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It was seven-ish and I was sitting in a nice-enough room overlooking the front doorway to the pub above which I had just moved in. The pub was the Pig and Whistle on Soi 7 in Pattaya. Across the lane was a big hole, which they were hoping to construct a hotel in and next door to that, right opposite me, was a small bar with one woman sitting on a stool outside it. Not that there was a wall there, it was open on two sides. The Soi was lovely and quiet, I thought. I also thought that I might go and sit in that little bar and talk to that woman, if my friend was late, because I would definitely see him arrive from two metres away, the width of the Soi.

So, I went to the bar in the pub at 19:15 to await my friend who said he would meet me at 20:00. It was much busier than thirty minutes earlier but not noisy and I sat at the bar. The first thing a barmaid did was say hello, give me a menu and step back. I did not really want to eat, I only wanted a beer as I assumed we would be dining together later, but I wanted to read the menu anyway.

‘A pint of Boddington’s’, I said. It arrived and the girl began laying a setting for me. I tried to explain that I was not hungry, but it was no good. Like in Spain, most people eat and drink at the same time. All the while the girl was smiling at me. Then she said: ‘You live upstairs? My name Charli. What you want to eat?’. So, I gave in and ordered something and rice.

‘You first time in Thailand? You no can eat. Too spicy’, she said with a grin. ‘Oh’, I replied, ‘but I want to try. ‘I put only 50-50 for you’, she declared and was gone.

I struggled through that meal and it took a Boddingtons and a bottle of water. Charli had been correct, it was too hot for first-time foreigners and she had reduced the chilis by 50%. I have always heeded a Thai’s counsel on food ever since.

I changed seat to by the window to see what was happening as it was dark by 19:30 and I was curious. Within thirty minutes Soi 7 had transformed itself completely. I could see hundreds of girls and tourists walking about. I wanted to go out and join in or at least sit in the quiet bar across the way, but I’m ashamed to say that I was too frightened, so I sat put, rivetted to the Pig like a rabbit in a hunter’s beam.

My friend walked in on time and after we had been talking for an hour, he said: ‘Drink up, I have someone I want you to meet’. This was it, we were going into that mele. A waitress opened the door for us and the racket and the heat were tremendous. Especially the noise. Every metre at least two or three girls would shout: ‘Hello, sexy man, you want a drink’. Trying to say no politely to each call was impractical, so I just stuck close by to my pal.

Luckily, we only had about fifty metres to stroll and we sat down in another bar. My friend said hello to several ladies and then said, this a girl I have been going out with for some time. I was astounded as I had never heard him talk about her, ever. She was gorgeous, but could not speak English, so I sat in the din in silence. Not for long through, as my friend said, I have a blind date for you and he introduced another girl to me who was equally beautiful, but with whom I could speak a little. She was captivating and I was captivated. The pandemonium seemed to pass away, but it was only because I was concentrating on my new friend. The four of us had the best time and the best food I had ever had in my forty-nine years of existence.

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You doubtless already know the best way to keep your plants growing well in your garden. However, in order to keep your vegetables and garden plants growing well, you do require good quality soil, sunlight and adequate water. Although these are supplied by nature, you also need modern gardening tools to maintain your garden in good form. Gardening tools are a great help in taking care of your plants and providing the right growing conditions that have such a constructive effect on your plants’ health.

Inadequate gardening tools can also instigate injury to your plants. In order to minimize this danger, you should use the best gardening tools you can afford. Frequently, when people refer to the ‘best gardening tools’, they actually mean gardening tools that allow energy efficiency.

Here are a few of the best gardening tools available on the market. They will provide better care than ever for your flowers and your garden.

Lawnmowers: The Luxus Push Reel Mower was voted the best lawnmower by gardening aficionados. It has a large top shield to protect overhanging fruit, flowers and shrubs. Another extraordinary gardening tool is the American Lawn Mower Deluxe. It has also been accredited as one of the best. It is hand operated, therefore causing no pollution, but it is not useful on very long grass.

Garden Shredders Generally speaking, all garden shredders have a high power motor and a near-silent crushing system. This type of gardening tool is employed to speed up shredding garden waste. Garden shredders can be electric or gas powered. The electric shredders are simple to put together. They assist in disposing of tree and hedge prunings up to a maximum of 40 mm in diameter. This gardening tool is voted to be among the most useful by gardeners. They are obtainable with fixed wheels for added manoeuvrability.

Cultivators These modern gardening tools are available with special tines to help in cutting into hard, compacted soil without difficulty. Several cultivators are obtainable with a free border trimmer. The cultivator is ideal for clearing moss and aerating earth. This garden tool is especially helpful for preparing vegetable plots, flowerbeds, etc..

Leaf sweeper These gardening tools are extensively employed for removing large numbers of leaves from smaller lawns. They often include a very large 200-liter collector.

Hedge Trimmer This gardening tool has also been voted as important equipment by gardening equipment reviewers. It is used for trimming hedges and pruning plants.

