We Had A Quiet Day,

although a couple of friends called round,

 but first we noticed another one of the cactus was flowering,

it seems such a shame that they flower for just one day,

 I guess it is to preserve water, flowering uses a lot of it, so there it is,

then for some reason my mobile has decided to have a nervous breakdown, the clock gained just over 3 hours, every time I try to change it I receive this message,

the same if I try to change the date or the wake up alarm, it is starting to behave like an unfunny hysterical tortoise, a new phone in the pipeline I guess, the good news is that both Jay and Mr. Tony called round in the afternoon, so we chatted the afternoon away,

after we said our goodbyes and our evening meal we watched a couple of shows on satellite television, then it was feet up for Poirot, for tonight's viewing,

The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Hastings renews his friendship with Poirot and involves him in the mysterious poisoning of the mistress of a manor house married to a man twenty years her junior.

 How Does Your Garden Grow?

At a flower show, an older woman in a wheelchair approaches Poirot, gives him an empty seed packet, and asks him to visit her the next day. When Poirot arrives the next day, the woman is dead, murdered with poison.

 

by now it was well past midnight, so for us we were off to bed.

 

At First Glance,

these seem to be drawings,

 

 

 of birds,

 but looking closer there are in fact 3 dimensional,

crafted from paper by paper artist Diana Beltran Herrera whose skill in crafting the fine details of birds using paper has continued to evolve, Herrera’s work has begun appearing in several galleries and exhibitions around the world and is now shortly to be exhibited at The Cornell Fine Arts Museum in Florida starting September 17th until December 8, 2013, the picture above do not really do justice to the actual birds, if you have time click here for a closer look.

    

Do You Remember Years Ago,

when there were black shinny things called vinyl records were sold?

I certainly do, but with modern day music on the move I guess not many people use them now, but here is a way you can still enjoy them, make them into a lamp, well that is what the people at Genanvendt in Denmark have done, for just kr.775,00 this little beauty can be yours, for these and lots of other ideas check out their web site.

We Had A Day In Today,

well we do most Mondays and Tuesdays,

but we did play a few games, like Monopoly, which by a lucky throw of the dice I won,

we were also treated to a few interesting programmes, this one in particular we liked, Monty Don's Italian Gardens, we have in fact the complete series on DVD, but as this was on the HD channel we watched it, Monty Don is another great wordsmith by the way, the time just flew past,

I also have to admit we both like his choice of hand luggage, like us he has two Billingham bags, great choice,

after our evening meal we watched Dorian Gray, the new version, we had watched it before, I have to say on the second viewing it fared a bit better than its first time round, before I compared unfavourably with the original version,

to finish the evening what better that another couple from Poirot? tonight,
 
The Adventure of the Cheap Flat    

When U.S. Navy plans for a new submarine are stolen and the thief tracked to London, the FBI sends an agent to work with Inspector Japp to recover them.

 

The Kidnapped Prime Minister

When the prime minister is kidnapped right before an important international arms summit, Poirot has just 32-and a quarter-hours to find the prime minister.

The Adventure of the Western Star    

After receiving threatening letters, an aristocrat is robbed of her famed diamond in front of Poirot's eyes.

then for us we were off to bed.

Something Just Did Not Seem Right About Theses Pictures,

to us it seemed like the diver had been Photoshoped in,

but no these pictures and many more taken by photographs by Anatoly Beloshchin tell the story of a hidden underwater river in in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula called Cenote Angelita or 'Little Angel', the river itself is actually a sort of illusion due to a phenomenon called a halocline, where waters with different levels of salinity form into layers because of a variation in density,

according to Beloshchin, Cenote Angelita is comprised of fresh water until about 29 meters when it switches to a 1-meter layer of hydrogen sulfide, after which the entire cave bottom is filled with saltwater from 30 to 60 meters deep, so in reality the 'river' is actually just a dense layer of saltwater resting at the bottom of a cave, but apart from all of that what great out of world almost photographs, as an aside if you are into underwater caves have a look here at some more here.

Out To Sunday lunch,

but on the way we made a brief stop,

 to have a look at a development,

 what makes all of these buildings so unusual to Western eyes,

 it the use of wood rather than steel for the scaffolding, but regardless of how it looks it seems to work, very well in fact looking at the number of buildings that have been built using this method,

 but eventually we arrived, at the Punch and Judy, it is located between Pattaya 3rd Road and Thepprasit Soi 8,

 we were joined today by Mr. Tony, he ordered the chicken pate, whilst Diana and myself shared a prawn salad,

 for her main course Diana ordered spaghetti bologneses,

Mr. Tony went with cottage pie with a cheese topping,

 

 for me the traditional Sunday roast lamb,

 

we naturally had to have a dessert, apple crumble with ice cream,

then home feet up for one one Diana's delicious latte coffees, we settled down to watch some of the auction/antique shows for the evening, then it rained, it appears that when it rains out here the satellite signal fails,

still that was not a problem as we decided to watch Salt as the satellite signal showed no signs of retuning, all went well till the power went out! it also appears that the rain takes out the electricity as well, so a scramble for torches and candles till the power came back on again, we watched the last part of Salt, there were three versions on the disk, the theatrical, the directors cut and the extended, which was the one we chose, after the film the satellite signal had returned so we watched a few more shows, then after saying our goodbyes to Mr. Tony we were off to bed.

