Hot & Wet With a Sexy Roof.

It’s notably warmer as I arrive back in Mexico with my jeans uncomfortably stuck to my legs with sweat.  I haven’t worn long pants for years and this is why. The bloody traffic light system at airport customs for once decides that I shall not pass. My main bag is absolutely stuffed to the gills with liquorice all-sorts, chocolate bars, cheese, fruit pastilles and many cakes. There is at least 10 kg of sugar which will be a bugger to explain away. Somehow, I have managed to confuse the bored custom bloke with my pot of newly rediscovered USB sticks he has found in my hand luggage.  I try and explain the concept of digital photo storage to him while looking as innocent as I can muster, while sitting protectively on my bag of sugar. He doesn’t quite know what to make of them. He calls in his supervisor, to show off his find, who pretty much slaps the bloke and tells him to let me go. I’m saved from the indignity of trying to explain away pots of Marmite, boxes of short bread biscuits and a bunch of Bakewell tarts and Jaffa cakes.

Jayne’s best mate from Quebec has been here for a while. It’s good to meet her and her friend who still have a few more days left before they return North. Jayne has successfully survived my absence by having a lot of fun with her mates.  We have a good few days getting some surf hours in.  It is my first time back in proper surf for almost a year. My knee injury is healing but at a frustratingly slow pace. It is good to catch a few waves but it is clearly going to take some time before I’m back to my bouncy surfy-self. It’s not a good time to surf here when the rains start and the sea water quality gets icky.  Next season I need to make some time to get me more waves again.

My dear homestead is being transformed. When I left, the boys arrived, to start building our new house. There wasn’t much to see two weeks ago but now, from the humble ruin that was the scorpion temple, there is an actual house taking shape slowly. This crew work hard and quick. So far so good.

The pace of the build is driving things along steadily. The list of things that we need to decide upon is long and rapidly becoming urgent.  Doors, windows, drains, tiles, wall finishes, lighting, fans, electrics, cabinets and bathroom fittings. We also need to attach the entire site to our modest electrical grid. There is a lot to do.

There are also a lot of decisions to make. Now Jayne and I have very different and passionately held ideas around interior design and colour schemes. Very different. Life has become a constant negotiation. I can have my palapa roof if she gets a strange colour on a bathroom wall. She can have her strange front door if I get my round windows.  Somehow, we have agreed on colours, tiles and finishes that neither of us hate. We are keeping faith that it will all work out in the end.

It has always been core to our intentions for this build to become part of the jungle rather than separate from it.  Our thinking is that we live on large clay deposits and the build site itself has a rich supply from the land into which we are building. We are keen to look at using this clay as the external wall coverings so the building matches it’s surroundings. We are also interested in creating rammed earth floors and polished plaster Moroccan style walls, and even a few wattle and daub areas made from a clay/sand/straw mix. We are lucky enough to be offered a training course by two very well-respected specialists in natural finishes.  It is arranged that they travel to stay here for a week and put on a master class to train us and most importantly our build crew in the dark arts of natural finishes.

Jayne requires a wisdom tooth taking out. She has been putting it off but our dentist is leaving town for a while so she books herself in. Tooth was dispatched within half hour and everything went pretty well. Face mended quick and the whole operation cost us around $25. Our friend was recently quoted over $500 USD a tooth in California! We are very lucky. Dental tourism is a real thing here. Getting your face fixed is one of the best excuses to come see us.

The young chaps who arrive to teach us all things natural are interesting and clearly experienced. One is Mexican and the other French. It’s a full-on week of daily classes. We learn how to mix building materials by dancing on clay and water and sand and straw. We create rolls of the stuff at exactly the right level of sticky and build a wall. By removing straw and adding more sand we create the perfect mud pies that when bashed with a levelling mallet are compressed into what appears to be a solid floor. We used much care, a lump of soap and some polishing stones to create the highly impressive Moroccan style Tadelakt polished plaster. There are buckets of soaking cactus to add to the mixes. There are pigments and various clays added to lime plaster to find us a colour that is in keeping with the earth around us but also doesn’t look too shitty or pink.  There is much to be learnt.

It is extraordinary how fast the build is going. Round windows and columns and stunning stone walls and steps. It’s starting to look like the real thing. The biggest issue we have is that the build is thirsty. The concrete has used many thousands of litres of water and the finishing plasters will need a heap more. The sun has decided to make a break for it and has hidden behind clouds for many days. It’s impossible for me to pump enough water every day to replace what they are using. We even have a water pipe syphoning off pool water to keep them going. Despite the well water levels holding up nicely we are almost out of water on the land. It is a blessing that the large cistern we have built underneath the front of the house is finished and should be able to hold water.  We order a pipa truck that delivers 10 000 litres into their empty tinaco and the new cistern which does not leak. Problem is solved. Now to try and replace the water we have used, that will require some sunshine for our solar pump.

