AND, we have a house

The owner of the house we wanted, has accepted our offer, so subject to some pesky payment details, we have a home in Thailand, for the next year, maybe more...we'll see, but once here and settled we will have the funds to actively look for somewhere to buy, that we hope will be even better.

yipee... 

So cool, this gives us a foothold and a chance to establish our place in Thailand while still finishing things up in NL. We can now ship our 3cubic metres of personal possesions and also get our bank accounts and other details done a bit easier... not totally easy, but easier.. there's currently a bit of a clamp down in Thailand for non thai account holders, but the address helps.

The house is nice, and big, and clean and tidy, with a nice little terrace to sit and eat meals and  a good sized study/office for me to escape from the inevitable invasions of Thai ladies who eat and talk...its Jirawans idea of heaven.. and I want her to enjoy it, but I will need a little man cave refuge and it has that.

Excited

Ahthankyew

hmmm might need to rethink

One thing I have been looking forward to here in Chiang Mai is fish and chips.... no wait its not as mad as it sounds.. There's a chippy here, I won't name it, but they are probably the only chippy in Northern Thailand that actually does UK style fish and chips, including, the scottish preference of Haddock
Last time I was here I went there hoping to sample their fare, only to be crushed that they were out of fish, and their order would'nt be in until we had left.

This time however I went, and though it needed defrosting and there was a wait, they had Haddock.

well...

It was Haddock, but the smallest piece I've ever been served.... and not the crispiest batter, in fact rather an insipid creamy colour rather than a golden brown... but it was Haddock... just, not very good Haddock.

I'm sorry,  I don't in anyway want to undermine what this chap, a Brit living here, is doing, its a noble idea that deserves support... but... it wasn't very good.

Chips, were awesome, so clearly they have a proper fryer in the back of the shop working away (nothing out front), but.. a tail end of a fillet of haddock is not  a Chippy portion of large, Haddock.

So... it was haddock not Haddock, if I ever get absoltuely desperate for that taste of my childhood, I will go back, but I sadly won't be a regular there. 

Shame, I was quite disappointed but you have to learn these things..  We will find a nice place for our regular Friday nights out, just not fish and chips.

There's probably no real chance of finding Cod and Haddock anywhere in any of the stores in CM, even the big ones catering to Brits. so I can imagine I will get an annual craving and head down there, I will even drop by for a poke of chips...

Other news... our trip is continuing, we've seen a lot of houses, including that stunning 4 bedroom place in the last post. But a few more since, which have ranged from 20 years out of date and looks it, to, you have step back to open to door to walk into the cupboard/bedroom.

Its very very mixed, but thats fine, it means if we keep looking we will find what we want. We've pretty much found one that we both agree is very good though not perfect, but the price is a touch too much, we're waiting to see if they drop it a bit, then we'll take it. Its perfect in every way except the kitchen, it basically hasn't got one... but for a year we can live with a portable stove top and a micro wave.. but theres a nice outdoor Thai kitchen/dinner area, we can use when we want to make proper meals.. there's also a nice large study/office room, and the bedrooms are plenty bg enough for guests with a nice lounge

A perfect place for Thai women to eat and talk, eat and talk

A nice lounge for old scottish people to watch netflix.

the office/study area is perfect to get away from chatty Thai women eating and talking...

and yeah.. the upsetting bit

not much of a kitchen

They want 25K pm for it though, thats a good price really, but if we can get 2K knocked off it hits our budget sweet spot. And we can install a BBQ or gas hob in the terrace to cook outside, and decent combi oven, or even get a cooker installed, and this will be a nice place..easy to stay for 1 year maybe more.

And....
Jirawan is determined to take her driving test, and has been doing some lessons with a driving school here.. I'm happy about that as she got a bit annoyed with me, for being unhappy about just turning up to the land office to book a test with no practice at all... I can barely manage the roads here myself, I am certainly not capable of teaching or supervising a new driver.. so the lessons will help to give her a bit of a grounding in the basics, then she can take her test... 

After which... she can drive herself around, since she will have the ability to shout at the crazy drivers in Thai that somehow will make it easier.....

Ahthankyew

So not close and so so far away.

Head must always rule heart, sadly... Today we so THE MOST PERFECT house for rent, 4 bedrooms, a proper kitchen, lots of space and a really nice out door terrace, eating area... it was wonderful. We would love to live in that place.

Sadly however it is in a housing project miles and miles away from any local village and miles more away from the city... We'd be comfortable but very isolated and kinda lonely in our dream home for the 1st year we plan to rent.

So we're going to pass on it. A big part of coming here is to put down some roots and get to know locals and also learn things, we can't do that locked in a dream home hoping the neighbours are nice to  us... I'm sure they will be, but...

Damn.. it was perfect...so so perfect. 

But not to worry, we have a short list and a few more to see tomorrow before we decide.. We just have to make sure we don't rush into anything.

Ahthankyew

And now to work...

It has taken us a few days to get into any kind of rythmn, jetlag  has been quite severe this trip, and a slight sense of urgency to get some things done with the book, house, refunds :- have stopped us getting going..  But the book proofing is done, the last document for the house has been provided, and the request for refunds on the cancelled/delayed flights is in hand... 

I have little hope that we'll get much in the way of refunds, but we have to at least try to claim. Some things, like not getting to the station we have to take the blame for, but other things were totally out of our control, so maybe more options.

The book should now be finalised so I can get cracking in my on time on the final content for the website. And the big one, we got the energy label sorted out for the house and sent it to the estate agent, so any day now the house goes on the market to the public.....phew.

We are staying at a nice old hotel in downtown Chiang Mai, the Duangtawan Hotel, its a little past its prime but still a fine hotel, with lots of facilities and easy access to the old town to look around. We got the car back from Jirawans friend, all nice and clean, and I got my guitar back, the one I bought last year.. Can't play it at any real volume here in a hotel room but 10 mins or so of finger picking will keep my callouses hard for a gig when I get back.

We came out with high expectations for a house that Jirawan and her Daughter had found before we travelled, but on actual inspection it left a bit to be desired... it was a big place for sure, but a little tired and in need of a full reonvation really.. It's still an option, you can't give an automatic no to a house that size for the price it's offered at. But we've looked at a couple more places, and seen at least 2 that are in better condition and worth considering. We will try to look at a few more this week then choose one.. I am going to give Jirawan the final say on this though, as long as I have some quiet space to work and escape from visitors and Jirawans soaps on TV, I'll be happy. But she knows the area and what she wants has to be priority for us.. We can discuss common needs much later when we move and are looking to buy. I trust her judgment on this. 

Chiang Mai is lovely though,  it is the tail end of the rainy season though, so we are getting a nice mix of weather including getting caught in a torrential downpour on the way to view one house, followed by blistering sunshine.. I had forgotton just how hot it gets here... a pasty fat scotsman in the sun can be cooked really quick. I will need to learn to cope though....(its a hard life innit).

ok going to get brekkie, and start the day.

Ahthankyew

Indeed no fun at all

We are finally in Chiang Mai, but my god what an effort it was...

I detailed missing the plane, but that was only the start of the madness. We got tickets to travel via Munich to Bangkok.. I was trying to save a little money, and figured getting a bus from BKK to CM was a good idea... It wasn't.

But lets start with the flight to Munich, which was the only real unremarkable thing, except that due to them being fully booked the asked if we could check in our overhead bags...you know the small suitcase with handle ones... we said ok, since we had a bit of a wait in Munich anyway and lugging them, even with wheels was a bit of a chore...and it was free... so fine.


We get to Munich, nothing crazy about that, a bit of a wait, but we killed the time charging our phones and watching videos etc...

Get on the plane and we're sat right way back, last row, next to the galley, and a very helpful stewardess is chatting and we explain our plight, missing our flight, stress, delay.. sound like you need a drink, what would you like... oh scotch for me, and even Jirawan is happy to take advantage (she's not normally a drinker)...so out comes a massive double/tripple scotch and wine for the lady..  Just let me know when you want some more...... best...flight ....ever....well it seemed that way.

After taxiing for a while we get held on the runway for quite some time, the Captain apologises, but can't proceed till the tower says. Wait a bit longer the captain reveals that someone has been flying drones around the airport, so they have to wait till they get an ok from tower...

Then finally the plane starts moving, we thought to the take off point...but... no

It has come back to the stad. Sorry dear passengers, due to the drone activity the Airport had taken the decision to close down.....we must as you all to de-plane and await instructions.