One Man, 100,000 Toothpicks,

an incredible kinetic sculpture of San Francisco,

 

 

Rolling through the Bay is a sculpture by artist Scott Weaver, the elaborate sculpture is comprised of multiple 'tours' that move ping pong balls through neighbourhoods, historical locations, and iconic symbols of San Francisco, all recreated with a little glue, some toothpicks, and an incredible amount of ingenuity not to mention the 35 years it took to make it,

he estimates he’s spent over 3,000 hours on the project, and the toothpicks have been sourced from around the world commenting 'I have used different brands of toothpicks depending on what I am building. I also have many friends and family members that collect toothpicks in their travels for me, for example, some of the trees in Golden Gate Park are made from toothpicks from Kenya, Morocco, Spain, West Germany and Italy, the heart inside the Palace of Fine Arts is made out of toothpicks people threw at our wedding', you have to admirer the work and patience that has gone in to this totally unique art work.

The Day Started Well,

we had a telephone call from Wattana Computers,

to say that our spare computer was ready, so in an hour or so the repair guy called round,

 and in less than an hour both computers were linked, so I have one keyboard, mouse, monitor and headphones, but can use either computer at the press of a button, the reason for this is that I have so many pictures I will be transferring them to the other computer as a back up, just in case! one thing I did forget to buy was a print hub, this will allow me to use the same printer for both computers,

 I spent a few hours transferring some of the photographs, then it was time to start our usual Saturday night bar-b-q, I dropped Diana off at the market to buy some prawns, meanwhile I went to one of the many shops that we call 'sheds', they are sort of permanent shops normally under canvas, but with some of the roofing a little more substantial, we needed some more charcoal,

 the one thing about these sheds is that they sell almost everything you can think of for the home,

 two 20 baht bags of charcoal later and I meet Diana in the fruit and vegetables market,

 then home to start sending out smoke signals,

 but the fire soon caught so it was flames rather than smoke we had to deal with,

 pretty much the same feast that we had a couple of weeks ago,

 first on the onion bon-bon, a couple of pieces of garlic wholemeal bread and Diana's hot dog,

 followed by prawn kebabs, Diana had also bought some pineapple in the market which finished off the kebabs nicely,

 prawn kebabs delicious 'Cheers!,

 we next eat some marinated chicken, after or meal we normally sit outside for an hour or two, very romantic in the candle light, but a slight drizzle started,

 so we moved under the eves of the house, but we soon went from slightly damp to quite wet in a mater of moments as the wind shifted, so a mad dash to get inside,

 in the time it took us to get the plates and cushions indoors we had gone from quiet wet to totally soaked, the rain had come down so fast and so heavy in just those few moments, so a change into dry clothes then it was feet up to watch some television,

we watched a few programmes from the Crime and Investigations channel, then to round the evening off one from Poirot,

Double Sin

A young woman is delivering a set of antique Napoleon miniatures to an American collector when they are stolen from her suitcase. Captain Hastings, under Poirot's guidance, sets out to find the thief.

then for us we were off to bed.

I Thought This Was Funny,

it was posted on RedDit,

if you like this sort of humour follow this link as some of the comments are in a similar vein, like,

The door was framed.
Also it saw the roof being held up by the walls!
The windows were in pain too.
It was curtains for them.
The ceiling tried to stay above it all.
The power outlet was just shocked about the whole thing.

on a different note I have just read how to avoid watching all of those warnings before the DVD you want to watch starts, speaking of warnings here is one, warning if you try this and your DVD player turns into a pile of atomic death dust do not blame me! but I will give this a try tonight, on the remote press stop + stop + play but this does not work with some disks, if it doesn’t work try stop + stop + stop + play, I have read that this trick doesn’t always work, but when it does, it can save you a few minutes where you would usually just sit in front of the TV doing nothing.

As It Was Friday,

we were off to the market,

 parking in the friendship car park we made our way across the road,

 Diana disappeared into the market, whilst I popped into the Kodak shop to have my new visa and passport page that I had reduced in size and printed laminated, whilst there the owner was doing his weekly maintenance of the marine aquarium he has in his shop,

 then into the market, it was stiflingly hot, so I walked through quite quickly,

 to make my way out to the open air in the plant and pet section,

 a quick look at the aquatic store and we were on our way home,

 a shower and change then off to the Thepprasit Road weekend night market, a few grey clouds looking towards Jomtien,

 and inland,

 a shoe stall and drinks outlet opposite the bar this evening,

 the food aisles,

 with a few customers,

 there were a number of stalls vacant,

 I am guessing it is because it is now the low season,

but a few customers in the pet aisle,

 I noticed these and thought they looked kind of cute,

 water dispensers for dogs and cats, though I do not think they are refrigerated!

 sunset over the market,

 we were joined this evening by Mr. Tony,

 on our way back home we stopped off at the fruit and vegetable market,

 Diana was going to cook us a curry and we needed some onions,

 the curry and rice along with fried chicken wings was delicious,

 followed by fresh fruit and a glass of medicinal red wine, 'Cheers!',

after we said our goodbyes to Mr. Tony we watched another episode from Poirot,

The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim

Poirot wagers Chief Inspector Japp that he can solve the mystery of a missing banker without leaving his flat.

then for us we were off to bed.