We've had a big couple of weeks here in Koh Samui as we finally had the soft opening of the clinic. I'm using the word 'soft' as it appears a trendy term to use these days but in this case, it's a being used to 'soften' the hard truth that we shouldn't be open at all just yet. Nearly, but not quite.
Let me start explain...
So a few weeks ago, the father in law decided that even after all the hassle we'd had building the house, and although it was now finished-ish, we couldn't sleep in it yet as it needed some Buddhist magic to bring us fortune, success and happiness.
In my mind, I imagined having to yet again pay a load of orange-clad, barefooted bald blokes a kings ransom and a load of food to spend hours flicking salmonella riddled 'lucky' water about and chanting unintelligible nonsense at the perfect frequency for resonating my fillings out but no, I was happily incorrect!
We'd trooped off to see a 'cousin' who happened to be head honcho at a local temple to get his advice and he was a wise old fella for his instructions were pretty simple, and even more importantly, cheap!
All we needed to do was put a Buddha in the bedroom, light a candle, have a cat wonder around the house and have the family over. Most importantly, we had to say thank you (for the umpteenth fucking time) to grandma as it was originally hers and long gone grandad's land and we needed to make sure that the spirit of Grandpa was happy with what we'd built. He also gave us a pot of 'blessed' water for us to do our own 'flicking' and that was it. Sorted!
I will just add at this point that it seems I'm the only person who has never seen Grandpa's ghost wandering around one of his former chunks of land. Even the brother in law, Robert the Bruce, who finally buggered off back to Scotland last month, claims to have seen him when they built their house 15 years ago.
Ah, but I have a theory about this. Perhaps I have seen him after all...
You know that in Buddhism, you are reincarnated and that means you could come back as any living creature from amoeba up right? Well last week, I was trying to tidy up the rubble in the garden, lifted a rock and nearly got stung by this grumpy, ugly bad boy...
That's a bona fide Thai forest scorpion, or perhaps grandad, who knows but either way, it's going to be seriously pissed off with me as I relocated it on the end of a shovel into the neighbour's plot, the very same neighbours who have been feuding with the wife's family for years...whoops!
Ain't Karma a bitch gramps...
Anyway, we sorted a day out for the family to call over and organised to wheel Grandma over from her place, about half a mile away and I started keeping an eye open for a stray cat to 'borrow'.
I needn't have worried though, another neighbour and relative had a cat and for a bottle of scotch was prepared to prostitute her services to us for the afternoon.
So Fon's mother and her three aunties turned up along with grandma who neither had a fucking clue where she was or even who I was, a random bloke and a cat with a Hitler moustache on a lead and father-in-law with a Buddha statue, a candle and a couple of silver trays with some leaves and enough cash for a couple of bottles of Chang.
Let's do a few photos before we continue...
So here's grandma and the wife and don't be writing in or anything, shes not dead, its a bad photo, shes just got her eyes closed, that's all! Jesus, if she died in my house I'd have to knock it down and not even a million chanting monks would make it livable again! And yes, I have since repainted around the coloured glass blocks. Don't be so picky!
True story. Place we used to live a few years ago was a three story terraced shop-house. There were three blocks of 8 and the end shop was a DIY shop owned by a really nice bloke and his wife. Sadly, one day he fell of his roof trying to clean leaves and died. Day after, his wife has packed up and is out of there but not before calling round to see me and offer it to me for sale at about half its market value. She knew that me not being a barking mad, superstitious Buddhist would mean I'd have no problems buying it. Unfortunately, I didn't have the cash at the time which was a shame as it was a bargain and two years later, when we moved away, her place was still for sale!
Anyway, point is, grandmas not dead in this photo OK ?
The wife and FiL went to pray to a coconut tree for some reason. Don't ask me why in comments please, I've no fucking idea but what I do know is, they were lucky one of the coconuts didn't happen to drop on their daft heads!
That's Buddha, when he was still skinny and miserable before KFC came to Thailand and he got fat and happy.
Bloody cat wouldn't even look at the camera and god knows whose those feet are but I'll passing on the number of an orthopedic surgeon I know in Bangkok.
