Part 03

A DIFFERENT VIEW FROM NONGKHAI

Published

15 july

2551
          Once again I'm back , so if you have been following me on my Nongkhai adventure you may or may not be pleased at this latest instalment.  So much to say but , I know how busy you all are so I'll try to be as short as possible.    ( yeah right )
                       It is usually around this time that I wonder what exactly have I been up to? Can another month have passed already? It is then to my trusty camera I turn to , to go over the images I have deemed worth capturing , that some semblance of events comes to mind .
      So , what have I been amusing myself with this month? Well we have been sampling some of the restaurants around town , going to the park again , gardening , reading lots of books going back in time with Lana to see dinosaurs , looking at beasties , having a brush with the law , finishing kitchens and painting fences and having my first ever  " CROIKEY!!!!!!! " Steve Irwin moment. The last of which I shall deal with first. Just after these lovely pictures for those of you who cant read. Don't you just love that sky.
                                                                   

SNAKES.  Croikey !!!!!
       There have been a lot of sightings of snakes here in Hat Kham . I read online that 10% , 20% and 30 % of snakes in Thailand are poisonous. Not sure who to believe but I'll hedge my bets by trying not to get bitten by any of them .They are in my mind when I lift things in the garden , cut the grass etc. We have had one in the kitchen of old , hiding under the food cover getting warmth from the black bowl it was on. It seemed to live under the concrete. I've seen little brown ones over the wall and to be honest I figured I'd be more scared than I was of the little critters. But then I had an encounter in the  kitchen extension . As I anticipated the room  was being christened by people sleeping in it??? I was clearing the bush alongside when I startled a 3-4 foot green snake  that shot off at pace into the kitchen right toward the sleeping pair of Khon Yai and my very own Mr Morgan.

     So Ah says tae the sleekit wee snake like...." Here you ...Snake. " which seemed tae get its attention like. Ah says tae it "Either you get tae f@£$ oot ay ma new kitchen and leave the bairn alone or you and me are gonnae  tussle . What ye gaunnae dae aboot it?"  Snake Boay wis gien it aw the hard act like wi the teeth an hissin an that and says tae us aw wide like  " Aye mebbes we wont need tae go naewhere like. Lets go right here like . Moan nen. "  Well ah wisnae takin that fae nae F£$%IN snake like so ah steamed  in and booted it right where ah imagined a snake might hae its baws and delivered a fang  loosening kick tae the mooth . I think it got the message like cos ah showed it the elbow and it just limped away wi its tail tucked firmly between its .... under its .... ah you know .  I dusted my hands off and got a hero's reception from the town and Steve Irwin came back to life to shake my hand............                                    TRANSLATION BELOW.

          To say I shat myself would be an understatement. Nae offence MIL but my first thought was for the wee man. Time did as it does in these situations and stretched . All at once I worked out that the snake would get there before I could stop it, that shouting would wake them up and startle and panic the reptile possibly making it bite and that really there was nothing I could do but hope it would slither round or over the sleepy heads. I was working out the best moment to get between it and them should it go past them , the best way to hospital and how best to catch the animal so as to identify the anti venom.   Barely able to look I saw it glide effortlessly over them both so I darted in , grabbed Mr Chunky Bunny , got MIL  up and stood well back. I was then handed a broom to herd it out again . Was it one of the 10 / 20 / 30 % ? Is my insurance up to date? Might I die here ? Would that please MIL??? In the end it was shitting itself way more than me  and couldn't wait to get out  but it was nervous times nonetheless. I myself took some time to stop my heart beating so fast and went off to change my undergarments . Morgan , bless his wee animal pants had a big yawn and went right back to sleep. Awwwwwwww.
 
                    So I didn't  get a picture of the green snake but took the above picture off the net as its the closest one I could find. The other pictures are of a snake that seems to live in the garden somewhere , captured here as it glides past the window. Miew bless him seems intent on hunting it down. He is good at snaking is Miew. In Scotland cats always trail in with bits of mouse or robin . Here its half snakes and lizards minus the tail. Good cat.
                    So as you might have gathered from above the kitchen extension is finally finished. seems everyone got involved except me. I didn't want a kitchen ( well didn't think it a wise use of limited funds anyway) so I left it in the hands of Panomsan, who did a lovely job considering. Anyway now the kitchen is  done I do like it , it is a good place to sleep and has wonderful light. A shame that after me drawing diagrams, getting Laila to translate and people measuring things 15 times they forgot we would be tiling the units and didn't leave enough room for the cooker in it's intended spot. Meaning that the lovely space next to the window that would have made a great breakfast table spot now is filled with a cooker. That all over sums up the Thai approach to things .
 

