Hola - Cortijo No.12

Where has the time gone? We honestly don't know....but we have bought the house - Cortijo No.12

and have spent the last 7 months ....painting, painting and more painting. It has been a long haul but we are finally near the end of re decorating the inside! We have had many experiences some good and some not so good. Unfortunately, we discovered that the roof was really a sieve and had multiple leaks, so we've had it renewed which has taken a fair amount of time and a lot of money, not in the plan, but we had no choice. Although the local view was "don't worry, we don't get much rain!".

The pace of life is very relaxed and everything does take time and it certainly is a far cry from Hong Kong where everything is ready before you've even thought of it! However, we are enjoying it and beginning to get used to the life.....the weather is variable and during December and January it has been chilly, so we are looking forward to it warming up, but it is certainly seasonal here.

We have also managed to get a listing for the letting unit onto the Home and Away website  - https://www.homeaway.co.uk/p1883048 and are hoping this will attract some interest.

The other major update has been the addition to our family of Roni. A six year old boxer who was from the Boxer Rescue centre in Murcia. He has certainly made his mark and is settling in nicely. we are in a prime spot as we have plenty of our own land and are in the countryside where you can walk for miles and miles - just choose your track and remember which direction you came from!!

So in summary, the time has whizzed by and we are enjoying it and working hard but in a very different manner to our previous "life".

We are also learning Spanish which is fun and fortunately, we have some very kind local Spanish neighbours who are helping to correct us!!

Adios Amigos

Nina and Patrick x

What have we been doing for 3 months?????

Where do we start.....the last blog was in March and we were staying at the Mar Menor in Murcia (Spain) and generally enjoying ourselves, although coming to the conclusion that we needed to start thinking about what we were going to do in the long term . Funny as before we left Hong Kong, a couple of friends who had a year out said "give it about 9 months travelling and then you will start to feel you need to do something, need some focus" - and they were right!.  I think by this time we were both probably thinking we would end up back in Finance, but perhaps try another location.
However we had always thought an option could be to set up a holiday letting business, ideally a place with a separate building which we could set up as a rental, but we were open to different ideas. We had already decided Murcia was not where we wanted to be and to be honest, we had felt like that about most of the places in Spain - it was strange, we liked the country and there was a certain draw, but we hadn't found any specific location where we wanted to settle. We started to explore further afield and were looking at places on the map which seemed interesting and in our trip south, back in January, we realised that we had "by-passed" Almeria - and within Almeria was a place called Mojacar. This name seemed familar to Patrick as he had an aunt who was a travel agent back in the '70's who had visited Mojacar and brought back a pink tee-shirt with the name Mojacar in black and a picture of the Indalo man for his sisters (so he says!). So on this basis we decided to take a day trip to check it out.

Indalo Man -The Indalo Man is an ancient symbol found in the province of Almeria over 100 years ago. Also known to some as the “Indalo Puppet”, it was first found somewhere in the Las Velez mountain range of northern Almeria province in a cave known as La Cueva de los Letreros (Cave of the Signboards), near Velez Blanco by Antonio Gongónia y Martinez in 1868. The cave itself was made a National Historic Monument in 1924. The symbol is said to date back to Neolithic times and seems to depict a man holding a rainbow in his arms, over his head.


And surprisingly, we found the beach front - Mojacar Playa - and the old town nestled on the Mountain side, all white washed buildings - Mojacar Pueblo. This town had a pleasant feel, the beach looked good, the old town was interesting and it was clearly a holiday area but not as commercial as the Costa Del Sol or Costa Blanca. Consequently, we visited an estate agent and explained our ideas and before we knew it, we had a couple of days set aside for property viewings!

Mojacar - Pueblo

Mojacar - Playa

After seeing what seemed like a vast amount of properties from the economic list (or Patrick's list) that were not so good, we referred to Nina's list i.e. added a few zero's and actually found a property we both liked, there was something about it which made us feel we could do something with it, although there was plenty that needed updating. It caused many sleepless nights and many discussions but we came to the conclusion that whilst there are obstacles like money, regulations, laws and taxes, you only live once. And it didn't seem right to let the tax implications stop us. Whichever way you move......in a similar way to breathing, you will have to pay tax somewhere!.

So, we decided to put in an offer and see where it went from there.

