Welcome back to another slice of my life here on the Ecuadorian Costa.

Yes I’ve borrowed a song title from Prince, but unlike the original, which was a gem from his 1986 album “Parade”, I’d like to take it more at its poetic face value. The song is the sad telling of the death of his friend, but Im using it here to simply mean things may happen unexpectedly. Now Im not talking of random surprises here, Im talking about established norms that change when you wouldn’t expect them to. Yes its probably true that in states like Colorado, snow is perfectly normal in April, but that’s maybe over thinking it a little. Coincidentally & not unexpectedly, June saw the start of what is referred to as Winter here, so the temp has plummeted to an average of 27degC & the blanket has gone back on the bed to get me through the frosty 23degC nights. I did get some early exposure to these ungodly temperatures when I went to meet Einat in Quito back in the middle of May, but more on that trip later…

Tech Failure.

You will recall from last time, that I had some electrical issues at the beach house, well I attributed these issues to be the cause of my laptop failure. It ran the battery empty & shut down when plugged in, so it seemed reasonable to conclude that there was no power to the socket at these times. If left for a day or two & plugged in elsewhere, the battery would recharge & we were up n running again.

When the electrical issue was found innocent, all fingers pointed to the battery or the charger. I ran all over town for a battery, but my best hope was $150 with at least 6wks delivery & I wasn’t doing that. I tried a few charger options, but didn’t really get anything conclusive. I then got referred to a shop/engineer in GQ, so I let them have at it. My charger had caused a fault, which they fixed & gave me a new charger at $80 plus $15 standard minimum charge. I still felt Id had a result. That is until, back at home & halfway through Black Panther, the ‘Plug in Now’ warning flashes up & it shuts down. Doubly angry, I at least need to finish the film, so I switch to my old n crappy, back up laptop. All was beginning to calm down, I would just have to take it back to them tomorrow & the land of Wakanda was back to being a happy place, when “imminent hard drive failure, please save all work now” appears briefly & then the screen went blank.

The primary laptop went back & then came back & then went back until they admitted they were just chasing the symptom but couldn’t identify the cause. Through some old DOS menus I can get the crappy lappy to boot now & again, but it seldom stays up long enough to watch anything to the end. Im told it’s the corrosive salt air & everything Ive read supports that, so Im glad Ill be a good enough distance back in the jungle before I break out the expensive stuff.

So, all of that not only means I don’t get to relax glued to the tube, it also means Im writing this on my phone. I then email it to myself so I can pick it up at the internet café to add photos & upload. Yes, these are the Herculean efforts I go to in order to bring you this content, so as a reward for appreciating them, this is a longer edition to get you through your summer holidays, all the way through.

 

Driving Miss Daycee Craycee

 

Dropping Stevie off at the airport seems like lifetimes ago & yet it was only my 3^rd time driving in to Guayaquil…with like, just me driving yeah! Since then its been at least once a week, usually its there & back on the same day & sometimes its more than once a week. Ive said before that it’s a 3hr bus ride but driving shaves 20-30mins off that, depending on how you drive. I tried driving it faster once, but revised that plan when an unseen dip followed by a hump threw me airborne. The roads are just in no condition to drive safely & fast or most often, neither. The maximum speed limit is 100kph or 60 mph. This varies down to 70kph for non obvious reasons along the “motorway”, but drops down to 50kph or 30mph on the coast road. In my head these are the speeds of state funerals, however, in reality, its really hard to drive much faster & by hard, I mean Lewis Hamilton levels of concentration & awareness, which takes all the fun & relaxation out of driving for me. Interestingly enough, I’ve settled in to driving at the same speeds I did when driving in the UK, or at least the same numbers (60 & 80) on the speedo – Im sure some psych major could enthusiastically tell me why 😉

The drive itself is only 183km or a lil bit over 100 miles. In terms of orientation & in comparison to England, Guayaquil is London, the airport is Tottenham & I live in Birmingham if Birmingham was on the coast. In England that’s a doddle & you’d just zip down the M40. The M40 doesn’t exist in Ecuador, there is only the M5 & the M4, so yes, you guessed it, you have no choice but to go via Bristol, which in our case is Salinas or “the nearest place we have to go to get anything we want” town, as we usually call it.