 

So the project has been completed with help from Panomsan (BIL)  and FIL in construction , and above  Laila and Lana finishing off the paintwork , the very lovely Mr Tile man ( no one knows his name ???) seen  enjoying a beer after doing a wonderful job , Cousin  Mon doing the electrics  . It has gone from this on the left to this on the right. Still trying to train everyone to wash the dishes in the sink and not please at the front door anymore. Old habits die hard eh. Oh well .

 

 

                     Of course the old kitchen is now nothing more than a corridor which Laila talks about turning into a dining room. But everyone knows that  you cluster round the narrowest part of the living room floor to eat , just next to the dining table , so no one can get in or out of the house or bedrooms .Silly Laila. 

        Anyhow , not content with just painting the kitchen , Laila and I took on the job of painting the newly rendered outside wall in attractive shades of young salmon and sky blue.....Which was nice. Hanging about on my street for a few days taught me that everyone in my village thinks I'm mad for working in the mid day sun but thinks my wall is now "SOOAI" or beautiful, and that there is a woman here called " THE CRAZY LADY" who chains herself to trees and lies in the shade. She also has a thing about killing me apparently  and often shouts threats over the wall followed by articles of her clothing. Meybe they are lying about her wanting to kill me. It's acknowledged as a shame as she was once a very nice , very attractive woman who had some difficulties in life particular to a woman . Her mother decided on a different course of action to one she would have wanted and she  went into decline after carrying out her mothers orders. Just to be on the safe side I try to just stay out of her way.

       
 
     So there is my smashing  house , a rare picture of my lovely self entitled 'The Artist As A Young Man ' , a stunning picture of my newly painted wall and something vaguely voodoo that Crazy Lady left behind when I finished. I mean what is in that little bag? What was she saying as she bent over this offering, eyes closed? Answers on a post card guys.
 

DINING OUT

 
       Having been a chef most of my working life people assume I must be critical whenever I eat out. ( Hey, .Maybe that's why no one asks me to dinner .Hmmmm) Good food is good and  bad food is bad .... its simple. In Britain people are just waking up to the idea that food can be good when you eat out and indeed should be so. Here in Thailand and particularly here in the Laos influenced  area known as Issan , fantastic cooking is everywhere. Roadside, in the restaurant, everywhere. Our kitchen is not used nearly as much as it could be. Just a hundred yards away is a great little restaurant run by my cousin Yao . It is made from bamboo, wooden poles and thatch , is open all round to the elements, has plastic seats, an earth floor , a muddy car park and a kitchen that would make my old health inspector Mr Bastible  over load on misdemeanours . To me its amazing.   If it wasn't rude , and if my Thai were better I could shout over my wall for some of their lovely food to be delivered. But why when I could send Lana with the money and have it dropped off , with child , in a few minutes. Even better is the idea that if we actually walk the hundred yards there , the brigade of fantastic cooks will look after Morgan and Lana while Laila and I eat to our hearts content. After , they give us some cuttings of their plants for the garden , and do the washing up. They even know now how I like my Laap salad. Not too spicy ladies.  
        So there you see my cousin , the owner of this fine establishment making Sam tom or papaya salad. There is no doubting that she is the boss round here , though that smile is as welcoming as it is genuine. Morgan you see with  his many admirers doing the charm thing , some of the food and the view of the restaurant with my house in the background and the restaurant from my living room window. I hope they understood that next time I go I will be asking them to teach me to cook my order , so I will keep you posted on what I learn.
                               At Lana's school there is one other falang mixed boy called Thawan  ( sunflower like Lana ) and his mum Nat has recently opened a nice little coffee shop on the river front . She sells Thai grown coffee ( robusta ) which is nice , beer and Snacks from the Swiss inspired menu. Being at the quiet end of town  near the new stupa , I like it there . The river glides by , the view of Laos is lovely but , a word of warning, around 6.00 pm , an aerobics group sets up camp over the way and kinda kills the peaceful thing. Anyway Nat herself is a lovely hostess and good to see her back in business after her bar was burnt down in the fire next to  Tha Sadet market last year. 

