Get me out of here...part two

Not always perfect here in Land of Smiles, but it is as close as can be hoped for.  I spiced my life up a bit by leaveing yearly to work in France, travel cheaply round asia, or travel even cheaper in Thailand, staying with and visiting friends and former colleagues. I arrived in 2000 but the seeds were sown three years earlier.

This chapter of my life began in 1997 outside the Divorce courts.  Being a forward looking person I had planned for this the best I could.  Earlier in the morning, before I met the Lawyers, I placed pictures of my motorbike, my dog and a picture of me with Taggy  Wass, on Charles Bridge (Czech Republic) on the steering wheel of my car. My mindset had been all week that whatever happened  that day, my future life would involve much more travelling.  Basically a positive year zero.

I5 years into my travels, I would have to say that Prague in winter sticks in the mind the most.

It worked, and I never looked back on the outcome of that day, neither positively or negatively.  It happened (can't even remember any details of it now) and I moved on.   My mind had been focused on the photos and the proceedings passed me by with no trace of malice, hatred, victory or loss.... It just happend and I was on the road to adventure for the second time in my life.... The first time being the 15 years or so spent with my biking mates roaring around the highways and back lanes of Europe... always high on life and adrenaline.

So, day one and I instantly stopped smoking and sought out my friend Sue who was staying with me at the time to ensure I went through with it.  Right Sue!  I want to do this please.  "If I need a cigarette this week, I have to give you one pound for every cigarette I smoke and I will buy them from you at this price.  Next week, it is two pounds per cigarette, week three is four pounds, then eight and then sixteen".  I did buy one cigarette from her and paid sixteen pounds for it in that last week.  That was it, job done.

I calculated the money saved and bought a new mountain bike.  GT Talera from an old school friend of ours Mark Swindles who had a shop near the old fire station in England.  This served "Notice to Quit" on the two stone or so of flab I had acquired the previous two years.

Low season in "The Lak" Missing you already.

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Don't know who started calling Khao Lak "The Lak", but I first heard it from Trisha and was so impressed I use it all the time.  Not even sure if anyone other than us two coffee addicts call it that anyway.   Trish is away on travels but am sure will be back soon sitting with me outside the shop as we natter our way through 3 or 4 strong coffees of a morning.

Said good bye today to a few more friends who are leaving town.  Is it really the beginning of the end of High Season?  As most of the work here is seasonal, roughly November to April, we get used to hello's and good byes down the years.  Prior to the Tsunami in 2004 I had 3 seasons under my belt which entailed a lot of welcome parties, farewell parties..... Tooooooooo many in fact, and as I worked the off season in the South of France, the whole scene carried on and on.

I have always been excited by change and the end of the season, whether here or in France forced me into moving on.  Every time was, and still is,  just as exciting and I can just about feel the next bout of travel coming on. From my biking days right up to now, I loved nothing more than getting on the bike, bus, train plane, yacht and just heading off.  Planned Northern Thailand to catch up on Rugby playing mate and a trip over into Laos should just about be in the budget.

So it's au revoir to Pastor Al, Karin, Dan and Kim.  We wish them all luck and follow their adventures on facebook.  Who knows, we may have a Canadian Division in the coming years.  I am so jealous as I would love to be back on the road.

We are looking forward now to the peace, tranquility and rain that will surely follow this incredible heat.  Had a few torrential downpours and storms this past week and soon this is set to become the norm.  Time to get out of Dodge and put in a few months travelling, see old friends....  and RELAX.

My friend Al, reports his weight once a week to his Church and as he is a pastor, I suggested he put it on the board with the hymn numbers. That way his congregation can make bets on his progress..... or otherwise  I should really sponsor a Shires Pies Board for the occasion.  "Pastor Al's weigh this week, courtesy of Shires Pies is :......."    Be great to see the collection plate full of betting slips instead of buttons.  Good luck anyway, and hope we are all together again for early breakfasts watching the Bang Niang sun rise.

All the best for the rest of the season, but will I ever be glad when it's over.  Must be age!

So many Ideas, So little time, even on Thai Time

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Gonna lose me ranking at this rate.

So much travelling around this past week, not seen the desk or the 43 posts I have almost ready to publish.  Looking back on them, I thought I  had it in the bag for the next few months.  Not to be.

Have been to Bangkok twice, Pattaya, and back and only one stop at my favorite stop. Khunsarai!  The stop last night was abysmal and most of us stayed on the bus looking out the window and the dingy piles of boxed cakes, dried fruits, dirty fridges and un-smiling staff.  Prachuab Khir Khan was the city closest to it and I am praying it is shut down before my next trip.  Only smile raised was seeing Wicked Divings signs on the walls there.  Staff obviously used the time wisely, realising that most westerners would skip the food, wander round and eventually see their signs.

