Election weather

Rather more important than the weather in Phuket is the Thai elections that are taking place today (July 3rd). I have Twitter up on the computer in the background - you can follow me on Twitter - https://twitter.com/jamiemonk - and many of the people I follow are Tweeting about the election. Voting partly took place last weekend - the advance voting for people who are not living in their home province. You have to vote in the province where you are registered and Phuket has a lot of such people - many migrant workers born in other parts of Thailand, though many have registered in Phuket if they are settled down here.

Today is the main election, weather is great in Phuket but some areas in the north and east are predicted to get rain - nice weather will mean a high turnout, and a high turnout is predicted as this is surely Thailand's biggest election in history and everyone wants to vote. I can't discuss politics on the blog, but will be keeping an eye on the internet and the TV tonight as results come in. The results may not be as important as how people react to the results. Let's stay calm, Thailand.

Back to the weather in Phuket ..... last week I blogged about the useless forecasts that you tend to get online for Phuket weather. I posted 2 screenshots of 5 day forecasts from the BBC and Yahoo, both predicting grim weather - rain and thunderstorms all week. And guess what - they were wrong. I mentioned the real weather in the comments on that post. I also tend to leave weather comments mixed in with all the other mumbo jumbo on Twitter! It was basically a very nice week. Hardly any rain in the days, just some at night. And the winds from the week before died down - the sea got calm, people have been out diving and there have been some whalesharks around too! The good weather looks set to continue with possibility of evening rain and thunder - this is more like the weather we normally get in April - hot and muggy with evening rain.

I have been out without my camera several times this week. Normally I would take it, always ready for a photo for the blog. We ate at a new restaurant called Yellow Door in Phuket Town last Sunday - we'll go again with camera, it was very good. And yesterday morning I dragged the family out by about 8am for some exercise at the Bang Wad reservoir near our house which is a popular recreation area for locals - I blogged about the reservoir some time ago and we have been countless times, but we have always been in the evening before. We took bikes for the kids and we just walked on the dam. I realised that this was the first time I had been in the morning - and it was great, cool, nice light, a slight mist on the water - must do that again soon (with camera)!

Big day for Thailand today.