You can see  that we enjoyed a lovely Sunday afternoon here. Nat ( in yellow ) was having some small difficulties with the coffee machine but I did my bit by changing to beer quite quickly. Lana has a new love in her life. ( sorry Cameron) She and Thawan (superman)  proclaimed love for each other and generally had a great time , Morgan only woke  from his Sunday siesta to find himself some lovely ladies for his little black book , and he didn't have to look far. ( Nat and a lady I know only as beautician sushi woman )   Mrs. Waites managing another of her smiles while she enjoyed the free wireless mobile connection. Totally out of character really  ...................... The phone I mean .
  We ate also at a place just further along from Nat's called Hua Kon Dee. The first time to try it out and the second to celebrate Oy's Birthday. A certain Mr Brading bumped into us the first time to invite us to the second sitting. A lovely evening was had on both occasions and the second time Tony even picked up the tab. ( and every one told me he was tight eh ??? ) As I was having so much fun I forgot to get any pictures but here's one of birthday girl Oy and her lovely children Manao and Kao Farng all looking lovely. Oy seemed to have a lovely evening too and didn't even seem to mind us murdering 'Happy Birthday ' publicly in her honour. 

      Again the food was excellent and Morgan managed to find about 4 waitresses to look after him and show him the fish. What's he like eh?
  For my last restaurant experience I must here thank Mitsubishi sales team Nongkhai and Tuk in particular ( seen below modelling Morgan.) as she was the one who invited us all. Basically if you buy a car from Mitsubishi they invite you each year to a party where they had a lot of  fantastic food , free flowing beer ( or juice) and after a nice Karaoke singsong to say thanks for all your cash  I was sceptical at first but like I said the food was lovely , steamed and fried fish, crab rice, tom yum kung, chicken and cashews and it just kept coming. For me though , the highlight  was when my lovely wife took to the stage to strut her stuff on the mic. I had not heard her sing publicly for ages and she sang her way through three numbers before a rousing ovation from the masses to her obvious delight. To my mind , British companies should do the same thing. The free dinners that is , not the singing. I can just see the Halifax saying " Dear Mr Waites as a loyal and valued customer giving us tons of cash each month we decided to be real nice to you and your family by shouting you dinner in a posh restaurant. "  Just cant see it somehow. Oh well. All the family ate well and Lana and Neet loved the dancing.
 

   I mentioned that I have  been doing a lot of reading . My one luxury in the packing cases was lots and lots of books that I have not read due to my previous hectic schedule. One book in particular has been lying around waiting to be read for ages and thanks to Iain 'Meester Mack ' MacKenzie for giving me Richard Dawkins 'The God Delusion'  As one who has always marvelled at the ability of religion to divide and muddle peoples brains it was nice to read such a wonderful argument backing up my belief that there is in fact NO GOD.  I took to reading it after an internet conversation with someone who has relatively recently become fervently 'into' the bible and explains life in terms of Jesus and god. I always wondered why people needed to explain such un-answerables as why we are here, how did we get here etc etc . As the late Douglas Adams once quipped  "Is it not enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too." I guess this  sums up my thoughts on the god matter .

          As a young lad of say 5 or 6 , I remember wondering about god. Clearly someone had told me something about him for I knew he lived in the sky in a very very secret place. He could see everyone all the time, knew what you were thinking  and was more or less responsible for everything. I also knew that maybe you went to heaven if you died and maybe you didn't., My child mind had him down as looking just like Bamber Gascoigne from University Challenge. Leather arm patches and all. I wondered though , how did he see all those things at once. I counted the people in the village and imagined that maybe he had a big wrist screen divided into one bit for each person. I tried to imagine  how he could see them all with his 2 eyes and practiced looking at more than one thing at a time myself. Did god sleep I wondered ? And how did he get from the T.V. to his house in the sky without anyone following him and finding out. More to the point where did he hide the stairs so nobody would stumble upon them when he was out. I figured he must hide the stairs in a thicket I knew of in a garden I wasn't allowed into. He had the Mallaig nurse to bring him his messages and dinner and she kept his secret......maybe. It certainly all was puzzling.  I even remember a little later figuring that the only way to find out if god were there I would have to kill myself and see what happened next. Luckily I figured that I would die pretty soon anyways              ( relatively speaking ) and was willing to wait. See my money  even then was on him not being real , like Santa , and also figured there would be no fun in proving myself right. Not long after this I was being chased round the playground aged maybe 6 or 7 by a pack of kids who wanted to know if I was catholic or protestant. My mother informed me that I was neither but that ancestrally we were protestant ( she must have known it might appease the little bigots) but that didn't seem to stop em.
         