We have a full on weekend booked. Our friend has a birthday dinner booked, we have a DJ night at the Mezcaleria, Lucha Libre wrestlers are in town and it’s Pride weekend in Puerto Vallarta where the annual drag queen street obstacle course is happening. It is pretty excellent to have some time away from the build and catch up with folk.

Finally, after three Covid cancellations, my daughter Suzy is arriving with us. At last she has taken two weeks out of her hectic life. She has suffered through working on the front line as a Covid nurse and currently in Leeds, West Yorkshire, managing an overstuffed case load of sex workers who she helps to manage drug and alcohol dependency issues. Girl needs a rest. It was fantastic to see her when I was in the UK but now she has nothing to do and two sweet weeks to do it in. There is no sun still but this is taken as a blessing as it’s still oppressively hot. Opportunity to acclimatise from the delights of West Yorkshire.

It has become clear that the issues that persuaded me to go to the UK are different and it is perhaps not as useful to return as planned. I’ll reschedule when it suits everyone better.  My son, Jake, however has found himself with an amount of time between projects so has decided to join his sister and a good friend (already scheduled to be here) for a short visit. Having both kids here is an unexpected blessing. Neither of them drink alcohol now so it’s an opportunity to be a touch healthier and less hangovery. It’s been a very long time since we all spent more than a few hours together.  

We have also arranged to host a few highly skilled boys to drive in from Guanajuato who will transform a pile of bricks into a stunning boveda vaulted roof. There was going to be six of them for a week but we are now expecting four of them for four days. Who actually arrives are two blokes. One boveda master and his mate. They both want to get everything done in three days because they want to get back to San Miguel Allende where they have a footy game to watch. If they can do a good job we are absolutely up for that. The rains are threatening and getting our roof on in time is crucial.  We give them a few hours to settle in then go for a site visit to see how they are doing. It’s remarkable what one skilled bloke can do with a pile of bricks. Our guy is slapping bricks masterfully into the rapidly appearing roof that seems to have its very own gravity. It’s going to look extraordinary.

June bugs are here. It’s a sign the rains are upon us. They really are the most stupid animals. Their entire existence seems to be to clumsily fly directly into your face and get caught up in your hair. They are solid little buggers so it’s like being constantly hit in the head with a handful of nuts. For this reason we call them nut bugs. Thankfully they only last a few weeks.

It’s great to have the kids here. It’s been a while for Suzy so she gets to see all the changes we now pretty much take for granted. She settles back into a new pace of life beautifully. There is surfing and relaxing. No sun but all the food. Jake and our friend arrive. The sun returns and it gets sticky hot. Our place is alive again with people for the first time in a very long time. We do all the things and eat all the food and rest well.  It is sadly and inevitably no time at all before they are due to fly back to UK. Before they leave we get to see our newly finished boveda. It is stunning work. Only in Mexico could we afford to be making such sexy roof decisions.

The mighty kick ball league of San Pancho is taking its Summer recess. It’s hard to get the numbers these days as large amounts of folk are leaving as the air heats up and it becomes interesting to breathe.  It’s only June but the hot stuff is upon us. We were introduced to kick ball only a few weeks ago. Two teams, of varying ambition and competitiveness, pitching and kicking and catching and running until it’s time for another cold beer. It has been the source of group competitiveness and minor sports injuries for a number of Saturday mornings at the local football field.

In anticipation of powering up the dehumidifier and air conditioning units we have acquired there needs to be a few upgrades to our power grid. There is a lot of buggering about and nerd wizardry employed to add the fourth and final new battery to our system and fiddle with the layout of the solar panel to maximise voltage from sunshine. There is much technical help from our team of super solar ninjas (Alan, Jayne’s Dad and Ray, our solar guru in Hawaii). When these guys start talking technical speak together I must admit to being a little (lot) lost. Glad Jayne has the skills to translate and patience to get stuff done.

The rains have come. We have just about made our new roof waterproof but the clay finishes we have chosen are far from dry or sealed. It looks like we will have to wait out the rainy season before we know exactly what colour our exterior walls will become. The palapa roof is happening fast so in about a week we should be fairly weather proof. The rains, however, are not waiting. Every night they come hard. There have been a few thunder storms already and the rivers are showing signs of coming back to life.

Electrics are in place. Tiles have arrived. We have a master carpenter who is making a plan for all the cabinets. We are designing windows and doors. The stairs are being built. It’s all happening at pace. If we are not washed out we are close to having the building work completed in a month or so. It’s shocking how far along we are already.

Well finally it’s my turn. After a modest night at the Mezcaleria I find myself waking up at 6 am with what I assume to be a surprise hangover. It is irritatingly rare for me to ever suffer from hangovers so I am confused.  I pretty much behaved myself the night before but my body feels poisoned and my kidneys ache like I’ve had a proper kicking. I stagger to the bucket and have to hold myself up. I’m not feeling at all pleasant. Jayne shuts up my moaning by launching a Covid test into my face.  It’s an instant positive. Bugger.  I hole up in the treehouse for a miserable week. Thankfully my woes did not include coughing or breathing issues for which I am forever grateful.  Have to respect how bloody awful this thing makes you feel. I’m taking my time and everything seems to be returning to its usual state of strange normality again.

The further we go the nearer we are

It has come to my attention that I have been happily ensconced in my jungle bubble here for years. Jayne has had a few trips North to Canada but it has been many a moon since I have left Nayarit. We have had loose plans to visit much praised areas of Mexico and expand our horizons. We have had looser plans to perhaps visit family in the UK or head up North to Burning Man again. This, for all the reasons, hasn’t happened. A mix of lethargy, laziness, a pandemic and the fact we live in such a spectacular place has pretty much removed our motivation to go anywhere.

We are, thankfully, surrounded by more motivated, organized and adventurous folk. A few of them have spent a lump of time and energy organizing exciting things in temptingly remote places.  In the unique environment of our local Mezcaleria where our good friends are hosting a night of DJ nonsense, we learn of one such exciting plan. After a strategic quantity of Mezcal we invite ourselves along.

The plan is to take a number of flights and taxis and end up in San Miguel Allende. We know of many who have lived or visited and all wax lyrical about its delights. The purpose of the trip is to support a fundraiser for the Mayan Warrior. The Mayan Warrior is a huge art car in the form of an ancient spirit animal, built on a truck body. Along with a world class sound system it has installed upon it the most spectacular (and barely legal) lasers available to man. In remote places such as the Black Rock desert at the Burning Man event in Nevada it offers to those that make the journey a treat of truly stunning lights and sounds.  They are selling a few thousand tickets to dinners, parties and a late-night event to raise the money to take the beast back to Burning man this year. This is deemed a suitable enough excuse for us to make the trip. We are in.

It’s March and for the first time in a few years the Cirque De Los Niño’s is putting on their show. Gilles Ste-Croix (the co-founder of Cirque du Soleil) steps up and works his magic again. Thanks to his world class training, costumes and production skills the kids again put on a truly spectacular night once again. 

Our planning for the Scorpion Temple build is at an end. Materials are bought, builders chosen and deposits paid. A troop of boys are descending on our site every morning and making satisfyingly loud buildy noises.  It’s going up fast.

We have our brand-new fridge, sink, taps and oven in our new bodega awaiting a place to be. Our list of stuff to acquire is long but we have some months to get it together. On the list is to choose a thing to become our new kitchen counter tops. This is not something that I was expecting to get excited about until we arrive at a warehouse filled with shiny bits of stone. Out the front was as extraordinary stunning lump of mesmeric beauty. It looks like a massive three-dimensional satellite photo of a storm over a grey sea. I am smitten. We are now the proud owners of a very unique slice of Italian mountain.

There are flowers on our vanilla vine. We have only just processed last season’s harvest and here we go again ! The pollination ladders are ready.  We are on a roll. Irrigation tests are a clear success.  Sun and water makes for crops. Who knew ! Our first bed is now full to burst with rocket and lettuce. A ton of salads are in our future. We spend the time creating more water lines to the other two beds. Seeds are planted and expectations are high. 

It’s time to leave. Our mate moves into the treehouse and we head to the airport. We are away for four days. It’s been a long while since I got on a plane. In my past life, I took up to 50 flights a year and I really don’t miss airports at all. This is the longest time I have ever been required to wear a mask. It’s not at all comfortable but everyone conforms. We arrive on San Miguel Allende as the sunsets. It’s a stunning old town built in 1542 full of colonial and Mexican buildings. Our initial oversize Airbnb is both large ( colonial) and dark (Mexican). A bit too dark due to no electricity. After a late night explore to find the roughest bar in town we camp down for the night and arrange to move to another place in the morning.

We absolutely score with our new gaff. It is a mansion of a place in the guts of town. A huge wooden door opens into a courtyard lounge and bar area with four huge bedrooms and a large kitchen. It’s a short walk over cobblestone to the neo-Gothic church Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel, whose dramatic pink limestone towers loom above the main plaza. All around town the sun lights up bright purple blossoms of the Jacaranda trees. We meet up with friends and find out that the thousand or so tourists here for the weekend of events have an enemy in town. The new major has decided that he is not a fan of large sound and light events. He has cancelled the weekend.  San Miguel Allende now has a large contingent of over excited ravers with nowhere to go.

It’s not good news but we all make the best of it. We eat everything and drink some things. The place is crammed with culture, shopping and art. We are in good place in good company. We find a couple who invite us to an art exhibition opening in their shop and the DJ they hire invites us to his place for a late-night house party. We dress up and turn up to find a massive house filled with music and hundreds of people who were expecting to be jumping around an over sized spirit animal instead of some generous random bloke’s massive front room and courtyard. Everyone is grateful for the chance to dance. Eventually we leave San Miguel Allende inspired and exhausted.

On our return, we slip back into jungle life.  It’s all rather splendid and we are glad to be home. We meet a new stranger from Canada who tells us she is looking for a place to put some of her art. She stays for a few days at the Casitas and works on a mural for our retaining wall then leaves for further adventures. We are grateful she found us.

A few unexpected things are happening in UK . I haven’t seen my mum or my brother’s family since my Dads funeral. It’s been years.  Our recent trip has me in travelling mood. Jayne is heading into a few weeks of intense deadline stuff so the timing is entirely unforeseen but perfect. The internet offers me a one way direct flight to London for not a lot and I buy it.  I leave in 48 hours.

Our mad English friend Karl who is a skilled chef and born horseman is coming back to town. He has a wife and home in Durango state but has spent the last few years in our area. A year ago, he left his restaurant here to start an adventure. He found two rescue horses and set off to travel the 255-km length of the last river to flow through the Western Sierra Madres. The San Pedro Mezquital is the seventh biggest river in Mexico but almost unknown. It connects vast areas of some of the most challenging land Mexico can muster. it sustains thousands of people, unique wildlife and four indigenous ethnic tribes who mostly consider it a water source only. Karl’s mission has been to visit and integrate into the communities along the whole length of the river and educate them as to its importance to their very survival. He has lectured to schools and town meetings for many months.  He has inspired a group of river guardians who have now committed to conserve and honour the river for future generations.  We have been following his progress for over 6 months and sending supplies and money to feed and shoe the horses; and Karl occasionally. He has arrived back in one skinny sun-bleached piece with many stories to tell.  Thanks to excellent care, his horses survived the journey well and are now loving the slower life of beach side Nayarit with a lot more food.  It’s great to see them all alive and well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MavNbfnw4Z4

I have packed light with a heap of room in my bag to bring back stuff. There is clearly going to be a lot of stuff.  The plane is packed with slightly pinker and slightly fatter package holiday tourists who have spent two solid weeks trawling the buffets and bars within their 5 star all-inclusive resorts that splatter the Puerto Vallarta shoreline. On the plane, there is a thick atmosphere of hangovers, farts and heartburn.  I am disappointed that I am not encouraged to wear a mask. For a treacly slow 12-hour flight, I fail in my attempts to sleep. A cold wet morning at Gatwick Airport awaits us all.

It’s bloody freezing. I have gone proper soft. Mexico has ruined me for weather. I drag my bags onto a train to St Pancras where I will hop another train North and be back in Darlington for the first time in 5 years by early afternoon. Potentially. I have friends in York who I might well meet with on the way. It’s been way too many years since I had a pint of real draught Guinness and York is full of pubs.  I’m finding the glorious anticipation of that first black sip seducing. Imagining the cold glass and the white fresh creamy head hitting my top lip as the deepest and darkest of all heavenly delights pours over my tongue. It’s like a dream. Maybe because I am asleep.  Then my phone rings. I’m struggling to gain consciousness and find the source of the phone noise.  My mate who is currently in Barcelona has chosen this moment to call me. Good timing. It’s my stop. I nearly miss it. I manage to leap onto the station platform with my backpack in one hand and my phone in the other. It’s stopped ringing. The doors close and the train moves off to Cambridge. With my bag.

