Health and Safety Isaan Style !!

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Geo: 16.3833, 103.933

When will it ever stop raining ?
Temple day today so Jai is up early making preparations. Everyone is dressed in their fineries and off up the road beneath umbrellas. Looks like quite a few people wanted to take flowers with them as a once quite attractive bush by our front wall has been hacked to pieces and left lying around the recently cleared and tidied front garden. Local motto - why take care of things yourself when you can steal from someone else who has taken care of things for you !!! Dont think that is one of Buddha's sayings but who knows ... it should have been !!
I sit out the early rain and as it appears to be easing I decide to bike into Phon Thong and the internet. Get decidedly damp en-route !!
Have three messages back from MSN support about my dodgy e-mail account but all of them are in Thai - just what the problem was in the first place !! Send another message asking for some guidance in English.
I do manage to bring my travel blog up to date for the first time and hopefully it should be easier to keep it that way now.
It appears that new camera is using to many mega-pixels and the video files, in particular, are huge so I will have to look at making changes.
On the way into town this morning I noticed a problem with the electric cables that bring mains power from the town out to the villagesa by us so on the way back, now the rain has briefly stopped, I stop for a better look. Several of the supports for the mains cable have fallen in the storm and the cables themselves are now lying in the water filled ditch by the side ofd the road. At one point the cables cross the road and are now lying on the floor with everyone, myself included, simply riding/driving over the top of them ! It wouldnt be fair to say that no-one has done anything about it yet as some thoughtful soul has tied a plastic bag to the cables in the road so that you can see then as you pass. No doubt when they come to repair this later today, tomorrow, next week ? we will be without power for a while.
When I get back to the house I find Fin and Bem there so they obviously didnt fancy going to school today. School seems to work on an optional approach, fancy a day/week off, OK.
Mid-afternoon French friend Jean-Marie arrives with a bottle of beer and we sit and have a good chat over a couple of cold ones.
Early evening sister Carol phones to say thank you for my message about husband Mike's visit to hospital but he is not due to go until next Monday.

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