Tim's Thailand Blog: Feverell whence has't thou gone?

I now know why the Romans added January and February onto the year! It only seems a few days since we were back in Europe celebrating The New Year.
February is nearly passed and I've only just got round to updating you all again-it is partly because so much has been happening but also, I suppose, because February is so short: (y mis bach: according to the Welsh).
Right, enough of that.... to business!
To any of you wondering about the political troubles in Thailand, these remain focused around the protest sites in Bangkok, and whilst I wouldn't be so naive to assume this will continue, at present, all is calm here in the North. How long the opposition will remain mainly peaceful is a moot point and we are all praying that a negotiated, peaceful solution can be brokered that remains democratic and just. Right, enough of that as well.... to business!

Two visits from home and two big family events in a few weeks have already helped to make 2014 a year to remember.

The rest of this post is going to be a photo journal (perhaps a little out of chronological order) but intended to sketch out the best of times!
The first family event was Emma Carolyn Peagam's 21 st Birthday!
As these lackadaisical parents were dozy enough to be thousands of miles away, Facetime came to the rescue to allow us to exchange greetings and it fell to her big sister to pass over our gifts and give her our hugs by proxy. Joanne went even further in her mission to ensure Emma had a day to remember, however. She had booked her tickets to see Coriolanus with Tom Hidddlestone in the title role; you may have seen him as Henry V on the telly or as Loki in Thor or in War Horse. Any road up, (as I never heard said in Lancashire) Who should be at the production and turned out to be sitting next to our Emma? Martin Freeman! as in the hairy toed Hobbit among many other things!
A fabulous Owl cake above was provided by friends (along with some LemSip), and they even pinned up pictures of balloons around the house; knowing how much she hates the real thing!
As Emma had over ninety comments on her facebook timeline for her birthday, I guess many of you helped celebrate the day.

We had a wonderful week or so with Karen and John Ellison. For those who don' t know, Karen and Joan were at Royal Holloway College 1976-1979 at the same time that I was up the road at Shoreditch College.

We were so pleased when they said they wanted to come and see what we were up to here at the Juniper Tree and we had an amazing time showing them our favorite haunts and indulging in some gratuitous reminiscence as well as comparing notes with another couple who are seeing their kids off under their own steam! As can be seen we spent much of the time laughing!

Someone recently asked us, "What's the best thing to do in Chiang Mai?" and we said "eat!" Well, with Karen and John we did a fair bit of that, pausing only to sleep and run the Juniper Tree, when there was no other option! The band here are practising at the "Bamboo House" and their "Jazz" was a lot more like what we expected last time we took Joan's sister there! We discovered a blues bar in the Night Bazaar with a view over the roof, and live bands who played some really good covers of Cream, Hendrix and similar; they sounded like they understood the lyrics they were singing too!

After Karen and John left Richard and Andrea arrived! Richard, of course, came to Thailand when he was doing his M.Sc. at Imperial College, and it was his enthusiasm for the people and Kingdom of Thailand that helped us to decide to take the plunge.

What we were unprepared for was their announcement, in the middle of their stay, that they had decided to get married in the Summer!
We felt immensely proud and privileged to go along with them when they bought Andrea a Thai Jade ring and later help arrange for a Tailor we know in Chiang Mai to design and make a wedding dress!
It will be a quiet affair in Germany, Andrea has four elderly Grandparents who would then be able to come, which will be so great.
I am sure we will be able to share more as things get organized, but for now, we are so happy it will be whilst we are in Europe for Emma's graduation (forget I said that!) and End of Course production.

This is proper tree planting! about 40 ft in height, a "Star Apple" tree, talk about making an instant garden.

The completed House 22, just the gutters have since been added, but as the rains will be a while yet they will need to wait for a testing!

I wanted to add some colour with a couple of trees like this, but the tree shop told me that they don't stock them much as they are considered "common" by the Thai as they are a road side tree in the Cities.

You can't go long without needing to set off some sky lanterns! Our local "Tambon" (village) makes and sells thousands of these things on every street corner.

V. atmospheric.

So here we go with the pictures: there will be awards for captions for some of them but don't feel bad if you give up before the end of the elephants, I got a bit carried away!

These are taken on a day out at "Sticky Falls" with Richard and Andrea

This is a pool near the sticky falls known as the "7 colours pool"-Blue, green, and bluish green and greenish blue.......

These tiger cubs were having great fun play fighting, it's going dark so the picture is a bit poor. We were watching them from inside the "Giraffe Restaurant" at the Night Safari. One cub sadly got badly hurt and was limping the next time we called a week or so later.

You can see why it's called that now!

What are you laughing at?

The official trying on of the ring, outside the Jade Factory on Doi Suthep.

Another "trying on", this time it's Mahout gear! We went to the Mae Sai Elephant Camp, on Doi Suthep.
No riding or show for us this time, just the bath-time in the river.