                 Shoot forward a few years to my next religious memory and I left the Cub Scouts , refusing to sing Koombaya My Lord to a fictitious character in the Sky. It just felt stupid. The football and camping and cooking were great but that was the limit. The leader Ken Wilson seemingly couldn't believe what he was hearing.  About the only other thing for us youngsters to do in presbyterian  North West Scotland was go to Youth Fellowship meetings. I distinctly remember aged 12 or 13 arguing with Donnie Gordon , a nice chap , that we created God to which he tried to politely guide me that no , it was he who created us. It was in the bible see. He created the universe and all in it. It was in Genesis see?? I would ask where did gods parents come from ?It would continue with him  arguing that god had always been there and me saying then why cant the universe have operated similarly etc etc etc  ?  Looking back I can clearly see that there was no doubt in his mind that the Bible was truth itself and that I needed help to understand.  There was also no doubt in my mind that nice as he was , this man , like most people round that area  of his age were living in a different world.   

            High school too was a place where religion continued to confound me. I remember being asked on a  form what my religion was. The teacher told us to write down that we were all Christians but , being me , I asked why there was no Atheist box on the card. Her reaction and that of the class was as if I had said C**T.  Apparently I was told that unless I was a practicing Atheist (whatever that is) then I was a Christian end of story and don't argue?????? It was  shortly after this that I discovered hallucinogens and really started having fun with the oneness of everything and marvelling in my own way at the creation of all.  As Einstein said  "I don't try to imagine a personal God; it suffices to stand in awe at the structure of the world insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it."

   
                        So you can see that after some thought as a child (as in not even an adult yet ) I saw the holes in  religion and as I grew up it was inexplicably important that I be allowed to not believe. I got sick of people using religion as their trump card and saying I couldn't disagree with their religion. JUST BECAUSE !!!!!. Sick of  the way I wasn't allowed to not like their religion and say so even when they were telling me how I should live. But I just figured they should all grow up. Stop being so bloody touchy. People might say that such an outburst is blasphemous or rude. Somehow hurtful or unacceptable . Insulting ones religion is a big taboo is it not? Well I think not. No worse than saying I don't like soap operas or heavy metal music. So thank you Mr Dawkins for standing up and articulating so much of what I have felt over the past years . Perhaps if more read the book and gave it as much thought they did to their scriptures they would agree that God is just a delusion.  Then we could get on with just being here. Maybe loosen up a bit .Even have a little fun. And for anyone out there that says  "why atheist as opposed to agnostic," well I know he / she / it is not there because ... well .... because well I just do OK. Now stop bloody questioning me or I'll blow my self up or nip round your house on a crusade or summat. ALRIGHT.!!!!!.

For anyone I may have upset during the last few paragraphs console yourselves that your God will send me to hell / wherever anyway.

I'm so sure that there is no god though that I'm willing to put myself up for experiment. Since he is omnipotent and omnipresent he will surely be reading this, or one of his dear followers will no doubt bring it up in church next Sunday lest he miss out , being busy as he is making peoples crops fail and having famine / war scourge the poorer parts of the world , making bus drivers rude, kids die etc. I am willing to continuously insult him in the hope that one of the numerous lightning bolts round here be directed to me to show that he is pissed off with my attitude . Which would really be his if he created me no ???

 
                                  So this week I'm taunting the Christian god by posting these  pictures of his son being mocked etc  and am going one further by calling the great man himself a work shy  failure. Call this a creation god??  Christ,  at least make it work. Further more , Genesis , chapter 2 has him ask who slayed Cain or Abel or who ever got it in the field. I mean , was he napping?. There were supposedly only 4 people on the earth and he doesn't know who committed the murder??? Pretty slack if you ask me. I'll play him at cluedo for a tenner any day. ......Muppet.  Yes god you are a muppet that cant even get your mouthpieces to tell a believable yarn past page 2.   That should do for starters.