As the Spanish legal system is not one to be hurried, in April we moved closer to our ideal location to stay at - Valle De Este. This had an amazing golf course which had stunning views but given that we don't play, that was the only attraction. The apartment we had was ok but as usual not very clean, however all good experience to take note of for our own business and we know our place will be clean and ready for people to enjoy themselves without the need to don the marigold!
Valle De Este was a quiet location apart from the local boxer dog - Jack. He was not a yapper but he did have an aggression problem, Patrick encountered him when the red mist had descended (Jack not Patrick) he had seen the local labrador and they had history. However, even Patrick was shocked by Jack's aggression - he was in the red zone and it didn't matter that he was being hit on the head with the dog chain or being hit on the side with a golf club - he was not snapping out of his mission to do some serious injury to the other dog. Unfortunately, the lady with Jack, who was in her 60's, had no control of him. She was trying to separate the dogs and was hit with the dog chain in the process - resulting in a nice bruise. Eventually, Jack decided enough was enough and let go of the bloodied labrador. A week later, we met Jack and his owners and it was a different dog. He was a typical boxer and his face was so mischievous and like butter wouldn't melt. But thankfully, he will only be walked with a muzzle on in future. Naughty Jack!

Anyway, the month of April was a blur getting to grips with the purchasing process in Spain. Here, when you agree an offer, you have to pay a reservation fee which if you change your mind, you forfeit. The process in Spain is somewhat laid back to say the least and if you want to have a survey then that's your choice but most people don't bother - if its standing, its ok! - and the lawyers have their way of doing things! But you can't buy a property without an NIE number and you can't get an NIE number until you've got an agreement in the pipeline which seems a bit 'chicken vs egg' but it's  the way of life which we need to adjust to. This adjustment is particularly challenging when given our background of corporate banking where everything is documented approved and verified down to the purchase of a biro!. Here it is what it is.

In addition, as most will know, Spain has had problems re building illegal homes or more accurately no correct documentation. there are many parties involved such as local town halls and the Regional/County registers. So we needed to be sure that all is legit with the property we had found - and unfortunately, the documentation had been prepared but not approved - so we are still waiting for the approval to come through - as at the end of June!!

During the wait we decided to go back to the UK for a couple of weeks to see Hannah and James and our friends and families. Also, we were able to attend Sarah and Charlie's wedding which was a very nice day and luckily wonderful weather.

As we needed to return to Spain to complete the purchase, whilst waiting for the paperwork, we are living in the accommodation that we will be letting out!! Fortunately, the owners are very decent people and have been great in allowing us to stay here - and it has been an excellent opportunity for us to acclimatise to the local area and the house.

So, our next update, will hopefully confirm our purchase and we can share more information/pictures etc.......it is really exciting and if you'd asked us both in June last year "Where will you be in a year's time? " I don't think either of us would have said "Spain" but what a year it has been and we are really looking forward to the next year!!

Adios Amigos,
Nina and Patrick x

Mar Menor

So where did last month go??? Well we spent the time in Cambrils and explored all of the surrounding areas from Del Etbe, where they grow the Arroz rice, to Tosse Del Mar, up near Girona, with a day trip to Barcelona  - as you do.

Also, we were a few minutes from Tarragona where the world’s largest yacht - Azzam - was moored. It was amazing and looked immaculate, but if you can afford USD600 million to mess about on the water,  then I guess you can afford the army of cleaners!

Our base in Cambrils was great for a month, but it didn’t quite manage to tick all of the boxes. Ultimately, we didn’t find a place or area we liked enough to settle and if we were to extend our stay then it would have required signing up to a 12 month contract and when taking in the opportunity or lack of work, we decided that we needed to look further afield. Further south where the climate is warmer.

So we departed Cambrils and stopped for an overnight stay in Valencia, which was a lovely treat as we stayed in the Westin and it was also the start of their local festival. What seemed a bit odd to us was that it started at 6pm so was still light, why go to the effort of a firework display when it is still light? The reason is that they are focused only on the noise and smoke. And boy! the noise was immense and so loud that it hurt your ears and you could feel the vibrations in your trousers…..well that was what Patrick said!!......

Valencia is a lovely city and the architecture is beautiful and it was very nice to see it with more life and colour since our last visit a month ago.