In spite of the bum numbing hours behind the wheel, the process of driving is an interesting & entertaining one. Any flashing lights in any combination means something is about to happen or might be happening right now, or maybe quite some time ago. Often this means the person is stopping, but when & where is anyone’s guess.  Hazard lights mean absolutely anything except what one might expect according to the accepted definition of what constitutes a hazard. A right indicator means someone is driving slower than they would normally, whereas a left indicator means pass me on this side. Im sure you can see how driving slowly & wanting people to pass you requires both indicators, well there’s an example of where the hazards come in. When I’m turning right into my road, waiting in the middle close to the line & being nonchalantly gringo by using the turn signal as Edgar A. Walz, Jr. first intended back in 1925, I always have to stick my head out of the window to make sure some old boy on a motorbike isn’t trying to go around me on the outside. There is a nearside lane policy, but it seems only advisory as everyone simply weaves left & right like they are chasing O.J. The crazy thing is, you cant turn left off of the motorways. Now I grant you, not being able to turn across oncoming motorway traffic doesn’t seem too crazy, but what you have to do instead is make a U Turn at the many  designated gaps, then when on the other side of the road you can make your left turn as a right. What this means is that vehicles having come to a complete stop & are now turning 180 deg & starting to pull away, suddenly appear in the fast lane in front of you – far safer!!

You’ll Never Take Me Alive Copper

 

Back when I bought the truck, I had a month from signing the papers to getting the name changed on the documentation. Unfortunately you cant just change the name on the matricular, you have to be issued with a new one & this requires a new test. Ive seen the state of some vehicles on the road here & so I wasn’t too concerned with whatever tests they would do, but all four of my tyres were bald & I mean kojak radial bald with barely an indication of where the tread used to be. They operate a free same day retest if you fail, so it seemed prudent to find out what else may need attention before I commit to just the tyres. You have to pay the fees & taxes at a bank first & then wait 3 days for the payment to show up on their screen as in their account, then go to the test centre, wait in line & take the test. You stay in the car to switch on the lights, bib the horn & wash the screen, Senor Clipboard then strolls to the back & repeats the instruction with the added bonus of brake lights this time. He looks closely at the tyres & takes out a piece of card with some lines on it. After much cogitation, he determines that 2 of my tyres are bald & must be changed. I intended to replace all 4, but out of interest asked for confirmation & was told the other 2 are fine for now. I zip down to the tyre place, a modern looking & seemingly well stocked ‘warehouse’ by the side of the road. All four tyres with discount comes to $600. To use my debit card will cost me 15%. There is a cash-point in the wall of the Electricity Board Head Office next door to the tyre place, but of course its got no power so isn’t working & the next nearest is probably a half hour round trip away. Did I tell you that this was now late morning, I had to go home first & then drive to Guayaquil in time to get on a 6pm flight to Quito?? Well if I had, you would now understand that I was more than a little pushed for time by this point. As a good advert for less haste more speed, it was during the drive later this same afternoon that I took off from the road before I even got to the airport.

I only had enough cash on me for the 2 new tyres only, so that’s what I bought & the old ones were tossed in the back. Return to testing station, boxes ticked, all new paperwork issued, just none of it too quickly mind.

Eventually, as I dashed back up the coast road, it was perhaps inevitable that I should be stopped at a police check point. The ink was still damp on my documentation, so they waved me on happily enough, despite their customary passive intensity.