....

...

...

..

wtf....

ok so we get off, its around 12-30am now.. the airport is deserted. Apart from a few thousand confused and lost passangers from 3 long haul flights the de-planed, wandering around looking for someone to tell them where hotels are..

Eventually we get an announcment that the flight is delayed till 2pm tomorrow, in the mean time people can wait in the lobby, or leave the airport to return tomorrow..

ermm... what.... there's no place to really sleep except the floor, and it didn't take long for the local hotels to fill up to capacity in record time, leaving us, a bit tipsy and tired,.. stuck

We decided to try and get out, but by the time we did, it was clear 100's of others did too, so the taxi rank was utterly filled trying to claim 2 or 3 taxi's arriving every 10 mins, usually by order so unable to pick up from the queue..

Internet was useless at finding a hotel as it kept coming up with the local or 5* hotels on the airport grounds which were actually still full. Calling them put us on hold forever, and still resulted in sorry we have nothing.

Around 2am the queue had cleared and I got to a taxi, and asked the very kind lady driver if she could find us a hotel....15 mins and endless calls later..... she did... and took us there, but it was quite a distance, well over 30kms and over 80 euros. The room itself was snug, but we were tired and needed to sleep, so 152 was a price worth paying...

Next day we have to pay about the same to get a taxi back.

And our flight was now scheduled for 15.00... but, it did go, it did get away and our trip started... stayed off the booze this time though. When we landed the Captain informed us the drones had come back again the next night, but we had taken off before they were sighted..

Anyway....next

We get our luggage ok, thank fuck... but the little fake samsonite case has taken a beating, lost a wheel and cracked its shell so half is hanging on....dammit.. but we have not lost anything.

We get a taxi to the bus station as its across town...turns out the driver took advantage of us since grab took the money themselves, and then he took the money+ tolls via a scan...(they use scans in Thailand) cheeting bastared, but we only found out about 2 hours later when I got a ping from Grab accepting payment.

The bus......we couldn't get a nice cosy VIP bus, only a standard coach....but by now who cares lets get going.

It was quite an old bus...quite old indeed.. But ok, 10 hours isn't the end of the world 
We set off at 10-15am....local time, 10-40 or so, as I am dozing in the chair, the bus breaks down........ yup its an old bus.

We have to wait for a new one, it comes, its newer...but still old.. and still not very cosy, but we get on, we've lost nearly 2 hours by this time... But off we go.

Now...it didn't break down, but it also didn't break any speed records, it was quite a slow bus, and though we had a break mid way for food and toilet, it was a shortend break of 20 mins rather than the usual 30 or so... we rushed the tasy but cheap food included in the price at the stop over..

We get to Chaing Mai around 1am, where Jirawans daughter picks us up, and we finally get to the hotel 2 days later, but lucky I'd sent messages forward we were delayed and our room was still there..


We made it, 4,500euros or so poorer and 2 days later.... but we made it.

Ahthankyew

Well this isn't fun at all....

We are heading to Chaing Mai for a couple of weeks, mainly to scout out rental places and sort out things like the car and other things..

But our trip was immediatlly derailed, literally by some trains to schipol being cancelled due to some incident at Rotterdam... by the time we got the 2nd notice of cancellation and called the cavalry for help with his little car (my mate Martin) we were too late..
We missed the flight......and I have to say what a horrible shit show that is not a single ounce of help is available at the airport, no one willing to rebook, or redirect things..just left on your own to flounder...

The only desk dealing with SIA issues had 1 number to call which turned out to only be for travel agents or corporate customemrs.... otherwise go to the internet, which of course has no options for missed flights.

we had to book new flights at a ticket desk, at considerable cost, and only to Bangkok ...which with hindsite was me being a bit dim and not asking for Chaing Mai....

utter cocking horror story .

Ahthankyew

The Secret of good comedy and house moving...........

yeah timing

but I think we've messed it up... due to the amount of work to clear up/out the house we're still not ready for photo's and official listing of this house so it won't go on line till Oct... which is when we'll be out of the country for a bit... thats a wee bit of a pain. Photos now happen next week.. and another week to go live. We're confident of a sale within 2-3 weeks which is normal here, but...there's the legals to take care of.

We have no idea at all how long it will take to finalise a sale so it might not hit our preferred mid to end December window.
Its getting a bit worrying.

But... we think we've found a perfect place in Thailand for our 1st years rental.. Jirawan's daughter has scouted it out for us and we'll make a decision ourselves when we see it. But Jirawan is happy so unless there's some major faults, we have a home...When we get there is...debatable :D but wages stop in December so hopefully we don't burn too much money living in an empty home in NL.



Ahthankyew

We are all doomed

Watching TV during a quiet rest from the house clearing, I saw 3 adverts from charities in the space of an hour: 1 for help with clefts, 1 for WaterAid, 1 for help with eye issues. If I watch a bit more there will probably be another 3 or 4 for different things - famine, FGM, child abuse, etc. The list is long.

The world is crazy, on so many levels. Why do we have a lack of clean water in any country? Why is there no hospitals for the health issues? Famine and abuse are more down to human nature and lack of education... and war.

We live in times where things CAN be fixed, but things won't be fixed because there's no political will to fix things that don't impact us. This is just what humans are... if it ain't my problem it's not my problem, but it is... and this is where it's all starting to catch up to us all, slowly.

I also on the news today read that 150,000 idiots went out to support a thug and a racist because the UK isn't what they want it to be any more... and somehow it's all caused by people desperately fleeing halfway around the world to avoid being killed... sick.

It's true, the UK isn't the same as it was 20-30-40 years ago. I remember a different UK, though as a Scot, it wasn't quite the same UK the English will remember, but even so, yes today is different and it's not great, but it's not great for a lot of reasons, and due to a lot of actions that were taken in the past. The UK is broken... and people are justifiably angered by that... but...

It could all be fixed in a decade, or less, if we just stopped allowing big corporations to fleece people, remove jobs and destroy the way of life people grew up with. Look at any high street today - how many pound/betting shops, where's the Woolworths, the BHS, the Debenhams? Do you have a corner shop near you? Grocers? Butchers? Where are the factories making British goods you want to buy? Who is your local plumber/joiner/tiler/repair man? These trades all fell to the franchise markets. Even your evenings out - who owns your pub? Which brand of pizza will you buy or sandwich or ever reducing chicken piece?

It's not the EU or immigrants that caused this; they actually staved it off for a long time by being self-sufficient and trying to create opportunities for themselves and maintain community views. The EU was our last real stand of self-sufficiency and we rejected it. We could actively prevent migration by supporting progressive governance in countries that source these migrations, rather than making their situations worse.

In terms of business and jobs, everything has been centralised and exported, and only big corporations benefit and control the job market and every other aspect of life as they now have governments doing their bidding. We can't see that anymore, the mob just want someone to blame, and guess who's funding the finger pointers until such times at least when the rabble generates its own finger pointers. UK and US and French, Spanish and now German society is starting to fracture under the weight of this corporate influence... and honestly there's no way to stop it, because people would rather inject botox into their fat fucking lips to increase their TikTok following than actually give a shit about what their actions do to society.

We are doomed... make no mistake, this won't change no matter how many start to recognise it... 10 years of restrictions on corporate growth, limits on franchises, encouragement of business, support for underdeveloped countries, and (sensible..not Trumpian stupidity) restrictions on online-offshore shopping and the UK could be close to what it was... But it will never happen as long as we get people motivated to blame rather than resolve. And governments left and right are very happy to allow and encourage people to blame, since it lets them avoid any resolution. So we're just doomed.

Fuuck....

Ahthankyew

Last few bits

Its been a very busy and tiring last few weeks, as we get our back garden, the attic, the kitchen, the bathroom, the stairs and so on, all tidied up. Multipe tripls to the garbage tip, and dhl offices with lots of decluttering/selling/giving stuff away as we get the house in a fit condition for photo's and viewing.

The Garden does look rather nice after laying down some turf, and we planted a small fruit (pear) tree in the corner on top of Harvey's ashes. I doubt they'd dig up a fruiting tree so Im hoping he'll never be bothered... not that he'd mind. he's dead.. but.. y'now sentiment.

