I do not normally use the organ to praise the wit of others, but here comes an exception.

First, you need to know that you can buy Uranium via Amazon. Not as scary as it sounds, just low grade stuff for testing instruments and making your body parts glow in the dark.

Marriage. It’s not just whimpering with fear in a darkened room. There is also the shopping.

The recent whirlwind tour of our property by a Feng Shui charlatan expert resulted in a long hit-list of changes that were required to increase our good fortune. Some of them were straight forward, involving the re-positioning of mirrors; but we were also required to obtain a wind chime to be hung at a particular location on the front balcony.

Wind chimes have their place. You are in a verdant garden, the air heavy with the perfume from numerous flowers and burning incense sticks. From afar you hear the timeless chant of the monks, and close by there is the delicate tinkle of a wind chime as it moves in the soft breeze that cools the air. You linger for only a while, because then you have to go and take more drugs because no way does a place like this actually exist unless you are full of recreational substances.

On the other hand, a wind chime on a balcony next to the sea, particularly at a time of year when the north east monsoon wind is in the offing, is a very bad idea. The occasional tinkle is OK, the incessant bloody tinkling, twenty four hours a day, right outside the bedroom, is not. I fear any wind chime is going to have a limited life span before it is mysteriously kicked back to component parts (“it must have been the cats, dear”).

Anyway, we had to buy it first, and not just any wind chime. It had to have four hanging down bits and not be silver; which is the exact opposite of the specifications of most wind chimes on the market. So we went to the Floating Market in search of wind chime elusiveness. We took cameras, because she who must be obeyed needed some shots for her company website.

Or, preferably, nine.

Head out for a day’s photography with my fat friend Ray. He keeps different hours than the rest of us, so a departure before early afternoon is not feasible. We are heading for Khao Chamao National Park which is south of Rayong and about two hours drive. There are a series of waterfalls and assorted wildlife to potentially poke a lens at.

On the way it rains hard which slows us down, and we do not arrive until 1500, which still gives us 2-3 hours of shooting time; or it would if it were not for the fact that we discover that the park shuts at 1600. Bugger. So, accompanied by a light drizzle, we start the climb into the park and make it to one of the lower waterfalls before it is time to turn back. The rain gets steadily heavier and I am quite grateful to take a couple of snaps and then return down the muddy track. A shame about the branch across the middle of the waterfall. A shame we didn’t have time to climb to the bigger falls.

Recent arrival Jerry, he of the driving licence acquisition, has now settled in and, as befitting a man on a pension, has started playing football; with inevitable consequences.

So off down to Bangkok Pattaya Hospital with a torn calf muscle and a pain in his lower back. The doctor calls for an X-Ray of the right side of his back and off he trots (or rather, hobbles) to the radiology department where the right side of his torso is X-rayed.

Large shipment of supplies to the windsurfing club today, the fallout from which was a number of long cardboard boxes. Knowing that such a box would be appreciated by a couple of residents of my condo, I “borrowed” one.

Sure enough, as soon as I put it on the floor they were in it, and are still there one hour later. So, may I present the amazing 2 metre long cat:

In a previous life I was an occasional scuba diver. I used to travel around sites in Malaysia with my son. There is something about knowing that you are both enjoying a decompression stop pee that makes for bonding, and it was fun diving together. To spice things up, we had a Sea & Sea underwater camera. It was film in those days, so you were limited to the number of shots you could take on a dive. And after the dive there was the long and tiresome process of rinsing and drying the camera and then cleaning and re-greasing the hundreds (OK, five) seals that were crucial to ensure the internals stayed dry at 30 metres. Everything was manual, and the chances of achieving a single usable shot from a roll of film were slight.

Still, after many, many rolls, we got a few. Actually I think my son got most of them, like this beautiful whale shark off Ningaloo reef in Australia:

I don’t know if this is a real Toyota truck, or a re-body job; but I like it: