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| Yes Son, water is falling from the sky... |
We have been in the house since September and this is the first time it has rained. The local police chief was here the day before yesterday, scrounging a plate of food again and was impressed with all the seedlings and saplings I am starting. We had a chat about how the garden was coming on. He asked me if I intended to grass the garden. 'Yes,' I told him, 'as soon as the rains come.'
'You have had the rains,' he told me. Well, it is raining now so I hope he is wrong.
He did though, make up for all his free meals by bringing me a dozen coconut palm tree saplings yesterday. His form of benign corruption is an art form. I know exactly where he got the saplings from, a large and very expensive nursery on the way to the capital but still within his area. From me he gets free meals and a discreet locale where he can treat his occasional lady friends to a nice dinner in exchange for his men keeping an eye on my place. God knows what he does for the nursery to earn free palm trees. Or maybe the nursery is growing more than just palm trees and he is turning a blind eye. Certainly the Chief accepted Nice Paul's and my explanation that the plant we had growing round the back of the restaurant was not what most might think it was but Italian Grape Tomato instead.
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| Italian Grape Tomato. I am sure it was about to bear fruit but Marcia tore it up and dumped it, I guess she prefers her tomatoes big and juicy. |
Then, to round off a generally odd morning...
Marcia has been complaining of feeling unwell these last few mornings.
'Do you know how I feel?' she demanded not half an hour ago.
'With your hands?' I asked. I really need to watch myself. Two wives intent on becoming ex's cited my inability to take anything they said seriously as one of many reasons for leaving me. I can't help myself, I still think it is dangerous to take everything a woman says seriously.
'I feel exactly the same as I did when I was pregnant with Alex.'
Oddly enough, flippancy for once failed me.
Oh wow. We will all be waiting to hear if another little one is indeed on the way! Get that lady a test, pronto! ;)
ReplyDeleteTomorrow, I guess. Look on the bright side, it might just be touch of malaria.
DeleteToo bad she ripped out the Italian Grape Tomato just when you might be needing it.
ReplyDeleteExactly! I could just do with a salad right now...
DeleteHa! A salad to calm your nerves! :)
Deletei hope you saved some seeds from that tomato plant. you could have made some tomato brownies. i hope a little alexis is on the way!
ReplyDeleteNo, but I have just been up the other site to get some wood cut for window boxes and, blow me if I didn't find some growing wild!
DeleteIt rained here about fifteen minutes ago. I'm sure I heard it on the roof. Maybe it was just wishful thinking.
ReplyDeleteA bit dry where you are as well, eh? It has stopped raining now. I hope that isn't it for the rainy season.
DeleteQuestion is, will that sandy soil sustain any kind of grass unless you bring in a couple hundred truckloads of loam?
ReplyDeleteI'll grow the grass in a window box and keep it well watered and fertilised with goat poo until it is ready to smoke.
DeleteAnother question, is the red roofed structure in the photo with Alex the Jango? or the back side of your store? just trying to get a feel of how far the store if from your house. Love the picture, you can almost smell the rain.
ReplyDeleteThat is the store. On one property I have the cottage and the store and on another larger property the restaurant and holiday cottages.
DeleteThomas,,,,there, is, perhaps, life in the old dog yet..
ReplyDeleteMind you, we always knew that
Either me or the bread man. He comes every day except Sundays.
DeleteI'm fairly sure you could have imported several million gallons of rain water from Good Old Blighty to help your garden out. We have a bit to spare.
ReplyDeleteAre you happy about the possible new junior hippo? Sounds like you might need a trip to the doc/vets to "get sorted"
I missed the VW blog. I really like that car and I might even have got it right. I don't see many on the roads here. The V8 would be far too expensive to run.
Petrol is 36p a litre here. Diesel is 24p a litre. Marcia thinks that is very expensive; it costs us the equivalent of twenty quid to fill the Jeep. The locals do complain incessantly about the unreasonable price of fuel here.
DeleteGood lord. Diesel is about £1.35 a litre here. An empty fuel tank costs me about £90 to fill up.
DeleteSky high fuel prices in UK yet the Govt still want HS2; £42.6 billion to build it, and an extra £9.2 billion for rolling stock to benefit whom? If they want to encourage genuine mobility, how about forgetting HS2 and slashing fuel duty?
DeleteI think Johns village neighbours have been throwing seeds in your garden.
ReplyDeleteoh er missus another hippo in the compound. now we are all excited to know, would you have to drive far for a test?
Marcia will buy a test kit in town after dropping Alex off at his school. Alex has been bugging us for a brother. He'll be really pissed off when he realises he'll have to move out of our room and into his to make space for the cot...
Deletetip....don't show marcia the wild stuff!
ReplyDeleteGood idea!
