A Good Read

There are some really positive things about being single.Especially if you are lucky enough like me to be to be living in a luxury apartment in Thailand until the UK throws off winters grips.

I “reside” in a two bedroom,two bathroom apartment.That means I don’t just have one cleaning lady,I have two.They come with the place.

Monday morning 0900  is my allocated time,which means anything  between nine and ten o’clock.That is the only thing in my agenda the whole week.

Invitations are all very last minute so there is no need to note those.

In this paradise I have time to call my own,and can read again without getting a bad conscience because I should be doing some household chore or cooking dinner.

Not that you can attempt any heavy literature in this heat, so I enjoy just a good book that can also accompany me to the beach or down to the pool.

I have now discovered Jeffrey Archer who fits my requirements perfectly.I know he has been around for quite a while but if you haven’t read anything by him and need a book for a long journey or holiday he is your man.

 

Last week I finished “Paths of Glory”,a story about George Mallory,the English mountaineer that led the first attempt to climb Everest.
Based on fact it poses the question of whether history should be rewritten.
It is exciting,interesting and yet most amusing reading, written in a W.Somerset Maugham style,and in fact at times it is difficult to say who the writer is.

Now I have advanced to a collection of short stories by Archer.”A Twist in the Tale” Just as entertaining but enabling you to get up and do things between them.

Saving Money

You might ask what I am doing in Thailand for the winter months.

Not exactly the place for a single woman to go if she was looking for a western man,much too much competition from young Asian women.

No,I am certainly not looking for another man,I am  here for several other reasons;

I hate the cold

I love South East Asia

Most of my new friends are here too.

But most of all, because I now have to look after myself with not all the money in the world to do it with,and here you can definitely  live  more cheaply than in Europe

This money thing,is of course the  stumbling block.

I am sure there are countless women of my age,who might like to get up and leave, start a new life,and try and find happiness and satisfaction in the days that are still granted them, but they are frightened.

Frightened of loosing their security,frightened of being alone in old age,frightened of not being able to pay the bills.Frightened  full stop.

I was too,still am,but I am confident that things will turn out well for me.

I am confident it could also turn out well for you.

Happy Thanksgiving

Yesterdays Roses

Yesterday was my 40th wedding anniversary.No that is not completely true.It would have been, but then I was divorced on September the 7th,so I suppose I will have to start again from that date.Yes,I think I will do that because I like celebrating things. What do you think?

Of course there will be no red roses anymore,I never really liked them anyway,so grand,so overpowering.So shall I buy a rose for myself, one  -seeing as I will be paying – of those lovely round pink ones with the tinged green edges. Fragonard would be an appropriate name for them I think.

Yes,I am sad,memories don’t die so easily,but I have many things that make me happy and they are what count now.

The 18.11 from Hua Hin

It is stormy here in Thailand.

In Hua Hin,we don’t notice it much, except everybody seems to know somebody that is stuck at the International Airport in Bangkok.

I went with a friend to the Immigration Buro early this morning to make sure I wouldn’t have trouble leaving or getting back into the country again if I had to.

Afterwards we lashed out on breakfast western style in the beautiful grounds of the Hyatt Hotel,celebrating nothing except that he had managed to withdraw a large sum of money from his Thai bank account and changed it into gold in China Town.

That’s how it is here right now.

The train to Kuala Lumpur and beyond leaves Hua Hin daily at 18.11

Pour yourself another cup of tea, and let’s sit out the storm.

Christmas in Thailand

A lot of water has flown down the Chao Phraya since I last wrote a post.It doesn’t mean that I didn’t think about writing but I was experiencing so many different things,meeting interesting people and feeling a little like a Thai. No news is good news.

With the help of new friends I was lucky enough to get to know Thailand a little,from the side that the average tourist doesn’t see, and learn to love it for all it’s faults.

We Westerners mustn’t come to Thailand and try and teach them our ways,we must accept how the East is, and not try and change it, with time they will teach themselves. In so many things they are light years ahead of us and we could learn from them.

Today I saw my first Christmas tree outside the next shopping Mall.

Tall,and plastic and blue.

The Thai of course don’t celebrate Christmas.

It was for us.

Khob Kuhn Ka

The Heat Is On

Regular readers of my blog Know that I have been living in Thailand for the last three weeks, but when they look in today they might think the heat has really gone to my head.

How could I chose this daring orange theme for my blog, they need sunglasses to read it !!

Truth is, I can’t post pictures anymore for some reason and so the old theme looked rather dreary.

I thought too, maybe as a cold winter is coming to many parts of the world you might like to get the feeling of what it is like in Thailand,and that is hot,hot,hot.

So put your sunshades on for a while,and if it really is too awfull let me know.

