Oooh...pictures!

I was looking at my digital camera today, and I realised that I have lots of pictures that I'm not doing anything with. So here is a selection of some that I like...


Ladies and gentlemen, I give you exhibit A. Meet Mr Anthony. As you can see, easily startled, but otherwise altogether a thoroughly good egg.



Ah yes. Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner that I love... Carmarthen, a town near the coast of South Wales. Thinking about it, it's probably more to do with the fact that this is where I grew up.



Now, of course, I live in Thailand. This is part of the garden shared by the residents of Taopoon Mansion. You can just about make out the edge of the fountain that's beyond the seating area. What you can't see are the steps beyond the fountain that lead up to the swimming pool. Our apatment is just out of shot to the right, so from the balcony we look straight out at the garden. I say "our apartment" because I share it with...




You! Yes, that's right, you!
This is Ken. Aw, look at his cheeky little grin. It's great living with him. He's taken very good care of me while I've been finding my feet in Bangkok.

Now pay attention 007. This is the (in)famous 7 Eleven shop, currently spreading through Thailand at a rate that would make the WHO weep. Every block in Bangkok has at least two of these. With a name like "7 Eleven" you'd expect them to be open from 7 to...well, you know. Actually they stay open 24 hours a day. This one is just outside Taopoon Mansion so it's perfect for those late night snack runs.



Here's Gareth. He's my best friend from school and is pictured here with his lovely wife, Tracey...Gareth's the one on the right. This was taken shortly after they moved into their fantastic new house. I've actually just missed his birthday - oops. Oh well, as a special birthday treat, and so you can see how long we've known each other...






...the two of us when we were about 14.

I actually did some teaching today.

My first lessons with Wall Street weren't supposed to be until tomorrow, but due to lack of staff I was called at the last minute. Shockingly, it was rather good fun. Hooray!



I had a lovely morning too. As well as the Encounters at Wall Street (that's what they call classes there - one teacher with a maximum of four students) they also hold social clubs and complementary classes for larger groups of students. It's a good opportunity for people to practice their English in an informal setting, and a chance to make some new friends too. Well this morning there was a outside social club. A couple of the teachers and about fifteen students went to a shelter for women and orphaned children on the outskirts of Bangkok. We took along lots of clothes, food and toys and spent the morning playing games with them. There was even a short magic show which went down extremely well with the kids. They were already asking when we'd go back by the time we left. We want to do it again, as does our centre director, so it could well become a regular event on the Wall Street calendar.

After a bit of a break...

I'm back! I know it's been a long time and all The Touring Magician has to show for it is a nifty sudoku feature, but in my defense I have been rather busy. The course at the Text-and-Talk Academy proved to be rather time consuming. However it came to an end at the beginning of last week and I'm pleased to report that it went rather well. Here's the proof...

They do have swish certificates, don't they? Anyway I had a great time, made some lovely, new friends and learnt all manner of exciting things about teaching and English grammar. I'm confident that I can go out into the world knowing all about passive voice constructions, tag questions, tenses of all shapes and sizes and how to gratuitously split infinitives. Hooray!

Ken and I have been to Uthai Thani a couple of time recently. That's the province where most of his family live. It's about 3 hours drive north of Bangkok and can be reached by coach or by one of the minibuses that career backwards and forwards across Thailand to just about any location you'd care to mention. It's nice to get out into the countryside to a smaller town. Although it's very different to the UK, it still reminds me of home in a lot of ways. We were there over the weekend but came back on Tuesday to see Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever a spider can 3. We were there for the Songkran festival too. That's the Thai new year which was the week before the end of my TEFL course. Everything closes for a week so everone can run around throw buckets of ice cold water at each other and generally have a very nice time indeed, thank you very much.

Now that it's all over I have jobs to start thinking about. I've just landed myself a part-time position at one of the big language schools very near to where I live. If your interested, have a look at http://www.wallstreet.in.th (If you do, the first thing you'll want to do is click on English at the top right of the screen). I'll be teaching at the Ladprao centre. Then I have a full-time job at Borpit Pimuk University teaching business English from the beginning of next month. I just hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew.