Activities/medals, Pension, Gifts and more…

For the Conqueror Virtual challenges I am of course still busy with the “Conquer 2021”, the challenge with my own year goal of 2.021 mile (3.252,5 km of activities – no daily steps). I finished the Giza Pyramids and started St. Francis Way, a pilgrimage from Firenze to Rome. After Giza I had a “side step” with The Pacer Virtual Challenge of 42 km in Rome. For these “last” 3 challenge I do not count my cycling because otherwise I would finish too fast. In February I received 4 medals: Camino de Santiago, Inca Trail Rome and Giza Pyramids. Now have to see how we display them in a nice way. In the Garmin Connect App I received some Badges, like the Ox badge for an activity on Chinese New Year. Siripron did a “health run”, a kind of check-up, at the Sawang Daen Din hospital.

On Saturday 27 February I became 65 years “old”, this was the old pension age in The Netherlands, but for myself it is moved to 66 years and 7 months. But I had a Dutch pension investment plan that would finish in the month of my 65th Birthday and it would start to pay-out this February. After an inquiry at the end of last year this investment plan would give me a small amount of money every month and also the same amount to my partner after my passing. But there was also another choice and that alternative was confirmed by an email on 5 February as the active payments from February 2021 until September 2022, total 20 months. So, my so called 3th pension will be added to my income until I will get my Government pension from The Netherlands (AOW).

The above mentioned extra money was also the reason for an extra gift to the Temple of Ban Thon for a new building. Valentine’s Day is also the day in 2009 that the mother of Siripron died. This year a part of the family went with Papa to our Temple (Ban Pho Chai) to give some money to remember her extra during the praying.

Yesterday, my Birthday, Siripron gave cookies to the, every morning, passing Monks. After a normal lunch we did our shopping for the family dinner. In the evening we started we cake and a Happy Birthday song. The dinner was a kind of Chinese fondue with beef, pork, fish and a lot of vegetables. As an extra there were cooked “large” shrimps. Of course there were enough drinks, like Thai whiskey, beer, coke and as always we had enough fruit, tangerines and jackfruit.

Other things that happened:
– Our Honda Jazz got his 3,5 year maintenance.
– We had maintenance on the aircon in our bedroom.
– On Friday 12 February the Chinese New Year of the Ox started.
– I had again a lunch at Kham Ta Kla and did my normal shopping.
– 26 February was Makha Buddha Day in Thailand.
– I am still busy to install and adjust my Synology NAS (more in a next blog).