The amount of crap we have got rid of though, and the amount left, wow... its insane. But we have to get the house ready for inspection, and then, fingers crossed, we get a fast sale and a completion date to set the clock for our final jump.

Had to stop working on the garden, we were pressure washing the paving... massive storm, at least it will clear away the mud for us to finish up tomorrow.

Its exciting, but tiring.

Ahthankyew

Tinges of sadness

I've had a tiny little scare but nicely resolved, after finding a little lump on my gum above the area where my original cancer was. This only came to be noticed after I had a tooth, or rather a nasty old root stump from a long dead/failed crown removed when my trainee royal torturer, or as she prefers, oral hygenist, felt that the exposed root was just a playground for infections.

The removal was simple but immediatly I noticed I could get my tongue up inside the cheek now and, on the gum was a bump.... This of course could be 100% due to the extraction so we waited a few weeks for it to heal up... which it did, and the lump didn't go away.

ok, so as a cancer "survivor" (I hate that term) I am acutely aware of the importance of checking all lumps, bumps and odd shaped moles etc as soon as possible, and arranged a trip to see my old oncologist/oral surgeon, Dr Jan, to check it out.

And... its nothing... indeed some tiny bone fragment from the extraction getting lodged in the gum.. it will settle..its not a problem.

But I updated my cancer blog, as I do whenever there's any concern...and was a little sad when I remembered that it was there, mainly to keep mum informed of my health during the cancer times.. Her little messages of support and concern are still there, and took me back a bit to happier times when she was still with us.

I doubt anyone reads that blog, but whenever I have a cancer related health scare I'll post something, and spend a few minutes looking back on mums replies. I miss her.

Ahthankyew

It's oh so quiet....

I had children in the house for just over a week... Danni and the Grandkids came to stay with us, and we spent a lot of time keeping them entertained and amused.

It was fun, though Efteling almost killed me, too much standing around..

But now they've gone...the quiet is....quiet.

oh well.. back to de-cluttering. The attic is looking nice now though as I got most of the decotrating done before my grandson came to sleep there..10yo's need a bit of space :D

Ahthankyew

De-clutter continues and weight drops

With the loss of my beloved guitars, there's no need now for a big old guitar vault in the attic, so I've dismantled it over the course of a day or 2, and its all in a neat pile waiting for a collegue from work who wants to take it and reassemble it at home... that will be an interesting jigsaw puzzle :D

I'm also midway through decorating the attic, putting wallpaper up at last to cover the plasterboard walls that were installed 14/15 years ago... I know, long time but I never minded the plasterboard walls... Different if its a useful room though. 

All part of the tidy and declutter process that is happening this summer, to make the house more attractive to family buyers. Our estage agent would rather target developers/project minded couples but I also think that its wise to make sure all the minor decorating/cleaning/updating jobs that need doing get done so that  we can target small families in no rush to change the functioning if dated kitchen and bathroom we have now.

This has a bonus on the diet though, since I am very active up and down stair and steps and getting paint/wallpaper sorted, I am losing chunks of weight each day with the 800kcal or so wrap diet.

from the start of 108kg I'm down now to 101.8, touching distance of under 100 which I should hit by the end of the week.

But the attic is a key sales point of these houses, that 3rd floor bedroom/studio/store whatever, needs to wow the viewers, so the tidy up is priority, not least because we've got family coming to  visit next week and there will be at least one of the grandkids sleeping there for a week, so clean, tidy and decorated is urgent.

Next up is the back yard, the decking has to go as its long past its useful days and its now rotting and unsafe... going to rip that all up for the skip and lay down some nice simple grass with border flowers...

Appearences, valid or not.....sell houses, once the tidy up is done I'll get my estate agent to  come back for another valuation. His current one is in my mind about 25K too low, I will try to convince him 15K more is possible. Then... we put the house on the market....scary.

Ahthankyew

An Awesome start

Though its not exactly unexpected, when you go on strict intake diets, your body needs a few days to get ride of the crap you'be been eating for 6 months. But I am actually working quite hard, up and down stairs, doing a lot of moving stuff around and by default something I believe is called excercise?

But I've been dropping nearly 1kg a day for 4 or 5 days, for sure most of that is down the toilet, but some of it is indeed sweat and work.  I've gone from a rough 108kg with  clothes and a bit bunged up due to loperomide, to an encouraging 104.1kg

So nearly 4kg in 4/5 days, a good start, but it is just a cleansing period.

I'm doing the wrap diet, 1 simple taco wrap, with a protein of some kind, often fish, or 1 sausage, and lettuce/cabbage/onion/carrot/bit of sauce.  Trying to eat it as close to my 8pm deadline as I can so I don't get too hungry before bed.
Its what I did before, and lost over 18kg so I know this works, the only issue I had was the lack of focus and distraction due to hunger during the day, even though I got used it it over time it wasn't easy so this time I am adding,  a small fruit and musili breakfast to keep me going through the day... no booze.. no snacks, nothing after 8

I'll drop or at least reduce the portion of brekkie in a few weeks once I'm on the burning fat path, not the cleansing and getting used to being hungry path.

It worked last time, quite well and should work quite well this time too. 

Of course once my body has cleared itself out and it balances the intake vs the output, I don't expect such massive drops each day, but I'll be happy with 2 or 300 grams a day.

The 80 day challenge is off and running.

Ahthankyew

It just won't stay off

The weight of course, its becoming a recurring topic and probably pretty boring.. But yeah.. its back and brought some friends...

Its been a stressful few months, though not in a chasing my own tail kinda way, just lots of things to do/get done and thats resulted in lots and lots of comfort eating... not helped by my lovely wife who hates to see me hungry... its an asian thing I think.. no matter how much I tell her I need to eat less, she insists on cooking a meal for 2 just for me....

Well we retire in 153 days now, so I've given myself 153 day challenge... it won't happen, but at least if I type it here I can look back at it in 6 months and be a bit annoyed with myself.

I am 108kg... back over the 100 and then some.. I need to be 70 by the time I get there... or Im going to be suffering from chaffing in parts that shouldn't be chaffing when we get over there...hot weather and pasty fat scotsman do not mix well.

38Kg in just under 22weeks... lets see.... No fancy diets, just starvation and more movement...the wrap diet worked really well last year, so 1 wrap for a main meal and no eating after 8.... lets see how it goes..

Just need to work out how to keep Jirawan from making any more crispy pork.

Ahthankyew

tickets ok but...

We have new tickets for Jirawan they have a different refernce number which was confusing, and we can't check in via the eDreams website, but we can check in via SIA... so...flight wise we're finally sorted.

Hotel wise, I'm a little less sure, on eDreams site our booking is showing as pending cancellation, which I am am hoping does not include the hotel....but thats not showing as cancelled, only booked as the day of our departure rather than the day of our arrival. But... meh... that should be fixable

We fnally have a result though... what a palava

Ahthankyew

No more Credit Card

Almost 2 years ago, my credit card company took the decision to cancel my spread payment facility, in other words the ability to use my credit card as a credit card... Buy big items and pay them off....

It wasn't just me, it was everyone, there was a government policy to reduce credit and the banks were instructed to remove spread payments. For me this was a problem as it had come at a point where I had just hit the card very heavily with payments for trips to Thailand and hotels and the balance was pretty high, close to the 10K limit I had;. a limit I had as a result of being an excellent customer always paying off even high balances as quickly as possible.

But cancel it they did, my limit went from 10K to 500 no K , overnight and they kindly requested payment by the end of the month!!! They later reduced it further to 200, useless.

I was, needess to say, very upset by this and wrote, emailed, phoned them in the nicest diplomatic language, what the fuck did they think they were doing?

Anyway I made it clear there was no way I was going to manage to pay it in a month, or even 3 months as they suggested so I made a couple of big payments and simply told them I'd pay it off monthly but I'd never ever use their service agan.

And that's what I've been doing, sticking in some bonus money when it came, and paying extra each month.

But now, I have been selling a lot of stuff so there's a bit of spare cash to clear it off, I made the last 702.95 payment today.. The credit card is gone.

And I will NEVER use their services again.. not least becuase I am leaving NL but also it was a shocking betrayal of customer/provider trust.. They made the point several times that I was a very good reliable customer, always clearing the card despite yearly bumps... but sorry give us the money now...

