Is that an elephant on the roof?

It's good to get back on line on my own behalf; we’ve had a busy few weeks, here at the Juniper Tree, since we returned. With Simon and Melanie getting ready for their sabbatical, there have been many lists to plough through  and of course at every turn, the unexpected crops up to add a little spice to life!

Lily invited us all to her brother's Japanese
Noodle shop!
A farewell treat for the Office Staff

She is giving him a kiss, not eating him!

June has been a baby bonanza at the J.T. this year; as I write 3 out of 4 babies have arrived within 2 weeks of each other.(In fact it looks like no 4 is arriving as I type!) All have been healthy and are back from hospital now. Joan has enjoyed the opportunity to wander about the campus cuddling (not nursing, in deference to our friends from the States) various infants to give their sleep deprived parents a break.

In the last few days, Joan and I had to fly down to Bangkok and on to the Dolphin Bay Juniper Tree. Gill, one of the manager’s There, needed to rush up to Bangkok due a medical emergency. They are back now and awaiting results, and our thoughts and prayers are with them.

This picture is one Elliott took at Dolphin Bay recently with his new camera. This is the one ordered in Chiang Mai, delivered to   
Hanwell and couriered via Hong Hong to Thailand (along with 1/2 a hundred weight of Morrison's teabags and Branston pickle!
He has a definite talent with the photography don't you think?

On the drive back up to Bangkok, we had one of the strangest things happened. We were in a traffic queue and Joan woke me up saying there was a weird noise on the roof of the car—it was a young elephant in a trailer behind a pick-up truck next to us! He was stretching his trunk across the gap to investigate the roof of our taxi!

A local Thai Church having a baptism in our pool
at least that is still working!

Just the other day both our gas cookers in the kitchen decided to pack up. The first we knew about this was when Phet, our deputy head cook told us that she had stood for 2 hours, pushing in the control knob on the gas to keep the stove alight. The reason she didn’t desert her post was that she had promised Joan that we were having cinnamon rolls for pudding that night! I waited till the kitchen was all quiet that evening and started to strip down the innards. Whilst I was fiddling about trying to get the thermocouple to work, Somsack, our Head Gardener, came to get things ready for breakfast (he helps out in the kitchen in the early mornings). With hardly a word in common between Thai and English we managed to get one cooker back in action and the other only needing the new thermocouple. We all agreed that the cookers are beyond permanent repair and Joan’s main job today was to take the Head Cook and the Office assistant (translator) to “Home Pro” to investigate new ovens. They got off to a bad start, however, when Joan was pulled over by the Police. It was road tax and seat-belt day in Chiang Mai and Ouan wasn’t wearing hers! So this afternoon Joan went on the back of Lilies motorbike to the Police Station to pay her fine. As it was an adult passage not wearing the belt, she was fined 200 TBT (about £5.00).

The River Ping at Chiang Mai

No custodial sentence, so Joan was back in town soon after and no "record" according to the charming policeman! 
We celebrated by visiting the, now world famous: Lemon Grass (No view but Tasty). Outside "No View" is a road side food stall. The banner hanging from the umbrella over her stall has a somewhat strange look in the 36 C heat of Chiang Mai, 
What do you think? I think the snowman wouldn't last 5 minuets, but there again neither do I! Apparently she doesn't do Christmas turkey in her wok, she is taking bookings for the "White Lion" English pub in the Night Market..........

The banner Reads: "Christmas Dinner!"

The route there takes you across an old iron bridge, over the Ping river, and  on into the area behind the Night Bazaar. Early in the evening, when we tend to visit, the stalls are just being set up for a long night's business. The picture below shows a typically Thai solution to the problem of moving the heavy steel barrows into place on the streets, from their day time storage. The skill in keeping the barrow moving without being able to steer it are phenomenal! Health and Safety just doesn't get a look in.
We were greeted like long lost relatives when we made our return to the Lemon Grass. 

The strength needed must be awesome

After our staff visited the recycling centre the other day there was enough money to fund a farewell party for Simon and Melanie and general staff treat after the busiest start to a year ever at JTCM; we returned to the "Holiday Inn" who do a fabulous buffet lunch, which would fill even the hungriest person in the world with fabulous Thai food. The picture below is the entire staff plus Carey family just about able to walk after the event!


The other day, Simon and I needed to visit the Ex-Leper colony, now a hospital/hospice/rehabilitation centre. We were getting some metal medallions made to go on the front of the new welcome booklets that go in all our rooms here. The artisans make them from aluminium and they have a Juniper Tree Logo, done in repousse work. (An image formed from the reverse side, by hammering with punches) We took 2 motor bikes and were like 2 big kids whizzing across town and out into the country! Riding back in the brilliant sunshine under the shade of the flowering trees made me wonder why I didn’t do this sooner; it beats trying to control a rowdy bunch of year 10 kids on a Wednesday morning into a cocked hat!

Sailfin Tang

We recently had a guest who is a real expert on marine tropical fish. I spent an important afternoon visiting our local aquarium shop with him, to improve our tank. We have added a new fish; a powder brown tang and he’s doing fine, however the 2 shrimps we bought didn’t last more than an hour or two. We are working on the theory that the Nitrates are too high. We have added more live rock and we are doing water changes to bring it down. We now have the correct testing kit, so that helps. I am intending to add an external sump to the set up next.

If I'd been quicker, a video would have
included the song our
happy guest was singing!

It’s been a week for broken things! We not only have 2 ovens out of action, but we have had hours of no water supply, the telephones stopped working, the credit card machine joined in, followed by 2 fans, 1 air-con unit, the wi-fi internet connection and the well water pump! After 48 hours we managed to repair/replace almost all of them; but it keeps you on your toes!
Some rain has started to fall now; it would normally rain every afternoon for a few hours at this time of year. So far, we have only had rain on 3 or 4 days in the last month.

Today I had a visit from the Thai Border Police! No, I’m not being deported yet! They called to see if we could muster some volunteers to help their 145 new recruits practise their newly learnt English conversational skills. They rather optimistically hope for 10 or so people to spend a whole day with the trainee’s helping them to use their new language skills. So far, with Joan and I, we have only 4 volunteers, so that’s nearly 40 each!! Watch this space; it should be a laugh if nothing else.