It’s a bit of a stress finding staff to help my thoroughly jet lagged moron of a self. I make all the calls and fill in all the forms but it’s the UK. We are not good at this stuff. I decide after a few futile hours of navigating Transport for London’s insane lost and found rabbit holes that I will never see my bag again and I’m just to get over it. I console myself by finding a Greggs bakery and demolishing two steak bakes. Bliss. Two hours and twelve long minutes later I arrive in York station with a 3 year Guinness thirst. It is splendid to see mates and just as splendid to finally make my Guinnessy dreams come true. Four times.

My first job when I arrived in Darlington was to find some clothes so my newly delicate UK person didn’t freeze to death. It’s a barmy 15 degrees in Darlington which is effectively local bikini weather but I’m nithered!! I am wrapped in layers of local supermarket clothing for men. Despite this my knees are achingly cold. My knees?? Who am I???

My dear mate has spent lockdown building a rustic wooden cabin at the bottom of his garden. He has done a splendid job. I spend my first few days living there in absolute comfort.  Only a few weeks earlier they had yet another big post pandemic “clear out” and I am presented with a dark wooden pot that I recognise. It’s from Zambia and older than me. They decided not to throw it out but didn’t know what it was. It’s a stunning moment.  My entire music and photo life was transferred and  stored onto hard-drives and brought to Mexico where they were a victim of our break-in.  I have had to accept the fact that all my photos of every feature of my slightly bizarre life were gone forever. Every single one of the many hundreds of CDs I burned onto hard drives were gone forever.  What I forgot was I backed them all up on a bunch of USBs and stored them in an old pot. This is the pot!! Having my digital history back is absolutely worth this trip. Everything else is now a bonus.

There are many bonus things.  Jayne gets an email in Mexico to tell me my bag has been delivered to the lost property office at Cambridge train station and is available to collect.  I rent a car and set off at 7 am to arrive in Cambridge, thanks to old roads and all the traffic, around midday.  I confidently and gratefully present myself to the customer services desk at the station and show them the email inviting me to collect my bag. We all know that the concept of customer service is certainly differently understood in various parts of the world.  At a train station in Cambridge it takes on a new level of irony. There are no words spoken as a dazed looking girl in a “customer friendly uniform” leaves her desk and vanishes behind glass doors to presumably retrieve my lost bag. She returns with a slip of paper.  With a tone of voice that has contempt mixed with intense boredom she explains that it’s not there and these people have it.  There is no name on the paper, just a number. Who has it? I ask.  She nods unhelpfully at the paper. On it is a telephone number that I have rang a dozen times over the past few days. The telephone number eventually takes you through to a long drawn our menu where you chose number seven. This eventually takes you to a recorded message asking you to explain why you are calling, describe any lost item and leave a number that they will only call if they find something. I have had no calls.  I explain to the impervious idiot that this is no good to me. I can’t wait here for a few days just in case they call. She then states that she feels uncomfortable with my attitude. I request she calls security. They may have more sympathy with my plight.

I leave the station to regain my composure. I have to make sense of what is happening. After a few deep breaths, I return to the station and walk up to the bloke who has the best uniform. He must be important. I tell him my tale and he takes pity. He tells me the name of a company he “thinks” takes care of lost property but in order to find out I have to ring the useless number. With a little help from Google and a few other random employees I bother, I work out that it is possible my bag has been kidnapped and is now held in Welwyn Garden City. This is only a couple of hours away.

Welwyn Garden City is one of 30 garden cities in the UK. It was founded in 1920 by Sir Ebenezer Howard as a planned town to provide for both industry and pleasant living conditions. I’m sure in 1920 it was lovely.  The industrial estate I find is less than pleasant but I’m happy to see the storage warehouse. I knock on the windows and the door is opened by a confused looking girl. I explain that I’m searching for my bag. I hand her the paper with the useless number on it. I think she recognised the number as the one she has been ignoring for days. I spotted a flash of pity and guilt in her eyes. She told me that for some reason that she was uncertain of, I was absolutely not allowed to come and collect my lost things from their lost property warehouse. Despite that she finds my bag and returns it to me within 3 minutes. I am deeply grateful to be dealing with a real person again. I thank her effusively and tell he she will be responsible for my happy noises all day. She seemed good with that.

