I not sure if the smiles here are relief or happiness from completing the 850km drive back home across Thailand from the Laos border. Little Laura is still in dream land no doubt still sleeping off the huge car drive. I can't decide if I want to get drunk first then sleep or just sleep on the chair in the bar. Cream is so shattered from the 2 hourly feeds during the last month, she'd be happy with anything as long as she can close her eyes for 40 winks without the breast feeding alarm going off. Ah the joys of new parenthood - again.

Just a couple of hours to go before Wayne has to head on back to the UK. Wayne’s new pool looking nice in the late afternoon light as 1000 mosquitoes wake up in search of blood...My ankles have never been so popular with the local wildlife.

Just about to head off to work in the beach resort of Pattaya located 2 hours South of Bangkok. Mom Cream and baby Laura will wait 'up country' for another month or so, to gain strength ready for the big 16 hour 850km bus ride I will make tonight.

With so many women helping mom take care of her, it seams that only dad has the golden touch to talk her to sleep. A lovely picture. I can imagine what's going on in her mind her...."Dad, if I'm as pretty as you same I am, then you didn't pay way enough for my moms’ dowry, you scoundrel" It'll be great to see them both in a few weeks time. I wonder what she'll look like then? See you soon cutey, Dad.

Baby have a wonderful nipple rooting reflex. Simply stroke the cheek of a hungry baby and it will turn towards your hand with mouth open moving around trying to find a nipple. Mom’s milk is now 'well on stream'. By the time Laura wakes up from her in-between-feed naps, moms nipples are dripping with milk ready for the next innings. I wonder if one is the main course and the other the dessert? Both seam to have plenty of vitamin zzz in them though!

Having just completed an 850km 12 hour straight drive, it was good to get back home to Pattaya. With the air-con set to full blast, baby Laura slept solidly through it all apart from a few tugs at mom’s nipple. Hopefully in 18 years time when I'm 64 years old, she can drive the #%*ing car and I get to sleep the whole journey...apart from a few tugs on a bottle of beer.

I had not planned on traveling up to my wife's home near the Mekong River for at least another couple of weeks. Happily during our daily telephone chats, she told me she was ready to travel back home to Pattaya, and so with my friend Wayne, who was also the best man at our wedding, we rented a couple of cars and thrashed the b*&%ocks out of them all the way up to the boondocks to collect Mom and baby. Miss (now Mrs.) Cream looked like a million dollars as usual with big smiles all round. Happy girl

So tell me dad, it cost 10 baht and took 30mins to get my Thai id card, and everyone says I’m a pretty girl... but it will likely cost you a thousand times that, with weeks of bone grinding admin before you give birth to my British passport...Then guys will say I’m fat, ugly, and bad tempered and don't know how to take care of a man! Is it worth it?...

Like any home around the world, a full washing line is a sure sign that a baby has just arrived. Disposable diapers along with bottle fed babies are a mystery here.

All families like to assist in the event of a birth. Isaan is no different. But local custom considers any preparation prior to the birth as attracting bad luck. So just after the birth a swift nursery building party occurs. Here's ours. This will be mom and Laura’s home for the next month. It is in every way an outdoor barn, with straw roof, dogs and chickens in the yard, two open bonfires, smoke and natural air con holding the area at an uncertain 35 centigrade 100%humidity. There is a complete selection of tropical diseases present both insect airborne and in the unfiltered Mekong well water which we are all drinking. By modern thinking we should all swiftly die...Instead, the karaoke music plays louder defying all rational celebrating the birth. Small pieces of spirit string around mom and babies feet and hands ensure that against all odds their souls do not leave their bodies.

If you've ever tried to bath a cat, those bathing a newborn child is very similar! It's just as noisy, but with on claws and teeth. Plainly all newborns babies have it programmed into them to scream the house(or in our case barn) down when enough of their body gets wet. As soon as they're dry, the screaming stops.. By which time after all the effort crying they're hungry again.

I could have sworn that lady was going to drown me. Now she don't seem too bad after all.

Bathed and all dry again. Time for a chat in English and Thai with dad and a feed and a chat in Laos Isaan with mom. Them I can never remember what happens next since I always fall asleep at this point. . .