Schizophrenic greyhound....

Hi there,

The other day my missus told me that our greyhound is schizophrenic. Apparently he thinks he is a lapdog. That is quite impossible as he stands a good two foot high and weighs a ton.
No sooner had my wife remarked this and the silly mutt got up, scrambled his way up the settee in between myself and the wife and plonked himself right in the middle...
I mean, does this look like an all conquering, race winning, faster-than-the-speed-of-light greyhound or is this a poodle?

Amazing how these quite ungainly dogs on stilts can wedge themself in such a small place. Of course I think the dog realises that he has wormed himself even more into the affection on my missus. She always wanted a lapdog...

Cheerio,

Alex.

Wheyhey Costa Rica on the horizon!!!

Wheyhey, good news!

I just heard from my friend in Costa Rica that they need a commissioning engineer pretty quickly. There are two jobs in Cartago and in Guanacaste.

I have been to Costa Rica twice and both times I had a whale of a time. The guy in the red shirt in the picture below is Luis. He is one of the technicians in Cartago. Last time he was responsible for making that trip a very good trip! Loads of Imperial beer which I think is the best beer of Costa Rica.

In the picture we were watching the Costa Rican football team qualifying for Germany 2006.

The first time I was there we had a bit of a party in the house I was staying in. Luiz turned out to be a good cook. He burned all the food that we had in the house.

Here he is doing frijoles for Rolando. That guy can eat beans till he explodes! With a bit of luck I should find out this week when I am going there. Can't wait! Luiz, see you soon!

El Rey De Imperial!

The coolest flight ever!!!

Ooops, I forgot something...

When our holiday in Hua Hin was finished we took the coolest flight ever. The limousine ride from Bangkok airport to Hua Hin had taken over three hours so for the way back we wanted something a bit faster. One evening while strolling from bar to bar we found a place that advertised planes to Bangkok. The next day we looked into it and found out that it was only about 50 quid per person to fly to Bangkok airport. Flight time was only 40 minutes. We booked it straightaway. The company was SGA Airways and they fly two little 12 seaters all over Thailand. The web address is at the bottom of this entry.

It was well organised. At Hua hin airport somebody carried our luggage through the security for us and stuck us in the lounge. (A Room with two settees and free drinks.) After a while someone came to pick us up and we walked to the plane.

This thing takes about 12 passengers but there were only 7 others on this day. There were a pilot and his helper and that was that.
The thing cruised at about 2000 meters so we had cracking views of the Bay Of Thailand. There was obviously no cabin crew or free drinks but it still was excellent!

This was the view out of the window when we came in to land at Bangkok Savurnabumi Airport. It was one of the smoothest landings I have ever experienced. The picture is a bit shite as my camera is a bit shite....


http://www.sga.co.th/en-GB/index.html

The SGA staff made sure we found our connecting flight, everything was very well organised. Hats off to the SGA staff, they were great!

Cheerio,
Alex.

Jay settling in nicely...

The new addition to our household is behaving himself reasonably. He hasn't killed any other dogs and seems to be enjoying living with us. In the house he is as affectionate as they come. He sometimes forgets he is a greyhound and pretends to be a lapdog. Unfortunatly for us he weighs quite a bit. He is far more affactionate then what Mickey ever was. Mick could take affection or leave it. The only thing that motivated him was chasing wildlife and food.

The other day I was out with Jay and shot this piccie of a stunning sunset over the river Stour. The light was just right and even with my crappy 'point and click' I got a decent image.

Meanwhile Jay was of the lead and enjoying himself. This field where I walk him is completely fenced in so he can't get away. I do put his muzzle on as you never know if anyone else walks their dog there. He still can't be trusted with little dogs.
I think it has been quite a while since he had the freedom to tear around a field. He enjoys it but he is not the fittest dog... He only does a lap or two and then pants for the next half hour. My previous dog could go for hours without trouble. Then again he had been used to that for years...
He does look handsome though when he poses. It looks a bit stupid with that muzzle but rather that, than having irate dogowners complaining that he has eaten their chihuahua....

Cheerio,
Alex.

My dad's birthday...

Afternoon!!

After we got back from Thailand we had a few days in England and then it was off to Holland to visit the family. As you know I am from Holland originally and most of my family still lives there. My dad was celebrating his 65th birthday on the 15th of december so the missus, James, the mother in law and myself got on an Ryanair bus and flew to Eindhoven.

On the friday my mum was busy organising the party for that evening. She'd pulled out all the stops, loadsa food, loadsa booze, loadsa relatives coming over. My younger brother was staying the weekend as well with his two children so the house was pretty full.

The party in the evening was excellent. My dad had this neat little beer pump with 1 and 1/2 gallon beer kegs. I 'helped' him test the function of this. On the saturday after a few hours of sucking aspirins we had a nice time shopping in Utrecht. We dragged the mother in law all over town so she could complete her christmas shopping. (Everything is much cheaper in Holland than what it is in England...) In the evening we had a nice meal in a themed restaurant in Nieuwegein.

On the sunday it was back to the airport as we all had to work on the monday. Oh no, I tell a lie, I was off till the 2nd of january, much to Jackie's discust hahahaha.....

More later,

Alex.

Small elephants are not nice!!!

And something else about the Thai wildlife... While at the elephant park Jackie spotted a baby elephant. Of course she had to go over there and stroke it. The bugger was asleep but as soon as we got in reach he got up and headbutted my missus. It might only be three foot high but it weighs a 150 kg so packs a good headbutt.

I stayed out of reach after my experience with the bloody gibbon. The thing was busy trying to eat Jackie's shoes, slobbered all over her shirt and tried to headbutt her repeatedly. Nice.

Then the thing tried to lob a rubber tire at me. By this time I had enough of all the Thai wildlife and was looking around for a gun. Jackie was till playing with the little evil blighter. The thing had now progressed to a tug of war as even Jackie now stayed out of headbutt range...

The picture below is after I shot it.

Only kidding, the thing had had enough of tourist baiting and went back to sleep. Wildlife 'ey? I prefer it on telly narrated by Sir Richard Attenborough....

Alex.

I hate gibbons!!! A monkey ate my glasses!!!

Afternoon!

You gotta hear this one, this was hilarious. After a few days of doing not very much at all, besides drink for England, my wife suggested to go and see the elephants at the Elephant Village up the road. So early in the morning we went up to this place which was only a few miles up the road by tuk-tuk. A tuk-tuk is one of those motorised threewheel mopeds that everyone uses to get around. They are dirt cheap and nice and cool as there are no sides to them. When we got to the elephant place it was obvious we were a bit early as all the mahouts (elephant drivers) were still asleep. They all kipped on top of their elephants.

We went for a one hour tour around the hills. It was pretty cool. These elephants walk up 45 degree hills with no bother and it is all pretty smooth going. As it was early the elphant we were on was not quite finished with his breakfast so he kept ripping up clumps of bamboo from the side of the path. This he then crunched as he walked and a few minutes later the thing would fart like hell. All pretty funny. At some point I asked the driver if I could drive the elephant and he said yes and jumped off! Luckily the elephant sortoff followed the guy as I don't know where the throttle or brakes are on an elephant.

After bumbling though the jungle for an hour and crossing a river on the elephant (I aint kidding, the bloody think nearly sank with us on top...) we got back to the stables. We had some free nosh and then had a look around. Somewhere out the back there was a gibbon tied to a tree with a chain. My missus went up there and stroked the bastard. I took some piccies and then I went up to have a look as well. As soon as I was within reach the little &^$&^%cker snatched my glasses of my head.

In the piccie above the bastard is eating my glasses in the top of his tree. I looked for a great big rock to throw at the bugger but after a while someone from the place came with a big stick. I was hoping he was gonna hit the buggery out of the little shit but the gibbon was well aware of this and scooted up even higher into the tree. Then someone else came along with a bit of fruit. Finally the little furball came down and threw my glasses back and ate the pineapple. So if anyone ever asks me for a donation to a 'Save The Gibbon' fund my contribution will be a great big rock! I'm sure we could make a nice coat out of three or four of the little suckers! After that happened I knocked the sightseeing on the head and concentrated on drinking beer, much safer...

Alex.

Thailand Holiday!!!

Morning again,

On the 30th of November it was finally time for our annual holiday. I managed to get so many airmiles on my frequent flyer card that I could fly to Thailand business class all the way there and back for me and my wife. I must say, as readers of this blog know, that I am not a great friend of Air France. They make my life hell normally when I use them for any sort of work trip. Using them to fly business class is a different matter. The service was second to none, the food excellent and the comfort was fantastic. We had those lay flat seats and as much booze as you wanted. I actually got some sleep on the flight, which is rare for me. When we got to Bangkok there was a car waiting for us that raced us to Hua Hin in Pretchaburi Province. The place where we stayed was very nice, good service and clean and the airconditioning worked good. (It was very hot and sticky...)


We arrived in Hua Hin around 5 in the afternoon and to combat the jetlag I used my trusted recipe of getting pissed as soon as you arrive. This hides the jetlag and the next morning you don't know if you feel crap from the jetlag or the booze, problem Solved! This was somewhere in the bar area near the beach. A large bottle of Singha beer cost about 60p, bloody excellent!

This was the next day on the beach. The beach was clean and had an excellent extra feature. It functioned as a shopping mall. All day long people came walking by to sell you anything from wallets to airconditioning units to used fighter aeroplanes, brilliant!

Me and the missus thought we had died and gone to heaven. Lovely weather, clean seas, excellent thai food, thai massages on the beach, this is the place where I want to retire!

More later,

Alex.

New updates... (finally....)

Morning all,

It's been a while since I have updated the Blog. In fact it has been over a month. Sorry about that. I have been busy. I will update the Blog with all the relevant stuff that has been going on over the last few weeks. We've been to Thailand for holidays, had a weekend in Holland because of my dad's birthday, we've had Christmas and New Year, so quite a few things to share. As Rob told me, get on with it!

I'll do 'em in chronological order so it maybe makes a little bit of sense....

Cheerio,

Alex.