On my way, back North I pop in and see my Mum in Lincolnshire. I arrange to return the next week when I get to see my brother and his family as well. The likelihood of them coming to Mexico is not high so it’s important to be here.  I get to see my daughter who I haven’t seen since she left our place pre-Covid days. That seems like a lifetime away. I even got to interview her new boyfriend. He already has the job but it was good that she made me feel like my opinion mattered.  Suzy is due to visit us in a few weeks which is excellent news. I also get to stay with my son who I haven’t seen since he left our place 9 months ago. It’s been far too long

I am collected by my mate who was given the task of dumping all my stuff that I had failed to sell or give away before I left. He has a van so I slipped him a few quid before I left for Mexico to gather all my bits and bobs and chuck them in a skip. The ultimate release of past things to make room for new.  Well that was the theory anyway. As it turned out my good buddy took one look at my pile of crap and decided that it all had a future. When I asked him to chuck everything he actually chucked nothing.  Bless him. I’m taken to a warehouse at the local airport where his brother has a business. There is a ladder resting next to the office. I climb up and in front of me, laid out neatly is about ten cubic meters of my life in boxes. It’s sorta kinda emotional. There are a lot of treasures here I’m glad to see again. There are even love letters from lifetimes ago when my ex girlfriends used to like me. I spend days in that warehouse carefully putting strange and ridiculous things aside while throwing out most . I find thousands of actual real life photographs. I put the good ones aside and take snaps as best I can with my phone . There are so many. I have a lot of fun distributing handfuls of the most embarrassing ones to old friends who are now less hairy, less skinny and less pretty.

There are hundreds of books. Some my daughter will take but she will have to invest heavily in shelving. Most are earmarked for charity. It is very likely that all the rest of the clothing, DVDs , CDs and bootlegged cassette tapes from 80s Bangkok will end up rejected by charity shops.

Another friend that I know is a musician and vinyl maestro. He has thousands of old school LPs in his house. He has been spending lockdown helping a friend open a shop in the centre of Darlington that is a treasure trove of nostalgic classics. Alongside a fair selection of vinyl albums there are DVDs, Video games, Old comic books, an entire floor of old books and a large selection of Airfix model kits. Its a great space to hangout. It’s always a pleasure to see the bugger but I am compelled to warn him I have a the hundreds of books and DVDs along with a heap of dodgy cassette tapes and CDs stored in a dusty lockup with his name on them . When we arrive unannounced in the middle of the day and unload a vast quantity of mildly interesting and mostly obsolete crap into his shop he takes it very well. He may not be as pleased to see me next time.

Darlington, it has to be said is a more depressing place post COVID. There are too many shops and gathering places closed down. It’s a ghost town during the week. No-one goes out. In the process of walking to my favourite Indian restaurant around 8 pm every night, 6 days in a row (don’t judge me ) I saw how deserted the town has become. The few pubs that are open throw people out before 10 pm.  I meet many friends and they all tell me similar tales. They haven’t been out or socialising for years. Everyone’s gas and electricity bills have trebled so it’s like having two mortgages. No one has any spare cash, no one goes out or sees each other much.  The last time my previously super social friends were together was for my dear friends’ funeral last year. It took one of our finest to die to get people together again. It’s hard enough to get folk out to the pub. The chances of them getting on a plane to Mexico are looking slim.

My visit was a catalyst to get a number of folk out of their new routines and into curry houses and pubs again, even for a short while.  It was extraordinary to instantly reconnect with friends after 5 years apart. Seemed like yesterday and forever at the same time. I buy myself a flight home. It has been special to see my people but it is an undisputed real thing that my home is now the jungle we share outside San Pancho in Nayarit Mexico.

New Power, Scorpion Stairs & Logan’s Run.

It makes a proper change, but can’t complain about the heat or humidity or much else these lovely days. We have had a number of mates finally feel safe enough to fly down to spend time with us without getting Covid-trapped. Having fresh eyes and minds here always makes us even more grateful to live here. Our life continues to be blessed with challenges and endless opportunities. Thanks to some begging and generous luggage allowances our stock of liquorice all-sorts, tea, whisky and reading glasses are also entirely restored.

We have had a few permaculture victories. Jayne has commissioned the first of our planter beds with her irrigation system. The planter box is getting a full five minutes of water (automatically via our water timer) every morning. The result of regular watering is dramatic. For the first time, we have healthy shoots of lettuce, rocket, cabbage and asparagus appearing from the seeds we planted. This is the first time we have had such a result. Our failure to propagate seeds may have partly been down to the quality and age of the seeds but most likely neglect. Watering “when we get around to it” is not a good strategy.

Jayne’s mushroom bucket suddenly bears fruit! A stonking great oyster mushroom appears and is harvested.  This is not only a very attractive variety but also has a surprisingly strong and delicious mushroomy taste. We await many more but they don’t appear.  After a week or so we give up and throw the remaining straw over the balcony.  Not sure how but the next day the smashed straw bundle in the jungle has produced a flush of new mushrooms. Result.