Having got all that nonsense out of the way, all we were waiting for were the big shots from the local council and Ministry of Public Health to turn up...
Which they did last week. The big bloke knew the FiL so they went off to have a little mid-afternoon snifter whilst his two henchwomen pulled out their checklist and started ticking boxes...the same 15 page checklist that we'd gone through before we invited them out to inspect us. Things were looking good!
They all turned up in the official Ministry of Public Health Toyota pick-up.
There were questions, grunts, Oooos, Aaahhhs and Hmmms as they went through the sheets, clarifying details with the wife and trying to look as professional and thorough as they could.
All medical professionals must wear fake Crocs!
Everything was going tickity-boo. It turned out, the inspectors were former pharmacists so had no idea about pediatric occupational therapy so all the paperwork and the slightly dodgy versions of Denver II and CARS tests which we sort of pushed behind the genuine, and completely waste of space (and @nickydee 's favourite book) DSM-V book were simply glanced at and ticked off.
They did know to try and pull the padding off the walls though but they were no match for the two-dozen tubes of 'No-Nails' we'd used to glue it on and they also measured the depth of padding we'd used on the floor. No problem.
Peppa Pig daily planner? CHECK!
I was feeling more and more optimistic about getting a first time pass, even after one of the ladies asked if she could try the swings out...
I think I hid my nerves quite well as she levered herself in and there was only a slight groan form the steel beam I'd had installed above our heads. I watched the ceiling for cracks appearing and nothing but I wasn't taking any chances. The gent that I am offered my hand to help her off and asked if she wished to try the climbing wall next. She declined. She also didn't give the obstacle course a go or jump in the ball pool but I could see in her eyes, she really wanted to stop and play a while, obviously there were things lacking in her childhood!
We thought that was about it but then they started looking at the bins. Now the bins have sensors that open them when you move your hand over so don't need to be touched and this is what we thought were required, but we'd missed a crucial point. We still needed a stainless steel pedal bin with a 'bio-hazard' disposable bags in.
Give me a break. It's not like we're performing fucking brain surgery here!
Obviously, children's snotty tissues were not able to mixed with general waste, and there was another thing. The fire extinguisher was sat on the floor. The sign giving its operation instructions was correctly placed but the extinguisher itself had to be wall mounted. I was annoyed at this as it's heavy, and even the wife struggles to lift it so in the case of a fire, trying to pull it off a bracket on the wall would be difficult for the average person.
Rules are rules, and that was two crosses. We were doomed.
Except we weren't, as they suggested we got the bags sorted and the fire extinguisher mounted and then send them some photos after which they'd release the license and give us the number to stick on our official clinic sign!
Sorted!
So that's what I did and a couple of weeks later, we're now fully licensed and I had another three certificates to frame and mount on the walls.
And that's about it. We quickly picked up half a dozen cases, and we're now running this clinic Monday to Friday and the clinic in Bangkok on a weekend, hence my hellish 750km overnight trip North on a Friday night and 750km South on a Sunday night by bike, bus, car or sometimes plane.
And that's what's been keeping me busy since Christmas!
Thanks for reading and I wish everyone a healthy, happy and wonderful weekend. Just spare me a thought as you climb into bed tonight as I will be out on the open road road, powered by red-bull and burgers, still pretending I'm an 'Easy-Rider', except on a scooter as we make our weary way back to the Big Mango for the weekend.
😆
I had no idea you were so funny!!
Gosh... where do I begin?!
My Buddha is also skinny. Perhaps why no good luck around here yet. Also... no cats! :/ (or KFC out here in the sticks so we are doomed)
750kms is insane. The end. If you fly me out there I'll run the Bangkok clinic for you, except I don't want to live in Bangkok. But I do want to play in your sensory playroom. Yes. Things were lacking in childhood (I bet we can all say this though... thanks for nothing Dr Spock!). Sadly KFC was not lacking though.
Please send your father in law and granny over here to make some Buddhist magic? It sounds like the best party I'll have all year :D
And affordable. Double like! Plus... ghosts and cats. I'm in!