A Trolley Full of Calories

Probably it is a trait found more in woman. Inquisitiveness. But then you could say it’s because we are just more interested in certain things.

Standing in line at the Supermarket for instance. I don’t know about you, but I always look at what everybody else has in their trolley,and in the few seconds it takes to look, I build my opinion about them,which I must admit isn’t always noble. Maybe because there are more and more people buying things who are having difficulty fitting in the food lines.

Yesterday the very overweight young woman in front of me put a large packet of Florentines,a delicious,toffee type cookie of fruit and nuts coated with a heavy layer of milk chocolate on one side. (Yes I will post the recipe) Plus a jumbo pack each of M and M’s, and Maltesers, a one kilo bag of refined sugar and a bottle of red wine. (Nothing against a glass of red wine of course)

There are people out there,like my blogging colleague Joe Felso who have started counting calories,and I wonder why more people can’t do it, for we all Know what obesity brings us, and it isn’t as though the food that make us fat is cheap.

Why can’t the food stores scan the calories as well as the price.

In Switzerland all medical care must be paid for. It is very good but very expensive,and health care insurance costs rise each year. We now have thousands of families in the county where I live alone, who can’t afford health insurance or pay for a doctor to treat their sick children, because others can’t discipline their eating habits and are making themselves chronically ill which we all have to pay for.

I think it is time Insurance companies gave some kind of bonus to people that could verify a certain weight loss over a years period,then there might be an incentive to count calories and eat healthier.

A Bad Wife

Can’t seem to concentrate on anything these days. Time doesn’t flow by, it rushes like a raging torrent towards the last day of September.

Last week,even the pain returned,that which always makes itself evident in some kind of joint or muscle in my body when I am going through a bad patch. The medical practitioners call it wear and tear at my age. I call it something else. Whatever it is,it is something that is influenced by the cold and my mental attitude.

I have now done something which I don’t think a normal wife does, even when she has been married to the same man for thirty eight years. Maybe a normal woman wouldn’t either, I wonder if I am normal.

I saw an ad. in the paper “Apartment to rent in Thailand ”

My husband and I are both retired,and are lucky enough to be still in good health,with two lovely daughters who don’t need us any more and a cat that does.

We are not alike,in fact we don’t have the same interests in many things. But we did enjoy travelling, and always said we would do it more when we retired,and definitely we would go somewhere warm in the winter.

But we didn’t and we aren’t going to, for Hubby has become a home bird and quite satisfied to potter about in the garden. He likes the Swiss winters,with the cold and the wet,and his body doesn’t rebel them.

We talked about it, and we went to see the owner.The flat could only be let on a years basis but it was at a very reasonable price.

I could do what I liked he said,but he couldn’t see himself going there for more than a month.

I rented it,and I now have a ticket. Return of course.

I also have a very bad conscience.

The devil in me says I shouldn’t have, for thirty eight I have looked after home and family I have a right to do what I like now within reason, while there is time left.

But the other dutiful side of me,says wives don’t do that.They stay at home they cook and they clean,they shop, and they nurse for ever. and they don’t usually teach their husbands how to do it for themselves like I did.

Should I stay here because I once said “I do” is it my duty?

He could fly directly from Zürich if he misses me. I will be twelve hours away.

Learn Chinese During The Olympics

Since yesterdays Olympic Games opening ceremony in Beijing we all Know that we can’t beat them, so we might as well join them.

I have faith in the the youth of China that they will see that radical changes are made. The happy,open. faces of the Chinese athletes proclaimed a new China more than any immaculate mega spectacle that the central committee liked to show us.

Just so as we are not left speaking only English, I thought a few words in the world language to come, might be a good idea to learn during the Games.

ni hao (ni how)——good day

xie xie (shia shia) —–thankyou

zai jian (zye jian) ——goodbye

Look in again on Monday for more.

Is Barack Obama Already President?

Barack Obama has now finished his grand tour of Europe and the Near East.

Thank God for that, because seeing and reading of it has really made me want to spew.

Was it really necessary for him to continue his vote catching in Europe, or suck up to the Israeli’s to get the Jewish vote back home.

He acts and talks as though he his already President of the United States, but he has a long way to go before he is a Statesman.

President or not,the European ones certainly rolled out the red carpet for him. But then we all know practical politics consists of ignoring facts, and the only one in my humble opinion who didn’t suck up to him was Angela Merkel who wouldn’t give him permission to speak at the Brandenburg Gate.

Who does he think he is, JFK already.

Whatever and whoever Barack Obama is, he is certainly prestigious,but whether this can be based on achievement,or character we have yet to see.

He should perhaps remember a proverb from the Bible;

“Pride goes before destruction,and a haughty spirit before a fall”