where he posts locations that he’ll be temporarily making coffee at, you will have to translate the page, I right click on the page and use 'Translate with Live Search'.

We Stayed In All Day,

and evening,


except for a trip to the 7-11, so no pictures today, cue roars of laughter and cries of shame! the day just sort of slipped past, we shall see what tomorrow will bring.

Given My Fear Of Heights,

here is one walk you will not bump into me on,

it is the Huashan Mountain's Chang Kong Cliff Road, the walkway is only a foot wide in places, the good news is that nowadays travellers have a safety harness to wear, not like in days of old when some 700 or so years ago it was built for people looking for enlightenment,

but for me I will stay unenlightened and firmly on the ground!

As A Kid,

the natural History Museum,

was almost a second home, I took the bus almost every day during school holidays to visit it in South Kensington, apart from the huge dinosaur in the main entrance hall I was always looking to the right as you entered to the skeleton of a huge mammoth, also the cast of a small one that was found frozen in ice, over the years many such finds have been made as scientist hunt the frozen tundra, but this find appears to be unique, 


the find was made on the New Siberian Islands - or Novosibirsk Islands, off the coast of the Republic of Sakha, teeth of the creature suggest it was between 50 and 60 years old, well preserved muscle tissue was also found, but this is the big find, samples of blood had dripped into the ice beneath the the hulk and were frozen for thousands of years,


this opens the old question that has divided the scientific world, on whether scientists should try to recreate the species using DNA, well it appears cloning might go ahead, last year a deal was signed giving South Korean scientists exclusive rights on cloning the woolly mammoth from certain tissue samples found in the Siberian permafrost,


stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk's private bioengineering laboratory confirmed he is poised to make a bid to return the extinct Siberian mammoth to the planet, once the tissues have been treated to a nuclear transfer process, the eggs will be implanted into the womb of a live elephant for a 22-month pregnancy, maybe Jurassic Park is not now so far away?

Here Is A Bit Of A Brain Teaser,

a long, long time ago,

lived a queen called Champagne and her gorgeous daughter, Princess Bubbles, the princess wished to be married, but Queen Champagne would not allow it, she never wanted Bubbles to leave the palace, so Queen Champagne devised a scheme to rid the palace of suitors, all a suitor had to do to win Bubble's hand in marriage was to draw a piece of paper from a golden bowl,


but there was a catch: there were two pieces of paper in the bowl, one said, "My Child," resulting in marriage to the princess, the other said "The Snakes," which meant the suitor would be thrown into a pit of venomous snakes, never to be seen again, somehow, the suitors always seemed to end up in the snake pit,


one day a handsome knight named Sir Baldrick came along and Bubbles fell head over heels for him, the princess pulled him aside and whispered, "I think my mother is a cheat, I believe both pieces of paper says 'The Snakes.'"


Baldrick assessed the situation and said, "Fear not -I've got a cunning plan," aware that he cannot expose the queen as a cheater, how does Sir Baldrick win Princess Bubble's hand in marriage? before scrolling down for the answer what would be your cunning plan to win Bubbles hand in marriage?













when Sir Baldrick pulled a slip of paper from the bowl, he read it, exclaimed, "I've won!" and then quickly ate the paper, the witnesses were astonished by his actions, and demanded to see the remaining piece of paper to see if he was lying, the remaining piece of paper said, "The Snakes," and the queen's trickery was never revealed, did you guess the answer?

We Started The Day Early,

I dropped Diana off at the beauty saloon,

 it is the usual one that she goes to in the street by the side of the TukCom centre,

 so I dropped her off there and popped over to have a coffee with Nick and Maureen,

after leaving them I made my way back to the same street and had a Coke light whilst waiting for Diana's treatment to finish, this is a side view of the TukCom Centre from the small café where I was seated, the treatment centre is just 10 or so shop house further down the street,

 and the next port of call was to the tropical fish shop on Third Road, we were getting low on food for the fish so I bought a couple of packs of fish food there,

 we were also getting low on fresh fruit, so we called into one of the open-air markets,

 it is the start of the mangosteen season, but it was a papaya that Diana was after on this stall,

 plus a fresh melon,

 it was also the start of the rambutan season,

 mangosteens, they were everywhere,

 we made our way past the rotating fish barbecue,

 some already prepared and ready to go,

 we also called in at the fresh pineapple stall,

 arriving home we noticed that another cactus had flowered,

 it was in bud just a couple of days ago,

 we watched some television in the afternoon and then decided that we both fancied a Chinese meal,

 and where better to go than the China Garden in Soi Lengkee?

 we have eaten here many times before, we chose some prawn crackers to nibble on as we looked through the menu,

 decision made we ordered our starters,

 a selection of barbecued spare ribs, spring rolls, satay chicken and prawns on toast covered in sesame seeds,

 'Cheers!', from both of us,

 and another one from me as our next course arrived,

 this time butterflied prawns, is that a word butterflied?

 I always think it's a nice touch when some decoration accompanies the food,

 it almost looked good enough to eat!

 what is also nice here is the decor with a distinctly Chinese theme,

 our next course duly arrived,

 crispy shredded duck with pancakes, sauce, onions and sliced cucumber,

 by now we were totally full to bursting, so after paying our bill, with a couple of carafes of wine it came to 2,000 baht (at todays rate  £44.20 $66.46), it was into a baht bus,

 so if you fancy a Chinese meal in nice surroundings, 

 we can both thoroughly recommend the China Garden,

 Diana enjoying the cool breeze of the evening as we make our way home,

 and here we are home again, so lock up the front gate then, inside for nightcap, we watched some television and then for us we were off to bed.