You can not be serious.... no really

I lost my appeal, on the grounds that goods/services were delivered....

It seems the fact those services didn't produce any valid result or resolve an easy (for them) fix to a simple problem does not mattter, not does the fact I have unusable tickets...they are still goods.

utter utter utter nonsense from Paypal Its now valid to do no work for services charged and to deliver faulty goods with no comeback...great work...not.

Of course  with no options I contacted eDreams and SIA and guess what..... nothing we can do contact SIA<-> eDreams...

But, there's a tiny glimmer of home, the SIA agent, who I think was human (it said it was) mentioned that the issue is probably due to the small local airline at the Singapore to Chiang Mai end, ,SIA can't change those tickets (only eDreams can)  so I contacted Scoot and got a "human" agent, who said.....

yes we can change that for you, we'll need to call you back about it so give us your number and wait for our call.

Can you also change our SIA details to to correct the gender and spelling? I asked .... and yes we can do that too.

wtf.....

ok well that sounds promsing, but so far... no call, but I do have a case number and a transcript of the conversation so If nothing happens by Tuesday I will try and ping them again.

you can't make this shit up can you...ai bots are just the worst things ever when you need a human to look into the harm this denial of service results in its nowhere to be seen.

Ahthankyew

You/re shitting me!

Despite a mountain of evidence of their lack of competancy or care, I lost the paypal claim, it seems they don't think that payment protection counts in cases of services not being up to scratch..

But I have appealled... we'll have to see.

if the appeal fails I am litterly stuck, as its impossible for either eDreams or SIA to move to a sensible arrangment, though SIA are willing to discuss with eDreams and even have a specialist sales team who will we happy to come to some kind of compromise.. eDreams just sticks to its, not my problem response.

One thing I did discover from SIA though is that the actual cause of all this is the flight from Singaport up to Chiang Mai on a short commuter flight, its an small local airline, and they won't allow the tickets to be changed...

If they can just change the ticket between Singapore and Amsterdam I will pay for a cancellation and rebook on the local flight, its a few hundred euros, but if it stops this crap I'll do it..

Still shocked that PayPal refused... hope my appeal wins.

Ahthankyew

How am I supposed to sleep now....

23.59 came and went... no update on my case.

not much I can do I guess, but dammit this is really making me stress out.

Ahthankyew

My suspenders are killing me

Every day I've checked the status of my case dispute with eDreams on paypal, and for over 217years its been labled as "in review". No amount of checking every 2 minutes has changed it...

I hate having to wait days on end for what really should be a very simple case of them not providing a service they charge for and clearly don't even attempt to deliver. But thats the way it works.

Today, is the day, and I'm sure it will not come through until 23.59 hours, probably even a we need a few more days.

I honestly can't see anyway they could find against me, I documented every stupid email, every yes we'll fix that for you, no we can't fix that contact SIA, and every SIA reply, sorry but edreams needs to contact us.  As well as their, sorry we'll try something else, sorry they didn't reply, and the coup de grace, we've concluded this is your problem..... utter rubbish. That leaves us with a useless unusable ticket for Jirawan.

The stupid circular blame game is exactly what the paypal claims is supposed to help with.

But its a lot of cash over 3700euros and the great irony is when we get it back, it might not be enough to rebook the flights which get more expensive each week closer to the fixed date we have to for our trip.

There's reports that Thailand is having a massive downtrun in tourist numbers, that might help, but so far the flights are still about 5% more than when we booked them, so we might just need to book a cheaper hotel..

But one thin is certain, I can't do anything at all until I get a we find in your favour reply from PayPal. which is due sometime today........nope, still nothing......nope, still nothing.

Ahthankyew

now we wait

And eDreams responded ot PayPal, sadly I don't get to see the response, but it can only be, user made a mistake, we tried to help, SIA's ssue or similar.

I can't see any situation where Paypal would not see the astonishing lack of service provided by these jokers, but we have to wait and see. Hopefully only a few days.

We need to rebook these tickets asap as every week we delay the price goes up, and availabilty of flights goes down.

Fingers crossed.. but honestly its not supposed to be this hard to book simple flights in this day and age...

Never use a booking agent again, no matter what apparent advantages they say they offer, they simply don't deliver and in eDreams case, lie through their teeth.

Ahthankyew

and they reply after 11 days

4 days after their deadline..... they send the same standard, contact SIA email.... you can't make this crap up..

forwarded to paypal, let them deal with it.

Ahthankyew

still nothing, 1 day left

eDreams, give us 7 days is almost up, if nothing here by 5pm tomorrow I escalate the case on paypal, which they have not even responded to...

Really is shocking that they can be this uselss, when they take so much money off you.

Ahthankyew

Flights not booked

What a palava.... we booked our flights to Thailand last month but when we got the tickets we noticed there was a typo in Jirawans name, not really uncommon for Thai names, we could probably have travelled ok, but worse they had her as Mr... it seems the default booking page defaults to 2 male passengers.

ok no problem you say, just contact the agent and get them to change it, yes, I did that,....and they said sure, we will fix that... and then ...sent a message saying, we can't you need to change at Singapore Airlines.

ooookaaayy, go to SIA website and manage flight, enter details, and... nope only booking agent can make changes..

ermmm... contact agent, explain they have to make the change... and.....

yes several contact SIA, SIA say contact eDreams,  sessions later

I call, (long hold) get profound apologies,  and assurances that it will get fixed, send passport pic to prove spelling and gender and wait a few days..

Wonderful

A few days later... get standard mail to contact SIA.....

and this goes on... 

The excuses vary a little, prove SIA wont fix it, we think they are wrong, we conclude its SIA's fault, we contacted them, will update, we didn't get a reply, they refused to change, we are investigating other options, contact them, and so on.

SIA are very sympathetic on the phone and online but are quite clear that we are not the customer, eDreams bought the tickets and eDreams need to make the change...eDreams don't do that and now we're kinda stuck

I asked for refund, to rebook, then told they can't be certain of a full refund....then more contact SIA nonsense.. 

Eventually I send an ultimatum, fix tickets, or full refund, otherwise I go to PayPal on the not as expected service option

Get a reply... go to the SIA website and change, its easy..... its not, and I showed you that they don't accept any change...

Few hours later......get another, contact SIA they told us its too late to change it.

Thats it... no more, full refund, or new correct tickets, no excuses....

sigh... escalated to PayPal, hopefully it should be a quick resolution their lack of service is very clear and they are causing a lot of hassle... never ever ever use eDreams... shocking company

updates to follow.

Update day1, get 2 mails, one a profound apology, 2 another, our top team are on it and we'll get it done, give us 72 hours....

I forward to paypal, as proof they do indeed have the means to fix this, and will now wait for their inevitable, you have to contact SIA reply in 3 days.... I won't respond directly.

Update, end of day 1... another email, referring to Jirawan as Mr in the greeting... so they just don't read the mail trails.. Seems theyve sent it today 29/5/25 to SIA.... I remind you they've claimed to have sent it multiple times already, and now they want 7 days to resolve... well you can talk to PayPal about that, Im not responding.

Ahthankyew

Website updates, mostly painless

As a professional, if slightly long in the tooth programmer, Ive had my fair share of oh gawwd moments when doing some boring bit of code.. But the worst type of coding is websites. I really, really really hate coding websites, and the tools available to make it "easy" do not....ever make it "easy"

But I have to say I updated my website in preperation for the 2nd edition content, pretty easily by asking my claude.ai account to take my exisiting code, and use a new template for it, and revamped everything, adding in new pages and layouts.

It was really simple a few errors and some why is it doing that questions that got answered and my site is up and running, ready to have some new content plugged in...lots of features added that would have taken me days..weeks even, all done with a simple request.

I think this is a superb way to use AI systems, but its still pretty crap for C++ game coding.

Ahthankyew

Last bit

The book is now in the publishing phase, some , probably a lot, of proof reading and formattin to be done and a few tweaks, but the publisher has announced it, and will be sendng me mock ups of the cover and 1st proofs, in the coming weeks.

