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