Ca ira!

"Ca ira" means "that'll do" in English, and I'm at that stage with my bathroom renovations. Well actually, I'm pretty much like that with everything (my attempts at patchwork can testify to that)! Anyhoo, the plumber came back earlier this week as he wanted to install the shower screen in the larger bathroom, leave the tiler to finish his bit, and then attack the smaller bathroom. I mentioned before that as my wall is not a perfect vertical, there is a tiny (less than half a cm) gap between the bottom of the shower and the wall which he said I should get the tiler to "fill in" to make it look better. Frankly at this point I couldn't care less about aesthetics and in any case I knew it would be hidden by the shelving unit I intended to put there so I told him not to worry about it as ça ira! He wasn't happy about that but seriously it would take another plumber to spot it (so Jordan will probably notice it), and of course if the tiler wants to do something with it so be it, but at this point I just wanted to start moving stuff back into the bathroom and getting things sorted. While it isn't completely finished (I have to get window dressings and clean up some of the paintwork) I'm so happy with my new bathroom. I had thought it might end up looking a bit like a sanatorium, but nope, I'm good with it. So now onto the smaller bathroom which hopefully won't take so long to complete - but in any case, as long as they put the toilet in immediately I can live with it because ça ira!

Before - excuse the mess but I
never used that bath!

After - could probably do with
a bit more colour but I'm working
on it!

Before!

After!

In other news, when I was heading over to Jordan and Jen's last Friday to take care of Charlie, about five minutes into my journey an older lady flagged me down, asking if I had a mobile phone as there was "a man lying on the ground down in the woods"! She was coming up from a woodland path so I told her I would park up and headed back into the woods to join her. There was a man, probably in his 40s, lying on the ground. I tried tapping his cheek and speaking gently to him but got no response - and then we spotted that he was lying on top of a pile of beer cans! At this point another man joined us saying that he had called an ambulance and while it was seemingly quite obvious that he was passed out drunk, the ambulance came out anyway and, I presume, took him to hospital! Quite the drama, although I hate to think what might have happened to him if he'd still been lying out in the woods when night fell!

Getting back to Thailand, on our penultimate day a few of us talked to our guide about setting up a trip to an elephant sanctuary, rather than just spending the day on the beach. So she set that up for us and it was great. Being a sanctuary there was obviously no riding on the elephants and at that time they were only looking after four older females. They didn't work with males with tourists because they are more aggressive, but I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get to meet any babies (like André did). Still it was fun, with about 30 tourists "sharing" three of the elephants who spontaneously wandered down to the stream when they realized we were there. We all made up a kind of protein ball (think something about the size of a baseball) and each fed two of them and a couple of bananas to whichever elephant took our fancy (they actually seem to inhale, rather than "eat"), after being given strict instructions that if the elephant wanted to go in x direction it was up to us to get out of their way, not the other way around - though seriously, who would want to argue with an elephant????

After that we got into the stream with them, caked them in mud (to help keep them cool) and when that dried we rinsed them off and scrubbed them down. From there we had to walk about a mile through the woods to a watering hole where we were invited to get into the water with them and "hose them down". I didn't bother going in the water with them as I figured, rightly, that a few people would monopolize the elephants, but I was happy anyway. I just wish I had been able to get a picture of our little group following the elephants through the woods to the watering hole - it was like a scene out of Jungle Book, but I wasn't quick enough - I just got a picture of the last elephant's bum!

When we got back we all headed out to dinner together and I finally dropped off my copy of The Power of Now in one of those freebie bookshelves they have in all the hotels. I tried four times to read that book and four times I failed so I decided to let someone else suffer for their sins. I was done!

Just one more day to write up on Thailand now, but that can wait until the next time!