I keep forgetting to post these but here’s #40. I had a lot of fun making this last weekend.
Music from The Wrens, Teenage Fanclub, The Freshies, Y.U.P., 2227, Cleaners From Venus, DJ Pica Pica Pica, Boredoms, Swans, Pigment Vehicle, Renaldo and the Loaf, Jaks, Callers, Bad Religion, Sun City Girls, Thingy, Leaving Trains and Karl Blake.
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful that I arranged to meet Bruno this morning. It means I don’t have to help clean the house! Not that I mind cleaning the house, it’s just a convenient coincidence.
Last Sunday Amy and I, along with Mum and Dad, had to attend a funeral in Chiang Mai. It’s a three plus hour drive and meant a 5am start for us. I know we’re getting older and getting up earlier is kinda normal but damn, 5am!
I was hoping to be able to spend some time listening to podcasts but when we arrived at Mum and Dad’s and found Dad asleep in the passenger seat it was obvious that I would be driving. It was still dark as we left the city and approached the mountains. The air turned grey and dusty as the sun rose slowly somewhere in the sky and it was entrancing to watch the changes to the colours of the mountains that I was driving towards and soon driving through.
Dad’s big truck made easy time as we settled into the long valley and then through the twisting second set of mountains where a never-ending road work slows things down somewhat. I had to ease off once into the Chiang Mai valley though as, eager after the road works, I was starting to hit 140 km/h without even realising it.
This funeral was for cousin Ting’s mum. Ting had taken the time to travel an hour or so to my own mother’s funeral in the UK so it was only appropriate that we attend her mum’s and it was good to catch up with her despite the circumstances.
Monks did their thing and relatives did their thing and I followed where and when I was told. I noted the ‘No women allowed’ sign outside one of the buildings and wondered when Thailand will discover its enlightenment. Is it my place to judge and do I need to care about how people following certain religions behave? Well, if it feels like injustice it feels ok to care. Just know that progress of this sort often takes more than a single lifetime but we can hope that the progress is made before the world burns.
Having left Chiang Rai before the sun came up, we returned after the sun had set again. Chiang Rai missed us for the day and still the Earth turned without care.
And so it was we arrive at Friday and this time I’m on a solo adventure in my own car, again to Chiang Mai. This time it was for my UK passport renewal and I had allowed myself an overnight stay so as to split up the driving.
I had challenged myself since the Sunday journey to drive more conservatively and having that extra time I planned to enjoy the drive and take a few extra seconds to check out the views. It also meant I could listen to music uninterrupted for 3 or 4 hours.
For some reason I enjoy driving; I’m not sure why. This trip towards Chiang Mai was especially entrancing and I arrived in a very good mood. In fact I was a little annoyed that the first half of the travelling was complete!
The first port of call was back to International House, where I had studied for my CELTA certificate, almost two years previously. I bumped into my favourite tutor there and was pleased to have a quick chat and also to see a few other staff members that I still recognised, though had forgotten their names.
The environment here on the mini campus still amazes me, it’s so beautiful and not what you would expect. Like a holiday resort but with not much to do except study. I somewhat envied the students who would be arriving after the weekend but then I remembered the feeling in the first week when I was questioning myself whether I could do it or not.
I had hoped that they still had copies of my work for the course in the office there but unfortunately, they only hold on to them for six months. Never mind. It was nice to drive through those familiar small lanes where nothing has changed too much. The city is sprawling out that direction but has only had minimal impact so far.
Back into the middle of the city and everything went well with my passport application, though I had some difficulty making my signature similar to what it was 10 years previous. The staff laughed with me and I’m guessing it’s not that an unusual problem as they had paper prepared for applicants to practice.
Quickly out of there and across town to a book shop that had been recommended. An hour and 1000 baht later it was time to find some food and I treated myself to a tiny pizza and salad. Woohoo! Holiday time!
Dark by now, I waited at the Mohawk Bar to catch up with Facebook friend John Murrie. The bars opening time is 8pm and it was only 7pm so I sat in the car reading some more Anna Karenina, taking the opportunity to cross off one of my daily challenges. By 8.30pm the bar was still closed and Tolstoy was taking a sleep-inducing hold of me and I had to quit and head out south to my overnight lodging with one of Amy’s old school friends.
