Bredbury Blue

Thanks, i'll send you a PM

My 2-year licence expired middle of this year but as i understand it, due to Covid-19, there is a Grace period until 31.12.2021 for renewing the driving licence. Using SLT Smart Queue, i just tried booking an appointment first at Bangkok's DLT Phrakhanong Sukumvit 62 and then at DLT Samut Prakarn. The earliest appointment booking spot that is free at either place is in March 2022!!! Anybody had any luck either just turning up and applying on the day or just turning up and getting an appointment for a short while later?

Wise words. We bought the house from someone with the tree planted too close to the house and right next to cables / wires requiring the trimming. We have also planted trees on an additional house plot we bought to extend our garden, and as trees grow they need trimming. If we had loads of land and no complaining neighbours we could probably let the trees grow untrimmed.

No don't be sorry to hear that. It's worked pretty well for 18 years. It's either trim the trees or cut them down as they are close to the house, near wires, allow access on to low roof for rats to gain entry to downstairs ceiling, etc. - we choose trimming over cutting down.

Perhaps, or it's because another tree common to cemeteries in her childhood (strong smell helps mask burning smells / deceased)

Have 'beep' or Indian cork trees is our garden. Like them a lot. We chop them back when they get big but they grow back so quickly.

Thanks a lot, that's the one. So many names for it: Blackboard Tree, Devil Tree, Indian Devil Tree, Milkwood Pine, White Cheesewood. And 'tin pet' (Duck feet tree) in thai. Loads in bloom right now in my mooban, but the closest is say 200m from my house and we can still smell it. Such a strong smell. I don't mind it, my wife hates it.

Asked my wife to pronounce the two versions above - pronounced the same. Made me wonder about when we first arrive and our name is first translated in to Thai. I guess for most of us it must be when we first get our first WP. I may have asked someone to read out the translation to me (I may not have). As English people pronounce my name differently (my surname is a well-known place in England but people pronounce it differently), I'm not too concerned about the Thai version I was given - it's roughly correct so it's ok with me. Based on the 2 versions given being pronounced the same, I'd probably stick with the version you were given if I was you.

Just asked the wife has she ever ate it and she looked at me like I was crazy. She says the flower is poisonous. Also it used to be grown only in wats / cemetery as it can 'absorb the smell of bodies but in recent times has become popular for gardens. Wiki says "The Frangipani is, in fact, poisonous, but only if you eat an entire flower will you begin to feel sick. Frangipani possesses a milky sap which is mildly poisonous." Also read it's poisonous to dogs.

This tree flowers (correct term?) this month and the smell is intense every where in my mooban currently. But what type of tree is it (English and Thai names)?

Excited this morning as we've a white-throated kingfisher sitting for a long time in a tree just over our garden wall (garden wall, small khlong, strip of land with trees then a Pla Salid waterfield) - it's been coming and going from the low branch for several hours. In nearly 20 years here in this house, it's the first I've ever seen. Quite some years back I saw another type of kingfisher perched on a stick on the same khlong bank. The only place I've been where I frequently saw kingfishers was from a floating room and i could view them over the river on the steep river bank opposite Kwae Tara Riverside villas, Sai Yok.

Thanks for your replies...wish I knew of this a few years back.

Are TWO-year Work Permits possible? Every year we renew my ONE-year WP for my own very small Thai company. Thai friend of my wife told my wife that her chinese husband gets a TWO-year WP. 1. Are TWO-year WPs available (or is my wife being misinformed?)? 2. What's the different criteria for a ONE-year WP and a TWO-year WP?

Can't answer your question but yes it seems strange. Could it go back to the fact that surnames / family names are relatively recently introduced in to Thailand so previously everyone presumably would have been known by their first name. To be honest I find it no stranger than the American way of addressing correspondence as Hi Brown and not Hi John or Hi Mr Brown if my name was John Brown. To me Hi Brown is incredibly rude, but not to Americans but why are they taught to do that?

