August 2018 - La Colina Project

La Belle Verte

August 31, 2018
by Beave

It’s dark. Once again I’m on the balcony watching the fire flies and the lightening close in anticipating the rain. Through the window I see Mausetrappe chasing something around the floor. It catches my attention as it’s not clear or obvious what it is. It looks like some fair size bug with its wings bitten off. This I decide is the most likely but it is moving unusually fast and acrobatically. Not surprising because the cat looks intent on eating the thing. The escapee jumps in the air and hides under the fridge. Mausetrappe looks away for an instant and it leaps out and lands at my feet. Taking a closer look I am properly freaked out to see something twitchy and unidentifiable with no eyes, legs, wings or features. It’s a disembodied tail. It is winding the cat up magnificently. I check the corners of the room to see from whence it came. I catch sight of a snake and chase it out the house via the shower but it looks intact. Tail fully attached. I then spot the cat trying to pry a tail-less gecko from its hiding place where it is proudly and safely watching events. I catch him and release him. His unbelievably animated tail sacrifice saved him. Since this incident I have tried to save a couple of geckos from the cat and seen them dispatch their tails at close quarters. The gecko speeds off and leaves their tail to break dance and summersault wildly. Best distraction ever. Smart nature but proper weird and not a little creepy!

We have put out the word with a local butcher for a lamb. Rumors are amuck that such a thing exists and that we can buy a whole one for a very reasonable amount of pesos. Lamb chops, melty shanks, Sunday slow cook leg, roast shoulder…. in our future. We wait for the call from the man who knows the man who knows the lamb. We wait. Eventually we have the offer. A man will deliver to the man who will deliver to the butcher who will deliver to us a goat. It’s the same as a lamb in Birria right? Birria is a dark red highly spiced hang over stew/soup of long cooked meat available to nourish the dehydrated and sweat excess tequila from the body for breakfast every Sunday. No one can quite understand that we want to eat lamb when there is perfectly good goat available. The word is still out…. We wait.

We are completely swamped with enquiries from locals, internationals and gringos alike wanting our help with all sorts of buying, building, selling and renting adventures. Our makeshift office in the pub has been fully occupied for the last few days. We are sorta kinda relived the pub is now shut for the next three weeks. Tequila & bad karaoke and complicated Mexican legal procedures do not mix perfectly. Our first “corporate” day out involved much ale, pizza and a flat tyre. It’s a good start we think.

There is a good scattering of strange fruit on the ground that is attracting pretty much everything. Two large trees are shedding them in great numbers. The butterflies cling to them and drink the juice as they sweat in the heat. The jungle floor is alive with a multitude of butterfly wings of all patterns and a slightly fruity smell. We are surrounded by colour as they take flight around us. The ants and wasps eat the yellow flesh in no time and leave the orange stones. I have taken to using the side of my machete as a bat and hitting the stones at pre determined targets (usually a tree branch or a chicken). It’s a simple pleasure but my accuracy now is much improved. It has been suggested by the locals that the yellow fruit we can’t identify is some sort of sweet fig. I am unsure of that but we have asked a number of very nature savvy people who shrug and suggest it’s another local freaky hybrid.

Protecting turtles is a huge issue for Nayarit and the entire Pacific Coast of Mexico. Turtles have nested here for many thousands of years and thankfully the government take their well being very seriously. We heard tell of a local poacher who was caught with 300 eggs and sentenced to seven years imprisonment. He was up for release recently and faced the judge again with 6 months to go to be informed that he still had to pay a fine. 100 000 pesos for each 100 eggs. As you have to pay for your own blankets and food in Mexican prisons and his wife had left him and sold everything while he was inside he was unable to pay. He is not attracting much sympathy so may be inside for a long time yet. The police have just conducted a raid on our beaches here to catch more poachers. We were invited to assist but there is a law that only Mexican citizens can be “official turtle protectors” and the police were in serious mood so we gave it a miss. Last night at 2 am there was a nest of 110 eggs saved and two poachers chased through the hills. The big result of the night was that a local “turtle protection officer” was found to be in league with the poachers. There is a tradition that he will suffer the wroth of the community he has deceived by being taken to a remote spot and beaten with wooden sticks before the law get to throw him in prison. You don’t mess with turtles in our town.