I made it to the airport & bought my ticket with 45mins to spare, so grabbed a bite to eat & relaxed into my mini vaykay. I had a wonderful time in Quito, but to continue with this part of the story, fast forward to me arriving back, just before 6pm on Thursday. A mad dash in a taxi to the main computer store to see if I could buy a laptop battery proved fruitless & as it was now 8pm by this time, the rest of my shopping could wait until tomorrow, so I asked the taxi to take me to a $50 hotel. Appalled at my apparent largesse, the cab driver was having none of it, but was instead taking me to a $25 hotel. It had been a long day & Id lost the will to argue. Pulling up outside an impressive façade, I couldn’t help notice the 4 stars underneath the name. The cabbie dashed inside, returning with a satisfied grin to confirm they had a room & yes it was $25. Leaving the smart & functional foyer & upon entering the room, it was clear the guy painting the stars must have had a stutter, but the bed was clean / comfyish & the shower was fantastic (considering). An early start saw me chasing the city for computer stores & a few other bits n bobs before heading back to the airport where Id left the truck – 5 days armed guard secure parking, immediately outside arrivals, $38! – A quick call in to a warehouse to collect a door Id ordered the previous week & then it was pedal to the metal to get home before dark. Ive never enjoyed driving in the dark, so with all of the challenges as described earlier, things only get worse when you cant see them until you are upon them. I try to avoid it if I can as its just too much hard work, though I don’t often think of it as particularly  dangerous.

I make good time & Im heading into Manglaralto a bit before 6pm & I see the roadside stop outside the police station, multiple vehicles pulled over suggesting something was going on. Naturally I was waved over, so I smiled understandably as I handed over my documents, leaving my hand hanging as I expected them to be returned after the usual quick check. Oh no, this guy was off around the vehicle, then returning to my window to deliver his verdict. “one infraction, your tyre is illegal, your vehicle is to be impounded & $300 fine”. Now Id heard similar speeches before & this would usually be the point at which I would enquire how much it will cost to overlook the matter this one time, I say usually. This time I felt I had a case & was prepared to make a stand….

 

• Excuse me your amazing dickness, I am returning mere minutes from the state administered vehicular testing station & the very same deemed these two tyres to be of legal standard. They carried out an exhaustive test, using only the finest & perfectly calibrated tools in order to determine their road-worthiness, the results of which are clearly written on this here official stertificate. Where as you on the other hand have merely glanced at them in the half light & written them off without further enquiry. I Sir, refute your claim & refuse your action.

 

I wish I was that eloquent in Spanish, but I feel I got my point across none the less & even showed him the two replaced tyres in the back under the door. Amazingly, he entered into debate & suggested I had stopped somewhere on the way & swapped the virtually bald for the completely bald. He ushered me back into my seat & shut the door, making a point to remind me he still had all my documents, including my ID card & wandered off to terrorise some other poor sap. He let me stew for a couple of cars, then came back & repeated his impound monologue, to which I began repeating my offer of non declarable income, which got a look of derision as he once again walked off. It was time to phone a friend. Luckily Jarret answered after a few rings & as he had been with me at the vehicle testing, he understood & immediately came up with the same reasoning, so I headed for the cop & handed the phone over. I should mention here that Jarret enjoys a quid pro quo relationship with the Manglaralto traffic police in that they are his diggers that pull wrecks out of ditches for them, & his diggers that do all the work around their station, plus a million & one other lil favours that mean he & his can drive freely & without contest. Of course I didn’t want to use up Jarret’s favours, I just did not want my truck going into that compound. Full stop! After much toing & froing I get the phone back & Jarret sucks in a breath & tells me its $40. FORTY FRICKIN BUCKS?! $5 is standard, $10 if you are getting gringoed, but $40 is taking the piss. I wrenched the notes out of my wallet & tipped my head in his direction, which he ignored. So I stuck my arm out & waved the notes so all his mates could see, meaning he’d at least have to share it now, I smiled at the pathetically small victory. Well colour me Flash, you’ve never seen the man move so fast, desperately waving his arms down for me to hide his soon to be ill gotten gains. It was a hollow victory & I feel as if some unseen force has conspired a series of events, but after an early visit to a working cashpoint the next morning, I got the two baldies replaced first thing Saturday & they haven’t pulled me over since. Some even nod back occasionally as I drive by 😉