DeleteWe haven't had any rain since about October, but that's normal. Unfortunately because of the "troubles" the water tankers that trundle through the city watering the flora have not been able to do so in some areas, and as a result many of the trees and bushes are dying, which is such a great shame; bugger democracy. Well there isn't any, however much anyone pretends. It's still a feudal system, as will become apparent quite soon.
ReplyDeleteThat all sounds a bit ominous. It started raining again last night and is still raining now so for two days I have been spared the daily chore of watering. Sadly I have to get out in it to dig over the beds and mix in loads of wood shavings so the soil holds moisture more effectively. I was never a gardener so I am learning as I go along. Still, it keeps me out of trouble!
DeleteItalian Grape Tomato 'joints' are the best.
ReplyDeleteI mentioned on my page that should get that bloody restaurant finished. Lady Magnon was reading in The Sunday Times that Angola is the new hot trendy holiday location. You may need extra cottages too!
Sunday Times? Damn, it is subscription only!
DeleteTo be perfectly honest, I only ever tried Italian Grape Tomato once and did not like it! It'll be fun growing it though.
DeleteWe have four cottages nearing completion, four more with the foundations done and plan four more so that will give us 12. Our neighbour charges US$425 per night and the Golf Course charge $650 per night. Fuel is cheap here, all other prices are wild!
No chance of Lady M pulling up the article and you emailing me the text?
DeleteNo, can't do it. It won't copy and paste.
DeleteCan't you do screen shots? (I can press the Alt and Print Screen keys simultaneously and paste into a word processing document)
DeleteCant wait to find out if there is another little Alex on the way! Does Marcia mind you telling the world before she knows?
ReplyDeleteI doubt it. Besides, if she is pregnant, it'll be pretty obvious before long! She is in town now and will buy a test kit, then we'll know one way or another.
DeleteLady M: Have you seen my glasses?
ReplyDeleteCro: Yes, nice aren't they!
Slap!
Har Har!
DeleteLet's hope it is a little girl this time. Given your political allegiances, you should call her Margaret. When she gets under your feet in future years, you will at last be able to yell "Maggie! Maggie! Maggie! Out! Out! Out!" Or perhaps that's what Marcia will be yelling in the hospital!
ReplyDeleteI have no political allegiances. Just because I agreed that the power of the unions should be curtailed does not make me a Thatcherite nor does my belief that the state should control its energy production and distribution, water and transport (basic services) make me a Socialist.
DeleteThe large hippo is an aggressive animal; old scars and fresh, deep wounds are signs of daily fights that are accompanied by much bellowing, neighing and snorting. Hippos have developed some ritualized postures the huge open-mouthed "yawn" that reveals formidable teeth is one of the most aggressive. With the long, razor-sharp incisors and tusklike canines, the hippo is well-armed and dangerous.
DeleteWhere is Yorkshire; I'm sure I've heard about it somewhere.
DeleteSomewhere north of Watford. I think Butterscotch was invented there.
DeleteI am not a cruel person. Which is why I keep most my thoughts safely locked away. In fact, I drown my thoughts thoroughly. Just in case they come up for air.
ReplyDeleteWhere to go from here, Tom? I find it so much easier to voice those thoughts no one wants to hear than the ones that flatter. Forgotten now how old you are: Mid Fifties? I feel for Marcia and if she wants another baby than nothing but good luck to her (both of you). My personal cut off point was 40. Too many risks after a certain age. But then I am a one child mother by nature.
Brave of you to raise hope which may amount to a flash in the pan. Trust me: I am an expert on sunken souflees.
But yes, am truly delighted for Marcia should her hopes come true.
Other than that I have learnt (apropos of nothing) that the age of consent is 12 in Angola. When I told the Angel that it is fourteen in Germany, Portugal and other countries he was outraged. He'll make a fine father of a daughter one day. His argument being that yes - if two thirteen year olds want to make out, fine - but what of that swine at age 30 helping himself to a fourteen year old? Oh, Tom, I am still smiling. Told him he is just like his grandfather, my father. Don't I remember it well. My first few boyfriends must have loved me enough to go through being 'interviewed' by the great inquisitor.
Good luck as to your little Alexa. Should she be a boy I recommend to call him 'Oscar'. Which would have been the Angel's sibling's name.
U
I have found that women rarely come to the point or if they do, they take their time about it. Marcia made an oblique reference to pregnancy. The last thing she would want to hear from me is any sign of regret. If she is pregnant, nothing can change that so why not be happy? She is only in her very early thirties so she won't have any problems. At 55, all I do is shoot the bullets, the hard work is down to her.
DeleteA lot of people seem to think the age of consent in Angola is 12. It isn't. Technically it is 18. I say technically because between consenting underage partners, the law is rarely enforced unless the parents of the girl really want to make an issue of it.