Our vanilla vine has now been completely plucked of beans and most of these are now in the latter stages of becoming perfectly sticky and stinky. They are wrapped in a blanket for the cool nights and released to sunbathe on the balcony by day. Our afternoons are punctuated by welcome breezes carrying the unctuous odor of vanilla through the treehouse. It’s delightful.

Our friends being here has given us the impetus to get ourselves out and about a little more than usual. We get to introduce our favorite restaurants and hang outs. It’s also been a great excuse to jump aboard on our mate’s sail boat chasing whales. This time of year, there around 1500 Humpback whales mating, fighting and having babies. They rise close the boat and regularly breach the surface entirely. It’s a spectacular sight to see a massive female (cow) teaching a baby (calf) to leap out of the water. Jayne however has taken to steering the ship! She’s even nicked the captain’s hat. Typical.

Our community here in San Pancho is impressively creative. A friend of ours who used to be a wild punk rock guitarist has redirected his passions in later life to painting. He is now a renowned and very productive artist in the town. He has rather impressively developed the concept of painting-by-numbers murals. The latest of which is the changing rooms/toilet block on the local football field. He does his artistic magic on the building and then encourages as many people as possible to fill in the numbered areas. It’s very effective.

Our batteries arrive in Puerto Vallarta. There are four individually boxed batteries that each weigh around 35kg/75 pounds each. They have arrived at a distribution warehouse and I go to collect them. It’s a simple process with no questions asked. I check the paperwork which confirms that each massively heavy box contains import-tariff-free children’s clothes and shoes (of course). 

The process of replacing our last dying nano-carbon batteries and commissioning our new, extremely expensive, high specification lithium batteries is mind twisting. Thankfully Jayne is highly motivated and excited enough to get this done. She has on hand two very helpful solar battery whisperers. A new friend she found online on a battery forum where folk with time and insane amounts of technical knowledge share their wisdom with the world. Her new solar angel, Ray, lives in Hawaii and knows his stuff.  Her Dad who is famously smart when it comes to such things and Ray message Jayne highly detailed instructions. Within a number of opaque technical hours our dodgy intermittent power is replaced with a long life, reliable version. Our fridges can be turned on. I am not required to go out into the jungle in the dark resetting stuff. Brian our trusted generator is effectively put to pasture. I won’t have to fill him with fuel every few days. It’s a big win for us.

The fun fair is back in Sayulita. After a long Covid break it is now possible once again to ride on inherently dangerous fast spinning lumps of metal held together with rusty bolts, string and hope. There are blunt darts to be chucked, balloons to be popped, and balls to be directed in tiny holes. Prizes of plastic dolls’ accessories and tins of tepid beer are to be won. Folk line up to throw rocks towards lines of thick glass bottles. Should a rock actually smash a bottle rather than, more usually, bounce off dangerously, you are rewarded with a warm tin of Corona light. The price you pay for such fun is about twice the price of a tin of Corona light. Despite this slightly illogical financial transaction it is surprisingly popular. My guts are turned backwards by the thick pungent stink of hot rancid butter that is poured on everything and down everyone. The girls loved it.

Our friend who had the stroke has had a strange old time. The hospital here managed to stabilise him but could do little else. His blood starved brain affects his ability to think, speak and understand. His left side paralysed.  We are lucky enough to have an extraordinary beautifully skilled doctor with extensive stroke rehab experience living close by. She visits daily and assesses what rehab is possible. Her positivity and care help enormously to keep tired and overwhelmed people optimistic and focus their minds on making things better. There is progress but painfully slow. It is a blessing that his insurance company agrees to medvac him to the USA. A team flies in from Mexico City to transfer him and his amazing partner by ambulance to his very own plane and fly him to San Francisco. He spends some difficult time in hospital under strict Covid restrictions before being transferred to a specialist facility in the bay area. He is finally in the right place getting the best care.

Our friends Emma & Rosie have birthdays close enough to be dangerous. They have decided to revive last year’s beach based Emmalypics. They create a new event. EmmaRosilympics. This to be followed by a birthday party in the jungle. This is a terrifying prospect. My arse has never quite recovered from last year’s over clenching while attempting to run on sand with a banana up it.

