This is not...an improvment.

The Vertigo.... still got it

Overall its been fairly managable, unpleasant at times, but mostly confined to periods where I was lying in bed, and  turning on one side or another... occasionally leaning sideways to look inside the fridge... 

But generally it wasn't impacting much on my day, but for safety and an abundance of caution, I decided not to drive or ride the bike. A dizzy spell while travelling could be quite nasty.

Yesterday we went for our 3rd check with the doctor and she again did a series of positional placements designed to move the crystals in my ear into safer spots... but I think she made it worse. Much much worse.

The actual head tilt this time produced, the...worst...dizzy..falling into a cavern... experience ever... just monumental dizzy... apparently she'd never seen my eyes bounce around as fast to date... The vertigo attack causes Nystagmus to occur and boy did it occur.. It was so ovewhelming that it took nearly a minute to pass rather than the normal 10-15 secs,  and she decided only to do 1 cycle of positions.

I assumed that I'd get the usual after effect, a little ikky feely for a few mins, then basically normal but not cured... not so....not so at all.

Ok, so she wants be back in 5 days... and didn't give me any more Serc 24 meds to control the dizzyness... apparently they just make me happy (never been so bloody miserable in fact) So on the surface this seemed positive.... but I noticed as I was walking to the car, that I was having trouble keeping a straight line...actually quite a lot of trouble.

And when we got moving in the car, I also noticed that I felt incredibly motion sick the whole trip, so much so that half way I asked Jirawan to stop and we'd go get some noodles, just to give my head a break.

Now normally after a quite bad dizzy spell, in bed for example when I get up I feel a bit ugg for an hour or so, then feel fine as long as I avoid another dizzy spell.. but yesterday... the whole fucking day... I was unable to walk around, look around the house, or just basically engage with the physical reality of life... I felt like utter shit the whole day... and spent most if it in a recliner chair keeping my head as still as possible, it was genuinly awful.

Today I've been up about an hour... I don't feel quite as shit, but I am still experiencing the dizzy when I look around or try to walk...I'm a drunk without the benefits.... and I don't like it.

Jirawan is going to go to the pharmacy and get more Serc 24, to see if it helps, if so I will point this out to the doc... but I'm really struggling with this.  2 weeks so far... I've seen online reports it can go in a few days or a few months... it better get tae fuck a bit quicker than that.

Ahthankyew

Update... I got some more Betahistine Dihydrochloride which is basically serc 24 and... about 4 hours later started to feel human again... symptroms have reduced considerably... I will discuss with the doctor on Tuesday.

Update 2 I postponed my appointment as I do feel considerably better, with almost...almost..no vertigo for 2 days on the trot.. I dunno however if this is due the the Serc masking the condition... so I've decided to wait a few more days this week, then tail off the Serc, and see if symptoms return... if so, back to the doctors... if not... cured :D

Glen Hansard died.

Last week, he passed away, apparently crashing on his motorbike near Dublin,  and I've been surprised by just how much this as impacted on me. 

I truely love this mans music.

I don't have all his albums but I have quite a few, and many especially the Swell Season, Strict Joy, are pretty much on every play list I have.  

I watched so many of his live performances on Youtube, often just him and his beat up guitars, playing and singing with more emotion and fire than anyone I ever saw. I wish I'd got to see him live, but he never played anywhere near where I was...pity.

I sang his songs with bands, and more often by myself, poorly but with feeling, and really felt he was one of the most gifted and talented songwriters and performers alive. His songs really get into your soul if you want to be poetic, there was just something about them, love, loss, happiness, anger, sadness, remorse, guilt, redemption,  he tickled every heart string with poetic words and that amazing voice and passion he put into every one.

And now he's gone, the sense of loss that his fans are feeling is deep.

I watched his wake and funeral live on Youtube and could see the amount of love and sense of loss that his passing has caused, I've shed a few tears watching his loved ones and his fans express how much they will miss him..

I will miss him too.

Far too soon. RIP.

Ahthankyew

More health scares?

Had something horrible happen to me when I woke up Saturday very early in the morning, and turned over in bed... the room just started to spin at an astonishing rate and like a gyroscope pushing back against motion, I was totally unable to complete the turn, I fell back overwhelmed with motion sickness as the room flashed before me.

The spinning took about 20seconds to stop... Bugger, I must have been drunk last night, was my 1st thought... but... nope, I literally had one small glass of whiskey and lemonde as a thrist quencher rather than a session..

So I carefully get out of bed, slightly uneasy and get myself some water and go back to bed...noting that I can't move my head left or right without the spinning. I fully expected this to go away with a bit more sleep

It didn't... I was able to pinpoint it happened when I put my head in certain positions, and from then tried hard to avoid those, but this was very odd..

A bit of googling revealed I had something called BPPV, a type of vertigo that can be caused by....nothing at all, just happens.

I decded to wait till Monday to see if it died down, but it didn't ...off to the docs. Jirawan called a local clinic for me but they were not open, so she called the hospital to check if we could go in...yes.

Off we went, Jirawan driving as I can't honestly be trusted to drive if I get a dizzy spell. Registered at the desk and took basic details, then informed us the doctor was in surgery till 2,30 could we come back.

No problem, since we were going to go to the house site and take videos.