Thats just not good business...I appreciate it was a government mandate, but a gradual reduction over a few years, would have been just as effective and less painful to my budget.. 

anyway, done... bye ICS, never again

Ahthankyew

Guitarectomy, no anesthetic

Sold two mid ticket guitars yesterday on marktplats, was very pleased with that, but when the chap came to  collect, he asked what else I had......

4 Gibsons, 1 PRS, 1 Ovation, 1 Danelectro and some pedals gone.

My prized Lucille and Libby my Blueshawk have gone.... god it hurts, I mean I got a good price for them, he got a good discount too, but ouch... I'm in mourning big time, I LOVED those guitars, really loved them.. and now they are gone.

Someone chopping onions in here?

on the plus side the retirement fund makes a big jump and we're over the visa threashold,  and there's still quite a few mid range guitars to sell, so there's more to come, not sure my heartstrings can take it though. But just focus on what that fund will let us do.

Ahthankyew

Almost over

Both the airline drama and the academic year.

We're in that final week of checking everthing has been graded and returned and no students are left out. It goes from being manic busy to... a kind of, don't look around, its too quiet..

But for sure thats the academic year pretty much done. I played my last 2 graduation gigs with Starrcase, and mighty gigs they were too. I love being partly responsible for a hundred or more people bouncing about, or as they called it. Dancing.

There's going to be at least 1 more Starrcase gig though ,we have at least 1 more farewell party for Marcel, which I will try to combine with mine, meaning that Starrcase will lose 3 members, Jelmer 2 isn't retiring but he is stepping back from the band, which will leave them looking for a new Bassist, Drummer and of course whatever it was I did.

I will be sad on that last gig, I really will, it kinda hit me just typing this how much I've enjoyed being part of this band for ohh I dunno.. 12years?? can't quite recall, its been a family to me and helped me so much in hard times.. That last gig will probably be a gusher.

No new tickets yet, a couple of update messages from eDreams confirming a cancellation.. which is a word I didn't use when discussing ticket changes but I'm not going to stress yet, it wouldn't surprise me if they messed up the name change, but it does seem that may just be the way SIA have arranged things with them, cancel and rebook. We've got time for the tickets to arrive.

I've got a lot of copyedited content from the publisher to look over so that book can be totally finalised, not currently too happy with the way this is being handled, due to some technical faults that are preventing me from actually approving/rejecting changes but we'll get it sorted.

And thats kinda it, a few more days next week to wrap things up at work, probably some drinks and then 5 weeks of staying in bed till 10... oh I am getting old, it used to be just staying in bed till whatever but I seldome sleep past 9 these days... old age suks

166 days to retirement... its getting closer.

Ahthankyew

is it??

It might finally be fixed, but I will hold my breath a little longer... SIA did contact Jirawan to confim the error, they in turn contacted eDreams with a solution but it required a fee to change the details.....eDreams blamed SIA for the error and told us to let them know if we'd pay the fee.

We said yes.

They said ok, call our helpline to set it up since it needs to be authorised.

We explain ermm we paid paypal we can't do that over the phone.

Its ok call us we'll sort it out.

I call. on hold 20 mins..finally

Hello thank you for calling edreams customer service how can I help you....

I give details.

So you want to change the ticket details,....I will have to escalate that to the appropriate team.

Wait... what.. no its already been escalated, I just have to get you to take a payment and reset the ticket.

Please hold

Please hold

Please hold

Thank you for waiting, we will send the details to the appropriate team and it will take....

NOOOO, I was told to call you to authorise payment, not to reset the request....

Im sorry sir we can't do that we can only inform the sales team and they have to open a case.

The case is already open, I have the emails from your Customer support.

Please hold I will try to find out.

please hold

please hold

Hello sir, yes we will escalate it here and you will get a callback withing 72 hours.

Jezus wept... you have no clue about this payment I have to make do you?

No sir our system shows your case is already closed to re-open it again I have to escalate it.

This is madness.. fine whatever, I'm done.

I send an email to Customer servies, and explain their man at the other end has no clue... please just call me on +31xxxx

And someone does....20mins later

and she takes my details

and sends me a payment link

I fill it in, 

and she process it

and she sends me confirmation of the change., they are all correct.

and she tells me she will now cancel the old ticket and arrange a new ticket as agreed with SIA, you will get the new ticket in a few days.

.......so its done?

we'll see...... but still a call fixed it, cost 55.88euros but they say they have fixed it.. 2 months of back and forward blaming other depts may be over at last.

never ever will I use a booking agent again unless its a package holiday, only direct to the airlines.

Ahthankyew

Sellers remorse.... it's real

One by one my guitars are being sold... starting with a few of the nicer ones, now some of the acoustics, and a lot of pedals and gear etc. A few might be harder to seel due to cost/tast... I mean who wants a Baritone??

I want to do those things 1st so I can aquire a good 5* seller rating on Marktplaats before I unleash the bigger items, like the Gibson 355 ad Darkfire which are higher end, also the bike and closer to Dec the car.

But every sale of guitar is....killing me.. just killing me, the careful collecting of these bits of wood and string have been something I've loved doing for 15+ years and to watch them go out the door with just mere money to show for these lovely things fills me with remorse. Its like watching your kids grow up and leave.

I am getting more or less their value, some things I've sold to friends at a slight discount, most things I've sold at just about what I paid and few at above. So I'm going to make a few of those mere monies to fill up the bank account.

But dammit, it really hurts. But yes, they are selling and aside from a few silly buyers on Marktplaats making silly offers, we're not in the firesale timeline yet so I can keep them on sale until a good or buy it now offer comes in.

Mind you this weekend I had an Oculus Quest 2 (256gb)for sale, and someone pings me saturday evenng to buy it, (Paraphrasing from memory here) 

"Do you have time?"
"for what"

"I want to buy can I come round"

"sure ok" says I.,

"when can I come round.."

"anytime" says I, "just hit the buy button and its yours"

....pause

"how much do you want, we're on a budget and we're poor."

"Its only been online for a day, the price is 200 and thats a very good price for it, I'm not haggling, you can find lots of them on MP  some are cheaper but a smaller memory and a bit beaten up"
"But they are not good, I want this one"
"Then the price is reasonable at 200"

"I will ask my parents...:" pause... "oh but we're very poor we can't afford it, what will you take"

"feel free to make an official bid, but I won't look at bids until the unit has gone unsold for a few weeks"

"But if I make a reasonable offer, why is it fair you said no?"

"umm do you know how this works, there's a buy it now price which is reasonable, if you want it you buy it, if you want to pay less take your chances and put in a bid, its been on line for 1 day, so Im not dropping my price yet"

"well thats too much, we can't afford,  cya"

"ok I hope you find one at a price you can afford"

strange, clearly a youngster

next day

"I begged my parents to buy it for me they said ok" he msg's

"sure... I will send you the offer with options to pickup" ..marktplaats has a send offer button which the buyer can then accept and pay, the money goes to a holding company in escrow, and when they pick it up if all is well they hit ok and I get paid... simple

"Do you take cash"

"no sorry, I need to keep track of my transactions".  This is true, when I leave NL I will have to report my current bank and cash assets for my tax status and so on, I don't need to pay taxes on sales of my own goods but I do need to show all my income and prove the bank savings came from savings or selling my assets.. but also, there's a good chance he'll come round with less than 200 and try to haggle which I don't want;.here's the final straw though.

"oh, but how can I trust this."

Now, I could have explained the concept of escrow to him and how its actually safer for him to have a record of the transction in case the goods are faulty or misrepresented, but it was Sunday morning and I hadn't had my coffee yet.

"you need to learn how to use Marktplaats, go buy from someone else".

And I ended the chat and blocked him... I have a low tolorance for stupidity at 10am on Suinday.

Lucky 99% of the other msgs I get are people just testing the water with low bids or asking reasonable questions on the goods. Sales are going well and my 5* rating is building and my savings account growing nicely. Still got a lot more things to sell too, so Im confident we can put a very nice sum in the account by December to fund our 1st year in Thailand.

Ahthankyew

Some good news

It takes a very long time for HMRC to do anything, but.... they do do it.. after paying almost all my NI arreers last year I have been waiting patiently for the website to update with a list of my complete years..

Only for it to show a couple of years I certainly paid marked a incomplete and not counting toward my pension.

gulp

But I have the bank records od the transfers and even though they sent me a bill for 20odd quid in March for a year I had paid, I paid it anyway to avod issues... 

I sent them a letter, since I have had no luck at all contacting them on the phone, my phone provider cuts me off after 30 mins on hold.

And waited...

and waited..

and... oh it updated last week... and all is good, my payments are recorded, my pension is on track

I still have not had a bill for last year, which I need to pay as well as the next 5 years, that will come soon. But at least I will get my full UK Pension when  I hit 67. This is an important point as its central to our retirement plans. Onc I hit 67, we should get the full uk pension as it will be in 2030, but since Thailand isn't part of the group of countries with agreements on pensions there will be no furhter rises on that UK pension ever.....

We can debate the fairness of that another time...but having the full amount is important. My dutch pension will increase over time, due to inflation and other factors, so I don't have to worry too much about having a decreasing pension as I get older.

So that was some good news this last week... lets see if we get more next week.

Ahthankyew

You can not be serious.... no really

I lost my appeal, on the grounds that goods/services were delivered....

It seems the fact those services didn't produce any valid result or resolve an easy (for them) fix to a simple problem does not mattter, not does the fact I have unusable tickets...they are still goods.

utter utter utter nonsense from Paypal Its now valid to do no work for services charged and to deliver faulty goods with no comeback...great work...not.

Of course  with no options I contacted eDreams and SIA and guess what..... nothing we can do contact SIA<-> eDreams...

But, there's a tiny glimmer of home, the SIA agent, who I think was human (it said it was) mentioned that the issue is probably due to the small local airline at the Singapore to Chiang Mai end, ,SIA can't change those tickets (only eDreams can)  so I contacted Scoot and got a "human" agent, who said.....

yes we can change that for you, we'll need to call you back about it so give us your number and wait for our call.

Can you also change our SIA details to to correct the gender and spelling? I asked .... and yes we can do that too.

wtf.....

ok well that sounds promsing, but so far... no call, but I do have a case number and a transcript of the conversation so If nothing happens by Tuesday I will try and ping them again.

you can't make this shit up can you...ai bots are just the worst things ever when you need a human to look into the harm this denial of service results in its nowhere to be seen.

Ahthankyew

You/re shitting me!

Despite a mountain of evidence of their lack of competancy or care, I lost the paypal claim, it seems they don't think that payment protection counts in cases of services not being up to scratch..

But I have appealled... we'll have to see.

if the appeal fails I am litterly stuck, as its impossible for either eDreams or SIA to move to a sensible arrangment, though SIA are willing to discuss with eDreams and even have a specialist sales team who will we happy to come to some kind of compromise.. eDreams just sticks to its, not my problem response.

One thing I did discover from SIA though is that the actual cause of all this is the flight from Singaport up to Chiang Mai on a short commuter flight, its an small local airline, and they won't allow the tickets to be changed...

If they can just change the ticket between Singapore and Amsterdam I will pay for a cancellation and rebook on the local flight, its a few hundred euros, but if it stops this crap I'll do it..

Still shocked that PayPal refused... hope my appeal wins.

Ahthankyew

How am I supposed to sleep now....

23.59 came and went... no update on my case.

not much I can do I guess, but dammit this is really making me stress out.

Ahthankyew

My suspenders are killing me

Every day I've checked the status of my case dispute with eDreams on paypal, and for over 217years its been labled as "in review". No amount of checking every 2 minutes has changed it...

I hate having to wait days on end for what really should be a very simple case of them not providing a service they charge for and clearly don't even attempt to deliver. But thats the way it works.

Today, is the day, and I'm sure it will not come through until 23.59 hours, probably even a we need a few more days.

I honestly can't see anyway they could find against me, I documented every stupid email, every yes we'll fix that for you, no we can't fix that contact SIA, and every SIA reply, sorry but edreams needs to contact us.  As well as their, sorry we'll try something else, sorry they didn't reply, and the coup de grace, we've concluded this is your problem..... utter rubbish. That leaves us with a useless unusable ticket for Jirawan.

The stupid circular blame game is exactly what the paypal claims is supposed to help with.

But its a lot of cash over 3700euros and the great irony is when we get it back, it might not be enough to rebook the flights which get more expensive each week closer to the fixed date we have to for our trip.

There's reports that Thailand is having a massive downtrun in tourist numbers, that might help, but so far the flights are still about 5% more than when we booked them, so we might just need to book a cheaper hotel..

But one thin is certain, I can't do anything at all until I get a we find in your favour reply from PayPal. which is due sometime today........nope, still nothing......nope, still nothing.

Ahthankyew

now we wait

And eDreams responded ot PayPal, sadly I don't get to see the response, but it can only be, user made a mistake, we tried to help, SIA's ssue or similar.

I can't see any situation where Paypal would not see the astonishing lack of service provided by these jokers, but we have to wait and see. Hopefully only a few days.

We need to rebook these tickets asap as every week we delay the price goes up, and availabilty of flights goes down.

Fingers crossed.. but honestly its not supposed to be this hard to book simple flights in this day and age...

Never use a booking agent again, no matter what apparent advantages they say they offer, they simply don't deliver and in eDreams case, lie through their teeth.

Ahthankyew

and they reply after 11 days

4 days after their deadline..... they send the same standard, contact SIA email.... you can't make this crap up..

forwarded to paypal, let them deal with it.

Ahthankyew

still nothing, 1 day left

eDreams, give us 7 days is almost up, if nothing here by 5pm tomorrow I escalate the case on paypal, which they have not even responded to...

Really is shocking that they can be this uselss, when they take so much money off you.

Ahthankyew

Flights not booked

What a palava.... we booked our flights to Thailand last month but when we got the tickets we noticed there was a typo in Jirawans name, not really uncommon for Thai names, we could probably have travelled ok, but worse they had her as Mr... it seems the default booking page defaults to 2 male passengers.

ok no problem you say, just contact the agent and get them to change it, yes, I did that,....and they said sure, we will fix that... and then ...sent a message saying, we can't you need to change at Singapore Airlines.

ooookaaayy, go to SIA website and manage flight, enter details, and... nope only booking agent can make changes..

ermmm... contact agent, explain they have to make the change... and.....

yes several contact SIA, SIA say contact eDreams,  sessions later

I call, (long hold) get profound apologies,  and assurances that it will get fixed, send passport pic to prove spelling and gender and wait a few days..

Wonderful

A few days later... get standard mail to contact SIA.....

and this goes on... 

The excuses vary a little, prove SIA wont fix it, we think they are wrong, we conclude its SIA's fault, we contacted them, will update, we didn't get a reply, they refused to change, we are investigating other options, contact them, and so on.

SIA are very sympathetic on the phone and online but are quite clear that we are not the customer, eDreams bought the tickets and eDreams need to make the change...eDreams don't do that and now we're kinda stuck

I asked for refund, to rebook, then told they can't be certain of a full refund....then more contact SIA nonsense.. 

Eventually I send an ultimatum, fix tickets, or full refund, otherwise I go to PayPal on the not as expected service option

Get a reply... go to the SIA website and change, its easy..... its not, and I showed you that they don't accept any change...

Few hours later......get another, contact SIA they told us its too late to change it.

Thats it... no more, full refund, or new correct tickets, no excuses....

sigh... escalated to PayPal, hopefully it should be a quick resolution their lack of service is very clear and they are causing a lot of hassle... never ever ever use eDreams... shocking company

updates to follow.

Update day1, get 2 mails, one a profound apology, 2 another, our top team are on it and we'll get it done, give us 72 hours....

I forward to paypal, as proof they do indeed have the means to fix this, and will now wait for their inevitable, you have to contact SIA reply in 3 days.... I won't respond directly.

Update, end of day 1... another email, referring to Jirawan as Mr in the greeting... so they just don't read the mail trails.. Seems theyve sent it today 29/5/25 to SIA.... I remind you they've claimed to have sent it multiple times already, and now they want 7 days to resolve... well you can talk to PayPal about that, Im not responding.

Ahthankyew

Website updates, mostly painless

As a professional, if slightly long in the tooth programmer, Ive had my fair share of oh gawwd moments when doing some boring bit of code.. But the worst type of coding is websites. I really, really really hate coding websites, and the tools available to make it "easy" do not....ever make it "easy"

But I have to say I updated my website in preperation for the 2nd edition content, pretty easily by asking my claude.ai account to take my exisiting code, and use a new template for it, and revamped everything, adding in new pages and layouts.