Now now... I don't believe in burning books.
Having said that, if there was one (three) I would burn it would most certainly be the DSM-III, DSM-IV and the DSM-5.
Leave them lying about for the people with clipboards (preferably near the fire extinguisher in case I do get around to visiting you) and keep the DSM-I stashed safely in a fire proof drawer. The answers are all in that one already 👍
GREAT post, N 😁
Best Buddha magic with your new clinic <3
Thank you! The DSM-5 is rarely opened but does sometimes get a look when we have a difficult autism case. The problem is that we are not doctors so cannot diagnose, only evaluate and then we need to provide reference to parents. Parents often come to therapy or for an evaluation before seeing doctors as they don't want their kids to have an official medical record of autism or ADHD etc and that's a good thing in most cases as it's extremely rare that we'd ever suggest a kid needing drugs to help. General doctors are clueless when it comes to these conditions and often just send the parents away with a subscription for ritalin and tell them to call us anyway so we simply cut out the middleman so to speak!
Buddhism is just a byword for superstition and spirits. The Thais just love this stuff lol you can buy little, or huge, spirit houses that sit in the garden.
Their lives revolve around appeasing spirits, making merit and trying their hardest not to be reborn as something horrible! It's totally potty!
You have a great weekend and I hope the abstinence from the evil little white sticks is going well :-)
Lol. This whole piece cracked me up. I think you nearly got the Hitler moustache on that pic. Just a hint.
I genuinely had no idea that Thais were so superstitious to I started reading your blogs 🤣
Glad you touched up that paint on the glass tiles!
Thank you.
At least here, whenever you buy paint, they mix the colour in store and write it down in a book so if you need more, even a year later in this case, they'll look it up and mix the right shade.
Buddhism is definitely more voodoo than religion !
I hope you and the family have a great weekend and thank you as always :-)
That's handy with the paint. As you know here they tend to change it up every fecking year so you are humped if you need to do a top up.
I like the sound of the 'voodoo' apart from the cost I think I would like it!
Have a good weekend mate!
I'm going to liberate that 😂
Apart from the horrible journey so pleased you're up and running.
Thank you. I only wish I could write about the cases we have....;-)
Have a great weekend :-)
What's up with praying to a coconut tree?
If I didn't think it'd go straight to your head I'd tell you reading that was a lot of fun and it tickity-boo'd me a little bit.
Get over it. = }
Too late. I read the comments whilst in the bathroom and couldn't get my newly enlarged head outta the bathroom door!
When people you admire pay you compliments, it's hard not to feel a little bit chuffed but I am embarrassed about the rewards.
Have a great weekend and thank you again :-)
lol that perfect mix of comedy and wth is going on and the annoyance that I can definitely hear in your writing hahahah
Annoyance and frustration. Thais have an innate ability to turn even the simplest thing into a complex process even Einstein would have problems getting his head around
Hope you're well mate and sending you best wishes for wonderful weekend. You're an inspiration fella :-)
Glad to see you progressing.
The story was quite enjoyable to read, mehn! You did a great job
Thank you so much and I wish you a great weekend :-)
You too bro
Sorry... back for more because I can't resist a good moral to a good story:
Know your Scorpions :D
Of course! ;)
It's funny you should mention Rick.....story for another time ;-)
Oh goody! I'll wait patiently and eagerly :D
Yay! Great news you got finally all paperwork sorted. That was an adventure to get there to say the least. Hahaha 🤣
It sounds a lot of work have gone into setting it all up. Well done you.
Safe travels!
Thank you! An awful lot of Thai bureaucracy but to be fair, it's a legally recognised medical clinic so we had to accept it.
Now the real hard work begins!
Have a great weekend and continue enjoying your love affair with Scotland !
You are welcome 👋🏻😊
Yep, I fully understand.
It will… but I am sure you guys manage 😎
Thanks a lot, I will enjoy it near as long as it may be. Love Scotland. It’s so pretty…
Have a great weekend and nice start of the new week ☀️
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