In the meantime the updates to the website are progressing, starting with the all new Pi3/PC builds that will go live 1st, in the next couple of weeks, with the Pi4 content later on when the book is near ready. There's not a lot of difference, just some of the extra shader features that the Pi3 can't handle. The Pi3 does need a slightly different set up though so best to keep them seperate.

exciting times.



https://www.routledge.com/The-Fundamentals-of-CC-Game-Programming-Using-Target-based-Development/Beuken/p/book/9781032863801?_gl=1*1bhm1kg*_gcl_au*MzgwMjAwMTEwLjE3NDE0NTc2NDc.*_ga*NjcyNDgxODIyLjE3NDE0NTc2NDE.*_ga_0HYE8YG0M6*czE3NDY3MTI4ODQkbzMkZzEkdDE3NDY3MTI4OTgkajQ2JGwwJGgw&_ga=2.197532841.723068559.1746712886-672481822.1741457641

Ahthankyew

Sale now on

I've sold a few things already to friends who expressed an interest and allowed them to buy things at mates rates since I knew they wanted them.  But now its time to start being serious and start selling everything to the general market....

Given the sellers guilt I had, selling my Les Paul to Richard my old band mate I may very well end up catatonic selling the others but they have to all go, in the next 6 months or so.. And the Car, which I am very pleased to find has held its value very well, as well as the bike..which deserves someone who enjoys polishing metal more than I do. 

Im testing out the marktplats site 1st to see if it brings in some local sales, if not its ebay time... but 1st up is Frankie. I was hoping Jelmer 2 would buy her and let him take custory of her for a few months but in the end as much as he likes it he can't spend the cash... So its now up for sale... lets see..

If it goes quick I will start listing the other things and hope to keep regular sales going...

feeling the remores just posting the ad....but has to be done.

Ahthankyew

Done, now back to work

The book is done and off to production, there will be formatting and spell checking reports to deal with but they'll get it all done and it will be out in a few months.

So now back to normal services, getting stuff sold, workng on my Empires project and getting ready for my last half year at BUas. We still have a block D to do but I don't really have a lot to do in that as its a group project for all the disciplines, and programmers are working with Unreal so nothing much to teach.  Just supervision and small bits of gameplay/tech advise. They're basically on their own now.

But after summer I get 1 more block of retro game and 3/4's of Pi that I have a big hand in so I will try to go out with a bang.

Looking forward to seeing the new book on the shelves, I really hope this one stays current for longer, I made a point to make it less raspberry specific, while still focusing on the limits the raspberry imposes. If I did it well it will be a soild foundation for any new game progreammer... fingers crossed.

Ahthankyew

ouch...but ok..

Flights and accomodation are booked for our trip to Chiang Mai, in the autumn,  was a bit pricey I have to say, but 3 weeks in Thailand isn't going to be cheap, we just have to deal with it.

This time we got a hotel, no need to live like the locals we got a taste for that last year and loved it, We will be doing house hunting and hopefully bank account sorting.. Though the latter may prove hard given the recent crackdowns from banks on giving "tourist" accounts.

We're not going on a tourist visa though, so we should be ok, I'll apply for a 3 month visa closer to the time. That should make it fairly straight forward.

So now the savings have taken a bit of a hit, we need to rebuild them before October since I need 400K in Bhat available to show for the visa.

247 days to go... still not really got anything major sold yet, a few bits and bobs, but have to make sure I start listing all the small things as well as the big things. And sadly maybe have to clear out a lot of crappy stuff that has no value but might be useful to someone (like a lot of the very old SBC's)

Ahthankyew

Finishing the book

Hopefully this is the last weekend of editing and formatting for submission on the new book.. I say new, its a 2nd edition of the old book, but there is a lot of new content in there and quite a bit of rewritten/corrected content. The manuscript was done a few weeks ago but I have found the submission requirements pretty overwhelming. But thanks to a bit of help from the publishers I have only a few things let to do this weekend and it can go for proofing and typesetting. 

There will still be a few things to correct/fix/change, over the next few weeks but it will be good to get it out the door. 

I can then move on to fixing the website and the support projects which all now need updating as I use a new template for the code that allows cross platform dev. And as a bonus, I managed to get  that template to be compatible with the Pi3 content from the last book, though with a bit of fettling and re-jigging.

I'm really pleased with this new edition though, it corrects some of the waffle I had in the last one, removes some errors, and introduces some cool new stuff. I hope it sells a bit better with the cross platform focus. PC users can now get something out of it.

I kinda like writing, but hate the need to hit deadlines.  Writing, like coding comes in waves of enthusiasm and inspiraiton, if you don't have it you don't get much done, when it comes it floods...

I suspect I will write a few more books when I retie, I do actually have some ideas, I just don't know f they will be out of date by the time I get round to working on them..

Ahthankyew

A friend I never got to meet.

I find myself very upset tonight. As our plans to retire progress, part of my research has been to watch a lot of youtube videos of houses for sale/rent and also some personal vlog style videos of people who have also moved to Chaing Mai and document their expereince. 

Its quite a treasure trove of useful info to hear from someone who's been there 16 years and someone only just arriving and finding their way around.

I have a few that I regularly follow and subscribe to, and drop the odd comment on their channel. One  chap was an Aussi, my age, who has been there a year, during the course of one of his livestreams I discovered he was a model builder. A hobby I really want to get back into when we settle. We had exchanged a few simple comments and I liked his content.

He had a motorcycle/scooter accident 10 days or so , and got a bit banged up, but despite a few broken bones and bruises he did a nice livestream praising the medical teams and care he had... I dropped a few comments about wanting to pick up the modelling hobby again soon, and he said some encouraging words that when you retire having a hobby is good for you. I agree.

Sadly I just found out, he passed away suddenly a few days after that exchange, from a heart attack, walking into town for a coffee. Probably in part caused by the accident, but either way... 1 year on from moving to Thailand he dies..

Dammt, thats very sad, and he was alone over there, no family/partner.  I am sure we would have met up at some point when I move, picked up some tips on modelling  and good model shops, and been friends. So even though I never met the chap, it feels like a loss. RIP Peter at Oz ScaleModeling  https://www.youtube.com/@OzScalemodeling

 

Once again, life just isn't something you can always rely on, the dumbest things can take you out in an instant. Make sure you use up every ounce of your allocation doing nice things for yourself and others.

Ahthankyew

Or are they.....?

hmmm strange, got home today to find a letter from HMRC asking for 29.20 for a year I already paid.....

not at all sure why, but I've paid it and drafted a quick query letter that will no doubt take time to have a response but... hmmm that year is now showing as not compelte so I will assume its a mistake, not going to worry about it.

Ahthankyew

Pension up to date now

Ok

made the last of the shortfall payments HMRC  allow, and now I just pay my yearly class 2's so that in my old age, if I make it, I get my UK pension while living in Thailand.

Lets hope there's no strange changes in the pension laws between now and then. But overall I think this is good, having not realised I could make those shortfalls was a major error in my understanding of the pension system, that I wish someone had informed me of many years ago and I would not be in a mad panic now. Our HR dept really need to have someone there who handles or advises non dutch employees on such things, so many of us were unaware, and I've been spreading the word. At least 2 have found out they had shorfalls they needed to fix so thats good, but lucky the younger ones still have lots of years to make up their minumum.

So, its all done...cost a few grand but the return is very worth it. I was however expecting a bill for this years class 2, instead I got a bill for class 3, of 0,00 which I have of course paid :D

I suspect it will come through in due course. Im no longer bound by or afraid of any time deadlines. I've paid up, in time, and can now just deal with normal stuff.

phew..

Ahthankyew

Never buy from facebook scammers

Its not fair to say all facebook ads are scammers, but so many of them are, some deliberate, but most just incompetant drop shippers acting as middle men for cheap warehouse sales being scammed themselves.

Almost every time I've bought something on line from a facebook ad, I've had a totally different product sent or missing parts etc.

I think out of 5 online purchases for me and 3  or so for Jirawan, only 2 have been legit.

I recently bought a neat looking set of rechargable batteries in a nice self contained charging case. Think earpod style but for AAA and AA batteres. I tend to use a lot of them in pedals and things so having a case that kept some on charge while others were being used appealed to me.. So I risked my $35 or so and waited nearly 3 months for it to arrive... a very nice case... with no batteries.

hmm so begins a series of where are my batteries and, send us pics, and $2 offers of refunds culminating in, this item doesn't come with batteries... so escalate to paypal.

I should get a full refund, paypal tends to be pretty good at dealing with these types of scam, but not heard back yet.