We are looking ahead to dryer days and deciding what to create next. There are two structures we haven’t touched on our land as we ran out of time and cash. The scorpion temple and the white house. The large white house is likely to be our forthcoming focus. We will wait for the rains to blow themselves out when they eventually come and then make a plan. The roof trusses are in place and in good shape so that just needs a cover of some sort. All the floorboards and supports are termite food so they need to be completely replaced. The shower and toilet block are solid so a new window or two, taps, shower head, paint and some spit and polish should make it a splendid prospect. The view from that spot is over the treetops of the protected jungle and is one of our best. We expect to have created a multi-function space for a yoga/bird watching platform and an open air bedroom overlooking the canopy in about 6-8 weeks from the start point. There is a little creative vision required. Looking forward to starting this process as soon as I can work outside for more than 10 minutes at a time without passing out.

Pineapples are appearing everywhere. It’s one of the many pineapple seasons locally. Our man has been working in the local fields planting maize and picking pineapples. Our current method of production is to save all the pineapple tops we use and dry them, soaking them and replanting them. He has however acquired us a large number of fruit and pre-rooted well-established bases from the fields . I spend time creating space in the green landscape and planting them out along with the half dozen heads we still have rooting in pots of water all over the house. In about a years time we will have heaps of them. We know that pineapples require a seriously worrying amount of chemicals and water to grow commercially but we will deploy organic methods. More learning required. It will be worth it as our house currently has a very healthy fresh pineapple smell, which is a great deal better than damp flip-flops and moldy pants.

Jayne does something remarkable. She gets out of bed and gets dressed without violence or injury before 8 am. We have been invited to meet our man at a local farmstead and milk the cows. We are in need of a reliable source of fresh milk and so we present ourselves. Two bleary eyed gringos watching rancheros do their thing. Our “help” is an event in itself. Jayne realizes that a milkmaid she is not. The cow stubbornly holds onto its milk and the teat delivers but the tiniest dribble to the bucket. Our man takes over and extracts about half a pint a squeeze! I give it a go and soon realize the hand strength required. I’m told not to pull but squeeze hard. Our cow has her rear legs tied together so I don’t get kicked so I am over confident. I manage a steady stream of high froth and then quickly relegated to the bench while our man takes over. Life is too short to watch a gringo milk a cow. The kicker comes with the tradition of breakfast from the milking stool. Large cups are filled with spoonfuls of Choco-milk powder and heavy pours of good tequila. We then take turns to milk the cow directly into the cup which now overflows with warm, sweet, frothy Choco-tequila. It’s surprisingly delicious and filling and effective. Great way to let the day begin.

We had an unexpected flush of guests in August which was welcome. This we found to be partly due to the Mexican four week school holidays which have just finished. We have learned, however, that we have to improve our information, especially in Spanish. Despite being as clear as we thought we could be about what to expect from an AirBnB booking and managing guests’ expectations (this is not a 5 star resort in the jungle) it is becoming obvious that a lot of folk just don’t bother reading it. Minimum requirements to book with us are that everyone accepts that we are off grid, in the jungle, a few km from the beach down a country road and that we don’t use water in the toilets. This comes as a great surprise to a few guests when they arrive late, in high heel shoes, with no torch in their town car wanting the wi-fi code and horrified by the thought of crapping in a bucket. There was a family of five adults stayed with us for two nights who couldn’t bring themselves to use the facilities even once. Empty buckets! We have been advised that due to our excellent feedback since March we are “superhosts” with AirBnB and we want to keep that up. It’s great for business and we don’t want to spoil it by attracting the wrong people for our place. We know it’s extraordinary & unique to stay here and almost everyone who stays here agrees so we have added a few extra pictures of poo buckets on our AirBnB site to scare off some of the potentially squeamish sorts.