Off we went, and came back... I was seen by the doctor within 20mins, and she diagnosed the BPPV , though an attempt to check my ears was thwarted by 60+ years of accumulated ear wax, which she happily used a vaccuum tool to remove, with great delight showing the lumps of a future candle to Jirawan...
BPPV is harmless but unwelcome, it's caused by little crystals in your inner ear getting into the semi circular parts of the ear and throwing your balance off, the crystals are usually in a different part of the ear naturally but somehow get detached...your inner ear tells your brain you're falling when you're not and then you get intense motion sickness and balance issues that take you off your axis.

I was then taken to side room, to sit on a bed, where a series of positional head movements are done, which are designed to move the crystals back into the safe part of your ear, but.... in the process it triggers the vertigo, and you have to not move....which... is.....horrible.....

Anyway, she repeated this horror 2 times... and told me to be very careful not to move my head around too much or too quickly for a day or 2...and to sleep as upright as I can..

She also prescribed some drugs for the motion sickness, and some vitamin B12....no idea why.

Total time in the hossie, about 1.30mins, total cost... about 34 euros... wow... good service, good price...

I still have the vertigo though, it is better though, but its not quite cleared, but I have a follow up on Friday, and a Doctor friend of mine on Facebook has given me details of  very similar positional excercises I should do 3 times a day, so I will try those..

In the meantime, no driving...

Ahthankyew

Quick and cheap health care

edit, this a few weeks ago, but for some reason I didn't publish it, it got stuck in draft....

Yesterday I had an appointment at RAM skin clinic, to check out what I thought were two large moles (chest and back) which I'd had for a while but noticed were growing after seeing some holiday photo's from a few years back.

Booked appointment, was a bit late due to traffic, and went to main Hospital clinic, but got a golf buggy shuttle to the skin clinic who were ok about my lateness..
Saw the doctor within 10 mins. He reassured me they were just harmless but large, skin tags, a bit big for the band removal method but possible. What would I like to do?

I wanted them gone so he agreed to cut them off and I took a seat in the waiting room. 10 more minutes and I was called into a treatment room.
Small injection, stings a bit but not too bad, chop chop, bit of cautarization and flip over for the one on my back.

All done in less than 30mins, total cause 3,348 bhat... less than 90 euros.

Now... when I was in the NL (we left Dec 2025), I went to my doc in August, who sent me to a specialist in November, who was going to refer me to the local skin clinic for removal sometime in 2026.... I didn't really have time to follow that through as we were about to move to Chiang Mai...

Now I'm told RAM is one of the more expensive places to pay for things out of pocket, but honestly... I'm very happy with the service, the process and the price.

Oh btw I do have insurance, but because I'd seen the doctors in NL beforehand, it was excluded as a pre-existing condition.

We will continue to use small clinics, or government hospotals for minor issues we can pay out of pocket. The insurance we keep for big emergencies.

Ahthankyew

I'm legal again

I made mistake, quite a big one... in thinking that my International Drivers Permit allowed me 3 years of driving in Thailand.... it does not. While the IDP is valid for 3 years, in fact you are only allowed to use it for 3 months in Thailand...oops...this was a bit of a shock, and as soon as I found out I curtailed my driving and started collecting the paperwork to get my license exchanged.

This, turned out to be a bit of a chore, for a number of reasons.. First I needed a Certificate of Residency...actually 2, car/bike. A quick trip to Immigration and 120baht later, I get.... a tracking number for my post in about 3 weeks.

oh.. oh so we wait, Jirawan has to do the driving.

3 weeks come... and no sign,... But I get a call from a Thai number that immediatly hangs up on me when I greet the caller in English... 30 mins later, the Thai chat app, Line, pings me with what I assume is spam friend request, I get a lot of those.. but no... it is in fact someone in our neighbourhood who got my CoR.. her boyfriend was the hang up who didnt speak English. It seems our house numbers contain the same digits, but in a different order...and those wrong numbers are on the paper work..ooops.

I assume that I must have filled out the form wrong and transposed the digits, but no... they send the certificates to..the address on your TM.30, a legal document you get from immigration that registers where you are living....and on checking, indeed the TM.30 is wrong, but we'd never noticed it.

So I start panicking as I am prone to do when official things go wrong. But Jirawan calmly takes my tm30 to immigration, gets if fixed, then we collect the faulty CoRs, and go to immigration to get them fixed....next day...excellent.. no charge. Jirawan is amazing at doing such fixes.

So... now I have the paperwork. we go get medical certs, which is nothing more than a rubber stamp of health if you can actually walk into the doctors office with a heartbeat...... 800baht. and I need 2, 1 for bike, 1 for car.

Next step, according to the DLT website you can no longer walk in and wait....so you have to register with the DLT smart que app......its not smart... in fact, its the opposite of smart... but after struggling with it for hours, if finally let me get to the point of booking a day.....in October, 3 months away... my certs only have 30 day lifespans.

arrh... I again start stressing and getting wound up when Jirawan says just turn up.. I can't, I snap, they say I have to book.... 
But Jirawan calls them up... talks to someone, who tells us to get down to the DLT now, they will check our docs and give us a quicker date..

We rush down, to get there before closing...and indeed they check our docs, and give us a date.... tomorrow.

wow.

Now tomorrow is today and off we went at 9-30, was seen almost immediatly, docs, checked, some very very simple eye and co-ordination tests taken. And wait for 30 mins... 
Number called, pay 310 baht, go to queue for photo...

10 mins later I walk out with 2 shiny license.

Yes there is a lot of beaurocracy in Thailand, so much paperwork and steps to be taken, but the simple fact is, if you have a brilliant Thai wife... its all sabai sabai.

Ahthankyew

Ok... that is a lot...I mean... a lot of rain

Smokey season was interesting, it basically didn't start, despite all the warnngs, and doom sayers, Feb then, March.  April came with nothing to worry about......then......

When it did come it was horrific, the air was rancid, the sky was at times blocked out and it really was shocking, for about 4-6 weeks Smokey season was all anyone could talk about... We stayed in with our air purifiers running full tilt.. Going out, we didnt' actively wear masks, but some days, ok it was just safer to wear one...

But it passed, and gave way to the "rainy" season, the 1st rains were light, refreshing and cooling and most importantly washed the skies clear we had some truely wondeful weather, and despite a few showers which did that clearing, rainy season didn't really rain a lot. I scoffed at rainy season..

Lots of lovely clear days, I got a nice set of tee-shirt then vest, tan lines riding my bike around. Things were good until maybe 5pm when a nice light shower would clear things and we'd have a warm maybe humid evening to look forward to.

So rainy seasons, didn't really start.........

And now it has..... I'm thinking of building an Ark.... I may be able to persuade the neighbors to help... we need to be quick.

Ahthankyew

A cure???

Time for some embarrassing medical issues, a few years ago, I noticed some issues with my bowels... basically, a lack of regularity, and timing issues. I went from being a normal poo in the morning person to, 2 or 3 poos at semi random times... 
Not the most unusual of things in old fat jocks with a liking for fried fast food.. But I did notice in my 50's a lot more urgency to get to the loo...and on 1 occasion some unpleasant consequences to finding the train station loo closed......oh yes, had to do the waddle of shame to get home...

Now... like most old farts I didn't really do anything about this, didn't go to the docs, even when the urgency of needing to go went from being, when you get home go to the loo, to, you're going to shit yourself in 3...2.......

Then I had a an episode where I had severe pain and felt very ill, and went to the docs, who did that palpation of my tummy trick which just about knocked me out from the pain..... I had a problem... and was hospitalized. Where they discovered I was having an episode of Diverticulitis... basically an infection in my bowl that could have turned very nasty... 

The primary cause was an undiagnosed underlying condition called Diverticulosis... you can look it up, but basically there are malformations of my bowl resulting in little thin pockets forming in my gut, and can from time to time pop or otherwise become infected, leading to the Diverticulitis.

This... explained my irregular bowel movements, my gut has issues moving things down to the colon, which means the regularity and consistency of my bowel movements is highly variable.

Ok so I got an issue, the problem is there's really no cure for it.. Other than taking drugs like Loperamide (Imodium ) to shut your bowels down, which has knock on issues and can give you constipation if you do this a few days in a row... also not nice as struggling to poo can make the diverticulosis worse.....

But for the most part I have managed this for a few years, taking Imodium when I know I have to be out and about for a few hours, and trying hard to stay at home the next day, or 2, not taking any, knowing when the Imodium wears off, and I can get access to the loo. But this is rather restrictive.

Now... there are of course contributing factors to this, my weight and my diet being the 2 biggest things I have some control over.

I'm afraid I have been very bad at managing my weight, and I'm surrounded by so much wonderful food in Thailand, but a lot of it is low fibre, when I need a high fibre diet.

I tried various granola/cereals but they have the opposite effect on me, providing loose movements, and the added random 3,2, 1 go... problem.

So to the point... I think I have discovered something, though only a few weeks into it. I tried to do a bit of a fasting diet... and don't eat now until around 5. And.... I've noticed there's a direct connection to my eating and an hour or 2 later...needing to go.

Basically if I don't eat, I don't shit...... which is a perfect, but impractical result... it sounds more obvious than it is, but there's sound reasons behind this.. my system kinda shuts down when there's nothing to digest, but when  there's  food to be processed, my digestive system kicks in, but starts with initiating the clear some space now protocol, which is causing most of my issues.

If I don't eat in the mornings, I seem to be ok for the rest of the day, after I eat however, all bets are off....But that gives me some margin of control when I can be at home/near a loo.

Lets see how it goes?

Ahthankyew

NOW its almost 6 months

I kinda miscalculated the 6 month mark, but its coming up now.. I have to do my 1st 90day report this week, which is going to be a big step... After this 1st one in person, I can do it online each time which saves a lot of waiting in line.

The house is progressing well, though there's a bit of a conflict over the window arrangement on our extended bedroom 4. I missed the plan which has 3 windows in the room, 2 narrow opening ones, and a larger square sliding one. The sliding one isn't very obvious on the plan... and yeah so we have 3 windows, 2 different types... it looks a bit silly and prevents clean walls to place beds/wardrobes etc... sadly we didn't see this till the brickies built the wall.. We hate it.. so we're having to get that changed, to just 2 windows, Jirawan favours 2 of the square ones. I'd prefer the 2 narrow ones... But am not pushing hard, Jirawan gets the final say but either way it means knocking out bits of the wall to fix it.. so that's a cost... not massive but annoying.