Just annoying that you get so many of these daft scams, or useless dropshippers falling for other scammers promises of wealth and reward from home. Which is why I give them the benefit of the doubt sometimes. It might just be some granny with a laptop trying to make a few bucks with a shitty website, taking orders and passing them on to a chinese warehouse thinking that the 20c they make for each one adds up.

Annoying.

Ahthankyew

Test ok

My Oral cancer surgeon didn't remember me at all :D lol I feel not at all special, but no matter my appointment with Dr Van Gemeert went fine, the spots on my gums are caused by my brushing, maybe my electric brush heads are too hard, so I have to switch to softer ones.

I was a tiny bit worried, but its fine, the dentist was right to make sure.

Ahthankyew

284 days

Till my 62nd Birthday, its not going to be my actual final day here in NL but its the cut off point I've set as my retirement date. I will stiill have a final few days of work to wrap things up and close out the year. As well as to  hopefully finalise the last few things before we head off to Thailand.

We might get there before Christmas, or just after, there are things we won't have total control off until the house is actually sold, but we have set that target date to keep us focused on the clock ticking down.

can't wait.

Ahthankyew

Delay chats are hard

How bizzare

I got a letter, an actual paper letter :D from HMRC. Which actually detailed the confusion over the allocation of some class3/2 payments. 

Given it was in response to a letter I sent dated 9th Dec, replied to on 20th Feb, and recieved 7th March... its kinda out of sync.

But it does confirm they messed up the allocation of my payment which was a combined class2/3 payment for different things.

Yesterdays post about it all being resolved means that my email 2 weeks ago has in fact resolved things. So it does now kinda make sense why my NI shortfals went mental for a few days... and then all got fixed..

I also got a bill, an actual paper bill as well, fom HMRC today for...0 pounds and 0 pence.... for 24/25 class 3.. :D 0. zero.. I might have to save up to pay that.

ummm ok, there will be a bill in a few days I assume for class 2 which I will gladly pay.

It might be petty to bitch about something after its sorted but... its not a very effective system is it...

oh well..

Ahthankyew

Lots of good things

The concern about the NI payments has been resolved, and much quicker than expected. No email response, that may come later but checking the site today, I can now see that ALL my payments have been accounted for and I'm now close to the full amount of pension entitlement when Im 67. There are stll 5 years of payments to make, and I think 4 or 5  shortfall years left that will take it over the minumum contribution needed, but I'll make the shortfall payments comfortably now, and that wll give us the full amount when I hit the official age.

REALLY  happy about that. I will pay all the shortfalls even though there's no real benefit to it, since the future is uncertain I don't want to get trapped by a government change that says you need to have more years contrbution that I have now..its not a massive amount of money and the return is well worth it, so I will do my bit to keep the UK revenue funded :D

Also, though I was fairly sure about this before, a collegue at work caused me to doubt myself, and I had to call the bank to check. He suggested there was a penalty for clearing the mortgage early. Which is indeed not uncommon in the UK and other places.. But I was sure I had read somewhere that there were no charges with my bank...I called to confirm and indeed... no charge for clearing the mortgage early :D.

And a final bit of good financial news, when we sell the only real expense is the real estate agents fees, called makelaar here, about 1-1.5% yeah it sucks but needs to be paid. I've factored that into our costs. 

Our finances are firming up really well now, every month that goes by our savings are increasing and small things get sold to added to it. Time is now starting to really move fast, I mean its March already.... only 10 full momths to go.

Ahthankyew

There's some dumb shit going in in the world

Its astoninshing isn't it.. just how utterly disturbing the world is, and how its more and more being run by utter utter idiots. 

So much so that I'm starting to really lose faith in humanity. The rise of conspiracy theories in particular fascinates me. Flat earthers being one main group, who just like religious zealots utterly refuse to spend even a few moments reading a half decent science book to take note that ermmm gravity is real....and the earth is not flat!!

I mean... going through life denying the most basic of facts, we have known for 1000's of years and these days can even point to fucking photo's of... which apparently are fake.

WE, collectivly are entering an age where opinion, no matter how absurd,  is more valid than fact, and if fact does not support or even disproves our opinion, then the fact is wrong and someone, somewhere, a mythical they.... are behind it to keep us all in the dark.

Madness... just madness, flat earth, moon landing deniers, young earthers, anti vaxxers, 5G death rays, Cloud buster copper tubes, Lizard people, grounding, Adrenachome harvesting, QAnon, holistic meds, auras, spirit channelling, etc.... those are the ...good??? ones..

Not one of which, not fucking one, stands up to even a primary school kids level of scientific research... but still grown men and women proclaim proudly on social media that they know and have the truth, and gather followers to their cause.

It's levels of stupidity that I find appalling to see, and of course you get grifters cashing in writing books and holding courses to increase the following and all these idiots gather their confirmation bias as proof of their positions that have no prood of their positions.

This is clearly something hard wired in our human brains, before social media, even before literature we had religion indoctrinating the stupid into people, now its open season on whatever bullshit you want to spread.

And now... we come to politics... where more and more and more we see that history is repeating, the rise of Nazi germany is now a blueprint for political grabs for power and consolidation of that power and we have the stupid now leading the stupid to vote in even more stupid people into power... and we know what happens when you give power to people who have no idea how to use it?

We are most certainly on a road to damnation as a species, nothing can stop the march of opinon over facts, and it wont be long befoe we see cvilizations end when some moron wants to see what happens when you press the big red button.

phew... rant over... not sure I feel better, because I still have 30 or 40 years to live and watch this get worse and worse.
 

Ahthankyew

oh ok, this might be good

Or very bad.

After a bit of hunting around on the gov.uk website, I have discovered an apparent error.

they had listed two years 2009/10  and 2010/11 as being incomplete years, but it was only 37 and 95 quid to clear them, so I sent that..along with some class 2 payments in 1 payment

But somehow it got messd up and now I have to pay 800+ and 500+ and they are counting a couple of weeks self employment in those years... .hmm something went wrong, so I''ve sent an email to 3 different depts to try to resolve..

It will take forever of course, but there's plenty of time to get it sorted. I clearly gave them what was asked and they've clearly misallocated it... But that does seem to suggest, of my 5 payments made, only 3 have actually counted. so when that is fixed things will improve again.

It's kinda annoying but honestly Im not at all stressed by it, if I can finally get hold of a person to actually fix things it should all be ok. Its just good to see that things to change, even at a glacial rate.

The method of paying is the main issue, you can only send a bank transfer or a cheque, dutch banks don't to cheques any mote so transfer it is, and thats limited, you can only provide your NI numer and name with a code to pay... so if you pay more things at the same time, they probably guess at what it is you want to do with the extra money and it seems to be wrong.

Oh well, I'm not too worried as I say, it will be 5.5years before this needs to be fixed, so there's plenty of time for a few 6-8week email exchanges to correct it.

I am actually finding all this checking and rechecking all the various pensions and accounts a lot of fun. Things seem to change so often, especially after budgets of course... so far nothing has been an oh-shit, its all been oh-good kind of changes and revelations.. 

I might change my view if I do actually manage to set up a communication line with someone... but even so.. planning for retirement is really fun, 293 days to go.

Ahthankyew

and they updated

After  my last post reporting that 2 of my payments had been registered, I can now see that the other 3 have also now been registered. Didn't boost the pension by as much as I expected, it went up 6 ukp rather than 18ukp,  it works out about 3 ukp per year paid, but it did boost it, so all 5 of my shortfall payments made last year,  have now been counted.

It might take a bit longer to see if that 18ukp boost has been properly calculated, but regardless it does mean that payments made have at last been allocated to the correct years. And those years are no longer listed as shortfall years on the gov.uk site.

I paid 4 more last week, to ensure I got them in before the April deadline, so now the others can be paid at a reasonable pace before the end of the year.  I wonder if that will also take 6 months to update, we'll see soon enough.

This is good for us, it will ensure a full UK pension when I hit  67, I get to make up 5 years of deficit, and pay each year for 5 years till Im 67, and will get the full pension, currently 221ukp pw, which I assume will increase a bit in 5 years time.

It is a pity though that once I do hit 67 and start to claim,  it won't increase again, ever, under current rules. But my Dutch pension will increase due to inflation whiich givces a bit of future proofing, so I don't have to worry about being unable to buy food in my 90s

The retirement plans are starting to all come together nicely, no major roadblocks yet..

Ahthankyew

Pension fun or... not.

So I'm in a rather odd position, that when I retire at the end of the yeat, I won't have any pension. There's just not enough in the pot for me to take an early retirement with pension option at 62. So the pension needs to wait till I hit the official retirement age of 67.25 here in NL, 67 in UK.

Yes thats right I get both, a Dutch and a UK pension, basically half a standard pension for each, which is pretty good, aside from the fact I was unaware that I could continue to pay my UK NI while I was living here.

But thankfully it is possible, I have maintained my self employment while living in Netherlands doing occasional freelance gigs,  which allowed me to qualify for class 2 self employment payments to HMRC and qualify for more pension as long as I made up the shortfall of the class 2 payments that I never sent since I was living in NL.

So I've been sending money to HMRC so make up shortfalls in the years where I could have, but didn't pay those class 2. 

The problem is, they never confirm they have them, they dont let you know its been allocated to a particular year and trying to get hold of them is.... complex. Phone calls go on hold for over 30mins, where your Dutch phone provider starts to panic and cuts you off. Letters take a year... A YEAR to be replied to. And get this, emails, get replied to over a month later, telling you to contact a different dept with an email,  who then refer you back another month later to the dept that you 1st mailed.. thats not cool HMRC, not cool at all. 

So answers to, did you get my payment, are not easy.

But finally yesteday, I checked the Gov.uk website and 2 of the 5 years I paid so far are now listed as paid, and indeed my forcasted pension has gone up a little as a result. phew... it is happening. Slowly, but it is happening, I don't need to panic.. though I was worried due to there being a cut off date this April to get some of those payments in. Seeing that they have applied them I've made the last payment due before the cut off, and will pay the rest over the course of the coming 5 years.

Which despite all the hassle is really good news, I'll get a full, or close to full pension from the UK, 17 years of Dutch pension for my time here, which actually is very small as Dutch state pension is very small, but 17years of company pension.. 

It's a bit of a mix and match and frankly far below what a lifetime payer into the Dutch system would get, which would make retirement here hard,  but its more than enough for us to live on in Thailand. 

There will be 5 years when we move though where we have no income, and I'm not allowed to work over there, but the house costs there are very low and once we buy a house with 40% of our house profits here, we can live for 5 years on the remainder of that and some other savings we have. As long as we don't go mad.

298 days to go.. can't wait.

  

Ahthankyew

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

Missing mum,

I miss mum every day, no doubt about it, but this Christmas particularly her presence was missed. 

She was never mad about Christmas, often saying she hated it (lol) it wasn't a big deal for us really but we always shared a message, even when we'd fallen out over something. Followed of course by her posting about how terrible the Christmas editions of the soaps were over Christmas. (she still watched them religiously)

Those little posts, those messages, those wishes for a happy new year... and of course my birthday which is close to Christmas.. It felt emptier this year.

I suspect it will always feel a little emptier, but in time you get used to it, I'm told.

Oh well, new year is coming, this will be a big one for Jirawan and I. Lets hope it has less downsides to it than 2024 did.

take care.

Ahthankyew

Bring it back?

Recently I had to do an update to my www.scratchpadgames.net site to stop them charging me 10euros a month to continue to support what they call an outdated PHP version.

So I did as requested, logged on to the providers site, selected update and it was done.. no more 10euros a month charges... but also, no more forums..which seemed to need that outdated PHP. which is a bit of a pain as the forums are how my book readers contact me with any issues they have. I can probably update the forums from the site content on the old PC.. but its not my main skill. I may have to junk it all and start again.

Now granted its been a while since anyone has had an issue, the book is a bit out of date now, so only a few die hards or people who left it on the shelf a couple of years, have tried to do anything with it. Also as I am working on an updated 2nd edition, the site itself is in dire need of an update.

But... the site was designed and maintained on my old warhorse PC which now lives a quiet sedentry life upstairs, seldom if ever being used.

But now I need it, and of course it really is old, and refuses to do some of its basics, like start... it does get there in about 30 mins, but its very slow..theres clearly some online update happening which upstairs has almost no internet speed.

So it needs to be refurbished while still somehow maintaining most of its software..

Though honestly since its not been actively used for 3 or 4 years, whatever software is on there is not needed or used any more on that system,  but there's some source code  and pics and so on I want to transfer

So I've bought a new GTX710 graphcis card, not exactly cutting edge, but more than it has currently and I have an unused 512GB ssd, to get windows 10 onto.. so once I rescue the website.. I will transplant some new life into the old girl and get her working again. The current drives can be used as long as it boots from teh SSD now.

If nothing else I'd like to use it for making videos and writing content... since there's room up there to keep reference books and I can go back to using my big, but, normal ratio screen that will make videos more useful. My Samsung widescreen is useless for making videos on as they stretch too much on YouTube.(Its great for coding though)

On the subject of YouTube, I've had an ok from our Creative media dept to help me make some nicely edited and shot videos to support the new book, and set up a moderatly technical teaching channel I want to continue with even when the book is been and gone. I can cover some of the topics, that students seem to find very hard in a bit more detail on a video, than I can in a class where they are falling asleep or busy watching music videso...yes Joeren, I'm talking about you...
I've made a few simple test videos myself, but meh, Im shit at this kind of content, so I'm going to get some of tomorow's pros, to help me. 

So this weekend, 1st weekend of the Xmas holidays I am working bloody hard to get upstairs into some level of organisation and ressurect an almost dead PC... wish me luck.

Ahthankyew

Feeling my age

61 on Tuesday, and no matter how many people tell me I don't look it, I feel it, I mean I really feel it. Things hurt, getting out of a chair too fast carries a risk, sitting down in a chair carries a risk...running to catch a train....no, just wait for the next one. Trips longer than an hour need to have toilet routes planned. I alternate between narcolepsy and insomnia. Its pretty horrible..

But Im still fairly sharp and bright, though I do worry a bit about forgetting things and names, I can no longer remember all my students names, which was always somehting of a party trick for me. 

I am stuck with this 16yo brain in a 61 year old body, and it sucks... 

And its fucking cold........I really want to be somewhere warm... soon... soon..

Ahthankyew

Heavy shit man

Well I hope its shit... cos that I can get rid off... back up to 98kg....damn

nope nope nope nope nope.... starve yourself Brian you fat fucker.. thats insane..

So, no booze, no lunch and a tiny evening meal. 

There's no way in hell Im creeping back over 100kg.. no chance.

Ahthankyew

Yo Yo Yo Yo

Can't quite get myself back in the fasting mindset again, so the weight is going up and down even though I am most certainly keeping way below the reccomended 2000-2600 calories a day, I find my weight isn't getting below 95ish...its bouncing between 95 and 97... yes still a lot less than earlier this year but the goal isn't reached.

grr.. I need to develop more resolve.. its upsetting that after losing 15kg I gain back 2 then 3 then 4 kg.. I really want to get down below 80 for all sorts of good reasons, mainly my health.

The reduction in weight, or more likely the reduction in food to process has a really good impact on my diverticulosis, and the issues it creates.. less food means less unexpected and unwanted emergency dashes to the loo. And a lot less painful discomfort. also... dude I'm, 61 next month, I need to shed a lot of this chubby good looking fat for my heart..

but.. hunger and rum... hard to overcome.. 

Ahthankyew

Back on Track..ish

So a few days back home, trying to get into the routine, not helped by Jirawan bringing some wonderful food home for me to eat..I've lapsed a few times. Its been a month of being careful but not being on the wagon and the weight creeps up.

But I'm back on the 1 meal, low cal, nothing after 8pm diet... and I will avoid booze and snacks....as best I can. I will however try to up my protein intake a bit more, to allow for my very light excercise to be effective and not lose muscle (hahahah as if ) mass.

Not quite sure what this start weight is, I didn't check this morning, but its around 95kg now... I'll take a clear reading tomorrow morning and see if we can get down below 70kg before the spring break.

The target is 70kg.... it will be achieved... even if I have to cut off a leg.

Ahthankyew

but I didn't eat that much? Did I?

Enough to bump myself back to 97kg

Wow, it doesn't take much. I've not exactly been gorging myself, on the small portions most Thai meals provide, but clearly getting 2 or 3 meals a day is not allowed.

But I did expect a blip on the break a kilo or 2 was expected not 4 or 5.... Normal starvation will now continue, try get get below 90 by the end of the month, and get as low as possible before Christmas...

New year we will take stock.