However, we were bound for the Mar Menor Golf resort which is our home for the next month. To be frank, I was expecting it to be very quiet and a bit of a ghost town - lots of apartments and villas all shut up with the odd few golfers pottering around in their gawdy coloured clothing, but in fact, only the gawdy trousers bit was correct. Maybe its to divert attention from the long walk after a little ball? As you can tell, golf was not our priority but it seemed that the decent accommodation is on a golf resort, hence we are here and it will be our base to explore Murcia and La Manga. However, we are reaching the point where we will need to decide what we do if we don’t find something suitable. Hopefully, we can stave off that decision for the next few weeks - particularly as the weather is 24c and bright sunshine - so that ticks one box!

Will keep you posted in the next week or two.

Adios Amigos

The Blog is back!!

Well it has been a while since the last update and the reason is that we have been really busy and also tecnically challenged! As there was a small hitch with our laptop, in that it no longer worked after our last journey from northern to southern Spain. However the summary is as follows:

One month in France
Christmas and New Year back in the UK
From mid January until now Spain.

So where were we back in November? Ah yes, we had left Nice for Bourdeux and spent a couple of nights there in a really smart revamped townhouse. Although the set up was part of the owners house and I don't think they really wanted to have guests, but basically needed them to pay off the renovations. Bourdeux could be pretty if you removed the graffiti and doggie do's (maybe a gap in the market to promote best practice when you have a dog i.e. buy some bags) and improved the parking, apart from that it was ok but not top of Patrick's list as you may have gathered.

After Bordeaux we moved on to Saintes, pronounced ' Sontes' and here we stayed in a hotel which ....with an extra half a million, could have been fantastic. It had all of the original features and staircases etc but unfortunately hadn't been updated and was on the market for EUR 850k. ...Over our budget!! This is where the fun started and we began our search to see if there were any properties we liked enough to setup home and create a business. We travelled to Royan, La Rochelle and Cognac and numerous towns and villages in between and unfortunately came to the same conclusion, that every where needed an injection of life to make it appealing, it was so quiet and everything was too far apart. From Saintes to La Rochelle was 90kms and the scenery in between not the most inspiring.  However, we did see a little townhouse in Cognac that had potential but unfortunately nothing else did.
After Saintes, we were a little stuck on where to stay or go so in the end stayed in La Rochelle for a couple of nights and then found a villa on  Il de Re which is reached via a 3 km bridge, similar to Wales and the Severn bridge and you have to pay €8 to get onto the island......but they let you off for free! It was known as the exclusive area of the region like Sandbanks in Poole, but I think it was really a marketing ploy. It was nice and we had a good villa and were able to cycle for miles and miles but again it just lacked any real life, so didn't do it for us.
Eventually, it was time to leave France and head back home for Christmas and New Year but with a feeling of ...not quite despair, but really wondering what we should do next as it had not turned out as we had hoped, but c'est la vie!

Back home and we were off with a bang and up to London for Williams christening and first birthday. Nina is a Great Aunt! This was a great day and he is a lovely little chap who is very laid back and relaxed with people. This is probably a  a reflection of his mum and dad. It is hard trying to think of all the things we did but mainly it was catching up with Hannah and James and the rest of our family and friends.
Christmas was a nice time as we had 2 Christmas days. One with Patrick s family, where both his sisters were able to be there which was the first time all 3 had been together at Christmas for about 20 years and the second one was on Christmas day itself where we were back up in London with Nina's family. We were delayed by about 3 hours due to a puncture on our hire car and they had not supplied the locking wheel nut so Patrick could not change it, much to his annoyance. However a very very nice man from the RAC was able to come out and get us going!
The rest of the time was spent seeing friends and catching up with all of the events and happenings since we had been away. As well as dealing with the mundane items of sorting out rent renewals etc.
However, as we were of no fixed abode at home we had to decide on where we went to next.
This came down to 2 options......Italy or Spain.
For preparation, Patrick ordered 2 maps from Amazon and the Italian one did not arrive so the gods were telling us to go to Spain. Not very scientific but some things are meant to be!