Other than that, the sense of scale of the house is starting to make itself felt. It's going to be a  nice cosy home, nowhere near the massive scale people said it would be, its a cosy house with a 4 good sized bedrooms. But the lounge is medium sized, the office is small, the kitchen is decent...the Thai ki...ahhh that's a point

We have had to change that.. the idea of having two kitchens at the rear of the house had to be dropped, when we realised Bed4 was just too small. Hence we extended that room into where the rear Thai kitchen was.. That made the Euro kitchen a little bigger, with an added pantry.  But had to drop the Thai Kitchen. But only for a while, we plan to build it as an extension.

We did ask the builder to draft an extension to the back of the house with a Thai Kitchen, laundry area and BBQ patio, but they wanted far too much money for it, 475K... We couldn't see a way to cost that out in our budgets even though we can trim or drop some things (like solar) so we are going to wait till the build is done and stabilize our funds, then see what options we have, 

When we do get that extension done, then the house will seem bigger with that outdoor area opening things up..

Aside from that... we're now at the costing for fixtures and fittings, aside from bathrooms, we don't get partial furnishing with this, unlike a house purchase, so its up to us to source and fit, or get fitted, all the basic furniture we need. 

We currently rent, so we have had no reason aside from TV's and computer gear to buy anything... so kitting out the whole house is expensive.. But we are going to go minimal to start with and build up. Once the big outlays are done we can make minor purchases over the coming years, like everyone else does.

It does however mean fitting 2 main bedrooms, getting basic content in 2 others. Lounge and Dining Room furniture and of course the  now main kitchen, with the Thai kitchen to follow a few months later.

Another big expense will also be Solar, we have nearly 100m2 of roof we can put panels on, and we will use as much as we can afford to power a 10Kw inverter and battery system, to help us power the house, from the sun... We won't be entirely off grid, but we should be able to count our electric bills in pennies rather than 10's or 100's of pounds 
Scheduling the pricing for that is fun, but we've got a few quotes now from 320-420k, we will be looking for one more... surprisingly the lowest may not be the best as their quote lacks detail in the type and quality of the components but it does gives us a window into how much

Life here however, continues to be calming and peaceful... I spend far too much time on the computer without being especially productive though... So we're trying to get out more as part of the Kill Brian with Exercise campaign.. Both of us need to lose weight so we're going out and about more to sightsee and walk and cough...exercise.

Ahthankyew

Almost 6 months

We're nearly at the 6 month mark since we left NL to come to Thailand, its been a fairly uneventful transition for us I have to say.

Perhaps its just because we basically did it right, we got our rental place sorted before we jumped, in a nice area. We shopped around for the right house before deciding to build in another nice area. We have had no real issues with our visa applications or money issues, and perhaps most important, Jirawan and I are very happy having a nice quiet life not filled with social engagements or pub crawls..

We both like and enjoy Thai food, and have found sources of quality western food for the odd days when I can't take another fiery mouthful of something.

We enjoy a peaceful, low cost, low maintenance lifestyle that is easy to adapt to and allows us to enjoy the simple reality of retirement...peace and quiet.

Also of course we came with enough funds.. we're far from rich, but we have the proceeds from our house and asset sales, which buys us the new house and lets us live in reasonable comfort for the next 4.5 years. Then the pension will actually make us 2-3times better off each month giving us a chance to renew our funds which will have depleted by then.. Not having to worry about how to pay the bills is a massive +++ to your lifestyle.

That does still need some control though.. There's a problem with being a multi millionaire in a candy store... even if the candy seems cheap, the more you buy, the sooner you stop being a multi, then a singular,  and then end up short of funds down to your last 100K . 

But we're being careful...locking some cash away into high interest pension funds, and drip feeding interest bearing euros into our non interest bearing Thai account at a rate of 50-60K baht a month seems to be the correct target for us. 

In fact that 50K also includes our current 20K rent, so when we move we'll have even less to pay out, so that 50K will go even further.

Climate wise, I am adjusting... the recent smokey seasons and scorching summer heat was uncomfortable for everyone, but we find ourselves snuggling at home in our office/study watching UK TV on our VPN systems, not missing out on too much. In fact, VPN and subscription TV is really our only real indulgence, since I am not a beer drinker/party beast we're not pissing money away on pointless things. I do like to go for the occasional meal out though, but 20quid for a nice meal is a once a fortnight thing....

But we will probably ship out to somewhere south next year to escape the smoke.. a lot of people escape for a few months to condo's or resorts to escape it.. we will maybe do the same.

The house build is progressing, we had a minor concern once we stood in the house framework and realised that the downstairs 4th bedroom was not going to be big enough, it was basically a cupboard/box room.. 

Far too small for our envisioned use by people who can't get up/down stairs. We suspect in 10-20 years that might be us. So not having enough room for a Zimmer frame or wheelchair to get to the bed was just not going to work. I felt a bit miffed that wasn't obvious from the plan, even if we didn't see it, the architect probably should have flagged it. But blame isn't a resolution, we identified the issue, had a conversation or 2 about it, and Jirawan came up with a masterful plan to reorganize the layout to make the room bigger, at the expense of shuffling the kitchens.. This will give us the bedroom we need and make some parts of the Thai kitchen a bit nicer too... though it will cost a bit more as we have to add that Thai kitchen as an extension now.. we're waiting to hear how much, so we can argue to cut it in half :D
 

6 months in 10 days though... only once had to set a wake up alarm, enjoying life, enjoying everything and finding myself less and less bothered when things don't go to plan, after 40 years of working in environments where plans need to be strictly adhered to, letting that go has proven to be a slow but beneficial process.