      In the interests of fairness and science though I am willing to read this famous best seller in a bid to give it the chance to 'show me THE WAY  '   ...................  'lead me to THE TRUTH' If I do find 'THE TRUTH ' , I will use this website for no other purpose than to preach from on high.   All the while I do not however I will be taking the piss. Seems fair to me.Some may say that is hardly scientific. Well I am dealing with religion here guys ....cmon . Next month I will bring you my review of that favourite of everyone, GENESIS. ( no not the Phil Collins/Peter Gabriel one) I've dipped in already and am willing so far to blasphemously say that it is pretty horrifying and if the big chap is listening then I call thee a murderous , infantile, baw bag . Bum sex? Incest. Selling your wife for some camels, destruction of all life except Noah etc just cos it wasn't panning out the way he hoped??? What a tosser. I could do better at creating a world myself.  Dawkins himself politely declined stating the obvious . But after all the bad things religious people have done ( war , hatred, lies, physical  and mental child abuse , oppression of women , war , war , war, lies , war , oppression , child abuse and oppression of women ) I feel someone should let them know ...... YOUR ALL FUC***G MENTAL. .........LEAVE THE KIDS AND WOMEN ALONE............... GET A LIFE. .................READ MORE BOOKS.

      Still breathing.       Mmmmmmmmm  nice breath ....... sun is shining ......   weather is sweet ...... makes me wanna move...   my dancing feet.    Still breathing....... no lightning yet. Come and catch me if you can. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha .   Anyone got any faster ways to hell without resorting to bad deeds against others let me know. I'll try em out.
        Any one disagreeing with any of the above and wants to come burn my house down or lynch me..... make sure you do a really really good job. And make sure my kids are out. Alternatively enter into discussion ( with me , your friends or your lord) learn to simply disagree or just  S T F U.
 

     LANA's  LIFE    

                                       

                 Hi there, Dad says I am allowed to talk to you all again as long as I don't swear or be cheeky. He says that swearing is not nice but that he was a chef and chefs swear all the time especially when ass****s  try to kill us on the fu****g  motorbike but that he still shouldn't swear and if I hear him I have to tell him to stop. Bloody Dads eh???I am still having a great time here in Thailand so if Nana or Grumpa are worried about me then this is to say I am O.K.  As you see this month I have been learning to drive my own bike , car and motorcycle and haven't said any swears yet.  Its hard trying to save the world all the time but now I have my own wheels I can do a much better job. The elephant last time was fine in the end. He was scared of a wee mousie and ran up a tree and got stuck. Dad says it could only happen in Thailand but you shouldn't tell him I had another call for the same thing in Scotland just last week but it was Neds that chased it and not the mouse's this time.  You can see me above on my bicycle , happy that I have just saved Nong Ai my next door neighbour from certain death at the hands of quite a lot of frogs.  You see how she is scared but I'm not. You can also see that I have trained my Dad to carry me He he .

                This month we went to a park at the top of a hill where Dad says people used to live ages and ages ago.  It took ages to get there anyway and Khon Yai, Khon Tha , Pha Soi , Pha Mai, Lung Panomsan , Thom and Neet all  stayed near the car to take pictures near some flowers , but me and my trusty steed ( DAD ) took to the forest trails and found loads of cool things. Dads can be pretty cool sometimes. Thom and Neet stayed behind to get  juice and sweets but what we found was way cooler than that . Any way , I got ice cream , juice and crisps when I was finished. Here's all the pictures.

 
       That stone thing is a dinosaur poo or so Dad said. All I can say is that the dinosaurs must have very sore bums . Anyway we /Dad walked up the big big mountain and had a lovely view from the top and on the way back down we found these lovely animals. Being a Superhero I had to try them all but I didn't go too near the tiger cos erm .. well he said he had a sore back. Yeah. Underneath you can see the pictures of the REALLY BIG DINOSAURS we found too. Again , I wasn't scared, I just wanted to keep a respectable distance. And a millilililipeder thing that dad says has got a million legs that was about as long as Mr Morgans arm.  WOW! We got back down to find that nobody else went and found anything but at least they took lots of pictures.  I'd rather adventure with Dad anytime.
 
 

We finished the day at the waterfall. Dad was beginning to mumble about being robbed for parking to see it and to be fair it wasn't really big or anything. Still everyone else seemed to enjoy going just to get their picture taken next to it . Dad was muttering something about being like Japanese tourists and took to photographing tree's. Nice tree's mind.