Spain
We had booked a villa for a month at Miami Playa which is south of Barcelona, but unfortunately the accommodation left a lot to be desired and neither of us were willing to spend a night there! This did cause us a bit of a headache as we had no internet or phone connection at the time, so needed to get that sorted before we could find somewhere we could stay for the night. Fortunately,after much driving around, we stopped in Cambrils, sorted out the phones, Nina disappeared for ages seeing a couple of apartments and Patrick started searching for a hotel.......and finally found one in Vilaseca.
Now we had a base for the night but our plans were in disarray. We had thought about going south to the Costa del Sol whilst we were in Spain, so now brought that plan forward and over the next few days stopped in Valencia,  Marbella and Alicante and visited many places in between e.g. Torremolinos,  Benidorm and Puerto Banus! Also we were fortunate to be able to meet up with Patrick's cousin who lived just outside Marbella and see the local side of the Costa del Sol.
Although our experience of Miami Playa was not what we had hoped,  the positive side was that when we stopped in Cambrils we did really like it, so during our last leg of going down south, we managed to book a one bedroom apartment for a month in Cambrils, so now gave us a base. It is a great apartment and in a good location near the beach and port.......and also the train station which is a bit annoying when the Barcelona express chugs through and the driver is tooting his mate on the platform, but all considered we have made a good choice and can now explore this area more.
The downside of travelling is that we have unfortunately lost our laptop as the hard drive packed up between Alicante and Cambrils which has limited our online ability. It is quite interesting in how dependent we now are on it and how behind both France and Spain  are in their technological capabilities. Every apartment we have looked at in Spain is without or 'sin' (local lingo) wifi connection, so we are limited to the mobile phone networks and they are slow and expensive, which is surprising when compared with Thailand where the infrastructure does not appear to be as mature but they have greater phone and Internet connection with top ups available everywhere. Here it can take half hour just to top up your phone (with France Orange shop having the record in taking over an hour to get a top up!).

But  hey we are at least able to get our blog up and running again and have joined the local library so we can get some books and dvds. ....and are beginning to learn a few words of Spanish.

So adios until the next update.......

Dogs, Fines, Paris……Nice!

Well a lot has happened over the last 2 weeks so where do we start!

Dogs

As we have mentioned, we have become quite fond of Seamus and Weekly and it was a ghastly shock for Patrick when he witnessed Weekly perform his usual escapade of chasing the 4x4 but this time it didn’t slow down and in fact whacked the poor dog on his rump! After witnessing this, Patrick was out of the villa like a bullet out of a gun, making off in the direction of the dog to check it was ok and being such a wannabe detective he also made a note of the car registration.  Although Weekly was making a lot of noise, with Seamus offering support and growling at anyone who approached his mate, he did seem able to limp, somewhat painfully to his owner’s house.

However, Patrick was incensed that the driver of the 4x4 did not check on the dog and set off to find out where they lived. Needless to say, he managed to find them the next day and confronted  the driver who meekly responded with a “I thought it was ok” anyway the main thing was that a few days later the dogs were back on the street….although their appetite for chasing 4x4’s seems somewhat reduced.

Fines

As we were leaving Phuket, we encountered a slight problem at the immigration counter. In our delight at staying for an extra week and re-arranging our schedules, we had overlooked the fact that our visa was for 30days. So we were informed that we had to pay a fine of THB 8,000 in cash to be able to leave, as we had overstayed our welcome. The excuse of being British did not cut it and it was cash or accommodation of their choice!

Though, we felt like a complete pair of numpties, we were able to relax over a glass of wine courtesy of Malaysia Airlines. Yes – we chose them as they were a) available and b) cheaper than everyone else.

The calm before the storm (or Paris)

It was an excellent set of flights to Kuala Lumpur and then on to Paris. The Paris flight was on a new Airbus 380 (and we were lucky enough to have seats upstairs) we had so much space, a lovely selection of food for dinner/breakfast and free champagne, Patrick was so chuffed I don’t think he slept at all!

Paris

6.30am on a cold Thursday morning, we arrived and made our way to the Hertz desk to pick up our voiture. This wasn’t quite as smooth as we had envisaged, no surprise there! They sent us off in an upgraded car…..or rather a 7 seater bus!

This made for some interesting driving as we exited the airport during rush hour! Unfortunately, the directions we printed were useless and as we missed our turning, we had to rely on Ms.SatNav! Fortunately, she knew where we were and how we should get to Beaune (for our overnight stop).

Beaune was lovely, a very pretty town and we enjoyed dinner in a local wine bar!

The next day we completed our journey to Nice and whilst the bus was great on the motorway, the narrow streets and bollards of Nice were not to its liking and this coupled with the lack of parking spaces saw the re-emergence of Basil Meldrew!! ( Basil Fawlty meets Victor Meldrew) which was not pleasant, so it was a relief to reach Helen’s so she could park the bus in her very tiny garage.