Some of our newest arrivals have been attracted by the overgrowth. A donkey, a mule and a horse go into a jungle bar and decide to stay. The three free range souls arrived with us a week ago and seem to like it here. They don’t appear to be missed by anyone and they are keeping the greenery slightly less overwhelming. And overwhelming it is. Despite much machete work the green stuff, beautiful as it is, keeps coming. We can’t see our house now from the road. Anything left out and within range has vines and branches quickly reaching out to embrace it.

The past few nights we have had some encouraging and spectacular storms. More rain fell in the past few days than in the past few weeks. For a tantalizingly short time we had two out of five rivers flowing. The one past our house and the big one from the mountains. Its been enough to wash out the river beds . I have spent days moving rocks and filling in roads and maintaining our water diversion trenches. Despite all efforts access to us is now by 4×4 only.

By November the rains & humidity will be on their way out. Surf will be amazing, the bars and restaurants will reopen (pretty much everything is closed now) and life will return to San Pancho. We will then reappear, ragged from our damp, hot jungle slightly stir crazy to lower the tone somewhat.

Jungle Journal

Snake Tricks & a Flying Robot

August 19, 2018August 19, 2018
by Beave

The trees are magnificent. Empowered by rain they wrap around each other for support while extending branches of thick foliage across the sky. Perfectly lovely if you are not a solar panel trying to avoid shade. A group of electric guest fans, a couple of fridges and some cloudy days have taken their toll on our batteries. The fact we have a very limited sunshine window and growing tree shadow is less than helpful. Our heavy generator is brought into the battery house and plugged in to top them up. The trees around the panels are getting careful attention as we decide which of the branches 150 foot off the ground are going to get it. There is lopping in our future. We put the word out for someone brave and daft enough to take this on.

We have been gifted a number of obscure objects over the months. Amongst the haul are two very distinctive shaped machetes from the Revolutionary Army in Columbia. They are considered less tools than considerably effective weapons. Originally they were part of the FARC armory before there was a weapons amnesty. Subsequently and corruptly the collected weaponry piles were sold on to buyers in USA. We were gifted them as an American friend headed north. We have found an alternative use for them. When sharpened the heavy multi-faceted blades are very effective in destroying the endless growth that is overtaking us. Our standard machetes will take off the leaves and shoots but leave the roots. We are effectively pruning the buggers and making them stronger! Our FARC versions take the whole of them out in one go and scatter them elsewhere. Brutal but effective. Good luck coming back from that! Everyday I carry one with me wherever I go and, poco a poco, the paths are clearing up and the jungle is, for a very short period of time, tamed. False sense of achievement I suspect.

During one of my slow journeys through one of the jungle paths I am slowly clearing the worst of the greenery that is right ahead of me. I scatter a few tiny palm start-ups into the bush, which in the corner of my vision moves in a very familiar way. A few feet away from me is a dark green snake of significant size. Its black and white head is a foot above the ground and very still while looking straight at me. In contrast there is a whip lizard flicking its body wildly around as it vanishes at great speed down the snake and is rapidly fully swallowed with the exception of the very end of it’s tail that stick out the side of the very contented snake’s mouth. We stare at each other motionless apart from the odd twitch of the lizard’s tail. I reach for my phone to take a picture but I don’t have it with me and for a fraction of a moment I divert my eyes. The snake vanishes. It was right there and now gone. The bush moves slightly directly in my vision and the snake reappears like a vision. Exactly in the same place and in the same position. It hadn’t moved but had vanished and reappeared right in front of me. A snake with an invisibility cloak?? How do they do that!!??

I have watched snakes do this a number of times here. I found a modest size python curled up in the pool house and because I had thick gloves on and was hot and sweaty and in no mood to be buggered about by a snake I picked him up and threw him out into the bush. I then watched as the thing uncurled itself to its full length and make a slow movement by which it dissolved into the ground and vanished. I looked for it for a good while before giving up to extraordinary camouflage.

