I’ve spent the last day or so virtually indoors to avoid the water being thrown around. I think Songkran is now over so I should be OK to pop out for a bit! My main concern was when I got off the airport bus at roughly 6pm (and after sundown), and some little sprog chucked a bucket of water all over my laptop bag.

No damage, fortunately.

My only need to traipse out during daylight hours is to visit a bookshop as I have 6 novels to return for credit. I did get through a fair bit the last week or so! I also popped to the cinema to see Ice Age 2 last night, which was mostly enjoyable. Like any cartoon, though, as soon as you start adding animals falling in love it gets a bit twee. Skrit (the little squirrely creature who chases acorns) just makes the whole film, though. The scenes with him are reminiscent of classic Warner Bros and are worth going to see the film for.

Today we have Newcastle away at the land of darkness, though it doesn’t look like it’s televised which is unbelievable. Ah well. I shall head to the Bull anyway and see what they do have to watch. Worst case, I catch another match and then go to see The Wild at the cinema afterwards.

Tomorrow evening I head for Phuket, where I hope the weather holds to allow me 5 days on the clean beaches and swimming in the crystal waters. They’ve got to be cleaner than the drips coming into my dorm from the ceiling right now.

In other news, someone has attempted to break into my houe back in Bradford. Thank you, Steve, for letting me know. They smashed a small window pane in the kitchen and attempted to force one of the other window locks. The thing is, it’s incredibly obvious that there’s nothing in the house to steal, certainly nothing that would fit out through any window.

Squatters must also be out as an option as they’re not allowed to damage the property in any way upon entry or while squatting or they can be arrested and thrown out. So, basically, I have no idea why someone bothered.

The police have been round and fitted a lock (for which I thank them) and I’ve asked my folks to get the estate agent over to have a look. If anything else needs done, the property’s still insured and that can be sorted.

Well, I shall get back to my Coco Pops and dodgy market-stall CDs (I bought 7 in Chiang Mai). If I finish the book I’m reading, I’ll go to the book shop today and load up for Phuket.

Oh, and if you thought the BBC’s weather reports were unreliable within the UK you should check out today’s report for Bangkok. They reckon 34 degrees and bright sunshine. At 10:38am there are strong winds, heavy rain and no visible sunshine at all outside! Short of a world-first snowstorm, they couldn’t have it more wrong.