It was really simple a few errors and some why is it doing that questions that got answered and my site is up and running, ready to have some new content plugged in...lots of features added that would have taken me days..weeks even, all done with a simple request.

I think this is a superb way to use AI systems, but its still pretty crap for C++ game coding.

Ahthankyew

Last bit

The book is now in the publishing phase, some , probably a lot, of proof reading and formattin to be done and a few tweaks, but the publisher has announced it, and will be sendng me mock ups of the cover and 1st proofs, in the coming weeks.

In the meantime the updates to the website are progressing, starting with the all new Pi3/PC builds that will go live 1st, in the next couple of weeks, with the Pi4 content later on when the book is near ready. There's not a lot of difference, just some of the extra shader features that the Pi3 can't handle. The Pi3 does need a slightly different set up though so best to keep them seperate.

exciting times.



https://www.routledge.com/The-Fundamentals-of-CC-Game-Programming-Using-Target-based-Development/Beuken/p/book/9781032863801?_gl=1*1bhm1kg*_gcl_au*MzgwMjAwMTEwLjE3NDE0NTc2NDc.*_ga*NjcyNDgxODIyLjE3NDE0NTc2NDE.*_ga_0HYE8YG0M6*czE3NDY3MTI4ODQkbzMkZzEkdDE3NDY3MTI4OTgkajQ2JGwwJGgw&_ga=2.197532841.723068559.1746712886-672481822.1741457641

Ahthankyew

Sale now on

I've sold a few things already to friends who expressed an interest and allowed them to buy things at mates rates since I knew they wanted them.  But now its time to start being serious and start selling everything to the general market....

Given the sellers guilt I had, selling my Les Paul to Richard my old band mate I may very well end up catatonic selling the others but they have to all go, in the next 6 months or so.. And the Car, which I am very pleased to find has held its value very well, as well as the bike..which deserves someone who enjoys polishing metal more than I do. 

Im testing out the marktplats site 1st to see if it brings in some local sales, if not its ebay time... but 1st up is Frankie. I was hoping Jelmer 2 would buy her and let him take custory of her for a few months but in the end as much as he likes it he can't spend the cash... So its now up for sale... lets see..

If it goes quick I will start listing the other things and hope to keep regular sales going...

feeling the remores just posting the ad....but has to be done.

Ahthankyew

Done, now back to work

The book is done and off to production, there will be formatting and spell checking reports to deal with but they'll get it all done and it will be out in a few months.

So now back to normal services, getting stuff sold, workng on my Empires project and getting ready for my last half year at BUas. We still have a block D to do but I don't really have a lot to do in that as its a group project for all the disciplines, and programmers are working with Unreal so nothing much to teach.  Just supervision and small bits of gameplay/tech advise. They're basically on their own now.

But after summer I get 1 more block of retro game and 3/4's of Pi that I have a big hand in so I will try to go out with a bang.

Looking forward to seeing the new book on the shelves, I really hope this one stays current for longer, I made a point to make it less raspberry specific, while still focusing on the limits the raspberry imposes. If I did it well it will be a soild foundation for any new game progreammer... fingers crossed.

Ahthankyew

ouch...but ok..

Flights and accomodation are booked for our trip to Chiang Mai, in the autumn,  was a bit pricey I have to say, but 3 weeks in Thailand isn't going to be cheap, we just have to deal with it.

This time we got a hotel, no need to live like the locals we got a taste for that last year and loved it, We will be doing house hunting and hopefully bank account sorting.. Though the latter may prove hard given the recent crackdowns from banks on giving "tourist" accounts.

We're not going on a tourist visa though, so we should be ok, I'll apply for a 3 month visa closer to the time. That should make it fairly straight forward.

So now the savings have taken a bit of a hit, we need to rebuild them before October since I need 400K in Bhat available to show for the visa.

247 days to go... still not really got anything major sold yet, a few bits and bobs, but have to make sure I start listing all the small things as well as the big things. And sadly maybe have to clear out a lot of crappy stuff that has no value but might be useful to someone (like a lot of the very old SBC's)

Ahthankyew

Finishing the book

Hopefully this is the last weekend of editing and formatting for submission on the new book.. I say new, its a 2nd edition of the old book, but there is a lot of new content in there and quite a bit of rewritten/corrected content. The manuscript was done a few weeks ago but I have found the submission requirements pretty overwhelming. But thanks to a bit of help from the publishers I have only a few things let to do this weekend and it can go for proofing and typesetting. 

There will still be a few things to correct/fix/change, over the next few weeks but it will be good to get it out the door. 

I can then move on to fixing the website and the support projects which all now need updating as I use a new template for the code that allows cross platform dev. And as a bonus, I managed to get  that template to be compatible with the Pi3 content from the last book, though with a bit of fettling and re-jigging.

I'm really pleased with this new edition though, it corrects some of the waffle I had in the last one, removes some errors, and introduces some cool new stuff. I hope it sells a bit better with the cross platform focus. PC users can now get something out of it.

I kinda like writing, but hate the need to hit deadlines.  Writing, like coding comes in waves of enthusiasm and inspiraiton, if you don't have it you don't get much done, when it comes it floods...

I suspect I will write a few more books when I retie, I do actually have some ideas, I just don't know f they will be out of date by the time I get round to working on them..

Ahthankyew

A friend I never got to meet.

I find myself very upset tonight. As our plans to retire progress, part of my research has been to watch a lot of youtube videos of houses for sale/rent and also some personal vlog style videos of people who have also moved to Chaing Mai and document their expereince. 

Its quite a treasure trove of useful info to hear from someone who's been there 16 years and someone only just arriving and finding their way around.

I have a few that I regularly follow and subscribe to, and drop the odd comment on their channel. One  chap was an Aussi, my age, who has been there a year, during the course of one of his livestreams I discovered he was a model builder. A hobby I really want to get back into when we settle. We had exchanged a few simple comments and I liked his content.

He had a motorcycle/scooter accident 10 days or so , and got a bit banged up, but despite a few broken bones and bruises he did a nice livestream praising the medical teams and care he had... I dropped a few comments about wanting to pick up the modelling hobby again soon, and he said some encouraging words that when you retire having a hobby is good for you. I agree.

Sadly I just found out, he passed away suddenly a few days after that exchange, from a heart attack, walking into town for a coffee. Probably in part caused by the accident, but either way... 1 year on from moving to Thailand he dies..

Dammt, thats very sad, and he was alone over there, no family/partner.  I am sure we would have met up at some point when I move, picked up some tips on modelling  and good model shops, and been friends. So even though I never met the chap, it feels like a loss. RIP Peter at Oz ScaleModeling  https://www.youtube.com/@OzScalemodeling

 

Once again, life just isn't something you can always rely on, the dumbest things can take you out in an instant. Make sure you use up every ounce of your allocation doing nice things for yourself and others.

Ahthankyew

Or are they.....?

hmmm strange, got home today to find a letter from HMRC asking for 29.20 for a year I already paid.....

not at all sure why, but I've paid it and drafted a quick query letter that will no doubt take time to have a response but... hmmm that year is now showing as not compelte so I will assume its a mistake, not going to worry about it.

Ahthankyew

Pension up to date now

Ok

made the last of the shortfall payments HMRC  allow, and now I just pay my yearly class 2's so that in my old age, if I make it, I get my UK pension while living in Thailand.

Lets hope there's no strange changes in the pension laws between now and then. But overall I think this is good, having not realised I could make those shortfalls was a major error in my understanding of the pension system, that I wish someone had informed me of many years ago and I would not be in a mad panic now. Our HR dept really need to have someone there who handles or advises non dutch employees on such things, so many of us were unaware, and I've been spreading the word. At least 2 have found out they had shorfalls they needed to fix so thats good, but lucky the younger ones still have lots of years to make up their minumum.

So, its all done...cost a few grand but the return is very worth it. I was however expecting a bill for this years class 2, instead I got a bill for class 3, of 0,00 which I have of course paid :D

I suspect it will come through in due course. Im no longer bound by or afraid of any time deadlines. I've paid up, in time, and can now just deal with normal stuff.

phew..

Ahthankyew

Never buy from facebook scammers

Its not fair to say all facebook ads are scammers, but so many of them are, some deliberate, but most just incompetant drop shippers acting as middle men for cheap warehouse sales being scammed themselves.

Almost every time I've bought something on line from a facebook ad, I've had a totally different product sent or missing parts etc.

