Great News,

not one but two technicians arrived in the morning,

 from Wattana Computers, it is the shop we always use for buying and servicing computers, it is opposite Foodland on Central Road, the fault was, of all things, an external hard drive I keep pictures on, the computer was trying to get it to work but it would not respond, once unplugged everything was fine, so it has gone back to the shop to hopefully extract all of our pictures on to an new external hard drive,

 on to the rest of the day, the Wagyu steaks we had for the barby a few weeks ago were so nice we thought we would pop back and buy a couple for Saturdays barby,

 so off to Big C Extra we went,  

 first stop,

 Swensens,

 a strawberry sundae, 

 and for Diana some Christmas cheer,

 a quick pose then time to tuck in, upstairs to buy the steaks, then a minor disappointment, no Wagyu steaks, so 'always have a plan B Dave', as Phonce would say, we bought some fresh lamb chops and as we were at the lamb counter a frozen half leg for our Sunday roast on Sunday week, 

 on our way back we called in at Friendship for a few things there,

I waited outside in the small motorbike park opposite one of the entrances to the Soi Bukaow market,

 arriving home we noticed that one of Diana's stinky cactus was flowering,

 there was a cluster of several flowers,

 but it was only possible to see four at any one time,

 next stop the weekend night market on Thepprasit Road,

 a bit cloudy looking towards Jomtien,

 as it was looking inland,

 one of the mobile fruit sellers makes his way along the aisles, I should mention that at about 6.00 in the evening the aisles are blocked to traffic, that is trucks unloading goods for the stalls and 3 wheelers from taking up room in them, as after that they are crowded with pedestrians, steel bollards are padlocked into the ground to stop vehicle access,

 opposite the stall tonight, a 20 baht stall and one with 20-70% off of clothes,

 it did not look like much had been done to the steelworks since last week,

 a few customers in the pet section,

 we were fully stocked for the kittens food this week, 

 so on to the pet petting station, the parrot was back,

 and this weeks new addition, a small goat waiting to be feed,

 sunset over the market,

 I made my way back to the bar, 

 and who should I meet there? none other than Adam, son of Craig and Adams girl friend Ploy, we chatted for some time then said our farewells, 

 I mentioned before the steel bollards being locked to stop traffic in the aisles, this is what happens if a 3 wheeler is trapped inside, everyone including shoppers gives a hand to lift it over, not sure how many it would take to lift a truck over though!

 one of the mobile stalls that did not get trapped in the aisles,

 we were joined by Brian this evening and chatted the early part of the evening away,

 arriving home a real treat and surprise for me, I often mention to Diana about sweets that were around as a kid, if she sees any of them on her travels she buys a bag for me, such as sweets that were known as rhubarb and custard another one, sherbet lemons, well this week another old favourite of mine, flying saucers! rice paper covering a sherbet interior, what memories they bring back,

 time for our evening meal, 

turkey casserole, well with a 5.5 kilo turkey between the two of us it was and is going to last a long time! after out meal for some reason on a Friday night there is a continual evening of both Cops and Judge Judy, so we sent the evening swapping between the two channels, as the midnight hour approached we were then off to bed.

I Have To Admit,

I thought these tanks were Photoshopped,

with the words, Hot, Warm and Cold written on them, but I was wrong, the story goes that teenagers painted "hot" and "cold" on the town's two water towers, when the utility company next painted the tanks, they kept the graffiti titles, and just prettied up the lettering, then a third tank was added, and it was labelled "warm, is it true? well I am not sure about the story, but the tanks are there if you follow this street view link to Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

He Was,

assassinated 100 years ago,  

yesterday, in the early morning of December 30, 1916, the police investigation never led to a court case, and those who are suspected of being involved gave conflicting reports, the legend goes that after surviving several earlier assassination attempts, on December 30, Rasputin was poisoned, which had no effect; shot in the chest, but he got back up; beaten, to no avail; and then shot in the head, when he finally succumbed to death, sometimes an attempted drowning is included in the story, but Rasputin was dead when his body was thrown in the Neva River, where it was found two days later under ice, one hundred years later, we are still fascinated by the story of the mystic who wielded a huge influence over the last Tsar's family, Grigori Rasputin, the mad monk of Russia, but was he so mad? for a slightly different look at the story have a look here at Darmon Richter and Diana Naneva's site of the webcomic Rasputina.

Every So Often,

I see pictures of birds, 

 taken at feeding tables, pin sharp focus, perfectly placed,

  and I marvel at the hours it must have taken sitting behind the camera,

 waiting for the perfect shot,

 in the cold,

but I was wrong, you can take pictures like these in the warmth of your living room even miles away from the bird feeder these pictures were taken from, but of course you like amateur photographer from Germany, Lisa M. Ca., who now lives in Michigan, you have to train the birds to use the feeder, but once that is done instead of sitting for hours behind the camera, you can buy the Bird Photo Booth 2.0, 

 it is a 4K HD Motion-Activated Wi-Fi Bird Cam which features custom built-in motion detection technology making it easy for anyone to capture professional 16mp photos and stunning 4K Ultra HD video of your favourite birds in action,

 just set it to motion detection mode and let Bird Photo Booth 2.0 do the rest, what a fantastic piece of kit! and no I am not on commission, but if you are interested there is a sale now on, I just thought it was a great way to take stunning pictures and videos of birds and with a few minor tweaks other wildlife, like your family or pets.

As Well As Painting Theses Beautiful Lotus Flowers,

I was attracted to them,

as they are painted in a place I visited many years ago,

 Goa in India, they are painted by South African street artist Faith47, 

 

she is attracted to the lotus flower because of its strength, 

it is a plant that must fight through mud and water before it can blossom on top of its high stalk,

this ability to find clarity through the murkiness of its surroundings was the inspiration behind her latest series of murals titled Le Petit Mort which she recently finished in Goa, 

You can see footage from the making of the works in this video, as well as further work by Faith47 on her website and Facebook, Goa such lovely memories and now the place of painted lotus blossoms.

Oh Dear,

it has happened again!

my computer has decided it wants to take a vacation, and refuses to up load pictures, I have run an anti virus program which then locks up, so I guess it is a bit more of a problem than I had at first thought, so a call to Watana Computers to see if I can get a technician out to see me today, but if not please excuse the absence of any other posts until the problem is fixed, just when it was all going so well!

We Spent The Day Indoors,

spending some time with the kittens,

 who after an afternoon of play decided on a nap,

Cable or Fat Cat as we are now starting to call him, I think you can see why,

 was first to stretch out on the sofa and let Mr. Sleep pay a visit, 

 quickly followed by Mariana,

 who had also played herself out, Hogue however decided on the floor and slept under the sofa,  

 then some excitement, as quick as a flash they were all awake and watching Jake, our next door neighbours dog as he walked past the window in his owners property, from left to right, Mariana, pink collar, Cable, red collar and Hogue, blue collar, 

excitement over, back to sleep!

after our evening meal we watched some Border Patrol and Cops, then rounded off the evening with the first episode of Game of Thrones, it seems to be quite good, a sort of Lord of the Rings but for grown-ups, when you run out of ideas, just invent another country, tribe, family or demon, as I said just like Lord of the Rings, hopefully episode two will be as good, and with that we were off to bed.