Ideas have never been a problem, time is the thing.  Time is whats needed to inject humour... hours sitting at the bar drinking chang, chatting and thinking.  Even on Thai time there arn't enough hours in the day, I try grabbing a Thai 5 minutes (between one and 2 hours) and thats not enough.

Most of the memoirs I noticed are totally out of order and I may just have to lump them into 4 groups and let them go.  Please, more pics from France, Biking days, Thai life and HBC and thanks for the support.

So Thai time.  Worked out a rough formula at the weekend when Peter said he would be along shortly!

5 mins on Thai Time is about 1 - 2 hours normally.  As in I will be there in 5 minutes.

10 mins, 2 - 4 hours

Shortly - if I have time much later on.

Later.  No way Jose

First night in Bangkok and the worlds gone mad.

Only my first ever night in Bangkok stuck in the memory.  It was election USA night 2000, but other than something of that magnitude taking place I would never even have remembered the month and maybe not the year.   I just remember the captain saying that by the time we arrived in Bangkok we would know who the next President would be!!!!

 France had been my home for the previous 7 months, but much as I loved it, the work was seasonal, and had dried up 3 weeks earlier. Most of my friends and workmates had headed back to the UK leaving me alone on a campsite in Biot near Antibes, it flooded badly and this drove me to the local travel agent in Antibes.

I entered the shop with the intention of asking for a ticket to Grenoble so I could look for work in the Ski Stations there in the winter.  As I waited my turn though, I noticed a 90 day return ticket to Thailand that was about 450 quid back then... cheap.  I then asked when the flight left and the woman told me in two days time and said she would hold it for me for an hour if I wanted to think about it.

I did think.  I walked outside into the rain, thought and made the decision that changed the direction of my life even more.  I was outside less than one minute, went back in, asked about visa on arrival etc, bought it and I was off.  Totally into the unknown.

And so it was, three days later I landed in the hot mid afternoon heat of Bangkok.  Lonely planet in hand I left the Arrivals lounge of Don Muang Airport and set off for my first battle with the taxis of Bangkok... all of which I have subsequently lost.  Got one for a few hundred baht.... a bargain I thought after 7 months in France.  The driver could not find the place I was staying at which was a fairly well hidden Youth Hostel, but  luckily I had the Royal Household and Rama 5 Statue on my small map, caught sight of it and got out.  The Hostel was on Phitsanulok about 1km walk away... much easier than directing a taxi driver in that madness.

My first steps in Bangkok were taken here.

I stayed at the Hostel as never fancied the scene on Khao San Road.  I went there a few times to meet a friend who had also made her way here, didn't like it and the only other time I went there was in later years when a mate wanted  a burger from the newly opened Burger King.  If ever there was an enclave of non-Thainess in Thailand, this had to be it.   But, each to their own and many seemed happy, adorning themselves with henna and real tatoos.  Must also be the hair extension capital of the Asia by the look of it... maybe I was old even back then.

My abiding memory of that first night though was my first shower.  It wasn't the introduction to thai plumbing, though that was also quite something when confronted for the first time with electrical installations being mounted next to running showers.  It was the speed of the sunset that surprised me.

I went in to the shower and it was broad daylight in the bedroom, came out and it was pitch black night.  It was like the sun had been switched off and I was even wondering if I had miss remembered what I had done in there.  Had I grouted a wall, re-washered all the leaking taps, cleaned up after the previous resident.  Nope, thats how quick it gets dark in these parts.

The rest of the first night was just normal stuff, 100's of mosquito bites, beer chang and sangsong hangovers and the food.  Great as it was I just fancied something Western that first night so ordered a beef salad!!!  It was impossible to taste if there was any salad in it... the chillies burned away at least half my taste buds.  Beef ... who knows, perhaps those pieces of leather were the beef, I never got past the first mouthful.  Wimping our of this I then had the all day breakfast of rubber egg, bouncy ball sausage, brittle bacon with sweet bread bun.  Tea was nice enough though and it soothed some of the burning sensation.

I have enjoyed exploring the food here down the years as much as I enjoyed the places and people... which is a lot.

Thai wife 100baht to the good. Khee Niao falang licks wounds.

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Despite having 43 part finished posts in the draft bank I have no time to edit and post a proper one under the terms of my bet back in england... So have lost out today to the missus who is now 100 baht to the good and hoping to double it at the card school.

8 years she has had me for and we still get along and are best of friends.  Pity we fight like cat and dog when we are working.  She learnt all her english from me and can put Gordon Ramsey to shame when she is bollocking me in the kitchen.  F*&king Idiot Falang is her term of endearment of the moment for me!  Lucky she stops at this really with all them knives about.

For all the complaining I hear about thai wifes and girlfriends being money mad, I have never seen this in Duang and when I met her I was sleeping rough on the floor of the diveshop as I was too tight to part with money for a room and living in the shop gave us chance to pick up more customers for the boats.

