Thank you Phil, my new school is a private school of about 2000 students, I'm teaching K2 and K3 and also P1 to P6. I've only just started of course but the majority of them seem like really great kids.

Being self employed was great although I never managed to whip out my rule to any single women. I had a pine shop making bespoke furniture and fitted kitchens for about eight years when pine was highly fashionable. When it went out of fashion the business slowly went down the pan. I then went on to being a handy man, mainly carpentry, with an advert in the local paper to try and drum up business. I didn't enjoy that so much and some customers started to do my head in.

Yeah who wouldn't love it here, I came here about five times before I met my wife about 4 years ago. I managed to get her a visa (after one failed attempt) to live in England, married and stayed there for three years. In December, her mom died so she flew back. I had already been planning to come to live in Thailand for a couple of years and my canal boat which we lived on was almost refitted out and repainted. By the end of June she was sold and I flew out here straight away.

I couldn't wait to stop cutting and smashing my hands up. I enjoy carpentry but not making things for other people.

I did a few years in the south of France (Antibes) working in a paint team on massive motor boats and yachts. I did the same in Italy although I didn't enjoy it there. Then I had a relationship with an Austrian girlfriend I met while on a skiing holiday and ended up living in Krems An Der Donau for nearly two years. While I was there I ended up working on and off as a DJ. I also picked up the German language pretty quickly

I did a lot of internet research into what my possibilities in Thailand were. I considered renting or setting up a bar but heard too many stories of them failing and didn't want to risk losing the money I had got from the sale of my canal boat. When I looked into teaching without a degree, many people were saying it was possible and that demand always outstrips supply. I knew I had enough money to take a gamble and at least get a TEFL certificate and give it a try.

My wife was left with the house as her dad died years ago. The village is great and so are the people. Its in the middle of nowhere and the view from the back of the house is fantastic. It's quite a poor area and many of the houses are just metal or wooden shacks but I love the countryside and can live like that. Friday nights? 6 bottles of Archer and a few mosquito bites.

The house is a breeze-block construction with a metal roof. The floor is bare concrete. There are two bedrooms with mattresses on the floor and mosquito nets, a separate kitchen with one of those bottle gas cooking stoves, a squat n go toilet with a water vat for showering, and a massive doccere (don't know how to spell that) lurking about the house.

My clubbing and illegal substance days are over and at the moment I don't mind not going out. If we really wanted to, we could get on a bus for about 40 mins and go to Korat Town where there are a few English pubs and stay in a cheap hotel for the night, but so far we have only done that once. I could go out here where I work but I don't bother.

I applied for about 50 jobs from Ajarn and from other job boards. I also made about ten cold calls on schools in the area.

Yes and also having no experience. I think if I had at least had some experience, I would have got a job sooner. I went to a fair few interviews, some quite far away, only to be asked about my degree. If they had read my CV properly, they could have saved me the bother. From then on I started confirming this fact beforehand.

Not really. She has to stay at home to look after her son, but she will be coming over to where I work for a couple of days each week and her sister will look after the kid. And then I get to go home at the weekends as you said.

I think just apply for every single appropriate job you can and cold call schools. I'm not sure I can really give these guys much advice as they should be doing that already. I know there are jobs out there not being advertised as my wife knows a school MC in Udon Thani who works in several schools and could have got me interviews. But the money she was offering was only about 10 to 15,000 baht a month so I held out for a better wage because I had my savings to live off.

But I think eventually I would have taken a job like that as it's certainly better than nothing.

If it all went tits up I would spend a school year in Austria. I've looked into it and schools there do not require a degree and you can earn up to 19 euros an hour. I could certainly save enough money to return to Thailand with a wedge and try again.

When I lived in Austria and was looking for work I used their job centre service and they kept my details on file. A local school approached me and asked if I would be interested in teaching. I thought I would give it a go so I went for interview, was shown around the school and told me they wanted to employ me. I accepted but a day later I was called to be told the school board would not accept me as I had no experience or training.

It still amazes me to think that I was nearly a teacher back then with absolutely no idea about lesson plans, PPP or anything. Of course I'm still a newbie teacher but doing the TEFL has given me the tools I need to hopefully become a great teacher.

Thanks a million Phil and you're the dog's nuts for sorting me out.