Relaxed next steps, ramp, carport/cathouse, maintenance week.

Every day a couple of ours work in the morning and afternoon. In between a nap. Sunday's time for a break and going out for late lunch or 'dad's cooking'. My mother in law, most of the times, enjoys the Sunday's Western food.  

Nice to have something to do without any stress. 

Slowly the end of the construction process we intended to do is in sight. New ideas arise and need some more time in our brains to develop. It will come.

Sitting still, looking around, the whole day being on the mobile or computer, follow the 'social' media, hanging in front of the tv, only eating and drinking beer, for me, are not the things I look forward to. They give me the idea I am counting the days and waiting till the end. So, let's keep moving.  

So, the last month we worked to build a ramp to the entrance of our house and went on with the carport/catroom.

Temperatures, although a tiny little bit lower, still feel very high (today 44 degrees C 'feeling temperature' again. The rainy season very slowly started and humidity levels are extremely high. Let's face it, we live in the middle of the rice-fields. The bamboo ceiling of our veranda already shows nature/humidity is taking over. 

Yesterday we stopped for a short while our construction work and introduces/started with a kind of 'Maintenance week'. The more you create, the more maintenance and cleaning is needed too. Phatsamon started again to take care of the garden in the mornings. Sometimes she get's some help of a neighbor cow or water buffalo (maybe future new animals).

Beginning July we get some guests (family/friends) for around two weeks. We will show them around Surin. So, actually for us also a kind of short holiday. 

A picture impression of the last developments:

veranda ceiling mold

On the way for Sunday late lunch

Frans & Phatsamon

email:   pyramidhousethailand@gmail.com

Slowly more retirering after fourteen years

It's been a while to do an update about how we are doing at our place.  

The beginning of the rainy season just started. The every year returning flying thousands of termites show it. And, now, I am writing this blog because... it's raining. 

Temperatures technically dropped. On the other hand humidity is very high now, so it still feels very hot and as soon as we start working we start sweating even more. 

My, European, body tells me I have to slow down and finally I start to obey to that call/request. Let's face it, although still feeling very young, I am getting older.

The last months I only worked a bit in the morning and a bit in the afternoon. Taking more time to do and organize some other things as well, have some fun (and karaoke) with friends, organized a family party, and appreciating my nap with our four 'girls' in the airconditioned room on a daily base. 

All together around three hours a day I am doing construction work. And still, looking back to this 'slowly more retiring', we booked enough results. Again, we are not in a rush. It's ready when it's ready but it will never be ready at all because every time we get some new thoughts to create. 

So, great, it keeps the body and mind without any stress happy and healthy. 

Today I am fourteen years in Thailand. After all an early great opportunity. A good decision, great new experiences and 180 degrees change of lifestyle. Worked instead as Director of a safety-region in The Netherlands, as a teacher and coach at a wellness resort in Chiang Mai. Succeeded many courses in life- & talent coaching, meditation, yoga and tantra. And last but not least, already for six years now creating great new sustainable things at the place were we, my Thai wife and me with our animals at the countryside live*. (*: see note at the end of this blog)

Nobody can take these happy and healthy years, still in good condition, from me/us anymore. And indeed, many people still think you have to work 'till the end' to get the best/highest pension. But, my experience now, that's not true.

Now I think, in the circumstances I was in at the end of my career, maybe I would not even have made it till 'the end'. And if, what would be my physical and mental health to start to live a life in Thailand this way? 

So, no full work pension and no full Dutch government pension because I left The Netherlands many years before my so called retirement age. So what? 

It brought me wonderful years and a great place to live that we build together by our own hands. Not much savings, we live and enjoy NOW, and no debts at all. 

This morning I said again that I am very thankful I got all these years this way already. 

So, what did we achieve the last period?

# Replaced the roof of the control-room (Electricity and pumphouse)

# finished the bamboo ceiling of our veranda

# received trucks of sand and installed the pavement and front stairs around the house

Incl. a rainwatergutter to protect
the catroom and cage (to build)
 from draining

# Finally after weeks got the Q-Con building blogs for the cat house delivered 

# Enjoyed, the animals, friends around us, and after work... a beer with ice

Our ricefield starts to grow after the first rain

A couple of Kingfishers taking care of their
nest inside the walkway of our ricefield

Visit with Phatsamon a karaoke bar
in Prasat with friends

70th birthday celebration
of our friend Arnold in Buriram

Note*: Interested to get an impression so far about the place we live? A German contact nearby, by coincidence visited us with his wife and dog and made a YouTube video of his visit to us. If you want to see only the part about how we are living here just start at the time 6.20.

Frans & Phatsamon

email:   pyramidhousethailand@gmail.com

We have to slow down. Too unhealthy to go on at the moment.

Still no wake-up call? 

In Chaing Mai people cannot breath anymore because of really tremendous air pollution. Again "number one" (?) ranking the list of most polluted cities in the world. The Thai Newyear celebration "Songkran", April 13 till 15 on its way. 

In Surin, record high temperatures. A Thai Ministry warned half of April the heat index could hit 60 degrees C (140 F).

So, not healthy to work outside as well. We have to slow down. Very early in the morning and late afternoon there is one till one and a half hour left to do something. 

Politicians keep on talking and talking about the change of the climate. All kind of regulations appear. People and companies have to pay for their pollution contribution but this change is unstoppable and nature is too sick to recover. This is irreversible.

In the mean time the world is because of wars and disasters everywhere (for nothing) on fire. All totally out of control. 

Priority now is to get shadow to work and prepare our structures against severe "summer storms" that will arrive soon and at least in a couple of weeks created by this extreme high temperatures.

So, organizing steel to weld and ordering and installing the Bluescope metal sheeting for the carport/cathouse and wind protection ceiling of the veranda of the house. 

We have negative experiences with the metal sheeting materials from CLC in Surin and BK. After four years we face lots of rust and holes already and now start to replace the roof of the controlroom because of leakage. Also the sunprotection roof of the TED's needs to be replaced. It's terrible to see. 

We got the replacement roof material for the controlroom delivered already. It's waiting to be installed. This time it's the special zincaluminum material with a 2.5 cm isolation to keep the waterstorage in the controlroom a bit more 'cool'. 

We switched to the company Bluescope (15 km away from us in Prasat). Bluescope offers a high-quality zincaluminium coated metal sheeting with 25 years guarantee. It's a heavy and more thick material as well and is used on many types of houses, sheds and company halls. 

Sadly we are facing delivery problems of the Q-CON wall blocks for the cathouse part because of Mr. Bigmouth Donald creating disturbances. We are also waiting for the manager of HomeMart to come to help us to solve the floor problems of the place we are building at the moment. 

Although still a lot to do, the first thing now is to keep calm and slow down. No other option. Not worth a heat-stroke. 

 

Frans & Phatsamon

email:   pyramidhousethailand@gmail.com