Yorkshire folk are "careful" with their money and she realises this and has always earnt her own.  Tony is now growing up in a good environment.... we keep the Gordon Ramseyism confined to his school times and it's all smiles and pies when he comes home in the afternoon.

Pitty I am busy today as I have just had tons of ideas for a post.  C'est La Vie the 100's gone and now so am I.

Happy days,.... still.

He who dares... the eternal optimist

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Is the glass half full or half empty?

I've always been an optimist.. maybe a moaning shouting and cursing one, but an optimist none the less.   Never have I felt that "shit just happens".  It happens and it's how you react to it that makes the difference.   The sooner I make a move, the sooner the shit either stops happening, goes away altogether (however slowly) or the process of recovering from the shit that has happened gets underway and  the recovery process begins.

Last years tax bill was, well, enough to have many leaving Land of Smiles looking for well paid work in the West.  With a few mental calculations, I decided to stop drinking and open the shop for breakfast, this amount would more than cover the bill I reckoned.  Problem resolved and happy life resumed within the day... or two.  Deciding to stop drinking also lead to improvements in quality, extended the range and brought about a chance to expand in a way I could never have done on my own, from our original premises.

It's just a chance, but that is as much as I have ever needed.  Forget luck, prayers and karma, I learnt to take my chances well, as they don't come about often enough in life.  This is especially true for working class, overweight pie makers.

Forget business leaders, one of Del Boys corniest catch phrases sums it up in a nut shell.  He who dares, wins!  Whilst obviously lifted from the SAS motto "Who Dares Wins", his cheerful optimism and ability to keep going when all seems lost, is a lesson to us all.

Here's Uncle Albert doing an impression of Del Boy's famous phrase and almost copping and unfortunate one.  For my friend Linda who is studying cockney slang, Del's last sentence "about them syrups he flogged me" uses Syrup = syrup of figs = wigs.  Great hearing a South African English teacher talking slang.

Further thanks to Oscar Wilde for the following.  Great thanks actually as it was Giles Brandreth who I remember hear saying it on Countdown all those years ago!! Pseud or what?


Between the optimist & pessimist, the difference is drole. 
The optimist sees the doughnut, the pessimist the hole

Typing this blog has raised my awareness of being static for 6 years and I am starting to feel that change could be in the air... very exciting it is as well.  When that next chance comes, will I be brave enough to take it?

Ditch that desk job and head for the sun.. (Get me out of here, I'm a Pieman)

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Harrogate Borough Council.. how did that happen? Part one.

Did I always have a pie shop... No, I spent lots of time in them in various parts of the world, but it was never my career.  Yes I did actually have a career in Local Government.

I spent 10 years to the day working for Harrogate Borough Council.  I had slipped in the back door really as I had been a complete drop out for the first 12 years after leaving school.  1989 saw me in a suit for the first time in my working life and I didn't think it would last...... it didn't, but I really enjoyed it for the 10 years I was there.

A serious bike accident had seen me in traction, hospital, pot leg for nearly 3 years and someone had thought to re-train me, teach me to type and put me on an IT course.  I often felt some rich tycoons were behind it for a bet. Pehaps they were training a monkey in another part of the country and matching its progress against mine.  It did feel very strange moving into this lifestyle, maybe too strange and that is perhaps why I never totally managed it.

So, before they would let me do the course I had to pass Pitman level three typing and have therefore been a touch typist since pretty much day one.  Great having me on the course, not only was I the only man on the course, I also had the longest hair as I was becoming a bit of a yetti by this time.

The beard went and the hair... bit by bit and each week they insisted on another 6 inches or so of it being removed.

All this was 1984 - 1988 just as the PC was launched.  By shear massive luck I was at the cutting edge of Computer Technology and employable!!   Even with the 12 years of diverse manual jobs, un-employment and time in hospital.  Add to this my Sole C.S.E. (2) in Maths and it is amazing I had a career at all.

I always like to say (true) that Rodney from only Fools and Horses is much better qualified than me, and his CV was more impressive as well.  This is by far and away my favourite watch... Films, TV internet anything, there is nothing I enjoy more that this.  There will be plenty of references from it!

Local Government was going through a great upheaval at this time.  They really threw off a lot of the grey staid image they had and I worked under some very innovative Managers.  Changes in Policy brought in a new Director, new younger managers and me.  I just hung on in there, recognised that changes was coming, embraced it and just clung on for the ride.

We were moved out of enormous impersonal buildings back into the hearts of the Estates and expected to get to know residents and listen.  The days of pushing buttons and sending out endless letters had just ended and we were to visit, visit visit,  talk, listen adapt.  I enjoyed it and found it much easier to talk with people than to hide in an office issuing  letters.  So I started to get more excercise.

There was also a fantastic Social scene at  the Department of Health and Housing,  we were genuinly friends, cared about each other, socialised, argued about football and, horror of horrors, drank beer.  Great times and great people.