So not much habit forming going on in the form of this blog.

I last wrote on another plane:

"So back up in the air on my way back from Udon Thani to Bangkok.  I seem to spend a lot of time on domestic  aeroplanes these days so good job they are only short flights.

Hopefully I’ll have a change of scenery through switching hotels from the Phatumwan Princess to the Novotel on Siam.

Not much to blog about, really.  Had some blueberries and raspberries so fruit is now up to 8 varieties, I believe.  Will have to make a concerted effort over the weekend.

I’d like to track down some silver and then I’ll have to wait for further investments as I’ve run out of money to invest in anything!

Sport.  Going to try to play 50 different sports in the time between now and my 50^th birthday.

The first will be:

Badminton, basketball, volleyball, table tennis, tennis, squash, golf, 5km race, 200m breast stroke

Just need to work out how to organise them competitively so they count for something."

Now I'm actually on the ground and blogging 'live'.  I'm in Chumphon in the South of Thailand, for work-related reasons, which involves filming at a couple of schools here tomorrow.

Chumphon is quite a big town with plenty of the usual shops and food stalls and things you'd expect to find in a typical provincial Thai town.  What I like about it is the fact that it is near a beach called Wua Laen and that is where I'll be headed in a few hours from now on my rented Vespa.  

I visited this place just over 7 years ago where I took part in some kind of fasting malarkey at a so-called, 'wellness spa' - not sure if I was blogging then but would be interesting to look back and check if I documented my experiences.  I lasted 3 out of the 7 planned days and needless to say was very hungry.  I recall vividly to this day how absolutely delicious the fruit salad they gave me to break my fast was.  The tastes of the fruits were accentuated by the fact that I'd had nothing but a thin bowl of broccoli and garlic 'soup' (was more like gruel) each evening after the day's abstinence.

Anyway, the place has probably gone now or changed hands as many businesses seem to do in the less 'touristy' parts of the coast of Thailand but I shall nevertheless check it out to see if the irritatingly happy and healthy, yoga practising, foreign couple are still there.  

To be continued, hopefully with tales of fresh crab and other seafood delights.  I had some amazingly fresh and delicious prawns and shellfish at the seafood market at the back of Takiab Temple on Takiab beach, photos of which one can see below, along with some of the guesthouse I stayed at near Hua Hin beach.

So here I am up in the air again, flying back from Bangkok to Udon Thani, this time. 

So what is there to document? 

Asking for shrimp rice soup the other morning at breakfast at the hotel, only to spot the ‘chef’ scoop out the rice soup from the chicken rice soup vat, avoiding bits of chicken.

When I challenged him he claimed he had got it from the kitchen.  Lazy, lying c***.

I eventually got a freshly made bowl of my desired fare after complaining to the head chef who, as he understood and was apologetic, clearly wasn’t Thai!

Bought some gold yesterday – a small gold bar weighing 15.24 grams, which set me back a cool 19,900 Thai Baht. 

47 commodities to invest in, in the next 120 or so days.  Oil and pork bellies are on my list as is a stake in a football team, a prophylactic company and an airline.  I’d like some copper, zinc and lithium to boot.

Haven’t had any more fruit but did quaff a glass of ‘Gak Fruit’ juice I discovered in the indoor market at the Thai Immigration Bureau the other day.  I blagged some seeds off the chap selling this extraordinary fruits’ by-products and hope to grow some back at the ‘ranch’.

Looking forward to being reunited with my faithful friends, George and Daisy; Song, Mam, Charlie, Delta and Echo the cats and Joey the fox.

I think the prospect of turning 50 is making me decidedly eccentric.

Oh, and finally, got a ride with a fairly eccentric taxi driver yesterday.  Loved the conversation, his display of toy cars and plastic birds and gave him a 20 pence coin as a memento of our short journey in time together.

Quite the opposite of the miserable b****** who drove me to the airport today.  Git.

I spent the entire day, yesterday, travelling to and sitting in a police station in Ratchaburi Province in Thailand.  Work related and somewhat confidential, I shall blog about it in the future when this current situation has blown over.

So that was the reason for not blogging yesterday but, as I read, it is ok to skip a day or two when in the process of habit forming and still stay on track.

Anyway, the evening before that I managed to consume 4 different kinds of fruit so that now makes 5 - longon, lamyai, orange and pear.

This challenge of 50 shouldn't be too difficult to complete but another, that of investing in 50 different commodities, may prove a little more challenging.

So far I have successfully bought 0.2574 of a 'Bitcoin' and $150 in cash.  The bitcoin business was interesting.  I set up an account and then looked for sellers in Thailand.  There are plenty and all offer their bitcoins at varying prices and one can buy varying amounts.  I transferred 5,000 THB to a traders Thai bank account and lo and behold, some time later, the bitcoin currency was in my bitcoin 'wallet'.  Now I have to hope the value of this new-age currency increases some time over the next year and I get a nice return on my money.  I shall have to buy more to make it worthwhile, of course, and shall do on a monthly basis.

Next, I'm looking for some gold and to invest in Forex online, not for the first time in my life but hopefully more successfully this time!

Anyway, off out and later off back to Udon Thani and should manage at least 6 more fruit today, unlike the run I imagined.

I never thought I could blog this way
And I've got to say that I just don't get it
I don't know where we went wrong
But the feelings gone
And I just can't get it back

So in order to form a habit, one has to repeat the action one is seeking to form into a habit, with sufficient regularity in order that said action becomes habitual.