I am at the pool and I hear Jayne making noises from the tree house that sound a little distressed. Nothing too panicked but certainly some form of unhappiness. As I get closer to the source I hear the word “snaaaaiyke”. I get to the balcony armed with traditional long machete and see a good size green, blue and black snake poking its head out of the plants with a surprised looking frog in its mouth. Half the frog has turned a disturbing yellow colour so the snake is most likely poisonous. I put the end of the machete blade under the frog and lift the snake’s head upwards. I follow its body through the plants and can see that most of the snake is hanging over the side. By lifting its head its weight shifts backwards and both snake & frog fall off. I instantly look over the side and see absolutely nothing. I return to underneath the house exactly where it fell. No sign at all although at all times my machete is very much at the ready.

Bananas have ripened and we are ready to create all things bananary. Jayne is less than delighted.

It’s officially over 25 years since there has been so little water falling from the skies in mid August. In 3 weeks time we will have been in Mexico for a whole year. At that time last year San Pancho had a foot of water flowing down the streets and the arroyos (rivers) were full enough to stop us getting out here to our land for a month! Today there has been no rain at all for nearly a week. No gut wrenching thunderstorm for many weeks and all the rivers are dry. There is ground water. Thankfully our well is full enough and our new pump delivering up to a tinaco full a day (which for us is outstanding). For everyone without a well this is not good news at all. Unless we all start the dry season with full wells and good water flow in the rivers there will be huge issues down the line. We are dancing for rain right now.

While we make good with our water and fill up all our tinacos there are some repairs to do and some pumps to install and general maintenance stuff on the to do list. There are many thousands of large biting ants in endless marching lines that criss cross the jungle floor. They regularly chose to march exactly where I am working and bite my feet to make some territorial point. It proves how humid it is that even the shortest climb into the jungle is so completely exhausting. I return from very light work completely bitten and scratched and mucky with sweat. I have found an added fun experience to avoid. The ground has hidden within it large and very strong thorns. I managed to get one to go entirely through my sandal and half and inch into my foot mid jungle climb. If a ginger man screams abuse in the jungle and no one is there to hear does he make a sound?

Sister Allenby has followed Sister Flowers into the chicken jungle black hole. We are down to three jungle chickens. Jayne insists they have both fallen in love with local roosters and eloped. My theory involves slightly more violence and a snake and/or an eagle. The remaining brood are properly freaked out so have likely witnessed something traumatic. We need to encourage the survivors to nest in their house and not the trees. It’s safer and I’m not climbing trees to collect eggs that may or may not appear in the future. We relocate the house in a clear open spot and after much buggering about mange to get them locked in. A few days of house arrest should reeducate them, google has told us.

There is a common effect of coming out here and staying with us for a while. Be warned. Folk don’t want to go home. It’s slightly more than end of holiday blues. The space and pace here are seductive. Returning to an overpriced, overworked society where ones values can’t be expressed and ones expressions are undervalued is not easy. The politics above the wall doesn’t help with motivation either. So we get a good amount of good people wanting to be our neighbours.

The search for land/property is a well trodden path here but it’s not easy to navigate. Almost everyone has a story about buying land and some of them are sadly pretty tragic. There is a real need for independent honest trustworthy guidance to get through the red tape of owning property in Mexico and not get screwed. Estate agents work on USA style commissions. They get a whopping 4% of the value of the sale from the seller and a further 4% if they act on behalf of the buyer too. That’s a big lump and so the temptation to get sales complete at any cost is strong. There are many locals (Mexicans) who do not trust the system and sell directly. Anyone can act as agent in any sale in Mexico. No training or qualifications required.

In our time here we have been offered many plots of land and have quite a portfolio that had developed without trying. We also have a growing list of potential buyers that know and trust us. We also have very effective contacts that we trust in the industry that can get us all the information any buyer needs (but doesn’t know they need) faster, cheaper and more accurately than by any other means. A team of us are in discussions about how to offer these services that we are finding are greatly needed.

This coincides with a change in the way things are generally administered by officialdom. In the past week the six officers in charge of agreeing building permits in our area have all been fired. It’s not uncommon for building permits to be agreed with the help of a donation and the paperwork issued but not registered. In these cases the building work does not have genuine permissions and the documents are useless down the line should there be any real inspections. Expensive business corruption. The new AMLO anti corruption promises appear to be happening. Proper officials are being employed to do official properness in Mexico! Now it’s not who you pay donations to but more who you know that’s important. It’s a well needed and popular change.