The day arrives and a there are a large number of participants. On a very sunny afternoon on a reasonably deserted beach to the north of San Pancho there are some rather strange sights to behold. There are relay races where teams launch themselves forward with balloons between legs or bananas clenched between buttocks. There is a welly toss. Turns are taken to throw a Wellington Boot as far as possible to establish the absolute biggest tosser on the beach. The now infamous tug of war is the highlight. We all take it far too seriously. There was a fair amount of blatant cheating which I facilitated and encouraged. When the games were played and the fruit and sand removed from our bits, the entire troupe of beach athletes then reassembled at our jungle bar. There was much rehydration till very late in celebration of wins and losses and two nutty women’s birthdays.

Thanks to the wonders of VPNs and the glorious BBC my Saturday mornings have become a great deal more exciting. I am now able to live stream The Six Nations Rugby and have supported my beloved Wales through what is turning out to be a frustrating season. Despite the lack of actual victories, it’s always emotional to watch the boys and sing the songs. My Dad and I used to contact each other after every single Welsh International. It was perhaps the time we communicated the most.

Our new Bodega has emerged from the jungle and is now ready to be filled with all the stuff we need to build our new little house, The Scorpion Temple.  We have made the roof a funky shape and strong enough to build a casita on top should we ever decide to. We found a source of strange water pipes which have iguanas attached. They are installed to direct all our water ground-wards.  There are concrete shelves and a workbench build in.

Our favorite feature turned into an opportunity to add some art. Jayne’s tactic to get me to be creative is crass and obvious but no less effective. When we were deciding how the stairs to the roof would look she very cleverly made a proposal which was so awful that I had to pitch in and “save the day”. Our proposed new iron staircase now has a sexy tribal scorpion design featured. After many janky sketches and refinements and weeks of iron work they now exist. We are very happy with our new Bodega.

This year has already thrown us a few googlies that have not passed us by. I am loathed to use cricket terms after the bloody Aussies stuffed England in the Ashes. I continue to avoid my less than sympathetic Antipodean mates.

Leaving our friends’ regular heath scares aside we have been told our war on Covid is at the beginning of the end leaving room in our group consciousness for an unbelievably atrocious war in Europe. We have the benefit of being way out of the direct firing line but also are left with a deepening feeling of separation. Living our best lives is an achievement but being disassociated from real world emergencies is extremely unsettling. It’s hard to relax when bombs are falling on innocents and millions of families are being displaced. 

It is true that genocides, war and man-made famines are a constant in our world. Post 9/11 wars have directly caused close to a million deaths. The largest sub-section being civilians. Somehow, we have managed to push our outrage aside and get on with our lives while this has all been happening. One notable difference with the Ukraine war is that the potential to affect every one of us is so very real. Not just paying more for fuel. The doomsday clock, which is a concept designed to warns the public about how close we are to destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own, is currently set to 100 seconds before midnight.

What is encouraging is the amount of kindness this situation is bringing out in people. Polish, Hungarian and German families amongst many others taking in entire refugee families into their homes indefinitely. Humanitarian volunteers helping as best they can. Jayne and I spent an amount of time in the refugee “jungle” camp in Calais. It was home to over 1300 migrants, mainly from from Eritrea, Somalia and Syria. In 2015, during the peak of the so-called European migrant crisis, the numbers began to grow. Migrants arrived from Afghanistan, Darfur, Iraq and other conflict zones. it was destroyed by the French authorities in 2016. We helped build and repair shelters and create a youth centre amongst the chaos. The people we met and their stories they told us will remain with me forever. We are not sure how you measure how much difference we made but we were there. Doing our best. Making things just a bit better for as many people as we could.  The draw to fly out to the region, engage more and do something more useful is very strong.

Our extraordinary mate in California is making progress enough that he is released from his rehab facility to his house in Pacifica on the Pacific Ocean coast near San Francisco. We are blessed with a vast tribe of caring and useful people who have made themselves available to help. A bunch of handy buggers have transformed his multilevel house by installing ramps for his return. His much beloved adventure dog, Logan, has, however, remained in Mexico since his stroke. Another good friend of ours has been looking after her and his house here. This is very useful but Logan is much missed and can’t be on her Mexican sabbatical alone for ever. She is a big old dog. A French Pyrenees that looks to the untrained eye like a couple of sheep bonded to a mid-size hedge. A plan is hatched for a couple of very kind, slightly bonkers friends from the bay area to fly down and drive his car and his massive dog North.

The crew arrive on Sunday afternoon and plan to load up dog and luggage into their car and set off the very next morning. It’s a long drive. Joe (the builder now actor) and Yvette (dog whisperer) arrive with us and are taken to eat well, imbibe just enough tequila and watch a turtle release on the beach before they leave.  Eventually, after what has been a quite incredible journey for both of them, John and Logan are reunited. There is not a dry eye in the house.