November has gone with scarcely a word being written! I’m not sure why!

I think much of it is that I no longer have a fresh eye as to the peculiarities and distinctiveness of what is here. All rather humdrum..if bizarre, as ever.

So much of what we have fought for has been achieved. So there is not really any angst in our personal lives to drive the cutting edge. Elodie is well. The road is, for better for worse, happening. We are here. Elodie is in school. Only in those wastes beyond our horizons the world seethes..and we are not likely to go and set up house in Iran, Brazil, Indonesia, Burundi or wherever; if one might ever, it is not now with this small life.

So, we have been taken up with trying to buy land and houses, with Elodie going to school, and with Kate’s businesses.

We have been up and down Chiang Mai and I have been down to Phuket two or three times. The houses are mostly horrible boxes on housing estates-though some of them are elegant and spacious..at a price. Kate does not want to live in Phuket, though we have found what seems to be a good school; but Phuket is a building site and one wonders what the point of being there is, if you cannot see the sea! And to see the sea you need 200K. Better places to spend it I should say. And Samui and Phuket have not enough water..signs of the future!
Neither of us are sure about Chiang Mai, which seems to have all the disadvantages of Bangkok and none of the benefits. Traffic, crime, tourists corruption, greed.

Newsweek is full of the rapidly widening gap between rich and poor in Asia and it is more than visible in all these Thai cities. Half the population, nearly 2 Billion people, living, still, on $2 a day.
But at least large swathes of Bangkok and Chiang Mai look like quite well-off places; unlike Manila and Jakarta.

The south of Thailand continues to be war-torn-mainly, as far as I can see- due to the stupidity of politicians and years of neglect. And that is true of much of rural Thailand. Patronage, despotism, violence. I see that Thailand has come out top of the league of domestic violence. Given the amount of woman bashing that is shown on TV every night one is hardly surprised.
Imagine if every English girl you knew said she would under no circumstances even think about having a relationship with, let alone marrying, an English guy!

All of which has created ghettoes of the poor in the cities. So we have to choose to have that here or the simmering dissatisfactions of France, Britain and elsewhere..even Ireland I hear.

So we might just stay put! Not that I can see car burning has reached Pen Llyn, yet!
Travel and wander.

I am not at all sure what it means for Elodie’s education. But then my overpriced one was hardly of much use was it? Rhodri’s at least seems to have been worth it. I see Westminster is well over 20K a year, now. So we would not be doing that again, anyway..and where?..boarding at Wycombe Abbey? I think not!

So we have extended the land holdings n Sawankhalok, which seems like a good idea for the future. We went to look at some of the most beautiful land I have ever seen, up in the hills. Several hectares of orange trees on the banks of a huge lake, sniving with wildlife. But this being a crazy country there are no proper land titles and so it is impossible to get it, securely, in any way. And as I have said before..it is probably too dangerous to go out into the wilds. You would need fences and dogs and armed house guards I should think, even if you were Thai let alone me! K’s view is that you would either have to be dirt poor or zoomingly rich and influential. I still find it hard to get my head round the fact that some 70% of Thai land is supposed to either belong to the king or the government. So most people outside the big cities are squatters under patronage!

So sadly we won’t be doing that. Like an upstate Michigan lake..but hot!! We could have had orchards and gardens and boats and terraces dripping with bougainvillea and hibiscus. To get there we drove about 3 miles and then turned off onto a dirt road to collect the keys to the house..yes the land had a house too! To our amazement we found ourselves in the middle of a Meo Hill Tribe village with old ladies with gold teeth and home woven clothes and pampooties sitting around amongst pigs and chickens. I don’t think it had ever occurred to anyone that there were such people in Sukothai….Chiang Mai and the North, yes; but Sukothai!
The photograph will give you the idea…but before we bought a Sony T5..so now we will have swizzing pics…if boring..well to you! Suppose I have to spend the next year learning how to use Photoshop..apparently Agfa, Polaroid and Agfa are on their last legs. Soon won’t be able to buy B/w film I suppose.

We went through the motions of Loy Kratong; for some reason very perfunctory compared with last year. What was notable was that last year we wandered around in the river bed while this year the river was surging past. Today the 26th whole of Samui and S. Thailand under water..so very much not like a year ago. Though normal I think for Samui in October/November.

Kate and friends have bought and started a Radio Station, which keeps people busy…shades of small town America in the early 60s to me..if only we had Cadillac Cabriolets too!
Anyway at some stage I am suppose to pole up with an hour a day of Learning English with music..two topics on which I am uniquely ill qualified. I suppose I could manage music of the 60s, but as to learning English.! Well!
I turned up the obvious places. IAELTS, to find the name of the Thai contact was Prefessor (sic) someone, which did not inspire confidence, then the BBC which is horribly efficient but the materials appear to have nothing to do with being 18 and wanting to learn English in Sukothai. I see the fashionable dumbing down way of currently describing English is in terms of ‘chunks’ of language- a word I am more likely to associate with pineapples than that phrase only heard on aircraft..’would you care for?'....more tea?...to which, of course to everyone’s confusion. you cannot reply ‘Yes,I would care for some!’. Without appearing facetious’; while at least the British Council, while apparently to be more geared to luring people to study in the UK than anything else, has at least heard of music, which drives life here as anywhere..so we will have to muddle through as ever. I can hear Ann in Chiswick saying now…oh yeah here we go again ‘bullshit to the line’……….thanks!!
Not even any money or a sinecure in it this time me dears!

A Propos of nothing at all I bought a litre of Gilbeys Gin for £5…bet that would put a lease of life into the domestic finances of my step mother, even with her wealth. Still, she must have a stronger constitution than that poor Mr. Best. What are those pills they put in his tummy. Doctor used to give us Flagyl presumably on the same basis? Should I have some in stock along with the Tamiflu?. I see only governments are supposed to be able to get that now! Not in Thailand I think!

Anyway …I was watching an interview with Jean Louis Trintignant…it is true!... he has eyes more terrifying than mine..I could not work out whether they were red or black!..but then I was watching on TV5 on Thai TV !........
It brought back all the horrors of the early months with Elodie. I do not know what happened to his daughter Pauline..almost impossible to find out now…his other daughter’s murder is all over. 9 years old. How does a rich 9 year old disappear? What if Elodie disappeared?
It is true she is watched here like a hawk and a mouse…The potential for horror here is even greater than in France..sold into slavery, prostitution, begging, mutilated..and for a few pounds…Murder and extensive violence for a gold chain here…£130 is not uncommon...so in case you thought we were relaxing with a nice book and a cocktail.....
Etc….