Nice

It was lovely to see Helen and the boys and our first day was spent walking around Nice under clear blue skies and 21c which felt very pleasant.

However, the next day, we were treated to thunderstorms and lightning and plenty of rain! Still it made for a good day as we were able to stay with Helen and have a Raclette – which was a great way to sample typical French cuisine!

Patrick’s birthday was on the Monday and Helen, Thomas and Arthur had arranged a cake with a nice big 46 on, but Thomas gleefully changed this around to 64 which he thought more apt!

After some deliberation, Patrick and Helen realized it was the first time they had been together on his birthday for about 24 years, so we decided that was a cue for another bottle to be uncorked!

Unfortunately, the days went very quickly and before we knew it, time to leave, so on the 11^th November – a public holiday in France – our French adventure began for real!

Last week in Phuket

So we are into the last week here in Phuket and apart from dodging the showers, it has been a relaxing time, either cycling to the beach, looking ‘sophisticated’ on our moped or checking out the areas we had not yet discovered.

Last week, we booked a speed boat trip which took us out to four small islands and lovely unspoilt bays, including the James Bond Island – Phang-nga. The day was overcast which was a shame for the photos but good for the skin…..I think it would have been roasting if the sun had been out, although Patrick still ended up with a red face!

The trip included canoeing through the caves and having lunch at the “Floating Village”. It was very interesting with stunning scenery. However, it was an organised tour and we both decided that we really prefer discovering places under our own steam, though luckily the people we met and shared the experience with were mainly really nice and as always it’s interesting to hear other people’s experiences and stories as to why they are there. We were the only English, which we are quite used to here, most of those that speak the same language are Australians on holiday with, it seems, Russians and Chinese being predominantly here to purchase a property!

For those not familiar with the history of the James Bond island. It appeared in the 1974 film – The Man with the Golden Gun – for about 3minutes in a scene with Roger Moore and Scaramanga. However the actual beach is about 30feet long and now filled with tourist souvenirs (to be polite). Still they have made a living out of it for nearly 40 years so fair play!

One of the other challenges when on a tour with many people is contending with other tourists who want to be the centre of attention and in everyone else’s photo’s. Still with the art of the English language and Patrick’s ability to utilize his very own form of sign language, i.e. a not so subtle arm movement and Paddington stare achieves the result of being able to converse in their language. Effectively, “you’ve had your time now bugger off” and let others take their photos in front of that famous rock.

The speed boat ride was really exhilarating, although in amongst this natural beauty you still can’t escape the rubbish man leaves behind….. on 2 occasions the boat had to stop after the engine started to emit a bleeping sound, due to plastic bags being caught in the propeller!

Vouchers

When we came to Phuket in July, we were approached by the Laguna Holiday team to listen to their presentation for 90 minutes, with a view to receiving some free vouchers, which we knew was obviously Time Share re packaged, so we declined at the time. However now we had been back for a month, we thought we might as well check it out……oh my word!....

The presentation was effectively a time share scheme, no surprises there, but on the face of it seemed a pretty good deal, until you get into the nitty gritty…which really uncovers the fact that  not much has changed over the last 30 years, the sales team are still very economical with the detail, until you probe and then discover it’s not such a good deal really.

Needless to say, we didn't part with anything other than 3 hours of our time!

It was hard for Nina not to tell them she was once sitting in their seat ……but hey there is no such thing as a free lunch and Patrick didn't want to miss out on the vouchers!

Still at least we know how the club works now and more importantly know it’s not for us even though this is a really nice part of Thailand we would rather be free to choose where and when we spend our money.

Sun bed saga and salvation……

When the weather has been good, we have been to the beach and after the Dusit Thani experience decided to try another hotel for a couple of days, which was good, the sun-loungers were provided and some local ladies came by with drinks etc – so all was well. Until the other day, when another jobsworth decided that our towels were the wrong colour and not from the Angsana Hotel – so although he did let us stay for the rest of the day, we had to find another place. Luckily salvation was literally next door at the Xana Beach Club which had recently been re furbished and included a background of funky club music so Patrick was in his element (although Boney M didn't feature)!! As they were very welcoming, albeit the drinks were more expensive, we decided to return Friday evening for a cocktail and Seafood Buffet.

Both were superb….the buffet was excellent and the Green Curry with crab fried rice was the highlight, although the fish wrapped in banana leaf came a close second, along with the salmon, just a shame we couldn't fit a desert in!