Roll on the next 6 months.

Ahthankyew

Surgery..the patient will live

While in NL, I was having "treatment" for a small cyst in my left eye. Not a major issue really just a bit of a niggle that made it feel red and sore, like I hadn't slept for days... but constant. It also liked to cry for no reason at all... but the Dutch were treating it with eye drops. Sadly after several different types of drop, they agreed that surgery was the best option. Not something I was at  all happy about, as I loath having even the air pressure test on my eye at the optician..

But it needed to be done and we tried to arrange it, but sadly despite my excellent private health insurance... there was a bit of a wait.. And we had an appointment, with Thailand.

So the surgery never happened, and I planned to have it done here, but of course when I took out medical insurance they excluded it from the cover... bugger.. 

But it needed doing, as my eye has been getting angrier and redder as time went on, so I booked an appointment with a specialist eye clinic...They booked me in for a consult at my convenience, and doc had a look, agreed it probably wouldn't respond to any more drops after so long, and he could take it out today...

Ulp.... today... ermm no, I hadn't built myself up to that yet... and we had a road trip planned at the weekend, so we set a date 1 week from then, and sure enough. In I went, a few valium to calm me down, then off to a private room, on the bench, needle in eye to numb... which was the worst bit, I did flinch a lot, that panicked them. But once a pretty nurse held my hand I was a big brave boy and the jab was done. Waited a minute and he was off..snipped or slipped it out...in under a minute. Doc was happy, it was a clean flat cut, so no need to stich it, just keep it well lubricated with drops and take a few pills to avoid swelling.

Now..it was a good outcome, so far at least... 2 days later I don't really have much discomfort and don't seem to need to wear the eyepatch, but it will take a few more days to heal.

However... it fucking scared the shit out of me and I still hate having my eyes messed with... so no way in hell will I be doing Lasik or other eye stuff unless I realllllllly need it.

Total cost, consult, drugs, surgery and a lab biopsy just to be sure, came out just under 20K Baht.... about 520euros.... not bad for instant treatment is it?

There's a lot of people here saying insurance is a mugs game and I kinda see why when you can get things like this done so quickly and relatively cheaply. 

But this was a simple 10min procedure... imagine the cost of a heart stent, or major abdominal surgery, broken bones, cancer care, etc... yes you probably could pay them, up to 10, 20K euros... but the drain on your finances is very real.. 

Though I did this as a private patient, I'm happy to use the government hospitals for any minor ailments or injury I might have, its not free for me, (it is for Jirawan), it might take a bit longer to see specialists, etc... but the cost is very cheap.. So the insurance is protection against big events, high costs and not just comfort.

It is reassuring to know that health care is easy to access and affordable here, lets hope I don't need it too often.

Ahthankyew

Marriage Visa

After being here 4 months, 3 months on the waiting for visa status, 1 month extended awaiting approval. I now have the final 11 month stamp on my marriage visa.

So am now "officially" able to live here, not work, not yet, though not sure there's a real need to work at this point.

Our savings/house equity, are funding the building of our house and future financial needs just fine, and there's a little interest coming from those funds, but that will decrease as it is used for the build... But we have enough to last the 4.5 years until the pensions start to kick in.  A bit more wouldnt hurt though, so hopefully I will get a few bob in book royalties.

My 1st 4 months have been quiet, there's no doubt, we're living a quiet comfortable life in a nice rented house, eating sensibly and not going out too much, though we do like to find nice places to eat, we've resisted the 5000bhat western style places.. We tend to eat locally and cheaply 2 or 3 times a week, and of course Jirawan is in her element cooking up food she picks up for comparativly nothing at the markets. Or just getting premade from the noodle bars. 

I see a lot of expats complaining that Thailand isn't cheap any more.... I suspect they've not been home for a while :D prices may indeed have risen here over the years but they did so in spades back in their home country. Thailand is still cheap as chips as long as you get out of holiday spending mode as quick as possible.

The air quality though....oh thats pretty bad here. Yes we knew about it, yes we were all warned, but wow... somedays its like fog and its going to stay this way for a couple of weeks more at least, maybe a month...It has curtailed some of our trips to landmarks, walk abouts etc...but its also suuuper hot at the moment, temps up to 40-42 are hitting some days, so staying home in the air con room is wise..

But overall, my 1st 4 months have not been too overwhelming, I am failing miserably at learning Thai, and Jirawan isn't the best translator in the world, she tends to have conversations with people I want to ask questions about things, rather than just simple translate and reply... but she can't help chatting away to people. Her friendly nature finds a conversation in even the most mundane of interactions, she's not really interested in how high will the wall be, when the builder has a family story to tell :D

I can't wait for the rains to come and things to cool down and the air to clear, yes I also know those rains are apocalyptic in nature but its going to be wonderful to see and really smeel some fresh air.

Yes 1st 4 months, great, next 4 months, expecting rain, then looking forward to the cooler "winter" season where will will do a bit more exploring. Next year for sure though we're going to bug out and go south during the burning season... Condos in Hua Hin and places like that are cheap enough when we're no longer paying rent here.

Ahthankyew

I hope I'm wrong.....

I think I have found a potential downside to living in Thailand..

Bloody immigrants.... or more specifically the type of ex pats who join up local ex pat groups and do nothing but moan and complain.. have 0 sense of humour and are all opinionated mostly right maga types, or extreme left, or hippies floggin crystals.... I mean not all, but so so so many utter pricks on those forums its scary.. And when you see some of the posts, drill down to discover they are flat earth, anti vax, 60+yo with 20yo commodity wives, that rent cos they don't trust their wives to buy... oh dear god..there is a pattern.

I'm hoping its just a case of the loud ones are the pricks and the nice ones are generally quiet and rolling their eyes.. but... it does seem that for the most part ex pats here are entitled nasty pricks.

but as I say, I hope I am wrong.. 

However if not, thats fine, the very nice thing about being my age with no real cares or stress on me is I can literally walk away and ignore such people.. I don't need them in my life.

Meanwhile my eye rolling exercises are showing great results as is my block button.

Ahthankyew

Happiness is measured in many ways.

Having my babies back home is one of them
I shipped 4 over, including my Vintage Les Paul, Goldie, and my MadDog acoustic, hand picked from a small shop under railway arches in Ramsbottom of all places,...both very nice guitars which I like to play, but nothing very special....

These 2 however and very special, much loved parts of me, and I have been a bit lost without them. I did buy a cheap Acoustic to play but didnt enjoy it. And a nice G&L electric, which was more fun, but not quite my thing.... now I have my babies back, maybe some creative juices will start flowing again.


Ahthankyew

that 

Margaret, Goldie, Breedlove and Maddog are coming home

The four guitars I couldnt part with, are finally on the last leg of their trip.. After an absolute age being shuffled around, stuck in a container, being stored, being loaded and waiting.. they are finally going to be here on Friday....oh and lots of other stuff too, but my babies, especially Margaret are on their way home to pappa...

Im very excited, also a bit nevous, especially for the 2 acoustics, even though they were packed well, such intruments dont like wide ranging temp changes, so I hope all is ok when they get here.

I will update when they arrive.

Ahthankyew

Parkinsons Law multiplied

Back when I was doing Project managment, I was aware of a thing called Parkinsons law, which basically outlines the fact, that any work you have to do in a given time, expands into that given time

So give someone a 15 min job, and allow them a day to do it...it takes a day.

Well I've discovered there's a catalyst to Parkinsons Law... its called Thai weather.... its hot... so so so hot at the moment... And if you try to do ANY kind of work outdoors....it's going to take the entire day...there's no way to rush, or hurry. You need breaks to catch your breath, gulp down a gallon of cold water and to just stop for a minute to check on how much is left.

Yes you guessed it, I was doing a job outside, something I thought was simple, about an hour/90 mins, and it utterly destroyed me. 

I added to our garden watering/cooling system. Extending the mini hose to the upper part of our central tree and then around the fence to our small "alpine" (no it wasn't me that put it there) garden, so that when the water is turned on, strategically spaced nozzles, spray a fine mist out into the garden to give the little plants a drink/soaking.. 

It was a great idea... it almost works perfectly....there's a slight issue with water pressure by the time it gets to the last couple of nozzles, but it does still give a thirst quenching drip feed to the plants under it.

But it took me all day, and I am physically destroyed....

I'm going to have to adapt to this heat, but its hard work, 37+ today, and with poor air quality it wasn't easy.

But its done, for now, I have another misting set coming in a few days which will do the other side of the house, which is a smaller amount of trees/hedges to soak. So it will only take me... a day to do.

Oh and Immigration came to see me on Monday last, and didn't ask me a single question, but told Jirawan, its all fine, I just need to go get my passport stampled the day before it runs out for a full marriage Visa... So...I get to stay :D

Ahthankyew

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

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, am 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 resting 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

Did we? Actually?

Find a perfect forever home??? Wellll maybe, its certainly very close.. Jirawan and I went to go look at a house in Saraphi which to me seems like a more rural area than we are now but actually quite close to the local markets and a short car/scooter ride into town.
We saw a 4 bed house, partially furnished and part of a new area being developed, so more houses are going to be built next/opposite it.

The house itself ticks almost all our boxes, the space itself is fractionally less than we want, but not that much less.. And the price is 3.5M baht, which is about 100K... 100K for a 4 bed house.. its pretty awesome.. and gives us plenty of residual house sale funds to live off quite nicely until pensions pay out. We'd have to spend 1M or so getting an outside kitchen (Thai style) added, air con and fully furnished but thats still well within our max budget.. even below our mid budget.

So we're excited but torn.. Its too soon really to buy a house we still have to keep the rental on this place till Oct,  and there's that tiny niggle that its might be fractionally too small... (4 beds..are you insane.... no theres's still a matter of storage and stuff to consider).

So while we "could" put a bid in now, we are going to wait, since the builder informs us they will start another house next to that one in the next few months, ready around July/Aug... Now that fits in with our timeline for a new house.. and it will be fractionally bigger, not massive but fractionally.