Drones bloody drones. Drive me nuts. Whining, buzzy, oversize flying pests invading your privacy unannounced, without permission and unwelcome. They appear on the most deserted beaches and idyllic spaces just to make the experience worse for everyone except the entitled twat who is making his video.

That said with extreme reluctance I have to accept that they have become quite amazingly evolved bits of robotic engineering and they can take images that are highly impressive. Our mate arrives from South Africa via the rest of the world on a very large motorbike with very limited luggage and a brand new drone. It’s compact, sexy mate black, sleek and has anti collision lasers and remote self steadying probes installed in every orifice. It has the invaluable added feature of being reasonably idiot proof . It takes flight and hovers in our faces a few feet from the balcony. It won’t come any further as it has sensed idiots and won’t land at our feet. I reach out and grab it to pull it in. It’s motors and rotors rev aggressively and the thing pulls away from my grip in an escape pattern. Idiot proof.

It takes a surprisingly short time to use up all the battery life and the SD card with images taken from a few feet to many hundreds of feet away. We respect the thing for its elegance in flight and for clearly being a lot smarter than any of us. With a good number of edits and a search for un-copyrighted music we can use in the background (there are algorithms on social media that catch you using copyrighted music they tell me !!) our mate creates for us a short video introduction to La Colina. We like it a lot. I still want to train hawks to take drones down on every beach but this little flying robot was a lot of fun for while. https://vimeo.com/285364199

Digging in 90% plus humidity is a short lived activity. I get motivated to create or modify a drainage trench and set about it with shovel and pick with as much energy and enthusiasm as can be mustered. It’s usually about 10 minutes into smashing the rock filled earth that the dizziness sets in. The warm soupy air that I’m gasping for seems to contain more damp than oxygen. I breathe the wetness hard into my lungs as all the fluids pour quite literally from my body soaking the ground around me. Enough. I stick my sodden shirt to the balcony to dry and limp to the shower where I exchange my sweat for fresher stuff. I put a towel on the bed and lie down aware of the itchy burning heat on my skin mixed with the entire lack of energy or enthusiasm. Mausetrappe jumps up and grabs my legs while chewing at my feet. She is also overheated and slightly crazy. The largest electric fan we have is directed at the bed and revives us both very very slowly. This process can be repeated many times a day.

We hear again of a dear young friend who has passed this week. Died at his home in California of a seizure after a weekend surfing with friends. It’s very sad. Counting our blessings everyday.

Our favorite pub/bar that is currently open closes next week till mid September. Endless Summer is a bar in Los De Marcos about 10 minutes up the highway. It’s a Canadian branded place with lots of TVs showing all the sports the Canadians care about (hockey) and does a passable Poutine. For non Canadians that is the posh French name for a plate of chips and gravy with cheese. Authentically cheese that squeeks audibly when you bite it but that is a rare thing outside of Montreal. It has a dartboard with terribly bent darts with loose flights so that’s traditional. This bar has the major advantage of having a very high concentration of good people so the lack of draught Guinness and premier league football is forgiven. We are on our way there now to offer our support and assist with reducing the stock levels.

Jungle Journal

The Cake Distraction

August 7, 2018
by Beave

The thunderstorms when they arrive are extraordinary. We are floating in the pool watching large drops of rain falling and landing painfully on our faces. We retreat to the house as the dark sets in and the weather gets serious. The sky flashes constantly with sheet lightening. Then the fork lightening hits very close just behind deafening thunder that shakes the house and moves the air around us. Everything lights up bright as day. This lasts for a number of hours without a break. We hide in the tree house and watch the show. A vast amount of water is dumped on the jungle that happily sucks it up.

The fireflies are here in force now the water has turned up. When the moon is waning and the nights are darkest it is pretty much impossible to tell where the stars stop and the fireflies begin. It’s stunning.

My Dad is unwell and we arrange to return to the UK to see him and clear out our house to make it more saleable. It’s tough to leave this place emotionally and logistically. We have our man guarding the land & have cancelled a booking or two. We have acquired standby flights, which saves us a large chunk of cash. We pack light and accept a lift to the airport.