Ahthankyew

Home, but cold

We're home, bit of a nightmare trip, not so much the travel as the really annoying admin issues.. We had our passports and residency cards triple/quadrouple checked at departure, not sure why. And the flight was a long 12 hours where I barely dozed off... but getting back to Schipol was where it all really went wrong

Tired and cranky, the passport system is fucking broken here, it looked like 2 or 3 777's arrived from various places at the same time, so 1200-1500 people, not all dutch nationals.. descended on Passport control, who simply can't cope. Took us well over 1hr to filter down weaving queues and holds and stops and go that way, no, that way... to the 2.... repeat 2.... customs agents processing the non EU passports but in the EU (residents) line of 500+ people.. 

Shocking, just shocking... this is something they need to fix. Schipol is one of the busiest airports in the world, but they can't handle a decent sized plane landing from outside Europe.

And.... after finally getting through, they didn't post our luggage on the baggage list, the only Bangkok flight was on belt 15 but didn't match our flight number, and when I finally got through another queue at the service desk. was told it was at belt 20... which had no details of which flight it was... nice. Thankfully the luggage was there though so at least we didn't lose anything.

Took us nearly 2 hours in total to get out of the airport and on a train, which thankfully was easier going, though Jirawan was a bit annoyed with me for not switching seats at Rotterdam,  it turned out she wanted to face the direction of travel... and I didn't click she was annoyed at facing back....she's still a bit ticked off with me but she's as cranky today as I was yesterday, we just need to rest and recover.

But we got home, had some food and fluids and went to bed.

We got up early and its bloody cold here innit.

I LOVED my time in Chiang Mai, it wasn't a typical tourist trip, we spent most of our time at home, doing a bit of work, going about daily business, eating at a few outdoor places and 1 family meal with Jirawans son and gf, but it was so nice just to live a normal  Thai life for 3 weeks.

Hua hin didn't grab us, but we will probably escape there from time to time, maybe somewhere else we'll see...

Retirement there will be so nice, a few more trips to settle things and we will make that jump.. Can't wait.

Ahthankyew

Good for a visit, but.

I can't put my finger on it exactly, but Hua Hin didn't grab us.. Its nice, there's some very nice houses there and it most certainly is less busy than Chiang Mai but...it also seemed a little old and tired... Also something about the general age of the large ex pat community there didn't quite resonate with us... even though I freely admit that we're also in that age group. I saw way way too many very old men, 60,70 maybe even 80's with very young Thai partners.. I know thats not that unusual here, and we even see it here in Chiang Mai, but ...it was a lot.. and hmmm.

The Bars are insanely loud and the atmosphere wasn't as Thai as it is here..(I know I am not making sense here).

Its quite a small town too, no where near the size of Chiang mai and no where near the variety and scope of things to do, places to shop.

We didn't hate it.... and we'll certainly consider visiting again maybe even spending a few months there during the norths smokey season but... not sure .....might need a few more visits.

Ahthankyew

Yeahhhh good choice

I really am loving Thailand, the lovely weather, despite the occasional heavy rain, and the overall ease of getting things to eat and drink its so nice... easy going. I can totally understand why its a hippy paradise.

On a practical note, we went to visit a large  Makro superstore yesterday, just to look around and it has everything and anything you might want, though like the Dutch Makro stores, I am not so sure its a cheap place to go. But for everyday things, some foods, and some specialist foods.. its a once a month place, just like Makro NL.

Other shopping malls and supermarkets are equally impressive, and quite reasonable, though highly variable on price. Live sensibly here and your Bhat goes a long way, live like a crazy farang, and you will go broke pretty quick. Its easy to think, its just 100 bhat, but it adds up.. breakfast today of a nice ham omellete extra toast and a coke 0 was 129bhat, less than 3 euros.. half what you'd pay in NL, maybe even less.. But every day it adds up.

The small markets and street and just off street food vendors and produce sellers are amazing though, there's no need to stock up on things just step onto the street and you can buy breakfast, or fresh meat and veg for tonights meal, for very little money. Its quite extrodinary just how much retail enterprise there is here, 

Tomorow we have a weekend in Hua Hin to investigate it as a possible retirement place, but it will be hard to beat Chiang mai, even just in the old town this place has everything, step out a bit into the many different sub-city centres and you find even more to keep you in the 21st centry shoppers paradise.

We are looking at different areas here, and there are so many options, when we do jump, our plan is to rent for a year until we find the dream place to buy, I am wondering if we'll need that long :D some wonderful houses here at and below our expected budget.

I'll report on Hua Hin soon..But probably won't take laptop with me, which btw is being a bit temperamental, seems the cmos battery has died so it refuses to boot without following a hard reset process... but hard to do on the move so we'll leave it  here as we go into tourist mode for the weekend.

Ahthankyew

Sampling life in Thailand

We're not here for a holiday, that's next week.. I'm using this development time from work they give me to work on my.errmmm development. Which in this case means working on editing my book, which needs a bit more editing than I thought, I missed a whole chapter and its a biggie, that needs a major rework. I also have to put down the basics of the new code that is needed for this edition. I have sketeched out some code but it needs a big update. I don't plan to finish anything yet, just get the frameworks in place, and stored away to work on over the weekends I return. This book needs quite a lot if not all of its code content sent on-line in an effort to shed a few pages and hopefully pounds/euros on the price. I've never been  happy with the price it was sold at, so stripping back a few bits to put on line will hopefully have an impact.

But of couerse, we're in Thailand, Chiang Mai city to be exact. This trip I rented us a whole house to use as we like.. And that means, doing normal every day things Thai people do.. Going to the market, registering cars (Jirawan bought a car...an old one but very tidy), purchasing supplies, like a cheap monitor cos there was no TV in the bedroom as I had hoped. Also visiting friends and going for lunch, and doing a spot of house viewings to see what exactly 8 million bhat can buy you..We've not done that yet but we're going to as soon as I stop screaming when I drive the car in traffic... the traffic here is....there's only one word..insane.

And I am honestly very happy with the mundane things in life, its just simple to go to the market, go for a meal, go shopping for pretty much anything you can buy in Europe...well maybe a few differences, Pringles are waaaay smaller.

Expats on line often make the valid point that the cost of living is very low, if you live like a Thai, eat Thai food and do the mundane things Thai's do, oh and keep off the booze... But you will want to eat and drink western sometimes and it'll bankrupt you the say.

Well its not entierly true, from what I can see, there's a lot of western food and booze on offer at the right places, yes its pricey by thai standards, but about the same price if not a bit cheaper as it is in NL.  As someone who loves Jirawans cooking, even when its a bit off the wall for me, I don't think I have a problem eating Thai food all the time, and limiting myself to a few less well known brands of.....Whiskeee  and Ruhm  ... but whatever..
I'm really enjoying the mundane nature of Thai life, I can't wait to get a lot more of it.

Ahthankyew

Definitely plateaued

plateaued....
Cool word eh?

yeah not dropping down any more, bouncing a kilo or so around 94.. dipping and rising.  I need to try harder.. Still cycling to work despite the cooling weather though so might be getting a bit fitter if not lighter.

I really did want to get below 90 before we head to Thailand for a break, but can't see it, maybe when I get there i'll get some Thai tummy issues that will drop a few kilos... though, I'd rather not :D. I had it last time and we were driving around a lot of places, which made for a few interesting and desperate service station stops... not all of which were as modern and clean as I'd have liked.

I've also got a flair up of my diverticulitis which isn't nice, though no sign of any infections, (temp will spike and I need to report to hossie) so just discomfort and bloating, despite not a lot of food,which is probably why nothing has popped this time (look it up...) So it should calm down in a few days.

oh well, there's not a lot more to report, just working hard, and getting my project pushed along, I've pretty much finished the reworking of the new edition of the book, apart from the code which does need a total refactor. But part of the trip will be spent in peace and quiet to edit it and do some of the coding needed to go on line. I do still have quite a bit of on-line content and how-to content to write, as I was asked to take it out of the main book. So I'll crack on with that.. Delivery is in January so its all pacing out quite well.

Ahthankyew

damn this is hard..

Still not dropping below 93 yet, keep bouncing back to 94 and occasionally 95... I can't seem to lose any more... sigh...Clearly I need to do more excersise and push a bit harder, the diet itself just isn't dropping any more weight... time to feel the burn...groan...