 

I’d like a P please Bob

 

We have been busy onsite these last few weeks. I still hope to move in end of June/first week of July, so Ive been focusing on all the elements I need in place to live there, whilst also keeping the guys going on finishing everything else. My current challenge is that they cant get on inside the house, until a certain sequence of preceding “Simon jobs” have been completed. As an example, I don’t want the walls rendered until the ceilings are plaster boarded. I cant plaster board the ceilings until the water & electrics are complete. I haven’t been able to buy enough light fittings yet & I am still awaiting parts for the water system before I can test it. These parts have to come from their head office in Miami, so of course I have to wait for them to go through the whole customs process before I can get them shipped to me locally. The vast majority of the hot & cold system is now installed though, or at least up to the point where they will connect to something else, such as a tap & it is these adapters that I am awaiting. I have also installed the pump, pressure tank & boiler combination that will fulfill all my hot, wet fantasies in the bathroom.

We still have plenty to get on with externally, so the whole gang is good for another few weeks or so, but once the outside is complete, I want to slow the whole job down to focus on one aspect at a time through to completion. My guys are all definitely getting better because Im drumming it into them, but they still have little concept for not trashing what they’ve previously completed whilst carrying out the next task. So the fewer work areas to police the better when it comes to fine finishing & detail.

The door I collected in Guayaquil has filled the last but one hole in the exterior, leaving only the skylight yet to fill. The door is at the top of the landing, leading out onto the now newly surfaced, first floor patio. We first installed gutter drainage & then laid a medium fine grit, set in a cement paste, across the whole of the floor & up the stairs to the roof. Its relatively cheap, hard wearing, easy to repair & much like Lindsey Lohan, quick to lay. Im not convinced it’s the grey colour I was promised, though I’m confident that will change when I have some paint on the walls to contrast it.

Misty Blues

So the last big challenge, or rather the thing that would run continually in my head until it was done, was the transfer of the glass from storage in Sinchal, to installation in Dos Mangas. A journey that made me nervous, around 15,342m of nervousness. I had a couple of transport deals fall through for one reason or another & I felt I was running out of options. Whilst there are plenty of pickups adapted to carry glass, they aren’t big enough to handle the size of my package ;). Unfortunately there just aren’t that many bigger trucks equipped in the same way. So I thought a little outside the box-van, mostly just near the edge & opted to take a standard bigger truck & construct my own specialist modifications.

Its pretty simple, just an A frame with something to stop the bottom sliding out. So having called everyone to arms first thing the next morning, we set off in convoy, on a make or break mission to bring back something shiny, or go home on shattered dreams. We had a little pre-start meeting, everybody knew their job & we set to work. 90mins later we were unloading in Dos Mangas with not a single scratch in our triumphant demeanor. On site we’d been building our tower-block stairway all week, so with my ad-hoc redesign, the now low level wall was easy to step over to gain access to the first floor patio. Again we had a pre-start, but this time I bought out props. I had put together a life size model of the glass from timber around site & whilst not as heavy, it would at least allow me to test the route without risking the glass. They of course thought I was a raving loon, but went along good naturedly. Well blow me down with a feather when, going over the wall & turning to the right, the guy at the end gets pushed off the stairs & the wooden facsimile falls on the sharp concrete edge. They of course all look to me sheepishly, I think my expression says all it needs to, but I try to raise my eyebrow a little further nonetheless.