We are arriving in the UK about the same time as Trump. London is rammed with protesters. Only the Brits can come up with such spectacularly abusive banners and be encouraged by the London mayor to wield them in public. My daughter is front and center in Trafalgar Square under the Trump blimp balloon. Very proud Dad.

Aircraft seating is designed for humans of different dimensions to me. My shoulders are wider than any seat on any plane. My legs are long enough to jam in front of me if my knees touch my nose. It’s not pretty. Sleep is impossible. 11 hours of numbing contortions later we land in London. We are collected and taken for a quick lunch by Jayne’s Uncle and then head to Lincolnshire on the train loaded with newspapers & cake. The jet lag kicks in properly. The words on the page are blurred and the cake remains uneaten. I watch the countryside pass by baked by unfamiliar sunshine. Everyone we meet bangs on about the heat wave. The UK has a single week of sun and there is such a drama and hose pipe bans as standard. It’s been sunny here now for months and the population is going nuts. World Cup football and no rain. Doesn’t get better than this.

We finally arrive and my Mum collects us from the station. We have arrived in a state of hallucinogenic fatigue with stale clothes stuck to us holding newspapers and cake. We spend a few hours struggling hard to stay awake until dark when we have planned to give in. I am fully jet lagged. My brain is effectively useless. I realise how useless when I set about unpacking. My backpack has our two laptops, a tablet, kindle, all my most important paperwork and pretty much everything of any value that we own. It’s not there. It’s not anywhere. It’s vanished. I’m gripped with slow gut gripping panic. I have a clear memory of moving uneaten cake from next to my backpack as we left the train. It must have been on my back. The car is searched a dozen times as is every inch of the house. No mistake our lives in a bag is missing. We are in the car driving the 30 minutes back to the train station. The rising level of stupid mixed with anxiety and the growing realization of the many many consequences of losing ALL our most important things does not make for a good driving state. We somehow arrive at Grantham station without an incident.

At this point our angels conspire to save us from our imbecilic selves. Grantham customer services happily confirm that I am indeed an idiot. I was distracted by cake and left the bag on the train. It has been found at the next station 20 minutes drive away. We manage to avoid collisions and police speed traps and arrive at Newark Northgate station customer services. The boys there recognize a moron when they see one and give me an appropriate amount of banter. The bag is returned. I can’t remember being as grateful. I get back to the car and realize I am without my wallet. I return to Newark North Gate station customer services to prove beyond any doubt what a complete fool I have become. They look at me with almost disbelief as they remind me I put my wallet in my newly returned bag. I thank them once again and invite them all to Mexico. They clearly never want to see me again. Bloody cake.

Darlington in the sun. We have rented a van and arrive at my house which we emptied in a massive hurry 10 short months ago so we could rent it out. It’s currently for sale as we intend to move our kids inheritance to Mexico (with their permission). We very cleverly created three hidden spaces in the house where we have stashed all the things we didn’t throw out or sell. We are here to clear these spaces. One is an entire cellar and the others are attic spaces. Memory is a strange thing. We have very generously been gifted a storage area at a friends house which is more than adequate for the few boxes of stuff we need to move. Three days of hard graft later our friends now hate us. Their house is now home to a full size Elvis, two mannequin wives and four rammed van loads of our ever expanding stuff.

Our great value standby tickets from London Heathrow to Mexico City require us to be at the airport for 9:30 pm to grab the first two spare seats available. This involves a long sweaty airless hour and a half tube ride from our friend’s flat in London in the heat wave. We have acquired two suitcases which are rammed with all the best 25kg of things we have rediscovered along with as much hardcore cheese and marmite as we could squeeze in. We are fully laden and exhausted and ready to fail to sleep for another 11 hours. This was not to be. We have chosen the busiest week of the year at Heathrow. First week of school holidays. Everyone wants to go to Mexico City. The flight is overbooked and we are 11^th and 12^th on the standby list. Not happening today. Maybe tomorrow. We stash our bags and return to the delights of overheated London.