At least that’s my take on it, anyway!

So, here in the skies as I fly from Udon Thani down to Bangkok (for the umpteenth time this year due to my current work), I write today’s entry into my recently resurrected blog.

Blog writing is a good habit to form, in my opinion, as it gets one into the habit of writing, for a start, and thus sustaining one’s ability to spell and use series’ of words in a cohesive manner. 

At least that’s my take on it, anyway!

It can also help to expand one’s vocabulary in order to present one’s writing as more appealing to potential readers, and, with the help of a spell-checker and thesaurus, one can hopefully develop one’s creative writing skills.

Sounds like a pitch for an online communicative project between schools in the UK and overseas.  Perhaps it will become one but, for now, I’ll move back into writing today’s blog entry.

One thing I’ve got into the habit of since July 12^th, which was ‘Khao Pansa’ day in Thailand, or Buddhist Lent, is not eating meat.    Just had a quick exchange with the charming Nok Air flight attendants about swapping my Auntie Anne’s chicken snack for something which doesn’t contain meat.    I now have myself a chocolate pretzel to go with my cup of water.

Chocolate Pretzel

I don’t particularly miss meat and haven’t found it too difficult to live without on a daily basis – I still eat eggs, fish and seafood, though it is challenging trying to find anything very tasty living in such a rural area.  I’ll have to start serious cooking and freezing.  Perhaps a sub-blog of 50 healthy recipes to come over the next 127 days.

A habit I will be getting out of is consuming processed foods, but that is for later as I form other habits on the way, so for now, I shall indulge in the moment.

Upon landing, I shall seek out a fruit stall and get my ‘5 a-day’ in the shape of five different kinds of fruit, which will add to my target.

Then I shall investigate the possibility of going for a run over in the sports’ stadium near my hotel and see what is on at the pictures.  I think I could get 50 films in within 127 days if I lived in Bangkok but I may have to build my own home cinema to achieve that in deepest, darkest Sakhon Nakhon.

Perhaps, not such a bad idea – rent a van, a marquee, a projector, screen and speakers and start a travelling cinema – you heard it here first, folks!  Perhaps the likes of Brad Pitt would like to contribute to this start up?

Finally, for today, I will start the habit of investing.  I intend to buy a bit of a Bitcoin, some gold and some foreign currency.  I’ll see if by Investing in 50 different entities, I can’t make a few bob.

Blog, blog, wherever you may be, for I am the Lord of the Blog said He

And I’ll lead you on, wherever you may be

And I’ll lead you on to the blog said He

66 days to form a habit ...

Or other, so-called, experts say it is 21 or fewer, or more, or whatever.  The point of this new blog post, after over 3 years of inactivity in this particular blog, is that I think I'll try to form a habit of posting here again.

I think I'll also try to form other good habits and stop some of the less good habits I have formed.  Why?  Because while walking the dogs this evening - one of the few good habits I continue, mainly due to the insistence of the dogs that I walk them, I was contemplating what to do with the next 128 days before I turn 50.

Yes, 50!  Not something I could have contemplated  many years ago but, due to some luck and possibly some fate, I look like I'm going to make it that far so I guess I should start to make more of the time I have left on this Earth.

So - habits.  That is what this blog will be about for the next few months - providing I form the habit of writing in it every day.

Tomorrow, I will attempt to develop the habit of eating fruit.  Something that should not be too difficult, what with living in Thailand.  To make it more interesting and to fit in with another theme of this blog for the next few months, I shall attempt to seek out and eat 50 different kinds of fruit.  Not in the same day, of course, but over the course of the next 128 days.

I had an apple today, so 49 to go.

Back here again ...

Why do people keep a blog? Is it because it is the thing to do? Is it a personal diary kind of thing that we don't mind if others stumble upon?

Some blog professionally and refer to their 'readers' which I must profess to being unlikely to have any. I am my reader and critic.

Anyway, I'll talk to myself as I often do and recall some things and stuff and try to get back to blogging more regularly.

I'll also try to make it more interesting for me as that will mean my life is more interesting, I suppose!

If I maintain this blog regularly it will mean I may have also succeeded in exstrapolating myself from from my seriously bad habit of working at weekends.

I've just started a new contract and quite frankly my so-called 'loyalty' is not at all reflected in the new terms and conditions so its time that my time was my time again!

Next blog, as a reminder to me to look back on in a few years time and chuckle, will be about Kazakh hospitality ...

London & Taiwan

Well, my target is looking distinctly distant as I continue to miss days running in favour of eating and drinking!

Even coming and writing in this blog seems an over-difficult task and therefore I must have forgotten some runs between the last time and now.

Let's say the figure was still 553 before I went to the UK. I only managed a dismal 3 runs there despite the lovely cool air and leafy parks a-beckoning. 11Km in Weston-Super-Mare, 11km in Green Park and probably 12km in Hyde Park leave, er ... 520km.

Now, I got a bit more focussed back in Bangkok and even did a 6, 9, 12 and 18km build up. That's a further 45km off the tally to leave 475km to go before November 23rd.

Only one run in Taiwans lovely Forest Park in the middle of Taipei shaved a further 11km off the total, which leaves 464km.

So .... I will try, try try, to muster up the will-power to do a further 45km before I'm off to Bali in Indonesia for this year's final Connecting Classrooms Contact Seminar. There I must change my attitude and come back fit and a bit brown if there are any occasions to take in any sun! In other words, can I possibly manage to run 119km in 8-9 days?

We shall see!