 
                                                  Dad and me have also been going to some parties in our village. The first one was for our neighbours baby to be christened and there was loads of music and beer and dancing girls. We had to tie money on his hands for luck. It was really loud but it's O>K> Dad said cos it's not every day. The second one was our neighbour Tony who is from Thailand but lives in America now. Its great cos I get loads of juice and food and everyone wants to play. I love those dancing girls too . It looks like a lot of fun.  Dad seemed to like the dancing girls too . Hmmmmmmm . Don't tell Mum.        
 

 
   
 Well I'm going now so I hope you enjoyed my story this week. I haven't cried for 2 whole weeks at school now. I was hoping that if I cried every morning that Mum and Dad would let me stay at home. It works for some kids I know. Anyway it is better now and my teacher is really really nice so I don't have any reason to cry any more. Well unless its to get a great big hug from Dad or Mum . Works every time. See you next time  and remember , any emergencies just give me a call. Bye

xxx Lana.
 

A QUICK WORD ABOUT MORGAN.
  

                  Being the most handsome 8 month old in the whole wide world is never going to be easy but somehow Morgan manages to pull it off with a touch of style .
             Above Morgan hands out WWF smack down justice to Mum , Dad and Khon Yai. None shall mess with the undisputed triple championship Bib holder and king of the top rope. Below he shows off his softer side by cooking, playing with dolls,  looking after Mum chatting up the womenfolk and generally just being damn cute. The lobster souffle he made was excellent by the way . Cant wait till he turns his hand to more complex dishes.
 
     Tell me now , who wouldn't just burst with pride eh?? He is becoming quite the hand full. Wakes me up at 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or  7, by slapping my face and laughing. Hard to get upset really. He is tremendously proud of his 2 wee teeth and seems to want to go from milk straight to solid food without the gunk in between. Not possible but he will try to eat everything in his path. Currently determined to stick his fingers in the fan. Nice.

               I'm convinced he is consciously saying Dadadadadadadad already as he knows I am the greatest. MIL of course reckons he is saying Yai yai yai yai .  Not too much in it but a  'd' and an 'a' can never make Yai. sorry there. I haven't told anyone yet but Morgan is already fluent in 4 languages and for obvious reasons wants to keep it to himself for now. Not a word to MIL ....OK?
 

GARDENS AND BEASTIES.

 
                  As you are all aware by now I have chosen to fight against the odds and try to grow some vegetables here in my lovely garden. So far there has been a whole lot of learning and not too much in the way of eating but here's a bit summary of the last few weeks in the garden.  

  There are 2 main things standing in the way of happy gardening here in  Hat Kham. First is the massively invasive and impossible to get rid of goose grass. Or FU****G S**T C**T WA***R P**S FACE GRASS as it can be known locally. It tunnels underground and makes knotted masses of roots that just spring up more grass and generally grow faster than anything I plant. Short of Agent Orange ( not popular round these parts ) or simply burning big fires everywhere that kill the roots too , I have no idea how to get rid of this arse of a weed. The second thing that stands between me and happy veg is the fact that I haven't a clue what I am doing truth be told. The soil , weather, plants, pests, compost , hell everything bar the conversion of sunlight to energy and consumption of CO2 seems to be the difference between gardening here and in Scotland.  The chilli seeds I planted ages ago sprouted just fine in the shop bought compost. But the compost itself carried no label saying that it has the unique ability among composts to kill any plant it touches. Work that one out. If I sow directly the grass seems to invade before much happens to the seed. Saying all this shows me just how much of a learning curve moving continents can be. I still love the trying though and feel that with every passing day I am winning the battle with / against nature. And there is always something to see. A list of the edibles at various stages of development reads like this. Chilli, aubergine, tomato, rocket, turnip, broad beans, runner beans, snake beans, peas, sunflowers, cucumbers, lemongrass ( medicinal and culinary) mango, rambutan , longan , jackfruit, nasturtium, dragon fruit , bamboo, papaya, coconut for drinking and coconut for palm heart, thai basil, lemon basil , italian basil , mint, chinese celery, sage, rosemary , shallot, lime leaf, lime, and loads of salady things that i know not the Thai or English for but sprout up wild anyway. Anyway for the illiterate ( means cant read ) here are a few pictures of my plants and all the things that eat them. And the other things I came to find this month.
     There are loads of butterflies round here . Little yellow ones, bright blue ones , lime ones and massive swallow tailed ones you would mistake for a bird. Beautiful though they are  they do lay eggs that turn into caterpillars which look lovely but eat my veg. Thats why I try to be nice to my wasp friends that build honeycombs in my porch as they eat the caterpillars and lay eggs in them and stuff. The joys of nature eh. The mantis there looks pretty tidy in a scrap too. The lotus flower seen here lasts only a day or so but is quite stunning . My wee friend the lizard seems to be  an evolutionary stepping stone to snakes as its legs are pretty rudimentary and it slides everywhere .
                Out here in the sticks people eat anything that moves. Killing birds explains why so few but the sparrows seem to abound. Pretty happy that my garden is so far a sanctuary for at least 3 families. The first nest is built inside a leaf that has been sewn into a tunnel. Just don't tell Miew. I see more and more sightings of a tiny wee yellow nectar eater and its red breasted friend. A favourite for builder of the leaf tunnel nest.
             Of course ants still feature highly here . Millions of em. I love to watch them as they battle it out with each other and the elements. There are the little tiny red ones, the not so tiny but small red ones, the middle red shiny ones and the big red ones. You find black ones that come in super speedy , shiny ones that stay in the hedge ( thank god ( not that he is there )) and blackcurrant forms .The big green one I can only hope is travelling alone cos being the size of my thumbnail I don't fancy a swarm of them any time soon. Last month we had the Super speedy ants out on a very hot night airing their little white young. This month they have been shifted to the brick pile as the new kitchen has taken their old spot. Small and middle red shiny ones have been trying to take over in the new place and biting the arse off me and my family.Grrrrrr. I believe the little ones have taken over the roof space as there are about 10 streams of them constantly pouring out of the roof and down the walls and pillars.