Garden Fork This is a fantastic gardening tool used for aerating and transplanting. You can also use this gardening tool to split grasses and perennials. In addition to this, the spading fork is of use for working fertilizer, mulch and sorting hay in smaller gardens.

Mattock The mattock is an essential gardening tool for splitting up clay soils and working around older trees with large roots. A mattock can be employed as a replacement for a pick and a hoe in your garden.

So, if you are new to gardening or you want to buy a gardening enthusiast a useful present, check out what they already have and select something from this list.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on several subjects, but is currently involved with Black and Decker Tools. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Woodworking Power Tools

I first came to Thailand in 2004 and I came here more of less by accident. I had travelled a fair bit in Europe: Russia, Western Europe, Scandinavia, North Africa and north South America, but I had never found the time to travel to Asia.

One night, I was talking to a friend who had travelled a great deal throughout the world and he was telling me about his favourite place, to where he had been returning year after year for fourteen years. Knowing the man’s experience as a traveller, I was very surprised to hear that he had been choosing to go to the same spot in Asia for fourteen years.

I just had to ask him which part of huge Asia held such an attraction for him and he said Thailand. I knew practically nothing about Thailand, except that I had had a few meals at a near-by Thai restaurant over the years. I also knew from collecting stamps as a boy that it used to be called Siam. Anyway, my friend asked me if I’d like to go. I answered that I would ‘one day’ and meant it.

He startled me by saying that he was going to Thailand for a month soon and that I was welcome to go with him, if I wanted. I answered that I had a few jazz festivals to go to soon and maybe I would, if there was at least a month between them and if I could get a flight and if… I could hear myself putting him off, but I did not know why.

A few hours later, I went home and being a keen Internet surfer, I checked out a bit about Thailand on the travel brochure sites. It looked really fantastic. The prices were good too except for the flights. Hotels were cheap to reasonable and food and drinks prices were insignificant compared to where I lived. So, I checked the dates of the two Jazz festivals and they were thirty-three days apart. Now for the flight. I spent well into the next morning checking flights and found one for the day after the first festival leaving from our local airport. It was not the cheapest flight, but it gave me more time.

In a reckless moment I booked it there and then online. I then found a pub with rooms to let online that my friend had said he went to on quiz evenings and guessed that they would be open by now serving breakfasts. I sent them an email and a reply came back twenty minutes later. I had been lucky again. The boss was in the middle of checking yesterday’s figures, when he saw my email come through. However, not sure of his Internet ability, he asked me to phone him right away. I checked my watch, it was still 4AM so I phoned.

He took my booking on trust and so I did not have to make a payment. I had been told about Thailand, made up my mind to go and booked the flight and room all within five hours and I could not wait for nine o’clock to come to notify my friend that I would be going too.

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My family has had carpenters in it for at least four generations and I can not go back any farther than that. My father’s father came from Anglesey, an island off north Wales called Ynys Mon in Welsh. I visited his birthplace once. We were directed by a local old-timer to a field, but we could not see a house or any ruins. I scrambled up unto a pile of earth to get a better view and then we realized that I was standing on his old home.

He had lived in a hole in the ground covered over with earth! A door was still on it, overgrown after 70 years or so of neglect and there was a sort of stone chimney in the long grass on the top. I was 10 years old and my Dad was 33 and it was the only time either of us went the length of Wales to look up our family history. It is more than likely that my great-grandfather was a shepherd.

My grandfather ran away from home at– years of age to Liverpool and became an apprentice ship’s carpenter. That would have been in’14. What a time to choose to go out into the big world - the start of the First World War in Europe. He could not speak English at the time, but must have taught himself as he learned his apprenticeship.

He passed out as the best in his year and was given a set of the finest woodworking tools of the age. Each tool had a small brass plate in the handle with his name etched onto it. My father still treasured them when I was growing up.

I never met my granndfather; he died a month before I was born, but I was named after him and, knowing that I was due and that he was going, he left me a teething ring, which I still have. More to the point of this article though, there was not a single power tool in his tool bag when he died in’54.

My father was the youngest son and when he was old enough, he had to leave school to be apprentice to his father who had stopped his roaming by then. Growing up with my father in the’50’s and’60’s, I do not remember him using power tools either. He used a brace-and-bit for drilling, several assorted hand-sharpened saws for cutting and his only acquiescence to modern technology, a Yankee, which was a pump-action screwdriver. Everything he needed to hang a door or cut a roof was in one bag or later on a box, which he made himself.

I went away to study and travel and when I returned for good 12 years later, my brother had finished his carpenter’s apprenticeship and was working for my Dad. That would have been in about’80 and my brother still vows to ths day that Dad only bought power tools then because he, my brother, had learned how use them in technical college. Something which my father always denied, although it did seem a bit of a coincidence to me. My brother, now in his Fifties, still uses hand tools where he can, but also has the full range of power tools in a near-by van.

His son, now nearly 30 is also a carpenter and he has a power tool for every job and throw-away saws. How times have changed.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on several subjects, but is currently involved with Black and Decker Power Tools. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Woodworking Power Tools