Pretty exciting stuff, this: My wife and I have bought some dirt in northern Thailand on which to build a home, which automatically makes this turf, by default, “Dorseyland”!

That’s right, it’s no longer just a figment of my imagination.

We purchased two vacant adjoining lots totalling 254 square wah. A wah is a Thai measure about equal to four square metres, so we’ve got about 1,016 square metres. That’s big enough for a decent-sized house. So I’m told — it looks awfully small to me.

Coincidentally, wah is also what I said to my wife when she announced that we were buying some land.

It’s not much to look at yet because it’s covered in longan trees, but Ae is already signing up a guy with a bulldozer to destroy them. (I’m not going to grieve for them because I’ve learned from the trees around our condo in Bangkok that Thai flora cannot be killed — it always comes back and takes over its rightful property again.)

This pic shows the house next door. Something to aspire to. Where will the money come from? I have no idea. I always expected to die in a rented room, probably a motel someplace.

Here’s the neighbour’s dog, which not only scales walls, it patrols them. You just know he’s going to be trouble.

Someone’s already installed a treehouse, so that might initially be where I’ll be living.

This is the family negotiating with the landowner over the vacant lot on the other side of the fence, where the grass seems to be greener.

The property’s approximate location, as seen on Google Earth, although the satellite image still in use in this area is six years old, so no houses. If any readers can guess the location, they can camp out on the lot for a month for free. Here’s a clue: it’s not far from Chiang Mai.

Here’s another clue: the sky above the property.