           The big reds that march daily along the back wall were under attack this month from the tiny wee red ones and there seemed to be nothing they could do about it. The tiny ones would grab a leg, get on top the head and bit causing the big reds to spasm and bend double backwards whereupon it would get stormed and eaten. Who need David Attenborough eh?
                                                                     SPIDERS 
              If like my Mum or to be fair most people I know you are scared of spiders you might like to look away now. They seem to be divided roughly into the really long legged type, the jumping type, the colourful and spiky type and the big fat hairy dodgy looking type that you definately wouldn't let look after the cat. The big hairy ones you see below live in my compost heap and behind the gate post. Mrs Waites hates spiders and likes to kill them but I argue that they eat mosquito's and other wee buggers that eat my veg so they can stay . Even if they are the size of a large mouse.

MY GUARD DOGS.
 

 And just incase ....   

        Just when you thought that there could be no more potential hazards in the garden , up pops matey  boy the centipede. I am not really ashamed to admit that I rearranged him as an art piece entitled  'CENTIPEDE.......... TRIPTYCH. This little 20 cm bugger was havin a right good go . Have you seen the fangs on it? These bad boys will bite and make your arm swell up for days in agonising pain. Even when just a third of his total , his head still went for me. What an absolute MF'in  MF'er.

And a few random finds including the MF'in MF'er of all MF'ers the mosquito of which I am informed there are over 400 kinds here in Thailand. How nice .
 
              Well that's about it for me again. I would and could go on but most of you probably didn't get this far anyway and probably flicked over to facebook or porn or some such amusement ages ago. Thanks to those who commented on my utterances ; most of you thankfully in a positive light. I will endeavour to shed some light on the culinary scene next time and may have to go undercover to find out the secrets of Issans finest chefs. For Seraph and Rob I shall do my best to get a nice Papaya salad recipe first up as it is the ultimate Issan dish . I imagine that there will be those who react strongly to my god challenge. I hope I do annoy some but imagine that for most people it will offer light comedic relief. Any really blasphemous  pictures or ideas on how I could offend god ( not his followers ) into killing me prematurely let me know and I'll put them to use. Like I said , I know I'm safe as I know he is not there and wont be judging me. Again , anyone wishing to act as gods instruments and attempt to kill me , make sure you do a really really good job. Unlike god who may or may  not look kindly upon your actions , I will be pretty pissed off. 

          Somehow I just know already people will be praying for my soul. Do yourselves a favour. Go to the pub and get pissed up , watch some Simpsons, smoke a joint, get laid with someone you aren't married to, burn a bible or just go for a nice walk . But please don't waste your time on me.  

          AMEN.