Owen

Owen

Owen Jones, Amazon Best-Selling Author from Barry, Wales, has lived in several countries and travelled in many more. While studying Russian in the USSR in the '70's, he hobnobbed with spies on a regular basis; in Suriname, he got caught up in the 1982 coup; and while a company director, he joined the crew of four as the galley slave to sail from Barry to Gibraltar a home-made concrete yacht, which was almost rammed by a Russian oil tanker and an American aircraft carrier. “I am a Celt, and we are romantic”, he said when asked about his writing style, “and I firmly believe in reincarnation, Karma and Fate, so, sayings like 'Do unto another...', and 'What goes round comes around' are central to my life and reflected in my work. I write about what I see, or think I see, or dream... and, in the end it is all the same really”. He speaks seven languages and is learning Thai, since he lives in Thailand with his Thai wife of fifteen years. His first novel, Daddy's Hobby is from the seven-part series 'Behind The Smile: The Story of Lek, a Bar Girl in Pattaya', but his largest collection is 'The Megan Series', twenty-three novelettes on the psychic development of a teenage girl, the subtitle of which, 'A Spirit Guide, A Ghost Tiger and One Scary Mother!' sums them up nicely. He has written fifty novels and novelettes, including: Dead Centre; Andropov's Cuckoo; Fate Twister; The Disallowed (a philosophical comedy); Tiger Lily of Bangkok; and A Night in Annwn (Annwn being the ancient Welsh word for Heaven). Many have been translated into foreign languages and narrated into audio books. Owen Jones writes stories set in Wales, Spain and Thailand, where he now lives. He is a life-long Spiritualist, and this belief is interwoven, in a very realistic way, into many of his books and storylines. If you like a touch of the 'supernatural', try his books He sums his life up thus: “Born in the Land of Song, Living in the Land of Smiles”.

Being An Expat: Legal Aspect

SWAMP

The legal aspect of being an expat is obviously very important. Many countries, especially those that rely on tourism, operate a relaxed approach to short term (thirty days or less) tourist visas, but this is not the case for expats unless the target country and the expat's homeland have some sort of mutual agreement, like in the European Community.

Being An Expat: Cultural Aspect

Being An Expat (part two). The Cultural Aspect The holidaymaker is probably not always as aware of the vast cultural differences that exist between Asia and, let’s say, Britain or the West in general, whereas the expat is obliged to…

Being An Expat: Personal Aspect

Dreary Day

I have lived here in northern Thailand for 21 years and I lived in The Netherlands for nine years until 1982, so I am sort of used to being an expat in two countries on two continents in two radically different parts of the world. The first thing is that being an expat is not like being on a very long holiday.

Amazon Prime

Megan The Misconception

Amazon Prime I am going to do something I’ve never done before: recommend a product. You’ve all heard of Amazon, I mean, who hasn’t, but they have a newish experience called Amazon Prime, which I have the logo of before,…

Water! Water Everywhere…

Water! Water Everywhere...

Water! Water Everywhere… Yes, friends, the water is back on and flowing in great abundance. From every house you pass can be heard the strains of old washing machines already on their second or third load of the day. My…

Today’s Thailand

Visa Renewal

Today’s Thailand This is going to be a collection of random observations about today’s Thailand, because not enough has been happening in my life in the last twenty-four hours to fill even a short post such as this series, which…

Trouble At T’ Mill

Megan Faces Derision

Trouble At T’ Mill? Trouble at t’ mill? You can say that again. We’ve got another two to four days of being without mains water. My wife only recently paid for a new crop of chilli peppers and spent a…

Exhaust Fumes

Megan's Nature Garden

Exhaust Fumes As you probably already know, I sit outside a shop in the village every afternoon after about four o’clock. I have been doing it for ten years, but my wife stopped sitting with me about a year ago…

Bugs and Viruses

Google Accounts

Bugs and Viruses I was talking yesterday about the narrow escapes I had had as if it were all behind me, but it seems that bugs and viruses are following me about. How naive and gullible we, or I, can…

Narrow Escapes

Narrow Escapes I was playing a game of Contract Bridge with my Kindle Fire yesterday, when the screen suddenly went black. I thought that either the battery had run down without my noticing it or that it had crashed, since…

Milestones in a Baby’s Life

Milestones in a Baby's Life

Milestones in a Baby’s Life I haven’t lived in the same house as a baby since I was eight and that was fifty-three years ago, so having our granddaughter living with us is a totally new experience for me. She…

Snakes in Thailand

Snakes in Thailand

Snakes in Thailand I look out for snakes… but then I suppose most people do except the British and the Irish, because we don’t have many at home. After all, no-one wants to step on one in the grass or…

Personal Style

Personal Style

Personal Style We all have our own personal style, our own way of doing things, don’t we? And we all know what we do and do not like – that’s part of it. I personally am not keen on Shakespeare.…

Progress

Progress

Progress The concrete boys were back today and surprised me yet again. Instead of just laying storm-water drainage, they are resurfacing the road (lane) to a depth of five or six inches with reinforced concrete. Now that’s what I call…

Sorry No Blog Post Today

Sorry No Blog Post Today I write my blog posts when I go for a beer, but that huge hole is still outside our house, which would have meant another detour of a mile and a half. I don’t mind…

Roadworks

Roadworks

Roadworks I mentioned the roadworks that the council started outside our house yesterday, which was on a Friday (?). That blocked the rear entrance to our house by all but a fifteen-inch earthen ‘bridge’. Well, this morning they came back…

Improvement

Review of 'Fate Twister'

Improvement I now know what those twelve-inch concrete pipes are for as they have dug up the two access points to my house – storm-water drainage, as I think it’s called, as opposed to foul-water drainage. Whoever would have thought…