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