There was also a fire eating display on the beach in front of us which was pretty amazing – the photos below are not very clear but you can get an idea. It was so close you could smell the fuel and feel the heat. The atmosphere was very relaxed and there were a few children who were mesmerised by the fire display, especially one little Asian lad who didn't quite understand that he needed to move back, not sure where the parents were but as the flames were getting closer and closer Patrick had to step in and move him back, but the look of confusion on his face was quite a picture.  Luckily no irate parents appeared to say anything!

In order to get to the club, we did take our Scoopy which was fine for Patrick in his shorts but a little problematic for Nina in a dress! This was resolved by going “side-saddle”. See what a month does? There is no way we could have done this on the first day of riding Scoopy but on the quiet roads it was possible to salvage ones dignity and look elegant…..well as much as you can on a 125cc moped!!

We are going to make the very most of the next few days, before preparing for France. We've already had to make changes as our flight home was cancelled less than 48 hours after booking it, so we will now be going home via ferry! Another mode of transport ticked from the list!

Au revoir, mon amis.

p.s.Also meant to mention who you have to share the beach with in Phuket.....here he was coming back from his swim - but it was funny beforehand as he ran to the water with his mahout pulling his tail trying to stop him....obviously the mahout failed and it was too quick to get a picture.

p.p.s Look who also decided to make themselves at home on our patio - Seamus and Weekly....

Persistently, Precipitous Phuket!

It’s Wednesday 8^th October and it has rained every day since we have arrived – the only consolation is that we have now experienced all types of rain – the drizzle, the shower, the absolute monsoon downpour – and have been treated to lighting and thunder on more than one occasion. So we are rapidly gaining an ‘ology in Rain!

This wonderful weather also resulted in the power and water being cut-off on Sunday evening, so Nina was grateful for my forward thinking on this occasion, as it meant we both had a torch to read our books with, exciting!

We were wondering what we might find in the fridge and freezer the next morning if the power stayed off all night, but fortunately it must have returned just in time to save the ice-creams, well they seemed edible the next day. The result of all the bad weather is that all of the water has left the electricity cables “fizzing” outside along the roads which is a little disconcerting, especially as many of them are hanging down around head level!

You may think it’s a perfect reason to stay in and watch a film……which would be nice but it seems the owner of the villa hasn’t paid the subscription so we have no TV!....... we didn’t miss it much until the ability to watch it was removed.

We have ventured out to Patong as we felt we needed a bit of “life” but this proved a little challenging as the weather turned to yet more torrential rain as the taxi driver dropped us off and although we requested him to pick us up ….he had other ideas!  So we were stranded in Patong with a lot of other wet and hacked off people all trying to grab a taxi to avoid the rain and get home. Still, Patrick took control and paid over the odds for a wet, windy and noisy Tuk Tuk!......travelling in style it was not and I’m sure the driver thought he was Valentino Rossi whilst we were praying for the tyres to have some tread and stick to the road!

But it is an adventure and the rain had to catch up with us eventually…….hopefully, it will dry up to allow us to get out and about!

Sunshine!

It had to stop eventually and now it has! We’ve been blessed with the sunshine once again and it is lovely and warm. The only downside is that Patrick has had a cold and is sneezing and spluttering all over the place and working his way through multiple boxes of tissues. However, since the Patong adventure, we decided that we needed to sort out our own transport….and Funky Moped numero 2 has entered the scene, well driveway!

It’s a Honda Scoopy and Patrick is in his element and loving the freedom and raw power of 125cc!!......

Still we were able to use it to go out the other evening to Flame where we had a lovely dinner of roasted chicken Thai style and lamb kebab! It is a really good place, relaxed, great food and inexpensive!

Having the moped has allowed us to get out and about and go to parts of the Island we’ve not visited before and it has been quite surprising seeing a real mix of sparkling new developments and also a number of half completed sites which look like the funding was pulled at some point and the work literally came to a stop mid build. This was evident with the developments below, they were in the north east of the island and had a good view, but the rest of the surrounding area had unfortunately been neglected and if you were aware this would definitely deter any buyer. Would be great to have the funds and knowledge to take it on ….who knows someone might do it …..but it looks too big a venture for us!

On that note we have had some building work close to home…… the builders have been in the villa next door and they work Thai style…….very early start and then its lunch by 11am and then they’ll restart about 5pm! Apart from the noise, it is quite funny listening to them as their mantra is “to enjoy their work and have a laugh….. and the work will be finished at some point!”

