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.
