Per Magica Ad Astra

 It's not easy to blog about anything but this at the moment, this annual event where the hills are alive with the sound of burning continues to blight the North of ASEAN. As you can see from the screen shot, I stuck on the blog yesterday, it isn't just Thailand that creates these killing clouds, it is the whole of this area of ASEAN.   And no doubt the politicians, who by the way are currently seeking reelection to the next so called democratically elected government in Thailand will say how bad it is but when it comes to it, do little. Of course it isn't easy to act, most of the fires are said to be started by people in the hills, individuals whose activities are largely off the grid.  Rather like the poppy growers that used to populate the area but here is an idea, they were encouraged to change to a more socially acceptable range of cash crops and as a result produce like Thai coffee and Thai strawberries are some of the finest in the world. Action could be taken, hed t

 You know me, if at all possible I like to get out in the "fresh air". I love walking and cycling since I have regained my mobility, and I need the exercise. I have a left over metabolic problem since my diabetic days so although I am now able to maintain reasonable glucose levels, my uptake of it by my organs is not a s efficient as it should be. So without exercise if the available sugars aren't taken up by the organs they are quite happy to hang around as blubber, and I don't want to return to my previous build. It could be argued that I could get the nesacary exercise in a gym or even at home. I understand there are even virtual treadmills and the like where you have a big screen in fromt of you and you can pretend to be out on your walk or hike. But for me, clever that the option is, it is just makebelieve, you don't see the real situation as it is when you are actually there, the buidings, The flowers that have taken just that time to bloom.  And the people

 It's a quiet few day here. Mrs T is away with daughter and granddaughter, and I have a very clingy monster to take care of. But you know that, as I have said it before. Something's however are necessary and as I needed a bit of shopping, for or course Tang not me I thought she would have to do without me for a little time as I went out for a bit of a stroll. Not far but whilst strolling I did of course have the phone that I use to snap away on. I hadn't gone far, in fact only to the road leading to our moo-ban when after only a week or two the newly paid concrete road was coned off and being worked on again. They were applying some tar type stuff to the joints between the concrete slabs so maybe they needed to wait a little while until this could be done, I don't know but the road was coned off again.  My route took me past Wat Phothi Mongkhon and I resisted the temptation to snap the fallen women again and instead took these.  Onwards and the water lily's (I think

 Ambling? I guess you know that term, but if you are not familiar with my bizzar wordplay, my taste in food or indeed, Chiang Mai and its eateries you may not know what "Auf" is referring to and, as you see so much of the Red Lion in my chart-topping blogs you may be wondering if it is a new tag for the roast: Let me put your mind at rest, it has nothing to do with my love of the Red Lion's roast beef, I am, of course, referring to Auf der Au, a fantastic buffet with a German twist run by the wonderful Udo. To get there I wanted to burn a few calories and as I wanted to have a chat with my doctor, that was my start point. As usual there will be a Relieve at the end of this posting that has snaps with little or no tweaking on it, so I am not going to litter the main body of the post with duplicates. Unless, of course, I think it is worth it or I have been using the creative lobe of my (aging) brain 😁. So the first port of call was to Airport mall to pay my internet bill t

 Sometimes you just can't get stuff done. Friday the 17th of March was my paternal granddads birthday anniversary so I thought I would feature him on here even though he was pictured in the last post. It is also St Patricks day and, here in Thailand a rather good excuse for making every effort to get punters to spend and spend. It was also the day that our little monster, Tang was due to get her injections so off we went to the vet. She didn't get too upset at the nasty man who thought she resembled a cute pincushion and, injections done and over, off she went with Mrs T home whilst I went for a bit of a stroll to take a little look at St Patricks day 2023. As you will probably expect, I have tracked my wanderings and there is a Relieve but as I have yet to work out how I can put the Relive code into Blogger without is bunging in huge gaps and things making the post not in any way what I would want, at the moment I am adding the Relive video at the end. In clean air I set off u

 I didn't intend that to be the title, what I intended was for the waltz to have a strike through but is seems Blogger won't do that as a title, and, at least for me, if you try then the bloody thing won't turn off. I must admit getting used to Bloggers quirks is not the easiest of tasks, with a lot of Google storage it is a no additional cost option for me but sometimes I just can't to what I want, maybe chatGPT can help🥴? Thats interesting, I just did with the above paragraph, and it worked. Will have to play later. Anyway: Today is March 17 which is, as all good boozers and little (and not so little) people with a bit of Irish in them know, is St Patricks day and with a bit of Irish ancestry in me, I will be out to take in a bit if the craic tonight, I am sure that will lead to a blog 😁. As for St Patrick driving out the snakes from Ireland, well I wondered what types of snakes they were, so I Googled it and basically Google said " Patrick did not drive the sn

 Greetings grapple fans. Come on admit it 😀you know what I mean... Kent Walton and his iconic commentary of the Saturday afternoon wrestling until Greg Dyke went PC and delivered a forearm smash to the viewing on commercial TV and Les Kellet, Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy were taken from the Saturday afternoon goggle box. Such a shame, I loved it. Not that has anything to do with the title. Nope, that is because on this day 69 years ago, my mum and dad got married. The story goes that dad, who had decided to make his post war life in America received a telegram from my mum announcing she was arriving at New York by boat, and he was to be there to meet her. That was my mum for sure. I don't have a picture of them together in 1954 but here is one on my favourite holiday snaps. Here in Chiang Mai the air wasn't too bad yesterday and on my stroll into the city it was good to see river tourism on the up. The air is a little worse today but not enough to stop me getting out for a st

 It's a sort of odd week, here in Chiang Mai it seems to be a sort of slow news time at least locally. Most things I see are smog related and the efforts to ensure that fires are tackled quickly if possible. Well at least the recent rain helped, as you may have seen the AQI station closest to me yesterday was reading a reduced hazard. Its still at the levels where I chose to wear a mask to try and prevent at least some of the stuff entering my lungs when I go for a cycle or a walk and yesterday, I chose to stroll. Not surprisingly the stroll included sticky rice and the production of, yet another Relive 😊. You will have seen Wat Phothi Mongkon on the #Relive and the mural of the fate of fallen women. If you missed it here is a snap again. For myself, I confess to never having seen any fallen women...It isn't just the fallen women that are worth a snap, I happen to like the wat as well and here is a snap of that but as it was a smoggy gray sky, I have added a bit of colour to