Fortunately, we’ve not had any further electricity blackouts and the TV has been restored although apart from the Russian Grand Prix, I’m not sure what we’ve really missed…..the channel options are as uninspiring as Hong Kong.

Still, we have the difficult decision of which beach shall we go to today? ….I like Naithon Beach which is smaller and cleaner versus the pretentious Surin Beach. We did stop at a beach café at Surin Beach and on the menu (and in the cabinets so they really did have it!) was a methuselah of champagne (6litre bottles!) for a mere THB60,000 (that’s about GBP 1,150 or EUR1,500, HKD14,365 / AUD 2,120 / SGD2,350….just to save any exchange calculations!).

When you consider that the local “Waitrose equivalent” supermarket employs its staff for THB 9,000 per month…..that is one decadent bottle of plonk.  Not sure how many they are likely to sell!

Over the next week, we will start to work out our plans for November but for now, we are just enjoying the sunshine and the freedom….as we don’t know how long either will last!

As we end our second week in Phuket we find ourselves asking ….are they male or female?

On Wednesday (15^th Oct), we went to see Simon’s Caberet. We stopped at a little restaurant and had a superb dinner with starters and drinks for under GBP10!!....the show was in Patong, so we splashed out and went via Scoopy! This was an eventful journey which started by meeting a JCB Digger head on down one of the lanes in Bangtao. Patrick’s foot has never been so close to the caterpillar tracks of the machine but there was no space to move!

Patong is a good 45 minutes from where we are staying and it was quite a journey with an incredible red sunset during the first part of our journey, but as we approached the town – the traffic started to come from all directions….and being on our scoopy Patrick was also trying to avoid the drains which are about 3 inches lower than the road, which did make for a very challenging and bumpy ride.

Needless to say, we arrived a bit windswept and also relieved to get there in one piece. Neither of us had any real idea of what to expect but it was great entertainment. The stars of the show were the individual performers who ranged from a “Barbie Girl” rendition to a person dressed one side as female and the other as male and they were both very entertaining. The costumes were really glitzy and colourful, with incredible headdresses and costumes.

The only negative was the fact that a lot of the performers were miming and the dancers were out of sync and needed to sharpen up their routine, not a lot of rhythm basically. Mind you the show runs 3 times a night/7 days a week so maybe it was a case of ‘burn out’.

We did really enjoy it and after the show we had a smoother ride home, although it was a relief to get back – you do have to constantly be on the lookout for potholes and/or any other debris that’s made its way onto the road!

Thursday was a beach afternoon so we went to Bangtao Beach or to be precise we went to the beachfront at the Dusit Thani hotel, we had been informed that as a visitor to the Laguna Villas we could have access to any of the hotel facilities within Laguna. Unfortunately, this was cobblers….and whilst Nina was busy shopping, Patrick had to contend with the deckchair police. After attempts at negotiation and even bribery in the form of buying a drink, it was to no avail so Nina came back to a grumpy Doyle! However as I had brought a new bikini for all of GBP7 he soon cheered up and we moved onto the beach itself which was actually nicer!!

I think the buffet at the Dusit Thani is off the agenda!!

Well we’ve decided to stay an extra week in Phuket so we can meet up with Helen (Patrick’s sister in France) and hopefully stash some bags while we tour around.

Both of us were secretly pleased as it’s so lovely here and we have really fallen into the laid back way of life, it feels a bit like a nice cosy cocoon, where you don’t have to worry too much about  anything.

p.s. I keep meaning to introduce you to Seamus and Weekly, the local dogs that have taken up residence near our villa. Weekly is obviously top dog as he struts around with his nose in the air looking important, Seamus follows some way behind trying to look like he knows where he is going, but you just know he has no idea and is just following his mate, well, that is until a white 4x4 comes along the road, which for some reason he has taken an aversion to, off he goes chasing and barking at it, until eventually the driver slows down and has to stop, obviously Seamus then feels he has fulfilled his task, he gives the car a furtive look, piddles up the nearest tree and sashays off back to his mate.  

Ohh and in case you wonder where we came up with these names, well……our plan for France or wherever we settle is to have a Great Dane called Daley and a Boxer named Sean, but Patrick felt these poor mongrels just don’t cut it so he came up Weekly and Seamus, you can see how his mind works, can’t you!  

Pictures below!