The worst is over...but the damage is done

So for about 3 days we were jibbering sneezing, coughing wrecks... no kidding, it was horrible, well on track to be the worst cold we've ever had.

Today, I at least, are over the worst of it, the brain fog has gone, but still very low energy and sore ribs and lungs and a very red shiny dry nose, so will need a few more days to get those fixed. Jirawan has taken a bit longer, but she's starting to get over it.

As I was feeling a wee bit better, I took the time to get my new PC all set up ready for its daily chores, and so far so good, took me 2 days :D 1st day 1 little thing done meant reasting for 2 hours, but today, as long as I was slow, bending down, plugging things in, lifting things, installing things, it went pretty well

With a bit more mental acuity tomorrow I can get back to work I hope.

I got my refund for the scam PC, which of course I still have, I will fit in a nice little ssd for it, ,and sell it, for what it actually is, not really got much use for a low end mini. I can use either my linux I5 or my N100 for lower end things... 

Ahthankyew

Same illnesses then?

Jirawan got struck down low with a nasty cold, she's been pretty sick,  lots of tea, ginger and honey, and a trip to the hospital, not so much for the cold, but to register there... They did give her some of the basic ingredients for lemsip, so it will help.

And sure enough a few days after her I start getting the running nose and sore throat and cough, so my turn now.. so... need a bit of bedrest for a few days and keep my head low.

Its good to know we have not totally left Europe behind us. A cold is a cold no matter how warm it is.

In the meantime the house design is progressing, Jirawan is making suggestions for things she likes on Facebook, and we hope to get a final design withing 2 weeks, after which they will break ground and get started.

Im going to start making a serious vlog to maintain our retirement website... should be fun.

Ahthankyew

We bought the land

Well we're off.  We bought the land 641sq meters,  and we'll have a few more meetings over the next week or 2 to decide on the design of the house.. It will be a 4 bed (maybe a small 5th) house 3 or 4 bathrooms, Side garage, and a large open living/dining area and a large kitchen/dining area, as well as an external thai kitchen,

We could make a massive house but we're going to just make better use of the space, having the garage on the side and not part of the ground floor, means we can open that space out to big wide open lounge.

All the rooms will be expanded a little, 20% or so.

If needed we might do a 5th room, more of a store than a bedroom, but we'll see.

And of course we'll have plenty of space for a large garden, with fruit trees and flower beds and a gazebo/sala to sit in.

Exciting.

Ahthankyew

We're gonna build

Yup, we've decided, and put a small token  downpayment on, the building of a new house... We liked the 4 bed house so much but the worry that it was a bit too small niggled us, so we are buying a plot across from it, which is 2x the size of the 1st house, and building a house 50% bigger with garden and side parking, so that the car park area does not take any of the living space away.
Basically more living room area, larger kitchen, bigger bathrooms (with a bath in the main ensuite), a dedicated office, garage on the side and room for fruit trees and a veg patch.

Early days, initial talks and chat with both the land seller, the architect and builder.... but we agree. 

We are going to build our dream home.

We hopefully wll have it all done by October, and in the mean time we'll start buying things for the new home.

Exciting times ahead.

Ahthankyew

Bike was delivered today, they took a nice delivery photo, but for some reasons decided to obscure my face.... oh well

But its here its nice, need to take it easy for 1K to run it in, so no red lining, they delivered it with a thimble full of petrol, so 1st job was to find petrol, which is easy normally but with roadworks nearby its a bit of a trek around the houses to get to the station. Anyway the thimbleful made it, and it then took just under 300bhat to fill it, not bad at all.

I don't yet have full accident insurance though, and bizzarely I am still allowed to drive without it beign fully registered, but over the next week or two It'll take to get the paperwork sorted to get a full reg and with it a full accident cover....bizzare

It's no Shadow, but it is a nippy comfy scooter, so I think this will last me a while as long as someone does not run me off the road or pull out, or change lanes, or just run up my backside as is quite common here...

relax..relax, I'll be fine. I was properly trained in defensive riding, Im not going to be a lane switching numpty...yet.

Ahthankyew

We're going for it, twice

We have had a look at quite a few houses recently, and most of them have been dissapointing.. yesterday we went to see one we first saw on Youtube a year ago and totally fell in love. We still love it but, its not even close to being viable for us, depsite being a good size and lovely fruit tree filled gardens, it didn't deliver.. It smelled of damp and worse, turned out to be miles away from Chiang Mai town... closer infact to the neighbouring city of Lamphun.. a nice place but... not Chiang Mai

So.. we're exploring the build our own place more forcefully, as noted that almost perfect place is almost perfect, but the builder could build us our perfect place in the plot opposite it, with space for garden and a bigger living area and bedrooms as well as at least one bath in one of the Bathrooms...

So... we're going to go for it.. Meetings are being arranged next week to discuss how to proceed. Basically Jirawan buys the land (I'm not allowed), and we pay the builder to build. It will be within our budget and give us a lot of say over how the final house is built.. I don't like WC's next to the Kitchen for example (ugg), which are common here. We can dictate the lay out of both the Euro and Thai Kitchen, make sure we have a living room with room for nice big sofa's facing TV's and have good sized bedrooms for guests, as well as a purpose built office and nice terrace for relaxing in the sun.

It will be great. I'll update you on this as we go. And it will make for an interesting vlog.


Also I'm buying a new bike, well a scooter, but one big enough to handle my bulk and do a bit of longer distances.. the little 150cc's that are rife here tend to scream a bit when I give them a bit of welly. So I've gone for a slightly bigger 280cc GPX DZ3 SPORT. 

At a later date I might.... might get myself a more traditional bike bike, like a Royal Enfield, but really my cruiser days are over and I can't see myself buying a Hog or another Shadow like most of the old fat bikers here, so this will be the runabout when Jirawan is out with the car and a bit of nipping into town for shopping. 
The car is good, but its not like my little Kia, and needs the air con running full tilt all the time which guzzles gas, even though its half the cost here, we're using twice as much, so this will be a cleaner more economical runabout for me.

Ahh, as I type this I realise Im not going to get a comment from mum, telling me Im crazy to ride a bike here and to be careful....but Im sure she'd be happy to know I'm settling into how things are done here. Miss you mum.

Ahthankyew

Out door cooking

Cooking outdoors is a big part of Thai cooking, thats why many ex pat homes have 2 kitchens, one for the western tastes (hello) and one for the Thai's and their chilli mad cooking (have you met my wife). So even though we have a small kitchen here, at the rental house, we realised we needed to do more with our outside terrace, so we got some out door cooking stuff. Need to get some charcoal and gas/fittings.. They didn't come with them...strange.. But soon we can cook all the thai food we need without gassing the termites.

Ahthankyew