Ahthankyew

tip that balance

Stepping on the scales this morning, I very very briefly saw a 92 flash on the LCD display as the scales settled... on 93.0 but its still only Friday, weekend starts tomorrow... doesn't it? It will be nice to step down another digit towards the 80's.

Our trip to Thailand this year is in 4 weeks time, so I'm fairly confident I'll be below the 90's by then. Which for very practical reasons, not just fuel economy of the overloaded aircraft, will make life there a bit easier. 

It's a wee bit warm there... and fat old sweaty pale scottish people, can get a bit tired moving around too much in that heat, we want to have a good mooch around the place this time.

Mostly though I'll be sat on my touche, doing final edits on my book, especially when Jirawan is off with her son to go visit family. I will go on a few trips with her,  of course, but I'm determined this trip, not to spend it in the back of a car driving around! So we've rented a house for 3 weeks to let us settle in one place and explore, to get a taste for living in Chiang Mai. We'll also squeeze in a few days in Hua Hin to get a feel for that place too, which should help us decide where to target our retirement plans. Both have pros and cons but we need to experience them.

When not editing, I might even try and catch up on my now sadly neglected Language lessons... I found memorising some of the words and phrases just a bit too hard and started to fall away from the pace of 1 lesson a day. I still have all the lessons though so I can pick them up at my own pace.

Ahthankyew

No harm done..

Yeah I did pig out a bit on Saturday and yeah it did dump on a few grams back above 94, but... a very hungry and busy, Monday and we're down to 93.3kg, not sure I could tolorate an even hungrier Tuesday but, I'll do my best and see what happens tomorrow as long as I can squeeze in a bike ride and a bit of light excerise every day I should see 92 by.....

Curry night was a spectacular success though, had a great night.

Also the models are selling online really well, the retirement fund is getting some nice boosts there.

The big sell off gathers pace. Ideally we want to clear out all the stuff we can't take to Thailand with us and make something on it, so yea thats guitars, music gear, models, even the SBC's and old computer gear, I no longer need... time to clear them out, a tenner each for the old SBC's will generate a fair amount.. Pity I can't really use ebay.co.uk anymore, Brexit now adds too many costs to smaller items, but we'll see if ebay.nl produces some interest...fucking brexit, the dumbest thing ever... 

Ahthankyew

Goodbye 94 but see you tomorrow

And the wall got smashed, mainly while being a little too often in the loo.. but thats what happens.. Finally got down to 93.7. There's no way in hell that will stick as I have a curry buffet happening tonight, and even if I  can resist the tempting things I  am cooking, I still have to taste and graze while I cook.

So see you again tomorrow 94... but I know you can be beatern... watch out

Ahthankyew

another wall?

Despite keeping up with the low calories and now including much more cycling, I can't seem to break 94Kg, popping back over 95kg from time to time.... I wish the weight loss was a lot more consistant.. But its clearly levelling out now and I have to work a lot harder to get down below the 94 and keep heading to that 1st target of 80kg (after that I'll see if 75kg is viable)

But, all I can do is keep at it, my determination is strong, my will power is....well not quite as strong, but I am only cheating some nights with protein rather than calories.. 

Got a curry night with friends coming on Saturday, so expect to be a bloated whale again on Sunday... and then we start again..

Ahthankyew

Good gig but bad guitar

We kicked off our post vacation gigs with a really nice gig at the Molen in  Bavel, playing in the shadow of the big windmill. There was a nice appreciative crowd and Karlien sang really well on a lot of new songs and did a wonderful version of Rollercoaster after we agreed I can't do it justice. But Karlien and Ed sang very well, so did I which was surprising. But I fluffed a lot of my guitar stuff, I was very annoyed with myself... Its not that I hadn't been practicing, but I just fluffed so many songs, wrong chords and terrible solo's.. It was as if I was drunk... but sadly no..

Overall we got through it ok, but I need to make sure that I'm never that bad again... I think part of it was having my nails a bit too long, so I was missing strings on some picking, and catching them with some flatpicking, not great... but it was a cascade thing. Once the 1st couple of fluffs happened it got worse... almost every song had a mistake from me, oh well...

We sang very well and people didn't notice it as much as I did... hope we get an invite next year.

It was also nice to have some of our regular followers comment on how much weight I've lost, so that was nice and a good motivator.. The weight loss is certainly slowing down, but I keep at it, and resist the cheats. Starting to lift some light weights as well, to begin the toning process before I start to increase the protein intake a bit.. Hopefully we'll break 90 in Sept, and would be great to be below 85 before our October break.

Ahthankyew

There it is..

94.7 :D finally hitting proper 94....feels good..  Things are slowing down a lot of course, but its no longer a straight 200-300g a day it does depend a lot on how many cheats I have and also honestly...how often I go to the loo. Constipation is sadly a side effect of this type of diet, so there are sometimes a few days of accumulation if you get my meaning..so after a few days... of ahem.. nothing.. I can expect to lose a few kilo's again soon :D

(notice, its spelled lose... I am getting so sick of reading loose on-line, do people not know how to spell....which is saying something coming from a dyslexic old windbag)

Back to work this week, its been pretty straightforward we had most of our prep work done before we broke up so just finalising and checking has been simple.. We now wait to get the details on our new students, who start in Sept, and then we can kick off. As usual, I'll be doing a beginners class each week, which will hopefully catch a few of the students who squeezed through the intake but don't really have the skills. Happens every year sadly, for various reasons, but its a pain to have these lost students falling behind from day one... so the extra class sometimes helps a few of them get a lift up. or just as good for them, to realise they are in the wrong course.

And now of course at the end of this first block I get to go off for a few weeks to Thailand, taking advantage of our Autumn holiday and my sustainable hours to do the edits for the 2nd edition of the book.

Which is progressing nicely, as far as the text is concerned, but need to make more progress on the code examples which are going to be quite different.  I get to combine, work and lovely holiday/research in just a few months... perfect.

Ahthankyew

Strange but true

Very odd, but still not hitting 94 yet, keep wobbling around 95-96, no real cheating, though it does seem every small piece of chocolate or scoop of icecream puts on 1kg ....

Back to work now, so a bit more mobile using the bicycle to get to and from work, and those lovely (groan) stairs every day... just have to stick with it and get even more serious about not having anything more than my 1 low cal meal a day..  Not sure I can cut that down any more, just try to delay eating it till as late as possible.

Sold the 1st of my prized guitars last week, and already having major sellers remorse as I look at the space in the guitar unit where Ruby, my prized Les Paul stood... but.. I can also look at the savings account and take a bit of comfort that the savings have gone up.. Hoping to sell the Traps Drums this week to old bandmate Kees who tried them out last week and noted a small fault which I quickly fixed when he left. The drums are not going to be a huge income, but the space saving in the studio will be nice.

I need to also start advertising the other instruments/equipment and putting some ads out there....its painful but its the only way, the sooner the money is in the bank earning a bit of interest, the better.  It will do more good in my account than it will in the studio not being played.  Brexit has buggered up using Ebay though, its near impossible to ship anything of value to or from the UK, so I will have to list some things on local sites and try ebay.nl which isn't very popular,..But I'll try ebay and see how it goes.

I still have not finished my totalling up of the shed model treasure trove, but will try to do that in the next few days.

My Thai lessons are really falling behind, I can't keep up and thats a bit demotivating. It takes me 2 or 3 days for the content to sink  in, but with a new lesson every day, I find myself getting falling behind.. But no matter, its online so I can do it at my pace, I just wanted to have a firmer grasp of things before our trip in October.

Ahthankyew

now stay under

Back to 95.5, lets see if I can avoid any cheats and get below 94 by the weekend.

Last week of the holidays, and yup, very few of my chores got done, which is bad, but... I did fill the time with other things and have enjoyed the rest.

Most amazing was discovering I have a bit of a treasure trove in the shed... all those models I had planned to build when I retire turn out to be worth a pretty penny.. Since we now plan to retire to Thailand, its not going to be practical to ship boxes and boxes of models over. So I casually enquired online what they were worth.......wow. Anything from 4-6K, Thats amazing... I won't get that of course, since people will only want to cherry pick the good kits, (one is worth over 300euros????) but I've had a couple of resellers interested in buying all for a few grand... that will probably be the best option. Since I really need to clear them out, and can't wait years to sell off the last Airfix Gnat kit or whatever the lowest value one is... So I'll take a hit to get rid of them all, and clear out the shed so its more usable for some DIY or proper storage.