I wuz ‘ere. No one else wuz.
Tired and sleepy I was somewhat energised by meeting the two puppies of the house, once I was accepted as a welcome enough intruder. I was warned to keep my shoes away from them so placed them in my room and shut the door. Not long after, I placed myself in the room and fell asleep but reminding myself I must make an effort to talk more with my hosts Oh and Namtan when I was in a more lucid state in the morning.
In a flash it was morning and after getting my reading challenge completed before 8am, I did 40 squats, took a shower and planned a breakfast coffee for my hosts. Unfortunately, I had left the bedroom door open and hadn’t noticed the dogs sneak in looking for some bounty.
Everyone showered and set I went to get my shoes but they had disappeared. Obviously, the dogs had got them but no problem, whatever, let’s just go on a hunt for them. One under the car, another at the back of the garden. Unfortunately, they hadn’t just been deposited but chewed on and spat out! Ah well, farewell my shoes. Luckily they were just about wearable as I had no other shoes with me. The girls were very apologetic for their pups’ behaviour but I just thought it was funny. I’d had the shoes for a few years so they’d done me pretty well. Maybe an excuse to go shop for some others soon.
An excellent coffee later it was time to get back on the road and my mind was filled with wonder as I listened to good music and again enjoyed the twisting roads round rolling mountains. I counted off the landmarks backwards, breaking the 3 hours down; mountains, valley, mountains, home. The return journey never as exciting as the outset, slight melancholy following the setting afternoon sun.
However, once home I was awed by the feeling of comfort. Looking across our garden I gave Amy a big hug and declared ‘I love it here. I love this life and I love being with you.’
The local rock group down the street Is trying hard to learn their song They serenade the weekend squire Who just came out to mow his lawn Another pleasant valley Sunday Charcoal burning everywhere Rows of houses that are all the same And no one seems to care
– The Monkees
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful to have the energy and motivation to get up and do things. Today I took time to water the garden and clean the car.
…my memory was never loaded with anything but blank cartridges.
Mark Twain
To-do list
Write blog about Chiang Mai trip ✅
Record TCRAH
Water garden in the morning ✅
Prepare CD cases and case some more discs ½
Clean up balloons
Once again time ran out but I had a very busy and productive day. As well as getting up and watering the garden, front and back, I also washed the car. I ate breakfast in there somewhere too.
Before the morning was out we went for coffee and photocopied in preparation for afternoon lessons. In between lunch and teaching, I also wrote up a blog entry about my trip to Chiang Mai. It wasn’t as good as it was in my mind yesterday though.
Time running out doesn’t seem to be bothering me as much as it has in the past. I’m more accepting of the fact that I can finish something later. So long as I’m getting some things done then it’s fine.
Tomorrow is back to the routine mad Monday. One of the lessons should be pretty straightforward though and hopefully, the two difficult classes will be getting used to the method of what I’m doing with them now. I hope to get the rest of the exam questions finalised this week and probably be able to finish the regular class one tomorrow if I put my mind to it.
I’ve been considering what content I can put here as some of my personal thoughts and feelings about this particular place I am now living (and enjoying) could cause me trouble. It’s funny how Thailand is known as the Land of Smiles but often times it feels like the Land of Fake Smiles. Having a couple of years experience here now, I understand these reasons but cannot fully support a positive attitude towards it. This is the balance I am trying to find in my world.
Perhaps that balance has always been there even in the other places I have lived but I haven’t noticed it so much and oftentimes found myself in difficult or at least odd situations. I don’t ‘play the game’ very well still but I’m getting there. If this sounds like generalised waffle, I apologise. I will try to make an orderly composition of my thoughts at some point.
Out of one of the most difficult times I’ve had in Thailand I found myself keen to focus some energy into something personally (and somewhat selfishly) fulfilling. In what little downtime I had when I was pushing myself too hard preparing lessons for my grade 5 English class I would throw my iTunes playlist on shuffle and found myself quite enthralled at the collection of digital music I collected.
The randomness reminded me of those late school nights furtively listening to John Peel’s radio show under the covers, falling asleep as I lay hoping to hear the latest and greatest punk tunes in amongst all the other genres being pioneered. This exposure to many different styles of music laid the groundwork for events many years in the future when I was organising shows for bands in Sydney and subconsciously decided on mix billed being the best way for people to hear new music. Never a way to a successful financial business model, it kept my brain satisfied and able to calmly appreciate music I didn’t particularly enjoy, anticipating music that I would.
So it was that iTunes on shuffle kept popping up a classic tune (classic to me), a dodgy old punk demo, an experimental noise soundscape and a 60s garage rocker, with many things in between. Nothing really modern mainstream though. It’s amazing some of the music from my youth was considered mainstream back then. It shits all over what is mainstream now.
Anyway, digging this vibe I even ended up downloading a bunch of reggae and African music that Peel always used to play – just to try and get that reminiscence in full force. Things I may not listen to as a full recording of suddenly make a lot of sense squished in between things I was more familiar with. I ended up down many paths of discovery of experimental music from around the world – as opposed to ‘world music.’
With need of some distraction, I decided to put together a ‘radio’ show and upload the result to the Mixcloud platform. I mostly take the tracks as they were shuffled through iTunes and do a bit of back announcing. I also decided to play around a little with some of the songs and introduce some moments where I could read a paragraph or two from books from my shelves.
To give this odd mix a little focus I decided to target my audience to the university students at the local uni which is less than a kilometre away from where I am. I roped in a few of my student friends from there and also from my favourite local coffee shop, to do a bit of speaking and to have their pictures taken. So was born The Chiang Rai Alternative Hour and the push for musical world domination.
Gus, Mink, Nu and Aing – in the music library.
Understanding that my tastes are almost niche beyond niche I would not expect a huge audience for what I’m doing but really that is not the purpose. I do it for myself. I really enjoy putting it together and messing around with things, trying to come up with some new ideas for presentation. I’m contemplating how to do this mix in a live setting and finding a place to do it but I don’t have much time to practice that part as well as not having a completely reliable equipment setup. A new laptop is a little out of reach at the moment.
So, if you’ve read this far you may be curious to hear what these shows sound like? Or scared to find out. Either way, it seems like this is a good vehicle to post links to each show and also force me to write at least once a week as new episodes appear.
“Remember life on earth is but a flash of dawn And we’re all part of it as the day rolls on”
Music from Ween, Magic Mushroom Band, No Babies, The Ebonettes, goat, Andy Partridge, Acanthus, Banned, Hebosagil, The Yellow Payges, Bad Brains, Daniel Striped Tiger, Martin Archer, Teenage Depression, Mudhoney and Donovan.
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful that I could do so many things yesterday and keep going even though I was so tired by the end of the evening. I kept a good attitude and wasn’t so anxious about things that I wanted to do compared with some things that I had to do.
Did it list
Encouraged Fern to learn to make my coffee at Utopia.
Got my haircut.
Uploaded TCRAH podcast.
Recorded new TCRAH podcast.
Prepared and executed a quick fun game for my two students today.
Got through a little of the never-ending sorting of music, on computer and CDs.
Wrote another blog post and enjoyed the process of writing.
Got passport photocopies done.
Rosie offered to do quick drawings and send them out as postcards. What an awesome idea so I asked her to do Jochen, Lachlan and Kyaw Kyaw.
It’s becoming obvious that I’m not going to be able to keep up with regularly posting updates here as time seems to slip on by. I’ll do my best to keep note of things and get to them when I can but not sure how I’m going to be able to keep them concurrent with events from 1994, of which there is still a mass of writing for that year in my diary.
If I just limit myself to a paragraph per note I’ve made this post is going to get quite long. I’ll try and be more concise.
So, our final morning in Dorset sees me going through some boxes of things my mother kept over the years. I’m interested in the photos more than documents such as birth and death certificates and old school reports. In particular are a couple of school photos I’m guessing from when I was 12 and 13. You can just see my hair starting to get more punked up, for which I got so much shit at school at the time, from teachers and older kids who nicknamed me Sid. I never got on with that nickname as I was more into Johnny Rotten but it was difficult to tell kids that as they were kicking and punching me for their random pleasure. The thing with these two photos is you can still see the light in my eyes, just starting to dull in the later one. These years were the start of what later would be diagnosed as mild depression. The transition from middle to high school was particularly traumatic as I had a whole new bunch of older kids to pick on me though I soon found some allies.
Before we know it we’re up the motorway again, back to other old haunts in Southampton. We’re staying with Amy’s cousin Ting, who has been in England so long she has the thickest English accent I’ve heard for a while – so much so that I barely recognise her on the phone sometimes.
Amy heads off with Ting to do some shopping as they are cooking together at a friend’s house that evening, whilst I head over to see my old pal, Chrissy.
Chrissy was the wife of Steve, whom, if you’ve been following so far, was the inspiration for writing the 1994 diary after his untimely death the previous year. I caught up with her briefly in Sydney a few years before as she was attending someone’s wedding there, just a suburb or two away from where I was living at the time. It was good to catch up again and talk shit like we did in the ‘good old’ days.
The afternoon is made more pleasant by the arrival of Steve and Chrissy’s daughter Rebecca, who was less than a year old the last time I saw her. I am shocked at the resemblance to Steve and can’t stop looking at her face. It’s like he’s right there again.
I also make quick friends with their dog who despite being somewhat shy took to me for some good pats, strokes and ear rubbing. But soon enough it’s time to leave.
I head back to drop the car at Ting’s and get out the maps app so as to walk to the pub where I will meet more old timers and down a couple of pints. The air is very cold but the exercise warms me and I look into people’s houses as I pass and wonder what their lives are holding for them today.
I stop off for some hot chips as I’ve not eaten much today and it would be preferable to line my stomach with something traditionally British and stodgy to soak up any alcohol intake.
There are some bands playing tonight, including some old friends but I’m not so interested in the music as I am in talking. Rich introduces me to his partner Geraldine and later Rob and his partner Emily turn up. A couple of other hopeful attendees find themselves busy elsewhere so they’ll just have to come and visit me in Thailand one day.
A jovial atmosphere and pleasant conversations quickly end this all to brief meet up but it’s much along the lines of that last night in Sydney, with certain friends you can just pick up on conversations with even years of interruption between.
The following morning we’re off to London. Amy wants to go shopping. I’m not particularly thrilled at that idea but I’ve set myself a task to track down a book I’m looking for. We’re also booked for a dinner in the evening at the Shard near London Bridge.
I’ve always enjoyed London as a place to visit but never, when living in England, felt the urge to live there. So, even rush hour tube trips have some sense of adventure to them. I’m constantly reminded of the Clash as we pass by certain stations and wonder at the motivations they had as they went from small house suburban London city to mega hotel New York city. Man, they wrote some tunes.
One thing I immediately notice is how much more multicultural London is than Sydney. Although not so used to hearing the English accent anymore it seems that in many places we visit and pass by that people aren’t speaking English at all. It’s a little unsettling and really cool at the same time.
This point is highlighted even more as we head for a pub lunch and I’m annoyed at myself for not understanding the bartender’s accent. I forget to apologise for my difficulty as her’s is a Lubjiana accent, so I ask her more about her country. She’s busy though but I think she wasn’t offended at my ignorance in the end.
We pop into Waterstone’s bookshop and finally I find the book I’m looking for, ‘Churchill’s Secret War’ and take this final chance to pick a couple of books about The Fall. I wasn’t going to buy these originally as I figured I could find them digitally but they were there, I was shopping, this was possibly the last day I’ll ever be in England and so they ended up in my luggage. Amy felt the same and bought a couple of massive cooking books which definitely means a rejig of our bags later tonight.
We’re starting to flag now and consider changing our plans for dinner tonight. It’s another beautiful sunny cold day, particularly bitter when the wind rushes through small side streets. We decide to head to the Shard early and see if we can just go up and take some pictures. We end up on the 34th floor at the small bar there and decide to splash out on a bottle of champagne and 6 oysters. These kinds of expenses usually bother me but I decided to relax again and enjoy this indulgence despite the fact the cost could probably build us a swimming pool in Thailand.
We reflect on our lives as we stare out across this old city and talk about how people think we are lucky to be able to do this and that. But we have worked hard, had a plan and always pointed our way towards it. I guess those comments are somewhat driven by the social media construct where friends generally only see you having fun, what appears to be, all the time. We know we have made the right choices along the way, the choices that have got us where we are now.
The following morning we are greeted with snow. What a nice surprise. The Mexicans we meet at the breakfast table in our guest house are equally thrilled and we watch them as they step out to take funny photos. We do the same a little later as we stuff our suddenly heavier re-jigged bags into the car and head to the drop off point. Unfortunately, our phone direction finder leads round in frustrating circles and we decided just to figure it out following the signposts instead.
Amy decides on one last shop at the airport, so I get in the mood and pick up another book about the rules of being English, something I mentioned to Amy when she smiled happily to the guy in the take away the previous night. I told her it was not usual for someone to smile at other people in England and the guy probably thought she fancied him. This is overplaying it a bit and is also the exact thing that attracted me to Amy in the first place. That was in Sydney though, where smiling is an everyday occurrence. I’m sure the English can often go a whole week without a smile.
The English confound me more on the plane to Bangkok. It’s another A380 but this time jammed with ‘bigger’ English people looking for thrills in the ‘land of smiles’. Despite leaving at midday, it’s an overnight flight as we fight against earth’s rotation and the English are up and at the crew galley all night long refilling on free booze. I did this once when the experience of flying was still new to me. Free booze must not be missed but I found it impossible to get drunk and to drink enough to be able to sleep. I would just end up with a frustrating headache at the end of the flight, so I never drink on planes now.
And then occurs the most English thing I can imagine. There are two meatheads sitting directly in front of Amy and I and they were constantly bouncing in their chairs at every toss, turn and minor readjustment. I glance the Sun in the lap of the one who is coughing consistently and roll my eyes. Midway through the flight, Amy needs to get out to go to the toilet so I get up and step into the aisle. Being half awake I was a little clumsy getting up and knocked the chair in front of me where the now angry boofhead looks around and proclaims, ‘Was that on purpose? I think it was, wasn’t it?’
I’m perplexed. My only reply is ‘Sorry?’ and I look behind me to consider if he’s actually talking to someone else because his words just don’t make any sense to me. Amy is bewildered too but trots off to the toilet as I stand and wait. The two meatheads decide that they’ll settle themselves down with more whiskey and the event passes. I still can’t imagine what leads to the guy’s question, if I knocked his chair on purpose, what was the reason? We’d had no previous interaction at all. It just seemed a typically antagonistic English response, a show of never back down, one-upmanship.
Those two guys ended up rushing off the plane to get to their destination of my more booze, sun and you can guess what else.
Our day has only taken 12 hours and we transfer at Bangkok for our flight home, finally my last flight for this period. There has been so much travel and rush over this month that it has been almost impossible to sit and relax and reflect. Probably for the best. Even mum’s funeral seems like something surreal and dreamlike that perhaps didn’t even happen.
This final flight is curiously filled with French and various Middle Easterners and I watch on as people struggle to find their seats. It’s a little strange really – it’s not that hard, is it? The numbers ascend and the letters go across. It seems to take an age for some people though. I wonder if their brains are wired differently, something that will soon be confirmed as I adjust to life in Thailand.
Back in Chiang Rai, we rush to sleep, eat, advise our builders, eat and sleep again. Another day disappeared into the mosquito-ridden night.
Not yet hungover, still wobbly and happily void of any stresses involved with departing my home country of the last 24 years, Thai Airways does its usual job of safe and stylish delivery. In between meals and bouts of sleep, I observe the passenger in front of me constantly annoying the hostess and interrupting her as she talks and serves others. Finally, she firmly tells him he has to wait his turn.
I tried to watch the new Blade Runner movie but this surely wasn’t the right environment. Much more satisfied with the mindless comedy of Thor: Ragnarok. Pretty sure I was still drunk at the time of arrival in Bangkok where the queues for transfer were horribly long but still, I didn’t care as other foreigners stood by and shook their heads. “Welcome to my country” as Amy sarcastically often says.
The short flight to Chiang Rai is not of any particular note except for the Sumo who steadily waddles on the plane and listens to something on his headphones. I’d like to think it’s the latest grindcore release or something equally zen.
Just my luck, I get stopped at customs, where no one ever gets stopped and they pick out the new iPhone I bought for Amy as a surprise, at duty-free in Sydney. They want me to pay tax on it. Apparently, you can bring stuff in without tax if the value is under 20,000 baht and this is over. I plead with them that I have just relocated from Australia and this is how I am welcomed to Thailand. I tell them my wife will be furious if she knows I had to pay tax on the gift. I look at them puppy-eyed. They discount the tax rate for me but it’s then I realise I only have 500 baht on me anyway. I offer it to them but they seem unimpressed. They look over my shoulder and ask ‘Is that your wife?’ Amy is waiting just beyond the doors with a curious look on her face as the officers her invite her inside.
Some discussions later we end up paying the tax and told that it was just unlucky they decided to check my bag. It’s also apparent that if the phone had been unpacked and in my pocket, no one would have noticed either.
Welcome to Thailand, indeed.
Next day the hangover finally kicks in, added to by the approach of a cold, no doubt initiated by the last night of drinking and talking which caused me to almost lose my voice. Now the coughing starts.
Both our cats are confused to see me again but we soon make up when I start feeding them. Whoever feeds them is their favourite, always. We are all camped in a bedroom in Amy’s parent’s house. A place that is her childhood home and we’ve often stayed here on our previous travels but is not quite comfortable for us as we don’t know where their things are, and all our things are stored in the multitude of boxes piled high in the living room.
We head off to visit our house, the first time I have seen it in person. Now I can appreciate the dimensions of each space, yet can’t imagine it as a home just yet. It won’t be long now and we can start filling it with the things that make it homely.
I start my life as a gardener today, breaking up big clumps of clay and watering all the various plants and trees still left growing which includes durian, ten lime trees, jackfruit (already with one big fruit almost ready), papayas, Thai chillies and multiple frangipanis. We’ve also ordered 5 Jacaranda trees that we hope will grow and blossom at the front of our land and attract visitors should we run some business from there. A small reminder of Australia too.
We pick up some drinks for the workers at the local store where I’m introduced to the shopkeeper. May as well start the village gossip at the source. I hope we’ll become good friends in the future.
The workers live in temporary tin sheds they have built alongside our house and we are doing little extra things for them to keep them content and happy to work for us. They are not quite used to some of the designs and plans that we have so we need to explain things often and carefully for them. They are very hardworking men and women, mostly from Burma, though legally working I’m told. One wife is fairly heavily pregnant and presumably (hopefully) not doing any heavy work but maybe preparing meals for everyone. Despite their poor accommodation they still have a TV and satellite dish rigged up to keep up with their favourite shows or maybe the EPL.
Despite our tiredness and my now constant coughing, dad (father-in-law) decides we must all go out to the new fish restaurant to welcome me here. I try to partake accordingly but between us, we only manage three bottles of beer. The food isn’t as good as some other places we have tried in the past and the service was still going through a teething period. There’s a big lake out front with attractive table settings but in the evening it’s a constant battle with mosquitos, which would spoil things somewhat. I still have to invest in repellents and appropriate clothing, luckily those things are very cheap here.
Both our nights are fitfully slept as I cough myself and Amy awake but we stirred at 6am to get to our house again before it gets too hot. I set about the watering, almost completely covered head to toe from the oncoming sun. Next, I need to invest in some wellington boots as my runners get covered in muddy clay. It takes about an hour and a half to water everything and I start dreaming of automatic water systems. One day, one day.
The temperature is good in the morning and stays reasonable for the rest of the day. I, however, have to retire with medicine for a nice siesta.
The siesta soon became a full nights sleep, again, broken often by coughing. But we’re up and at them at 6am again stopping off at a little shop that has been running for 45 years with just a slim menu involving tea, coffee, toast and eggs. It’s brilliant and cheap but doesn’t do enough for me as we get to our house and Amy does some supervising and I fall back asleep on a deck chair on the terrace. I have nice dreams and awake delirious before driving back home and sleeping even more, until it is time for us get prepared for our next little journey to the UK, to farewell my mother and catch up with family and friends.
In the great British tradition of 2000AD, I’ll try and use song titles and lyrics for all post titles. The previous post was from the Subhumans and this one is from Void. I can hum them to you. I often think about this lyric when I’m in situations deserving of its use. One time I shouted it out whilst Huggy Bear were playing a show at the Joiners in Southampton, UK. It was a little unfair and the band were excellent. But they looked so angry and upset with everything that I began to question their screaming. Better to hand out lyric sheets and/or talk to the audience in between songs. Maybe they did this, I don’t recall. I was more than likely drunk too. It was quite common.
Through some twisting and plotting, I have found myself in Adelaide. I have been here for 4 months now, with about 10 weeks to go before I exit. It is unlikely that I will ever come back though I have grown accustomed to the quirks of this little city. Occasionally I even enjoy it here.
The precarious nature of IT work has led me here. I was re-employed by my old employer in Sydney, who will remain nameless, and I’m sure at some point soon will likely become nameless too. When I was re-hired I spent about a month doing nothing whilst accesses were being requested and approved. Soon after I quickly learned everything I needed to know, which was very little indeed. The pervading atmosphere in the office was overwhelmingly negative due to constant re-structuring of offices and jobs moving overseas to cheaper countries. I saw no reason to pursue any kind of career here again and, in fact when I had previously been retrenched from this company I had sworn off ever doing this type of work again. I became a barista soon after that – an immensely rewarding job and proof that after 18 years in one industry, there were still other options available to me. However, I got word of this new position and it made sense at the time to re-introduce myself to office life. I’m sure in many jobs that work is rewarding and innovative but those two adjectives had long left this company in everything except their promotional literature.
So it was, my wife Amy and I worked hard and saved money and made a plan to move to Chiang Rai in Thailand – her hometown. After having travelled extensively in Asia I have dreamed of living there and Chiang Rai is of a similar size to the small town I grew up in in England. It also felt like time to leave the fresh high-rises and high rising rents of Sydney, where we had considered starting our own business but thought that the risk was too much. It’s probable we would have been successful but the risk of failure would have meant losing everything. With the money we had saved, we could build a house and start some small simple business in Thailand. We even toyed with the idea of growing and selling our own fruit and vegetables and generally taking it easy. That was the dream! The simple life. Let’s aim for it anyway.
After a year or so the restructuring at the company meant the job I was employed to do was going to move to Adelaide. By this time we had worked out our plan of action and this sudden change threw a slight spanner in the works. In August 2017 we had planned to relocate Amy and everything we owned, including our 2 cats, back to Chiang Rai. I would continue working and saving as much as possible until it was deemed I had enough money to give us a comfortable cushion to survive on. Amy and the cats would live with her parents whilst she employed someone to build our house.
With the sudden announcement of the restructure I thought, fuck it, I might as well leave now too and head to Thailand too. Sometimes it’s better just to jump right in rather than think about things too much. The other possibility, and the one we ended up doing, was if there was a chance for me to relocate to Adelaide and continue earning some precious Aussie dollars. In the end, it was an easy sell. I got a two week holiday of sorts in Thailand before returning to Sydney and driving myself across the map to Adelaide.
The new plan was to work until the house was built and then pack up and go. Leaving Amy in Thailand wasn’t too much of an emotional problem until we had to say goodbye at the airport. Luckily, just as her lip was starting to tremble and a tear was forming in my eye, she forced herself to turn around and walk away. I felt honoured and relieved. To have such an impact on someone’s life is an honour. The relief is that we are usually pragmatic people and that we would continue to be, knowing that we could survive this temporary adjustment. So off I strode looking forward to reading books on the journey ‘home’. Unfortunately, or fortunately, as the case may be, as I have gotten older I have found it possible to sleep on aeroplanes and not much reading was done. Occasional pangs of grief struck me too. Although extremely used to being alone and having gained much self-confidence, I found myself unsure of myself for brief moments. The business of sorting things out soon distracted me further though. The ease of communication these days also helps significantly. Anyway, I was about to embark on an adventure.
After staying a couple of nights at a friend’s house I was taking my time driving across this part of Australia. Four days for what can be done in one if you push it. But what’s the hurry? I enjoyed the journey although there was little to see for much of the way. I guess that made it a little more special when there was something to see, such as a river or fields of flowering crops. I blasted the stereo as I blasted the car not always realising I was hitting 140 km/h on the long straight roads everywhere. I rarely needed a map as there were so few options for deviation. I stayed in a couple of provincial towns along the way and they would likely be the option we choose should we return to Australia later in life. Finally, I closed in on Adelaide.
I had never been to Adelaide before and hadn’t been given much idea of what to expect. I had been told that I would love it and that there was much less traffic than Sydney. That all sounded positive.
I had pre-booked a room at a caravan park near my new office. Although the company would have paid for it, I didn’t need any fancy hotel to stay in when I got here. The room was fine, though had no windows at all and just clean brick walls. The upside of this was that it encouraged me to find a shared place to live as quickly as possible. I headed to the office on the day after I arrived and got acquainted with my new work environment, which I quickly learned was the same as the old. In fact, I later discovered that this new place was even more dysfunctional than my old one. I was able to react positively to this though because I had nothing really invested. They (the company) needed me more than I needed them.
The work I do is shift based. Two days, then two nights, followed by four days off, which usually turns out to be 3 days off because the day after the last night shift is usually wandered through in a zombie-like daze. Sleep is erratic and can last for one hour to 18 hours and by the time you are recovered it’s back to work.
The difference between Sydney and Adelaide is significant. I was mystified to find shops closed in the evening and on Sundays or Mondays in Adelaide. The lack of decent coffee was also a struggle. Again, the situation actually benefits me well as I am trying to save as much money as possible and don’t want to be spending my time trying to make new acquaintances and using money that that can involve too. I’ll just sit here, go to work, read books and save money.
Unbelievably, I have stopped drinking for now too. Adding alcohol on top of shift work really messes you around so taking this opportunity to dry up for a while. This will definitely not last once I’m in Thailand, though I’m hoping to at least minimize the caffeine addiction as a balance.
I lay in bed slipping in and out of consciousness and thrill to marvellous ideas I have to write about here. Mostly forgotten by the time I am awake and sitting somewhere to write this.
Record of the week: C’mon Everybody – Sex Pistols Highest entry: Chic – Good Times – 22 (What crap!)
7th May 2022 – Well, I’m going to take my word for it and not even going to bother checking out the Chic song again. Could C’mon Everybody really be by the Sex Pistols? Were the Pistols the Pistols without John Lydon? Obviously, moneymakers thought they could use the name but when it comes to the actual ‘real’ band, they only really had about 18 songs in their catalogue. For a band that had such a great impact on musical culture (culture in general, really) it seems an incredibly small recorded legacy. Are there other bands with such a minuscule recorded output that was such a huge influence?
The video has Sid riding his motorbike without a helmet, which was SO punk rock to 11-year-old me. I couldn’t understand how he was allowed to do that, to get away with it! I’m going to watch it again in a minute but the footage I remember is of him riding through English country lanes and that takes me back to the time of doing the same, pushbikes and then motorbikes (with helmet, of course!), about 5 or 6 years later.
I went on a bike ride this morning, around a lot of country lanes here in Chiang Rai and despite the different types of foliage, it’s quite a similar experience. As I was riding I was thinking about going back to the UK and hitting up Rupert and Jeremy, hiring some 50cc mopeds and hooning around our old haunts.
1st July 1979 Yesterday I was in bed all the time because of me leg (see Friday 24th June) 2p
2nd July 1979 POP DAY Making out my pop records that I’m playing 2p
3rd July 1979 Used a spud to make C L A S H, you know, cut-outs. 2p 2p^ not in debt
7th July 2022 – My love of the Clash was getting creative. I also made some tiny bread buns of those letters and at school made them out of wood whenever there was free bits leftover from making….whatever we were supposed to be making. I was never handy with tools and soon gave up on woodwork and metalwork classes.
4th July 1979 I’m actually saving money If you look back to Feb 9, the middle statement has become false 2p 4p^
5th July 1979 1. Tubeway Army – Are Friends Electric? 2. Squeeze – Up The Junction 3. Janet Kay – Silly Games (what crap!) 4. Anita Ward – Ring My Bell 5. Gerry Rafferty – Night Owl 9. Sex Pistols – C’mon Everybody 2p 6p^
6th July 1979 Sports Day This year Last year Long Jump 1 1 75m 1 1 150m 1 1 Cricket Ball 1 1 Relay 1 2 2p 8p^
7th May 2022 – I could’ve been a contender, I suppose. There wasn’t much support for a dumb kid from the backwaters of England and there wasn’t enough internal motivation. I didn’t believe in myself, no one else believed in me and so it goes.
7th July 1979 Borg vs Tanner 6-7 6-1 3-6 6-3 6-4 Ipswich’s last 3 seasons places 6.3.6 2p 10p^
7th May 2022 – I liked Bjorn Borg for some reason. He seemed humble.
1994ever 