Tomorrow comes. This is the busiest day of the entire year at Heathrow. No seats. Maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow comes. With immense relief that we don’t have to get on the suffocating tube yet again… we fly away. Thankfully we have spent two unexpected days in steaming hot London abusing hospitality, eating well, loading up on Guinness and catching up with friends. Some of which we said goodbye to 3 times. We even squeezed in a visit to the National Portrait Gallery which is entirely impressive. This was my favorite. “An angel at my table” by Miriam Escofet . A portrait of the artist’s mother.

We are relieved and delighted to be home. We unload our massive amount of cheese and marmite into the Razor and head back to the land. The rains have been regular since we left but nothing dramatic and to our surprise the arroyos (rivers) are still dry. This is unusual. Never been this dry this late in the year we are told. As we drive there are clouds of butterflies surrounding us. Many types and colours and thousands of the buggers. There are clusters of them all over the place. We disturb them walking around and are covered. It’s extraordinary.

We are straight to work. We have to get water pumping and we install our third water pump which we have brought with us from the UK. The second pump proved to be worn out. Probably was running without water in the well and stuffed the motor. Anyway our third pump is running like a champ and we are back to full tinacos in no time. The rain tends to wash out some sections of road quickly so I am deployed with pick axe to create water trenches leading the flowing water down drainage channels rather than removing our road. So far they have worked well which means I will have to create more of them. We have Hurricane John and Hurricane Ileana whipping things up out past Baja so we are expecting a huge water dump sometime soon.

In our absence the rains have taken down our devil fruit tree ( as Jayne affectionately calls it due to her deep seated loathing of all things bananary). We have rescued all the fruit we can and to Jayne’s great delight they are ripening slowly on our balcony.

We have three sets of guests arriving in the next week so we have to set about making the pool sexy and clean all the cabanas. We remove all the sheets from the beds and find half of them to contain mouse nests! With mice in residence. Mausetrappe is deployed. Everything washed and replaced and we add an electric fan next to every bed. It’s inhumane to not have a fan handy in this humidity.

Our house is in one piece but now sits in a huge mass of green foliage. It’s machete time. The boys have spent two solid days on hands and knees removing as much of the new growth as they could. It’s a losing battle these days but we keep at it. We survey the massively overgrown land. It’s only been two weeks but it’s changed so much. There are vines that you can watch grow in front of you. These vines are brutal and not just a little spooky. They have overtaken the area underneath the solar panels where my sunflowers and bougainvillea were happily getting bigger and better. The bougainvilleas are tightly wrapped in vines but I manage to save about a dozen. The sunflowers have not faired well. The vines have lifted every one of them out of their earth bags and broke them into pieces and dragged them off. I take the machete to the murdering swine. It’s a futile gesture as they immediately regroup. It’s going to be a long battle.

Mausetrappe has certainly missed us. We locked her out when we were away and constructed a temporary enclosed house that we attached to the cat flap. We couldn’t take the risk of coming home to large piles of rotting mouse bits. She has forgiven us and spends a great deal of time clingingly wrapped around our feet. The chickens remain dumb and ugly. Three have full sets of tail feathers now but Sister Bland remains stubbornly bare arsed. Despite the lack of any signs of intelligence they do have their lucky moments. The cutter ants raided their chicken coop and made off with most of their food. There was a long line of ants bearing huge loads of grain headed directly into the jungle. Exactly where all four chickens were waiting . Chicken feed with bonus ants. They scoffed the lot.

Dragon flies are appearing. Brightly coloured and often in pairs attached in a push-me-pull-you copulation flight pattern. The bright day-glo lizards have returned and dart around the bush at great speed. The dogs here are experts at catching them. It’s pretty much their go-to snack.

So life has returned to a somewhat normal state of affairs if such a thing exists here. The World Cup ended up in France of all places and won’t be coming home anytime soon. Hose pipes are banned throughout the UK and surprise surprise we are expecting more rain. The pool is our sanctuary and still worth the constant attention it demands. We are fully stocked with Marmite and also have the added bliss of a fridge filled with proper mouth punching Cheddar cheese in which we indulge with dollops of original Branston pickle. Now that’s paradise for ya.