I have to finish listing all the models, their curent low and best prices, and setting a reasonable 2nd hand offer price...its taken days but its been interesting and fun research... I've got a few part built/started kits I will keep and try to finish, but not sure my 20yo paints will be quite up to it :D

Ahthankyew

damn... 1 cheat..

I cheated once.. just once,, had an extra burger and a bar of chocolate and back over 96.. grrr, there's just no cheating allowed is there.

Ok so bike ride and no eating, which will be hard as Im batch cooking a load of chicken samosa's today... maybe I'll just have one of those for dinner...

damn...

Ahthankyew

Breaking another wall and spoiled surprise.

After hitting 95.9 I assumed I'd keep dropping but clearly it was just a wobble, 96.x kept coming back despite maintainig the diet... frustrating for almost a week, but eventually and after one minor lapse, the 95.9 is back again, hopefully not to bounce again.. Going to get a bit more bicyling in today to try to keep the enegy levels up and burn the cals.

The Diet is however still going well.. no eating after 8 and trying to keep to 1 low call meal a day around 6 or 7... there's no doubt my calorie intake is low.. If I was a bit more active it would drop a bit quicker, but I sense I'd be a lot hungrier too, which I might not be able to resist....we'll see... an occasional cheat is normal...but lets keep it to once a fortnight, not every other day.

Got hit with a delayed medical bill yesterday too, Jirawan had a butt load of tests on her skin condition in Feb, but they didn't charge us, until yesterday..ouch...250euros In NL the first 375 of your medical bills you have to cover youself, after that in a given year, its all covered by the insurance.. So that will be the last big bill of  her tab till Jan. They've put her on some very strong (and expensive) biological drugs that seem to be helping her psoriasis, though she hates to do the pen injections.  So we'll probably have to lump out a chunk of change in Jan if she's still on them, as seems likely.

Also despite wanting to keep it a surprise, Jirawan discovered my workbook, for learning Thai, and now she's testing me on my numbers and pronounciation, which is actually frustrating as I'm very early in the process and still having issues with remembering core vocab and tones... I can't serve two teachers lol.. but she's pleased that Im trying... Now that she knows, I can do my class every day not just the days shes at work but Im locking myself in the room when I do it.

Ahthankyew

when was it?

I had a look back in this blog history just now to try to locate the last time I was on a mega diet.... and there's been a few of them... But one that stood out was 2012 when I was......89kg..  wow, so I've been over 90kg more or less since then.. I hovered around that weight for a while before giving in and growing to the ballon I was/am/tryingnottobe.

Todays amazing 95.9  has me continuing a rapid drop, caused by extreme fasting... of only 1 low cal meal per day... which will see me heading back to that sub 80 level again in a month or so...

12 years though... eek and I considered that heavy at the time... 

this pic was 11 years ago so you can see where I was..

Well I got the bicyle tyers pumped up and ready and am going to cycle a bit today and get back into doing that to get around short distances... a mild bit of excercise but exercise none the less.

Ahthankyew

keep going keep going

Dieting is hard, I should effing know.... but I'm motivated and determined and staying, largly off the booze... so my will power is keeping on top of the hunger pangs. It vanishes after the 2nd rum/tequila

96.5kg today, continuing my 100-400g a day loss. I have had a bit of museli this afternoon, to help prevent the previously mentioned bunged up effects, but generally I'm finding my evening wraps to be all I need to eat. The longer I can leave it before my cut off point of 8pm the less hungry I am at bed time when the will power is potentially low.

So 2 weeks from now I should start seeing 80's and then I start excercising... why not now? Well.. I am genuinly very fat and very overweight for a slim cute chap like me, ...who's laughing at the back??? And I need to drop quite a bit before I can start putting my heart and my creaky knees to a severe test... oh also I'm almost 61... so while I see the need and benefit of excercise, it does nothing to reduce my distate for it or the risk of doing too much too soon..so I'll start in earnest when I get down to the 80's. Some nice walks and moving around as much as possible are fine for now, I'll also get the bicycle tyres pumped up and have a little zip around town on that....maybe to the kebab....nope... no no no...

its going well.......

Ahthankyew

ohhh chillies

Jirawan brought home some large green chilli peppers from the Turkish shop yesterday and cooked them off as I was making my evening meal, a small sausage wrap, two tiny chipolata's, some lettuce, 4 cherry tomatoes, 1 gherkin chopped, half red onion sliced, in a whole grain tortilla wrap....yup, thats it, thats my one meal.

I added a chopped chilli to my wrap and discovered while eating, it was... ,hotter than a burning pizza oven in hell....

wowser.. normally the big green chillies are just mild and sweet, not these badboys... but I hadn't had chillies for a while so the burn was fun..... until 6am when the burn decided to eat through  most of my lower intestines and seek an outlet.... which it did for about 2 hours.

96.9kg this morning.... no no Im not going to be eating those chillies again even though thats the best diet pill I've ever had.

Ahthankyew

Constipation has a reward....kinda

Diets do have drawbacks, I havn't been to the loo for a few days, and of course that bungs you up, even if you don't eat much. I try to eat fibre in the form of cabbage,lettuce, musli in small amounts,  as well as fresh fruit and veg.. but... ,yeah it can be a few days...and not always..ahem pleasent...

But the good thing is when you do go.... you go... and todays morning weigh-in produced 97.5kg so the drop continues...

Im going to start with the excercise when I hit 90.. nothing dramatic, I hate jogging, but a few weight routines and more regular quick walks to push  things along...

I'm actually starting to enjoy this process, the hunger is controllable as long as I don't drink, and indeed not drinking also drops the weight.

Really not sure if I'll ht 70 before we go on Holiday in October, 10kg a month is pushing it a bit, bbut should get to 80kg so I won't be quite soo chubby and puffing in the Thai heat when we get there.

Ahthankyew

missing money, lost and found

Today was a good day... I managed to locate a long lost but still growing pension pot, I started over 20 years ago and only paid into it for a few years before the financial shit, hit the bankruptcy fan...

But that pension pot was forgotton and left to die lonely. Until I accidently discovered an old letter about a year ago, that showed there was indeed a pension, and who administered it. Barclays... 

But after a bit of chasing, it turned out Barclays, had sold their pension business on to L&G who in turn sold the old pensions on to Re-assure... A long chain of emails ended up in a dead end when I didn't have the specific policy details and got no reply to emails.. so I gave up, and left it....lying there somewhere...

After mentioning this online to old collegues, it was suggested to get an advisor to hunt for it.. and as luck would have it, the sister of an old collegue is an advisor, agreed to check for me... and she found it... it was with Re-Assure, she confirmed they had it, and it was just a case of making direct contact with an 0800 number, but I can't use them here in NL, so after a bit of hunting around... 2 dead phone numbers later, and 30 mins on hold..

I got hold of the lovely Shannon, who indeed confirmed they had a pension, and... it was worth, a pretty penny... (not retire now on this pretty, but it adds a fair chunk to the pot).
So thank you so much to Sadef Latif, and her brother Amir, for helping me to locate the pension.


After updating Re-assure with my details, and confirming my ID, I can now make use of that pot at any time, either by transferring to a pension or cashing it in... Cashing it in has a tax hit though. It will be best if I leave it for a couple more years till we're ready to jump and get a bit more of that high interest savings action on it.

I won't say exactly how much it is, but it will help fund some of our plans to retire early which is a massive boost..

Yup, today was a good day.

Ahthankyew

back on track

Only mid way through the weekend fast, and sadly not able to fully embrace it, since Jirawan sneekily brought home 2 fried fish to eat on her way home from work, seeing how much I enjoyed the fish in London.. sweet, but..missing the point... But I've restricted myself to only half a piece of fish a day and some carbs.. 

98.2 this morning... so back on track..London didn't break me. Actually Im starting to see the results visually in my face at least; Im less puffy, though could be the haircut I got in London.

Picking up my programming and Thai lessons as well so keeping myself distracted from food and focused on things...might see 97.x tomorrow....

Ahthankyew

ok not a total disaster

Back from London, and its amazing how easy it is to put the weight back on, though I did my very best not to gorge on my usual Greggs, Fish and ch ..oh wait.there were a few....some, well a couple of slips...in my defence I didn't eat too much, but I sure ate the wrong things.

