Building a Stable Life in Thailand Through Home Routine and Health

First of all, my age. I’m getting older now. I’m still physically fit as fit as I can be for my age. But, you know, I spent a lot of my younger years traveling the world. I worked for a hotel company. I’ve been all over the world, the Middle East, and the Far East. I’ve even been up to Scotland, Norway, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and Singapore. So, I had a blessed life really, you know, and I lived in five star hotels because that’s where I worked most of the time. So, we were always accommodated. I never worried about visas. The hotel always took care of that.

I’ve had quite an interesting life as far as my past goes. I was married to my wife who was Korean for 33 years. We had two girls who are now grown up, 23 and 27. They’re coming out here to visit me in November.

Building a Stable Home in Hua Hin

As you know, I moved down from Bangkok to Hua Hin. My girlfriend bought this house in her name. I’m paying the mortgage and that’ll invite the comments again, I know. But there’s a lot of paperwork involved, you know. I haven’t put a lump of cash into this house. I’d be paying rent anyway. I’m just paying a lot less in rent by paying this mortgage. And we’ve got a great living space.

So, as far as being stable goes, I’m not really wanting for anything. People are like, you know, “Oh, I’ve always wanted to fly” or “I’ve always wanted to drive a speedboat” or “I’ve always wanted to climb a mountain.” I’ve pretty much done most things I set out to do. I had a nice career in the hotels. I’ve been to a lot of places around the world. I’ve met some fantastic people still in contact with some of them in other parts of the world. I learned to fly for a while. Got a pilot’s license small aircraft, you know. That license has expired now because you have to keep it up. And that was a big achievement for me, being able to do that.

So, living here in Hua Hin, we live in this nice house.

My Girlfriend Is a Real Gem

But yeah, my life is stable, you know. I mean, I’m 65. I’m coming up to 66. My girlfriend’s at work. She works in a hospital. She’s 18 years younger than me. I’m very, very lucky. I managed to find a real good gem. She’s a lovely woman. As I say, 18 years younger than me. She’s at work all day. She won’t come home till 9:00 tonight Monday and Tuesday, as I’m recording this video. It’s a Monday.

A Simple Daily Routine

I just have a routine. So, what I tend to do is I get up I don’t rush around. I’ll get up in the morning, obviously. I’ll make myself a mug of coffee or tea. I’ll sit right where I’m sitting now, and I’ll just plan my day out. And if I haven’t got a lot on, I’ll find things to do. Like today, I don’t have a lot on.

So, I just fit into a routine. So, yeah, I wake up in the morning. I’ll have a cup of coffee. I’ll have my planned day out. Like today, I met a friend for lunch on 102. Drove into town. I had to get my new glasses tightened up. They’re a bit loose. I got some new glasses. I’ve come back, obviously, because I need to let the dog out. He can’t stay here all day.

But I don’t have this want and need to do things. You know, I mean, I do like to travel. When she wasn’t working, we’d go to beach locations and go out for the day. It’s a little bit more difficult now because she’s at work. Somebody has to look after the dog. I can nip out for two or three hours, but I can’t keep him caged up for six hours. That would be cruel. I shouldn’t have a dog if that’s how I’m going to behave.

Living Without Money Worries

So, there’s nothing really. I’m not bored. I hang around in bars? I’ve got plenty to do. I’m quite happy with my life. I’m very happy with this house and my girlfriend. Money isn’t a problem. I don’t have lots and lots of money, but I’ve got enough to live a reasonably nice life out here.

In the UK, one of the biggest worries people always have is paying their bills because everything is going up. You’re getting taxed through the hill. And everybody’s always looking at their bank accounts wondering, you know, are they going to be able to meet their bills at the end of the month? One of the nice things about being here is not having kids. Just my girlfriend works, so I don’t have those issues. I don’t think, “Am I going to be able to pay my phone bill? Am I going to be able to pay my rent?” I know I can cover them easily and more so.

So, that’s a big thing. Once you’re in that situation where you don’t have money troubles, it is a big peace of mind. You’re at peace already, aren’t you?

Avoiding Arguments

I don’t tend to get into many arguments with people as well because I find that doesn’t really help. I used to argue with my Thai girlfriend a little bit. She used to just shut down. It’s what Thais do, you know. She used to wind me up to the point I was starting to raise my voice, and then she just shut down. And I’d say, “Oh, you’ve wound me up and now you don’t want to talk.” And she’d just say, “I’m not speaking.” And that was it, you know.

So, I don’t know what else other than that I can tell you about why my life is stable. I’ve got everything I want. I’ve got a nice house. Oh, my girlfriend’s got a nice house that I live in. I’ve got a car. I’ve got a motorcycle. Money isn’t an issue. There’s plenty of things to do here in Hua Hin. Yeah, and life’s good, you know.

The Only Real Worry Is Health

Truth be told, the only thing I really worry about is health. I don’t have health insurance. I won’t get into it in a big way. The main reason I don’t have it is because I researched health insurance for 2 years, found a good company, but they wouldn’t insure me for pre-existing conditions because I take one tablet because I had a little bit high blood pressure. I was a lot heavier than I am now. I mean, who at 65 doesn’t take the odd tablet?

I take a statin. I’ve been taking statins for 25 years. When I tell people that, people always say, “Come off statins. They’re dangerous. Look at this article.” But I did recently speak to my doctor about statins, and basically he said, you know, you’re better to be on statins and have your cholesterol low than to come off them and risk it going up and having a heart attack.

So, I couldn’t get the insurance. So, that’s really the biggest worry for me is if something happened.

The Fear of Dementia

My mother got dementia at 76 years of age. She went from being a very sharp person. She used to walk her dogs on Hampstead Heath every day. When I went to visit her, I walked with her. She was sharp as a razor even though she was 76. And virtually within a month, she didn’t even know who I was. I stopped seeing her in the end. I’ve lost contact with her.

And she was put into care when I was young. I was actually adopted. My mother was a young girl when she came to London. She was from Southern Ireland, from a little village called Athy, County Kildare. And she came to work in London for an Italian couple who owned an Italian cafe in the East End of London. Then she went to work in a bigger hotel in central London. But in those days, the staff lived in. She was only about 17, and she got pregnant with me. And in those days, you know, being Irish, very, very Catholic, very religious even back then in the ’60s, she couldn’t go back to a little village in Ireland and say she’s got a baby and no father. She’d have been ostracized by the whole village, including her own parents.

So, she turned to the church. And they have special organizations down there, or they did. And how it was organized was that she went into a Catholic mother and baby home run by the nuns. And she had me, and she was with me for about 6 weeks. And then she took me to a house in Hammersmith, also run by nuns, where the adoptive parents, the parents who raised me in Northamptonshire, came down. So, she handed me to the nuns and then she left, and the nuns handed me to my adoptive parents.

And the reason I’m telling you that story is because of my mother who had dementia. I used to go down and visit her, but I didn’t actually meet her until I was 50 years of age, you know. And the funny thing about it was she was only living about 72 miles away from my house in Northamptonshire, and she’d been living there since I was 15 years of age, you know.

I always wondered who my mother was. I never did meet my father, and I’ve asked her and she’s told me a couple of different stories, you know. So, I don’t bother asking anymore. And yeah, so that’s the biggest worry I have is getting dementia or getting sick.

Using Government Hospitals

I use the government hospital here in Hua Hin. It’s cheap and it’s pretty good. It’s a little bit crowded, but they have a special clinic you can go to in the evening. You pay an extra 400 baht and you can go straight in. It’s a lot cheaper than the private hospitals.