We're a two bike family :D

I love my "little" GPX DZ3, its nippy, quite powerful and honestly, a good looking bit of kit.. But its a wee bit too big for my wee wifie, so Jirawan can't really drive it. (though I've seen smaller Thai ladies on much bigger bikes). But she wanted to be a bit less reliant on the car, especially since there are currently lots of queues at the petrol stations as people panic buy fuel.

So she went for lessons this weekend, passed her test and went to get  her license :D After which we went out and bought her a bike. We went 1st to a 2nd hand dealer but they wanted a lot for a Honda Scoopy with 117K km on it, 40K.... a new one costs 57..... so we went to the dealer and bought a new one.

Amazingly, she picked one off the forcourt, and they cleaned it up and got it ready for her to drive home as soon as she paid for it.. Never seen that before, usually there's a lot of inspections and stuff... but sure enough..after she filled in the forms, there it was, ready, and 10mins of salesman explaining the buttons later, she was ready to go.

I was a bit worried about her driving a new unfamiliar bike home, and suggested she go for a short run around, then meet me at the car park across from the dealer to decide who would ride it home... I waited and waited....and waited a bit more,  and it became clear she either had a horrible crash, or had headed straight for home... So I went home...

I kinda winced a bit when she was not there on my arrival, she'd had a good 10-15mins head start... but not to worry, 5 mins later, she showed up with the biggest grin I've ever seen (since our wedding at least).

So now we have a new Scoopy in the family, and it is rather nice, Jirawan is happy.. life is good.

Ahthankyew

Getting our youtube channel up and running.

I had kinda wanted to get our retirement channel up and running before we actually left The Netherlands. I thought the process itself of applying for visa's and getting goods shipped etc would be interesting. It really wasn't. I did make a few videos but honestly they were dull as ditchwater.. so we've left it till we got here before we started to make content... and its now starting to get a bit easier as I now am getting better at editing the videos, and just need to try to make more interesting content.

I don't have any hopes that this channel will be a money maker, a lot of people seem to rely on youtube channels as a source of income and are very diligent about making regular content, all shiny and relevent to their subscribers needs.

We don't really care... We will make videos about everyday things that happen here, and some things that I might find interesting. Of course documenting the build of our house, good/bad/wtf on a regular basis will be of interest to lots of people I think, many retiree's come here with different ideas about renting/buying/building a house.. So our content will help them do some research on that.

But for now, Im just learning how to put videos together make them interesting and hope that we can get the subscriber count up.

Today I uploaded 2, including this test of our GoPro 13 camera, which its pretty awesome.

I hope people find it interesting, but if not, at least I have a few people reading this who might like the content as it will document how we're getting on in Thailand.



Ahthankyew

Clinging to some false hope?

Our scales may be wrong.... today it recorded 99.xx kg... last week it recorded 105.xx 

I either had a really bad case of the shits (which I did but...) or the scales are just not that accurate...

either way...walking daily, building up to a light jog and trip to the communal gym. By the time I move to the new house later in the year I want to be 75 kilos, 30 years old, and have a full head of none grey hair.

maybe

edit... yeah scales didn't work on the slightly soft floor surface on the stairs... The hard tiles in the living room give accurate readings... Im fat.

Ahthankyew

so.. something something, weight...something

In the back of my mind... way back... I had an idea that coming to Thailand, I'd lose a bit of weight, due to smaller thai meals and a bit more movement. 

Well after 2 months living here, I've put on about 5 kg... so that was wrong wasn't it.

I need to do something about it.. I might have to lock myself in a condo for a couple of months away from Jirawans, you want to try? Encouragment?

I really do need to drop the weight, summer is just round the corner and the temps will start to rise and there's nothing worse that sweaty fat men trying to clean out their folds.

ahhh So much temptation here... but gotta do something.

Ahthankyew

we have a design

We have the plan outline for our house, still subject to some twiddles but we put in our feedback on the 1st draft which then resulted in a nice 2nd draft... we like it... so ...we're off

Still have to work out aesthetics and a few things like placement of switches/power etc... but as a working draft we have our plan. Builder will start to break ground early next month, hopefully we'll get the bulk of the work done before Rainy season, cos things will just stop then.

Its a 4/5bed house, one room is sectioned as an office but its really a bedroom without and ensuite so its a good size, not massive, the space isn't a lot more than we have in our current rental home but large kitchens, an Lshaped lounge dinning area, and nice clear bedrooms will give us plenty of space to host family and friends without living on top of each other.

Exciting times. 

Ahthankyew

new teeth day.....

God Im old... when I have to be happy at getting a new set of falsies from the dentist.

Well anyway, got a new set, feel different but thats to be expected.. seem to do the biting, chewing, eating, not looking like a Maga voter when I smile bits ok,

Not much more to report... recovery from cold/flu is progressng, just a bit of coughing left.

Ahthankyew

Did I say the worst was over?

Oh I was wrong there....yes for a day we felt better and ventured out, but rather than continue to improve we returned to cough, sneeze, uggg 

Now a solid week + of feeling crap and having variable energy and concentration levels.

So this is for sure a 7 -10 day virus and we're not going to get an early release... but it is what it is.

No movement yet on the design for the house, its in progress, we did drive to the plot again to make some video for our soon to be updated channel, but almost immediatly headed home for a nap.

Can't honestly do a huge amount until we get well enough to not need a nap after every tiny task.

Weather here is lovely though, 30-33degs every day and getting a bit warmer every week as summer creeps in. I wish I could get out a bit more to enjoy it before it gets too extreme and we end up hiding indoors with the aircon on blast.

Anyway, trip to the dentist tomorrow to pick up new teeth after my old ones broke... I was supposed to pick them up last Friday but I was starting to get ill and cancelled to save them me being patient zero. 

Should get some design drafts in the next few days which will just be a baseline design to build on.

Ahthankyew