I didn't keep up my strict sub 1000kcal diet, while there, but we did so much walking I was hoping that it might have had a balancing effect and I'd still be in the mid 98's 

But no, 99.1kg on my return... not bad I suppose still under 100... but now we're back I need to get back to my sub 1000kcal and get back to 1kg a week.

Keep on keeping on losing the pounds.

Ahthankyew

London....well thats going to screw up my diet

I mean its not Edinbirgh, where I can get proper fish and chips and battered black pudding, but it is London, where I can get Nando's, proper curries and a reasonable facsimile of fish and chips (quite a few do haddock)... 

I did succumb tonight to a nice curry, but it was my end of weekend fast, though probably too big a portion, if I promise to be good tomorrow, I might be able to  walk it off.

Jirawan joins me tomorrow evening so I might take a walk to Denmark street and see how much some of my guitars are worth now... no buying though promise

Jirawan is visiting some family here so I will tag along and politely decline some of the wonderful thai food on ....fuck no I won't...but I will try to walk it off.

Ahthankyew

Holidays?

Its Monday, and I got to sleep-in for the 1st time in months. I now have 5 weeks of lovely summer holidays... well lovely when it stops raining.(looks outside,, hmm its trying to be sunny..maybe)

That means I have a lot of jobs to do that have been put off at least a year

A chance to sort out my studio, the big sell off needs to get started, by first making sure the studio is clean and set up. My old PC is up there and not doing much, so will get it prepped and maybe upgraded a little to use it as a back up machine., though I also have my brothers old Dell I3 Laptop which I upgraded a bit, and its now a fine little emergency machine.

If I get time the walls that were put up 14 years ago to block off the studio are still bare chipboard... might be time to put a bit of woodchip and paint on there. Will review when the studio is cleared out a bit.
Set up sales videos for all my extra sound and music gear, put ads on marktplats (Dutch local sales)

Clean up my little office, even though I have the studio, I like to code in my little office, but its damn untidy, there's a health hazard notice on the door... need to get at it, and also retire some of the older books on my big bookshelf so I can add some new ones..

Give the Bathroom a damn good clean, get the limecale off the shower and clean up a bit of black mold caused by the lack of working extracter and that old shower leak from a few years ago... I've now put a small extractor in there and its doing a fine job, so a bit of bleaching to tidy it up it will stay nice an bright.

That extractor issue does need to be fixed though, we had an electrician come a few years ago to resolve our fuses constantly blowing and he hardwired the extractor which seemed to be the cause , but I unplugged it not considering the impact on the bathroom.. I have it on now always, but I should get the place rewired.. The shorting was probably due to that shower leak now fixed and dried up... so a rewire will be a good plan... but pricey.

Clear the shed, and set up a list of sales for the hundreds of now quite old model kits in there that I had planned to build when I retire, but not an option now, so sell, probably quite valuable, we'll see, might pay for the rewire.

Clear out all my old SBC's. I got dozens of old OpenGLES2.0 based units, they're pretty pointless now for my coding purposes,  but people might want to pay 5 euros for them to drive an old project. I'm only doing OpenGLES.3.1 ane above now... so will keep the 5 or so units that can do that amd a rasp 3 for nostalgia. That won't provide much more than a nice meal for Jirawan and a salad for me.

Take a load of stuff to the local waste disposal, old beds, chairs and soooo many big boxes from appliances bought years ago... stuffed in shed (just in case) Also arrange for pick up for the bigger items..

Clean up the bike and take her out for a few runs, poor thing has been a bit neglected this summer, what with being in the UK for a month, and the actual weather not being up to snuff.. I am sadly going to say goodbye to her in the Autumn, vintage bikes are cool and it was great to finally own a Shadow, but I'll get a smaller more servicable bike to get around or just put the funds into the pension pot. Someone else can get some joy out of owning a vintage shadow.

Re-install the SolarPanels on the roof, not that there's been a lot of sun, but lets sort it, they blew off the roof a couple of years ago in a big storm, and have been stored in  the studio since, so going to rebuild the frame and put a few paving stones up on the roof to cement the frame to and keep it locked no matter how strong the wind is.

In the Garden our old Decking has decayed to an unsafe level, so going to lift that all up and either lay down grass or paving. Jirawan seems to have burned out her gardening hobby, so probably paving. That's quite a big job and I need a skip to take the crap away. (might kill a few birds with one stone there.

Theres a couple of bigger expensive jobs too, that really need a tradesman, we do want to redo the kitchen, it won't get done this year though as its going to cost too much and we're saving like crazy, but I'll cost out a few things and see if there's a way to get it done cheap.

Phew... holidays will be so relaxing, ......but at least I'll be thinner at the end of it :D

99.1kg today... getting quite used to being hungry but not eating, and 200-300g a day drop on the weekends with 50-100g on weekdays will soon see me looking like the Adonis I am under the flabby bits.

Ahthankyew

Busting through

99.8kg what a great feeling, I finally bust through the 100kg barrier.. might have a sausage to celebrate :D

Its the weekend though so, under 500kcal at weekend, ideally no food at all till late on Sunday.. but I'll do my best.

I'll need to scroll back quite a while to find when I was last under 100kg, but its been a while. EDIT July 2020.... 4 years over 100kg, My heart will be pretty pleased.

20kg to  go, maybe 30 we'll have to see.

update, sunday.. after a not fully empty Saturday... 99.6  :D

Ahthankyew

Well there's some kind of wall

Still cant get below 100kg, despite fasts and careful eating, though I have had 2 notable slips when I made dinner for friends and succumbed to some late night crispy pork from Jirawan(it was good)

But even so, the 1000 cal or less a day diet is being maintained and the fat is hanging in there between 100.3 and 101.2 .... grrr

Gotta move about a but more I suppose

Ahthankyew

New Challenge

Right, something new to push myself, I've failed miserably at learning Dutch over 16 years, though I can understand some, I fail to speak or write it.. I could get better but long term there's no real advantage. A few years from now I'll be in Thailand... So..

Going to learn an even harder langage than Dutch :D

Thai... I plan to sign up to a course that is apparently very good, and yes it costs but that will just drive me on.. I am going to keep it secret from Jirwan (she never reads these posts) but if I manage it, when we get to Thailand for our October break, I hope to be able to speak to her family and friends in at least some Basic Thai which will be a nice suprise for her.

This one will be hard  :D lets see if I am still capable of learning anything

Ahthankyew

100.7 :) push push

Fast days still producing results, that and a long walk last night, finally broke past 101... Sunday is also a fast day but I treat myself tonight to a steak wrap, but we will certainly break the 100 in the next day or 2.

On the flip side I've got a terrible rash from something, really driving me crazy, arms and legs including my butt are itchy and spotty and no idea why. Antihistimenes take the edge off it but not for long.. Totally horribe.

Not heard of any restrictive diets causing allergic reactions, but something has decided it hates my body and my body's taken offence... grrr.

Ahthankyew

My own fat is nourishing me,

As I kinda expected, my rapid weightloss stablised and now the loss is much slower,  from 600-700g a day its now more like 50g a day. But its still dropping, I can't quite get below the 101kg yet andI really hoped to get there this weekend, but no matter. The weekend is the main fast peoriod, so on Monday we might or might not see a decline.

Just got to avoid boozing, cos that reduces my resolve to not eat... But booze is easy to avoid... :D

What is apparent, even now is the reduction in the beer belly, and less flab around my face.. small visible changes are good to see.

Just gotta keep going, make mum happy.

Ahthankyew

Keep it going.

Midway through a 2nd weekend of near starvation fasting, but gotta say it's working well. This morning I was 101.8kg .. I can see me breaking 100 by the end of the week as long as I stay away from booze, and delicious tasty Thai pork dishes that keep getting wafted under my nose at 11pm.

Only succumbed once and starved myself the next day...Yes I know starving is a bit extreme, but honestly its all relative, I'm cutting myself back to ~1000 Kcal a day and ~500 at weekends, which is more than enough to live on, just my body is upset at the lack of 3000Kcal with occasional booze that its been storing away for years in fat. Essentially 2 small meals on weekdays, 1 small meal at weekend.. no snacks, no food after 8pm. I won't fade away. My body will stop complaining in a week or 2.

Realistically if I want to hit a target of <80kg in under a year, this is how to do it, the current fast drop will level out as my body gets used to the reduction in calories so I can see me losing 10kg pretty quick, but that extra 10kg will need a bit more effort.... time to get the bicycle out again..

Ahthankyew