I started using Anki just over a month ago. I find it slow and/or a bit of a chore to add cards, there's 168 cards now. Anki has proved to me that I do forget words, and that certain words just do not stick (I fail to remember them every time they come up). At the weekend I thought I'd have a go at downloading and using someone else's deck, a deck of 3000. I've found I'm knowing about 50% of those cards and it's amusing to just use the deck to test myself. Which helps more in the long run, do your own as you come across words or use someone's deck, I don't know. Whichever way, it proves I still have a lot to learn. I watch vids, listen to podcasts, read books, do Anki, speak with the family. Sometimes I feel like I'm just not getting there then other days I'll listen to something in Thai and be chuffed I follow it and know most the words. Learning thai is a marathon.

I would agree with that. Using online dictionaries / translators has meant i have had to learn my way around a Thai keyboard (so bloody small on my phone). My go-to is thai-language.com and google/translate, but if i'm not happy or convinced with what they shows i go to thai-notes.com/dictionaries/predictionary or www.thai2english.com.

True if using a book dictionary, but I guess most of us these days use online dictionaries so there is need to learn in the order of kor Kai, etc.

Sorry to hear that: 1. I used the lessons in the brilliant old book ‘THE FUNDAMENTALS OF THE THAI LANGUAGE (Fifth Edition) by Stuart Campbell and Chuan Shaweevongs’ to learn the consonants, vowels, tone rules, etc. I bought the book years ago and I found it online here http://www.lyndonhill.com/FunThai/CONTENTS.html 2. After I knew a bit about the basics (consonants, vowels, tone rules, etc.) I searched around for youtube tutorials I liked. Funnily, I found this English guy Phil to be the best (he explains reading over about 20 tutorials and uses his Thai wife to pronounce the words in Thai – it works well). His website is http://phil.uk.net/tutorials/index.html The YouTube videos are here: Learn To Read Thai Video Tutorial 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZuOB_HFIhQ One important thing i learned was not to learn the order of consonants in the order they teach them in schools (as it makes no sense), but instead its better to learn the consonants by high class, middle class and low class as per Stuart Jay Ray's map of the mouth (attached). I learnt the middle class line first (left vertical column) then hign class (2nd from left column), etc, until i'd memorised that chart - took a while but i found it invaluable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSiwUCCIhPY Don't give up i think is the answer. I've been learning off and on for decades and never got anywhere, but since the turn of this year i decided I'm going to crack this bloody language and everyday i learn a bit. I change often my approach. I'll be in to someones videos and then i'll switch to someone else's videos. Then i'll read more and/or learn more words. Then i'll start watching vids again. I think anything helps. About a month ago i started using Anki cards - its very time consuming but by using them i've proven to myself that i learn words then i forget a lot of them so hopefully using Anki cards will help me retain the vocabulary i learn. cupdf.com_thai-consonant-map-20-stuart-jay-raj.pdf

According to Richard Barrows Twitter message and the message in Thai (got the wife to read and confirm it), grace period till end of September 2021 now extended till 31 December 2021.

I thought I'd struck lucky with kruu momm, as she talks a level I can follow most of and the words she uses I don't understand I can pick from the captions, but it seems only the first of vids has captions and none of the others which is a pity.

That makes more sense, thanks.

Thanks for the Kruu Momm videos suggestion. Watched the very first one on mamma noodles yesterday. Was able to follow most of it if I slowed it down to .75 speed. A few words I didn't know which I picked out. A good exercise. I'll try more of them. She used a term of death day (wan daay) when talking about mamma. I didn't get it so I asked the wife who at first didn't get it. Turns out she was probably meaning expiry date (using a jokey term maybe?). That had me totally confused for about 10mins. ????

Pecking order. The wife put some old ripe bananas in the garden for the birds. The pecking order was a pair of myna birds, then an Oriental Magpie-robin and then a pair of yellow-vented bulbuls. It was a bit like a wrestling tag match, watching them chasing each other off the bananas.