Just another quiet day in Phana

I have to thank the Oyster Band for my title today although their song was much more heavily ironic than this post will be. That's because it really was a quiet day in Phana and as it got dark here this evening I was thinking that nothing at all had happened. But on reflection that is not quite true.

The loudspeaker from Moo 9 started up really early today, about 5 a.m. it woke me and by the sound of it it had been going on a while. There is a special harvest festival being held at Wat Burapa in Moo 9 over the next three days and it started this morning.

By about 7.15 Pensri and I were out in the drive playing badminton, a daily activity for us and a source of entertainment for the busloads of schoolkids who go by between this time and 8 o'clock. My usual intense concentration was disturbed though by what I saw on the cables strung out along the far side of the road. I rushed for my camera and then rushed with it up the road, The result was poor but at least it is proof that I'm not just making all this excitement up.

Now something like this would not get a mention if I lived in Lopburi, but here it only happens about once a year. I suspect that it is the same elderly male that goes walkabout on the wires. He is heading home here but is still about a km away.  

As we were eating breakfast on the verandah (it makes us think we are at Southfork) a young woman came by and squatted down next to Pensri and asked her advice on some family problems she is having. I wandered off to my 'study' at the back of the house to do some work on an extended piece of writing I am currently busy with in an off and on sort of way. A friend of mine, a former illegal immigrant now made legal, came by with a gift of a large fish. We said we would have it for lunch and an hour or so later he was back with lots of vegetables for us to eat with it. While he was away a friend of Pensri's came by with a ripe papaya from her garden. So that was a bit more lunch for us.

Pensri went off to do some photo-copying and while she was away another annual sort of traveller went by on a bicycle. I'm not easily fooled so I knew straight away that it was Santa Claus. Except, of course, that it wasn't. Because I caught a glimpse of a very neat leg emerging from the red robe. You shouldn't be in my blog, I thought, get back, get back to  where you once belonged Mrs Claws.

Lunchtime came and the fish was one I had never had before, The flesh was similar in colour and texture to a trout but it was a much chubbier fish (though I have never eaten chub) and a bit oily for my taste. Good though. And the papaya was sweeter and jucier than many we buy.

A couple of hours after lunch we were both on the verandah again, this time I was having a foot massage from the woman I met at the community day recently. A man from Wat Phra Lao committee came and talked us into donating towards moving the crematorium a bit further west. At the moment they need money for land-filling, 200 Baht a truck-load.  He had a big accounts book with him and took a long time telling us who had paid up so far and how much. So he put us down for 5 loads and we paid up. We don't much like their reasons for moving the crematorium (more room for the stage when they hold the annual festival) but on the other hand it will be moved further from us, so on balance it's to our advantage.

A couple more visitors. Ajarn Kanet, headteacher of one of Phana's schools, came round to talk to Pensri about the school reunion they are organizing together. Then, just after I had finished my foot massage, another ajarn came round to collect some proof-reading I had done of some work sheets he had prepared for his English classes.

And finally (but I can't really be sure of this for at least another hour since it is now 8.30 p.m.) Mr Arporn came round, coughing badly. Yesterday he was coughing worse and took himself to the district hospital just before dusk. He took a short cut from his house through Don Chao Poo, the local forest and monkey sanctuary. On one of the sandy tracks he came across a python, about 6 metres long and as fat as his admittedly skinny thigh. He didn't have much time to be frightened but he managed to be and accelerated past it because he reckoned if he had braked he would have stopped right up next to it. He also mentioned that it was lucky he wasn't on his bicycle becaue it doesn't have any lights. I don't actually think pythons are a danger to fully-grown humans but I didn't want to spoil his story. And I may be wrong. I definitely wouldn't hang around to put my theory to the test.

People used to talk about the python in Don Chao Poo but a couple of years ago the monkey population started to increase and it was assumed that the python was no more. It was a defunct python. Etc, etc, etc. I met an Englishman a couple of years ago who lives about 75 kms away. He said that he used to have a Burmese python but it grew too big so he put it in a box and drove it to Don Chao Poo where he released it, hoping it liked macaque monkeys. So I just wonder ...

I am also wondering whether tomorrow will be another quiet day in Phana. We shall see.

 

Comments

[Steve]

It may be just a quiet day, but it sounded quite idyllic in the reading. I can only hope that I too one day will be subject to such normal quiet days.

[Mike]

Lawrence that was an absorbing read.

The man and the snake story made me smile, bet hes a fisherman.

[Martyn]

Santa Claws in Phana, a six metre python and a monkey on the electric pylon. Lucky for you it wasn't a hectic and exciting day.

The lunchtime fish sounds great, the oilier the better as far as I go, Thai fish cooked on the grill, now we're talking. Lovely.

Steve got it right with his choice of idyllic in reference to your day. The quiet days are sometimes the better ones, they give you time to plan, reflect and get the odd job done you've been putting off for a while. Remember the saying "anything for a bit of peace and quiet."

Thanks for the plug.

[Lawrence]

Steve, Mike and Martyn
Thanks for your comments. Nobody picked up on the dead python though. This python is dead. It's a dead python. It is no more. ?? John Cleese? John Cleese a python? Never mind. I really am too old.

Yesterday turned out to be a busy rather than a quiet day, an away-from-home all day, which is why I have only just seen your comments. See you again, I hope.

[Term Paper]

The flesh was similar in colour and texture to a trout but it was a much chubbier fish and a bit oily for your taste and Certainly oil is harm full for us.We should eat more and more dry foods.

[Lawrence]

Hello Term Paper.
Thank you for your concern for my health! But in fact the kind of oil you get in fish has long-chain fatty acids which are extremely good for you. Unlike most cooking oil. Fish oil (eg cod liver oil) is frequenty used as a dietary supplement. It is also sometimes known as 'brain food'. Eat as much of it as you can.