So we are thinking this might be the approach we will take, we will also be allowed to make some tweaks to the build to accomodate our slightly odd needs,  lots of power in the office, network connections, a pantry, a western style kitchen and a purpose built Thai kitchen, and a larget balcony to sit and have drinks watching the sun go down.

We will see what transpires, but if the quality of this build can be maintained with just a smidgen more space without a massive price hike.. we may have found the perfect home... watch this space.

In the meantime I've been on a comforts of home hunt, and have discovered a pentiful supply of Pies, Bacon, HP sauce and huge Ribeye steaks... The freezer is groaning a bit under the weight of it all. but for easy 1/3 the cost of what it would be in NL I have steaks, pies, bacon, stewing meat, mince aplenty...oh and Cadbury's :D This will last months.

I am starting to enjoy myself a bit now too, there's been a sense of not quite knowing what to do with my days, but its getting easier.. I get up, when I wake up, not before, do a bit of coding work on the book stuff, check the forms, not much activity still, then we decide what we plan to do today... and we do it... no stress... its great.

Ahthankyew

A sense of purpose....

Yeahhhh that... its missing.. I am certainly enjoying getting up without alarm clocks, but my days don't currently have a massive sense of purpose. I have some support work to finish on my Book website, which is proving problematic as my nice new Mini PC while a very solid bit of kit, isn't quite up to the job of doing video edits... dammit, more money needed on a new PC soon.

But overall, yeah... I am finding the lack of purpose to be quite a factor.. As I get fewer and fewer emails from students (basically none) asking for help I find my need to check up on them, also reducing..

Its bascially called letting go...that sense of responsibility and need to help, no longer has a purpose in our new life and it is...honestly a bit scary.

The Book website needs to be my prime focus for at least the next month or so, starting to get readers contacting me... so I suspect once I get enough of them asking for help I will again have some purpose.. But overall..its quiet....too quiet :D

Ahthankyew

Last of the purchases?

Yeah I think I am getting a little too shopee happy. Its a great service and no doubt that things are quite a bit cheaper here than in NL but I need to start cutting back. A few hundred/thousand saved is still a few hundred spent.

But I am feeling good about my last, and not very expensive purchase, a new split slanted keyboard.. It does feel a lot less sensitive and less prone to random accidental key presses than the other I had.  

Theres something reassuring about a full size keyboard where you can press one button to print screen/calculator and scroll lock... much nicer, it doesn't have the reassuring click but it works nice.

Also my 2nd last purchase was a stream dock to help control some of my video recording and editing, I bought the really nice Elgato prompter from Amazon last week and it arrived a few days ago, awesome ... But the dock lets me contol the OBS display with 1 button presses instead of lots of clicking and ticking.

But that needs to be it... enough spending on things I don't need now, all the main things I use for coding/recording and music making are now replaced and in some cases enhanced. Time to take care of the pennies.

Ahthankyew

Funds transferred and more purchases

And with my nice new bank account in place, I managed to transfer funds from euros to baht so the required 400K baht visa funds are now in place 

Still only one account though and not an interest bearing account as far as I can tell but for now that's ok.
Get the visa extension and we can then go to the bank and ask for something we can lock those funds into rather than have them in a general non interest account. Since we basically have to keep 400K baht in that account at all times to allow us to continue to extend the visa each year, it's better to lock it away in a long term savings account and have it make a bit of money. 

Though interest rates here are very low....and... worryingly as far as I can tell, savings with interest are only available to Thais, at least with the options I've been presented.. But we'll see. 

Having that account and card and ability to use my phone to pay is a big factor for buying things here. We do still have a couple of large purchase we want to make. Some household things, and a Scooter to get around when the car is in use, for example. 

But even every day things like Grab need that thai based money. The Revolut card is awesome for paying for things, but it's not accepted everywhere.. and of course there's costs when you turn euros into baht even on their internal accounts. 

The sooner overall we have most of our money transferred the better, but right now we are making some sweet interest in the EU which is offsetting some of those transfer costs, so we'll delay the transfer of the house purchase money as long as we can. 

The Chippy, I reported on in October has moved premises and I thought I would give it another go... and...well... same problem, amazing chips, disappointing tasteless fish, couldn't even tell if it was Haddock or Cod. I guess it's just what it is, there's no North Atlantic fish markets here to hand so the fish they have is clearly frozen stock and it just loses a lot of its flavour over the shipping time. 

Pies are probably a better bet. I can't see me staying away but I can't see me being a weekly regular either. 

I'm in the process of ordering a stockpile of some superb Thai farmed beef though from an Aussie farmer in another Thai state who breeds Wagyu cattle, so getting me a load of steaks, stewing steak and mince to load up the freezer for nice meals. This will be pricey but...once a week, western cooking à la Brian will be on the menu at chez Beuken. I can restock every 3-4 months. 

And meet Sky, my one big pressie to myself... No its not GAS, I am not going on a spending spree of guitars, sadly my main guitars are stuck in Netherlands still, Our container assigned before Christmas was cancelled. So our goods are currently awaiting allocation to another container...Can't say I'm happy about this but  apparently it is not uncommon. So my guitars are in that shipment and may be a few more months away. So I needed to get a guitar to play.. Can't not have a guitar... I do have a fairly shitty ovation copy acoustic, but need an electric.. and here she is, a nice G&L Tribute, mid price strat copy, and I have to say I like this a lot. At least until Margarent and Goldie get here.

Now that I have a decent guitar to play I can put my gear back together, finally doing something with my Voicelive3ex I meant to do for years (why the fuck didn't you then...dozy) Put it all on 1 pedal board with a single plug. A cheap power brick under the board powers the VL3 and the HB wireless and it fits in 1 bag to transport.

I'm hoping to locate some musical peeps in the area, even though we can't perform in public here, try to get back into some kind of rehearsals....though not in a massive rush.  

My fingers are still a little painful after my December shower mishap, but slowly getting more flexible, playing guitar is helping. I have a black nail coming through on my middle finger which shows some internal bleeding took place, hmmm guess I was luckier than I thought.

Ahthankyew

Big Boy stuff

Feeling pretty happy with myself today, after a disaster on Wed, not making it to immigration on time, and a total waste of time at a couple of our local bank branches trying to open accounts, I was not a happy bunny at being unable to open an account.

Part of that was the fact that the tellers never talked to me, they spoke directly to Jirawan and I was totally out of the loop, which made it super hard for me to explain exactly what I wanted or to understand exactly why they were unable to do it. Some bizzare excuses were mentioned. I mean totally irrelevent documents including some which were pure fiction (Certificate of residence from the dutch embassy in bangkok????)

Anyway, the banks opened up today in the main shopping malls at least, and I went to town armed with my paperwork to try on my own.... then promptly forgot my paperwork which I left in the car as Jirawan drove off.... doh

Fortunately I just needed to get my online lease printed out which I did at the mall, they had a small print shop I just needed to send them the document and they printed...

And then I went to the bank.  I was told, with no real way to be sure it was true, that SCB was the easiest to work with but the queues were mad, so I went to KasikornThai which I was told with the same lack of certainty, had the best online app.. in English.. There was a big queue there too but I took a ticket and was about to sit down when my number was called...wow...There was a specific teller who's job was to open accounts and she was just finished. 
Sit down, explain I need an account for visa extension and heres my passport and TM.30 which were in my very manly shoulder baggagggge and I had my printed lease... she did a bit of reading, a bit of typing and, then proceeded to go through the process of opening my account, installing my app and setting up everything I needed.

In 15 mins or so, I had an account and app and a debit card... no stress.. 

Now... the fun part is getting money from NL to Thailand.... I can make international transfers, done it many times, but this time it decided right at the death to use an old card slot e-reader to verify the transfer.. Something I have never been asked to do before...and of course... I do have a card based e-reader.... but probably in a box sitting in a warehouse at Rotterdam harbor awaiting shipping.

Buggeration.

I was able however, with a bit of faffing to increase my card limit to send money to my Revolut card, then transfer that to Thai Baht in the cards dual currency account,  at a decent enough rate, then, send it to my account...which then flagged it as suss and asked me to verify...but thats fine, a wise precaution; I verified and a few mins later my funds are on the way. What a faff...

Now thats done, those funds need to stay in the account for 60 days, to allow me to qualify for the marriage visa which needs to have 400K baht in an account for said 60 days... basically they will have to stay there until Im 67 and claiming pension to prove I have enough money to bury me if I pop off or something.

So I've completed an important step to long term living here, getting the account and the money in (should be there by the 6th) in time for the 90 day cut off point to apply for the extension is done... just the paperwork for the visa to do now and I've hired an agent to do 95% of that for us.. 

One more tick on the todo list.

 

Ahthankyew

Home....office

Aside from a little cable tidying, my new office is up and running, yes I am missing a 4 port KVM and a 16 port network switch and a white board, but overall those are not bad issues, I no longer need 10 machines running at once, 2 maybe 3 is just fine. I have to not regret the things I left behind or threw away, everything is replacable if needed... just not sure its needed.

I bought most of the gear from Shopee or Temu so it was dirt cheap (the 2nd monitor was less than 50 euros and tbh you can feel that cheapness, but it works fine... and just as I said that the monitor sparked out for 1 second... I hope thats not a habit). A standing desk was something I had at work, I didn't use it often but I do find it stretches you out a bit to stand sometimes while working, so I took the chance to get one for less than 75euros....lol I mean... why not.

I also got some cheap as chips podcast lights on stands, which really do make a massive difference to the quality of video recordings I want to make for book readers and tutorials.

I had expected to spend a few grand on new gear, but I barely broke 750.... impressive.

So now things are in place its time to find the right time to do work...we need a bit more routine in our lifes. The Jetlag, combined with basic shopping/settling in has been rough, but its a new year so its time to try to make some new routines... not resolutions, they never work.. just a pattern of behaviour that will help us adjust to our new lives as unemployed layabouts :D..sorry retiree's.

The office is also my music room, and I've bought a few things there, which are included in the 750 or so including a cool cheap copy of my roland street cube amp.. This isn't quite complete though, need my electrics to arrive later this month, or next then I can noodle about a bit more (sore fingers permitting)

Yes.. I'm very very happy with my new home office/studio. I hope to be quietly productive here and get all those things I wanted to do done, y'know the things work got in the way of... :D

  

 

Ahthankyew