I think out of 5 online purchases for me and 3  or so for Jirawan, only 2 have been legit.

I recently bought a neat looking set of rechargable batteries in a nice self contained charging case. Think earpod style but for AAA and AA batteres. I tend to use a lot of them in pedals and things so having a case that kept some on charge while others were being used appealed to me.. So I risked my $35 or so and waited nearly 3 months for it to arrive... a very nice case... with no batteries.

hmm so begins a series of where are my batteries and, send us pics, and $2 offers of refunds culminating in, this item doesn't come with batteries... so escalate to paypal.

I should get a full refund, paypal tends to be pretty good at dealing with these types of scam, but not heard back yet.

Just annoying that you get so many of these daft scams, or useless dropshippers falling for other scammers promises of wealth and reward from home. Which is why I give them the benefit of the doubt sometimes. It might just be some granny with a laptop trying to make a few bucks with a shitty website, taking orders and passing them on to a chinese warehouse thinking that the 20c they make for each one adds up.

Annoying.

Ahthankyew

Test ok

My Oral cancer surgeon didn't remember me at all :D lol I feel not at all special, but no matter my appointment with Dr Van Gemeert went fine, the spots on my gums are caused by my brushing, maybe my electric brush heads are too hard, so I have to switch to softer ones.

I was a tiny bit worried, but its fine, the dentist was right to make sure.

Ahthankyew

284 days

Till my 62nd Birthday, its not going to be my actual final day here in NL but its the cut off point I've set as my retirement date. I will stiill have a final few days of work to wrap things up and close out the year. As well as to  hopefully finalise the last few things before we head off to Thailand.

We might get there before Christmas, or just after, there are things we won't have total control off until the house is actually sold, but we have set that target date to keep us focused on the clock ticking down.

can't wait.

Ahthankyew

Delay chats are hard

How bizzare

I got a letter, an actual paper letter :D from HMRC. Which actually detailed the confusion over the allocation of some class3/2 payments. 

Given it was in response to a letter I sent dated 9th Dec, replied to on 20th Feb, and recieved 7th March... its kinda out of sync.

But it does confirm they messed up the allocation of my payment which was a combined class2/3 payment for different things.

Yesterdays post about it all being resolved means that my email 2 weeks ago has in fact resolved things. So it does now kinda make sense why my NI shortfals went mental for a few days... and then all got fixed..

I also got a bill, an actual paper bill as well, fom HMRC today for...0 pounds and 0 pence.... for 24/25 class 3.. :D 0. zero.. I might have to save up to pay that.

ummm ok, there will be a bill in a few days I assume for class 2 which I will gladly pay.

It might be petty to bitch about something after its sorted but... its not a very effective system is it...

oh well..

Ahthankyew

Lots of good things

The concern about the NI payments has been resolved, and much quicker than expected. No email response, that may come later but checking the site today, I can now see that ALL my payments have been accounted for and I'm now close to the full amount of pension entitlement when Im 67. There are stll 5 years of payments to make, and I think 4 or 5  shortfall years left that will take it over the minumum contribution needed, but I'll make the shortfall payments comfortably now, and that wll give us the full amount when I hit the official age.

REALLY  happy about that. I will pay all the shortfalls even though there's no real benefit to it, since the future is uncertain I don't want to get trapped by a government change that says you need to have more years contrbution that I have now..its not a massive amount of money and the return is well worth it, so I will do my bit to keep the UK revenue funded :D

Also, though I was fairly sure about this before, a collegue at work caused me to doubt myself, and I had to call the bank to check. He suggested there was a penalty for clearing the mortgage early. Which is indeed not uncommon in the UK and other places.. But I was sure I had read somewhere that there were no charges with my bank...I called to confirm and indeed... no charge for clearing the mortgage early :D.

And a final bit of good financial news, when we sell the only real expense is the real estate agents fees, called makelaar here, about 1-1.5% yeah it sucks but needs to be paid. I've factored that into our costs. 

Our finances are firming up really well now, every month that goes by our savings are increasing and small things get sold to added to it. Time is now starting to really move fast, I mean its March already.... only 10 full momths to go.

Ahthankyew

There's some dumb shit going in in the world

Its astoninshing isn't it.. just how utterly disturbing the world is, and how its more and more being run by utter utter idiots. 

So much so that I'm starting to really lose faith in humanity. The rise of conspiracy theories in particular fascinates me. Flat earthers being one main group, who just like religious zealots utterly refuse to spend even a few moments reading a half decent science book to take note that ermmm gravity is real....and the earth is not flat!!

I mean... going through life denying the most basic of facts, we have known for 1000's of years and these days can even point to fucking photo's of... which apparently are fake.

WE, collectivly are entering an age where opinion, no matter how absurd,  is more valid than fact, and if fact does not support or even disproves our opinion, then the fact is wrong and someone, somewhere, a mythical they.... are behind it to keep us all in the dark.

Madness... just madness, flat earth, moon landing deniers, young earthers, anti vaxxers, 5G death rays, Cloud buster copper tubes, Lizard people, grounding, Adrenachome harvesting, QAnon, holistic meds, auras, spirit channelling, etc.... those are the ...good??? ones..

Not one of which, not fucking one, stands up to even a primary school kids level of scientific research... but still grown men and women proclaim proudly on social media that they know and have the truth, and gather followers to their cause.

It's levels of stupidity that I find appalling to see, and of course you get grifters cashing in writing books and holding courses to increase the following and all these idiots gather their confirmation bias as proof of their positions that have no prood of their positions.

This is clearly something hard wired in our human brains, before social media, even before literature we had religion indoctrinating the stupid into people, now its open season on whatever bullshit you want to spread.

And now... we come to politics... where more and more and more we see that history is repeating, the rise of Nazi germany is now a blueprint for political grabs for power and consolidation of that power and we have the stupid now leading the stupid to vote in even more stupid people into power... and we know what happens when you give power to people who have no idea how to use it?

We are most certainly on a road to damnation as a species, nothing can stop the march of opinon over facts, and it wont be long befoe we see cvilizations end when some moron wants to see what happens when you press the big red button.

phew... rant over... not sure I feel better, because I still have 30 or 40 years to live and watch this get worse and worse.
 

Ahthankyew

oh ok, this might be good

Or very bad.

After a bit of hunting around on the gov.uk website, I have discovered an apparent error.

they had listed two years 2009/10  and 2010/11 as being incomplete years, but it was only 37 and 95 quid to clear them, so I sent that..along with some class 2 payments in 1 payment

But somehow it got messd up and now I have to pay 800+ and 500+ and they are counting a couple of weeks self employment in those years... .hmm something went wrong, so I''ve sent an email to 3 different depts to try to resolve..

It will take forever of course, but there's plenty of time to get it sorted. I clearly gave them what was asked and they've clearly misallocated it... But that does seem to suggest, of my 5 payments made, only 3 have actually counted. so when that is fixed things will improve again.

It's kinda annoying but honestly Im not at all stressed by it, if I can finally get hold of a person to actually fix things it should all be ok. Its just good to see that things to change, even at a glacial rate.

The method of paying is the main issue, you can only send a bank transfer or a cheque, dutch banks don't to cheques any mote so transfer it is, and thats limited, you can only provide your NI numer and name with a code to pay... so if you pay more things at the same time, they probably guess at what it is you want to do with the extra money and it seems to be wrong.

Oh well, I'm not too worried as I say, it will be 5.5years before this needs to be fixed, so there's plenty of time for a few 6-8week email exchanges to correct it.

I am actually finding all this checking and rechecking all the various pensions and accounts a lot of fun. Things seem to change so often, especially after budgets of course... so far nothing has been an oh-shit, its all been oh-good kind of changes and revelations.. 

I might change my view if I do actually manage to set up a communication line with someone... but even so.. planning for retirement is really fun, 293 days to go.

Ahthankyew

and they updated

After  my last post reporting that 2 of my payments had been registered, I can now see that the other 3 have also now been registered. Didn't boost the pension by as much as I expected, it went up 6 ukp rather than 18ukp,  it works out about 3 ukp per year paid, but it did boost it, so all 5 of my shortfall payments made last year,  have now been counted.

It might take a bit longer to see if that 18ukp boost has been properly calculated, but regardless it does mean that payments made have at last been allocated to the correct years. And those years are no longer listed as shortfall years on the gov.uk site.

