General

April 28th. Snaps here. Trying to keep cool. The last few days have been typical April weather; dry and hot. Were we led down the path of thinking that this was gonna be a different year? After an unusually cool March and early April. No rain of course. Plenty of nut cutting. Did three trips to the wholesaler; a 74 km round trip. Some of the bunches are well over 20 kilos. and are a job to handle with the spikes. Nuts all over. First load. Weighed in at 1170 kg. Second load was pushing the capabilities of the Mazza. Thought it a good idea to stay well clear of the highways enforcement office on this trip. A whopping 1300 kg. The loose nuts account for about 3% of the total weight. So not that much. In fact, on the big farms they leave them on the ground for nut scroungers. They dry them out (a little) and sell them as fire lighters. Last load of the month. Made sure the last load was piled up rather than sideways. That's it Kun. Stamp em down. last trip was 1275 kg. So all told; 3745 kg,The price had dropped to 5.20 a kilo. But not moaning too much Money was burning a hole in my pocket. Should I splash out? Pay the hat lady a visit perhaps! Not on this occasion. On the way back from the last trip, I treated the family to a couple of top-notch hammocks. The ones you can sleep in. A bit pricey; 300 Baht each. Also called intothe new Global House, for some leather gloves. Also, to find out what the big dark building, with no windows, was all about. It turned out to be a giant 3D storage building. I was dying to sit on a box of stuff and go to the top. Must be 100 km of PVC pipes ready for customers. Inside there were huge racks full too. No luck with the gloves. They had at least a dozen different sorts, but no leather ones for handling the nuts. Bit light on the customer scene. Early days yet though. View looking out to the road. The big mess at the back of the new house purchase (wife's mother's old place) is now ours. Evidently, the far end of the land plot, was not part of the house deal. So it had to be paid for separately. Another 50k gone. Proof of purchase. On the upside, while I was rummaging around in the rubble, seeing of anyone had hid some gold, I found an old pot. Found a sad house in the North End of Bandung. Don't normally go up that way. but I was keeping off the main Ban Dung drags due to being a tad overloaded. That wouldn't be a problem at all for a Thai, but if a peeler saw a farang was driving, he would have gotten extremely interested. In fact he might well have wet himself with excitement. Looks like it had been empty for some time. SongKran finished. Kept pretty dry, but I did get caught in the soi. Some ladies were walking along while I was checking the Mazza for oil and water outside the house. I took a pic, and returned to the checking. The next thing, I had a cup of ice cold water poured down me back. And they were off, searching for another victim. Mildred tinted her hair with orange and green streaks. I shaved mine off. ''Dad! come quick, Bring the camera.'' Fantastic. Made about 600 grammes of chocolate. Didn't turn out as expected. Never went hard. Too much honey? Still yummy though. Gonna make some more tomorrow (Tuesday). +++++ Pool are the Champs, and it's a Palace, City, Cup Final. Clarets and Peacocks are up. Can they stay up? Not good for promoted teams in recent seasons. Brum top the 100 points. One of the oldest clubs in the world, Red Dragons, go up with them. United are easy meat this season, but Cherries couldn't see them off. Shocks in the snooker. Previous winners gone early on! Got a 147? Still out. Gerwin Price magnificent in the darts. +++++ Wow! It's been hot of late. Just nudging 40C for last week. Found a duck breeder. Have ordered 10 white ones. After locking them away for their own safety, we will let them go into number 6 pond. The leaning tree pond. After the euca harvest last year, there was a fair bit of damage to some areas. No regrowth for a few hundred trees. Have ordered 1000, from a supplier in the Khorat area. 'Fast growers', Mrs Snaps reckons. We will see. Not gonna put then into the ground until the rain arrives. If it arrives! The wife has taken control. I'm not unhappy about that. Got enough on me plate. I'm paying naturally. wouldn't want the Mrs to sell any more gold; which has just hit a record high. Every so often I get a jar of coffee and some smokes for E. The lad from the next farm. He keeps his eye on things. The left overs from rice shelling is called 'Rum'. Or 'lum', as they say here, cause they can't pronounce the letter 'R'. The Rum is the staple diet for the ducks. It had run out. The ducks were hungry. Bought a sack lest evening. Broke the display on me camera. Still takes pics, but I can't adjust the settings. All been coming out a bit dark recently. Only we seem to keep fish and ducks as pets. Ducks nearly 6 months old now. Some beautiful markings. I'll get a close up for next post. Started with 12. Have just 4 now. I've thinking goats. Or turkeys. The Mrs says 'no'. But as is the way in these parts, a 20 baht note sticking out of me shirt top pocket can work wonders. Even change minds. Thinking about rain. Only three showers since the last day in September 2024. That's well over 200 days. Between the village and our farm, there is 11, that I know of, small solar systems, exclusively for pumping up water. Any farmer who wants to grow anything outside of the rice season, corn or tobacco (eg), needs these solar set ups. The result, is that the water table is getting lower and lower. Checked it last week; 18 metres down. A few years back at this time of year, it was 9 metres. That's it for now folks. Stay cool.

I think shifting demographics, publicity, overtourism and of course money all provoke change. I would argue that Sukhumvit Soi 4 rose up in response to the commercialization of Patpong. It became a refuge for people who people who liked Patpong the way it was before the oddball tourists started rolling in… And now Soi 4 has become a zoo and the pool playing, BG-chasing grizzled expats have migrated to Soi 8. In 20 years, that too will be over the top and there’ll be another shift… or a pivot away altogether. Evolution.