"Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive"

This week, it has become increasingly obvious that winter is long gone & the build up to the hot season (which locals aptly call 'summer' even though it's during the Northern Hemisphere winter/spring) has begun. We haven't yet broken the 40c barrier yet but we will. The Chiang Mai weather office is predicting an extra hot, extra dry summer for northern Thailand & I doubt if things will be much different here in the Centre/South. I can't recall when we last had rain worth mentioning & although some clouds do occasionally venture into the sky overhead, they have yet to drop anything!

Personally speaking, I have heard that two friends, both living in Australia, are planning to pop over & visit me here in Hua Hin. When we first moved here, I was expecting a veritable convoy of people to pop over & visit us, rather like the much-missed John Thaw's character in 'A Year in Provence'. I realise that Hua Hin isn't as accessible as southern France but I thought the chance of a hotel-free holiday on the Thai coast would attract a few friends. However, our 'absent friends' in Tokyo, London & elsewhere seem to lack a taste for new horizons & so apart from a few of my wife's former colleagues (a charming bunch of Japanese ladies who visited Hua Hin for just a few days), our spare room remains remarkably under-utilised.

The first of our expected visitors who are planning to boldly go where so few others have ventured before has, like me, a Japanese wife, & as they are planning to visit during the aforementioned hot season, we might spend more time chatting in the shade than visiting the beach or temples. The other guy spent over 20 years in the Aussie Army, including a spell in Somalia, so whenever he comes, I doubt if the weather will bother him much!

Anyway, unless a visitor is a rugby nut like me, they might find life here a little dull, as I am glued to my TV each weekend, thanks to the ongoing Super 14 & the 6 Nations. The time difference does mean that I'm getting a few late nights -- I went to bed at 3am after watching the Irish thrash England! However, the lack of sleep & resulting hangover were well worth it. To paraphrase the poet, "Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, But to see the Irish triumph in the warmth of a Thai summer was very heaven."