I paid 4 more last week, to ensure I got them in before the April deadline, so now the others can be paid at a reasonable pace before the end of the year.  I wonder if that will also take 6 months to update, we'll see soon enough.

This is good for us, it will ensure a full UK pension when I hit  67, I get to make up 5 years of deficit, and pay each year for 5 years till Im 67, and will get the full pension, currently 221ukp pw, which I assume will increase a bit in 5 years time.

It is a pity though that once I do hit 67 and start to claim,  it won't increase again, ever, under current rules. But my Dutch pension will increase due to inflation whiich givces a bit of future proofing, so I don't have to worry about being unable to buy food in my 90s

The retirement plans are starting to all come together nicely, no major roadblocks yet..

Ahthankyew

Pension fun or... not.

So I'm in a rather odd position, that when I retire at the end of the yeat, I won't have any pension. There's just not enough in the pot for me to take an early retirement with pension option at 62. So the pension needs to wait till I hit the official retirement age of 67.25 here in NL, 67 in UK.

Yes thats right I get both, a Dutch and a UK pension, basically half a standard pension for each, which is pretty good, aside from the fact I was unaware that I could continue to pay my UK NI while I was living here.

But thankfully it is possible, I have maintained my self employment while living in Netherlands doing occasional freelance gigs,  which allowed me to qualify for class 2 self employment payments to HMRC and qualify for more pension as long as I made up the shortfall of the class 2 payments that I never sent since I was living in NL.

So I've been sending money to HMRC so make up shortfalls in the years where I could have, but didn't pay those class 2. 

The problem is, they never confirm they have them, they dont let you know its been allocated to a particular year and trying to get hold of them is.... complex. Phone calls go on hold for over 30mins, where your Dutch phone provider starts to panic and cuts you off. Letters take a year... A YEAR to be replied to. And get this, emails, get replied to over a month later, telling you to contact a different dept with an email,  who then refer you back another month later to the dept that you 1st mailed.. thats not cool HMRC, not cool at all. 

So answers to, did you get my payment, are not easy.

But finally yesteday, I checked the Gov.uk website and 2 of the 5 years I paid so far are now listed as paid, and indeed my forcasted pension has gone up a little as a result. phew... it is happening. Slowly, but it is happening, I don't need to panic.. though I was worried due to there being a cut off date this April to get some of those payments in. Seeing that they have applied them I've made the last payment due before the cut off, and will pay the rest over the course of the coming 5 years.

Which despite all the hassle is really good news, I'll get a full, or close to full pension from the UK, 17 years of Dutch pension for my time here, which actually is very small as Dutch state pension is very small, but 17years of company pension.. 

It's a bit of a mix and match and frankly far below what a lifetime payer into the Dutch system would get, which would make retirement here hard,  but its more than enough for us to live on in Thailand. 

There will be 5 years when we move though where we have no income, and I'm not allowed to work over there, but the house costs there are very low and once we buy a house with 40% of our house profits here, we can live for 5 years on the remainder of that and some other savings we have. As long as we don't go mad.

298 days to go.. can't wait.

  

Ahthankyew

Its just a test...

My Dentist has decided to refer me back to my old cancer surgeon, Dr van Gemert, yeah he's still working at the same hospital.\

Havn't seen him in 10 years, was kinda hoping never to see him again... not that he's a bad fella, he did save my life after all but, given his line of work I really didn't want to see him again ever.

It;s just a precaution though, due to my history, the dentist wants to be super careful.

I have a couple of white spots on my gum, other side from the surgical site, they dont' seem to want to wash away even with super burn level listerine.  This can be half a dozen things, including a simple fungal infection,which is not uncommon in prosthetic teeth wearers (my falsies). But there is the tiniest chance its cancer or pre-cancer, so best to get it checked out and treated asap if needed. There's no lumps bumps or other signs of the previous type of cancer. 

So, I have no real reason to be worried, but....

Going back there will be a bit of a knee wobbler..

Ahthankyew

Garage Sale

Jeeze we have a lot of stuff....

which is good, as it will raise a lot of nice funds for the retirement fund, but wow its a lot to catalogue and advertise. 

I want to sell my guitar/music stuff to my friends mainly so I know they go to good homes. But I ermm, do have a lot of guitars, not all are big bucks, but I should get a few hundred for most of the standard ones, and a couple of K for the special ones in total.

The hardest thing though is the sellers remorse, when a guitar I have loved having, but probalby only played twice goes out the door.

jeez, retiring is hard.

Ahthankyew

its, semi official....

I've been hinting for a while and chatting to friends and collegues, but as is often the case these discreet chats have become semi common knowledge and I felt today that I should give work notice of my intention to retire at the end of the year, to prevent any chinese whispers taking hold.

Not quite time to make it an official resignation, there's still a few tiny things that can upset the plans, but also no point in giving 11 months notice.. I'll provide a proper resignation later in the year. But I have informed my Dean that I don't plan to be around for work in 2026. so thay can start making plans without me for next year and hunt for a replacment.

I'm going to quit in the Christmas holidays just after my 62nd birthday.

We're going to Thailand... The numbers all make sense, the plan is get an income stream established to provide minimal income using an old UK private pension I have recently recovered,  which we can draw down on, to suppliment the savings we plan to live off. 

We rent for  up to 1 year, find a perfect house in that time, then buy outright and sit quite comfy till the pension officially kicks in. 

I won't be able to work there, as its a bit restricive for non Thais, but I can do home coding and writing still, but we will be on a fairly tight budget but its still leaves us with a similar or better standard of living here...(actually quite a bit better but....dont' jinx it).

There's little to no real advantage for us to wait 5 more years apart from a slightly higher pension, but when all said and done we'll be financially very comfortable leaving this year, or really comfortable in 5 years... but losing 5 years of cosy living.

We have the equity and savings to do it in December, and retire 5 years early.. So this October, our trip will be about finding a good rental home to base ourselves while we transfer finances and some minimal possesions to Thailand. That means a massive clear out of things, guitars, computers, models, furniture, even clothes.. We can ship a small amount over, but we are better repurchasing when we're there.

We are...very very excited about this.. as the days have been ticking down since we decided to make the jump,  I've been busy making inventory and working out what we send, what we sell, what we give away.. 
The house will go on the market in the summer/autumn, with a condition that we don't hand over till December.. Houses here are selling really fast so Im hoping there wont' be any issues....well we''ll see :D Not selling would be the 1 fly in the ointment, but Im not at all concerned, Belcrum is a highly desirable area at the moment, houses sale almost as soon as the notices go up, and desptie a few things needing updated here, this is a good solid home for a couple of young family, ideal buyers.

Ahthankyew

The transition to old age

The last few weeks now, I've had the worst time staying asleep, which some of you might know is my 2nd favoute passtime.

I'm moving into old age at an alarming rate, aches and pains of course but now this sleeping nonesesne, Im only sleeping for 6-7 hours max, even at weekends. Considering I used to love spending 12 hours in bed at the weekends to catch up on nightly shortages over the previous week thats not ideal.

I dunno, maybe its a good thing, I do get snoozy at the end of the evening but if I do actually snooze it means I can't get to sleep when I go up to bed, and when I finally do, I am awake at 6-30....not great

Strange.

The book is almost done now, there were a few small issues with some code not working correctly on test systems, and I had to re-write a couple of sections to account for the fix, but the publisher was happy to give me a few more weeks to tidy things up. I am quite happy with the new book.

I have not however got my website forum back up and running yet though which is a problem. Ive upgraded the site to allow for more space for the new content, but can't seem to get access to it on my current machine, I may have to scrap the old site completly and lose the forum. I really would rather not though... I'll turn my attention to it when the book goes off to the publisher.

Ahthankyew

Happy New Year

It's here, 2025 has arrived, which is good cos there was really not much to celebrate in 2024.

We are however really looking forward to this year, Jirawan and I have a lot of things planned, a trip To Thailand of course and maybe a short break in summer,  and some major life changes that, maybe you know about. But we'll make more public once we've got more things in place over the year.

We have big big plans. And sadly big big changes. A major rework of our life, clearing out a LOT of clutter and getting ready for new challenges.

I just hope I can actually lose some bloody weight this year... its crept back up to 100kg... and all I can hear is mum commenting on my weight.. gotta do something.

So lets get it started, Happy New Year. Lets make this the best one yet.

Ahthankyew