We “Take Two” & this time turn left at the top. We have another challenge on the stairs to the roof, but after one final rehearsal, we are ready & Operation “Raise a Glass or Two to Us” is underway. It goes without a hitch & very soon each huge slab of glass is perfectly in place. But there’s a problem. The rail clips that hold the glass down & prevent the ingress of water, are not staying in place. It doesn’t take long to figure out the reason is the glass is no longer as thick as it used to be. During its extended storage since manufacture, much of it exposed to at least some sunlight, the material that separates the two panes has softened, changed shape & thus changed the whole nature of the assembly. On at least one unit, this has also allowed air & possibly water inside. I say this because a milky residue that doesn’t look like condensation is covering most of the inside of one pane. In the UK, 2 out of the 3 panels would be replaced. The only solution to that here, is expensive & amounts to either you employing an agent & importing them yourself, or you buy them from a company that is already set up & has an outside supplier to do it for you. Neither of these options come cheap, so its just not worth it for 4 panels (remember the 2 broken bi-fold door panes). Not wanting to spend my idle moments wallowing in either self pity or chasing ghost solutions, I have nothing to lose by trying to correct the issue myself. I have an idea that by opening up one end & inserting a 3m long, ultra slim squeegee, it will clean it off with some concentrated effort. So in the absence of such a tool being available here, I believe that by attaching a windscreen wiper blade at 45deg to my nylon cable puller, it should prove a more than adequate substitute & might even get Jim Dyson frothing outside the patent office or perhaps just the 99p Store. I am hoping that if I throw in one of the small bags of silica you always get in the box with electronics, it should keep enough moisture trapped & so prevent ‘most’, future condensation build up. In all honesty though, I just can’t be bothered right now as I have more pressing areas to focus on & this disappointment is still a little too fresh to be particularly positive about.

Of course, without the occasional low, the highs wouldn’t seem quite so wonderful, so on balance I am very pleased with where I am. To reflect that pleasure, I threw in a little design flair, a little wavy texture to off set the largely cubist statement of the rest of the house. When seen from the rear & once the staircase down from the coffee deck has been built, the corkscrew of the spiral should flow up into the waves above, centering the contrast & grounding  the boxes either side of it.

An essential part of being able to live somewhere, is having a place to sleep & that to me, means a nice big bed. I bought my old King size & a spare double in the container, with the intention of getting myself a complete new base & mattress locally. Unsurprisingly, all the reasonable ones are imported & thus super expensive. So taking inspiration from my recent trip, I made the base myself & cast a floating bed in concrete. Its now been sealed & ready to take a mattress, but depending on my eventual floor tile choice, I may end up painting it. 2m x 2m is a standard size here, which they call a three person bed, though perhaps whole family would be more accurate. Think all the granpas & granmas from Charlie & the Chocolate Factory….. Anyway, there is a supplier in GQ that is offering 30% off & free next day delivery on orders of 2 mattresses or more. I also need a double & Roey needs 2, so let the haggling begin.

 

Money for Nothing

 

We pretty much have the cement mixer running all day on site, multiple battery tool chargers, circular saws etc & we leave all the temporary lights on all the time to discourage bats roosting & yet my electricity bill has never been over $8 a month, which Im pretty pleased about. Of course when all the 240v fridges, freezers & music equipment gets fired up that cost will go up, but Im confident it wont be by much. My hob & water heater are gas, which is $1.50 a bottle, so all in all, overheads should be low. Water as Ive said before is a $5 standard charge, up to a certain amount & that’s what Ive paid every month except once when it went to $7, but as we concreted the roof that month, it felt reasonable. Imagine my shock then when the bill for April came in at $16. Of course I challenged it, but our meter reading records matched, so I had no argument & paid it…begrudgingly. I beefed up our water policy & so no spare filling of the cistern was permitted, we would only draw it as we needed it. May’s bill turned up, $16 again. WTF?! I challenged his numbers & we walk over to the meter to confirm they tally. They did but I didn’t understand what was happening. Then I noticed the wheel whizzing around. It was late morning so the water was no longer being pumped, but I checked the end of our hose nonetheless & saw it to be dry. I turned off the stop cock & the meter stopped, back on & it spun with nothing passing through it. I felt like I was on an episode of Candid Camera. Whatever the anomaly, it hadn’t always been present, so I asked if they had made any changes to their system. Well we changed the pump last month, but that wouldn’t have anything to do with it, you have to pay for the water you have used. That tipped my penny & it dropped nicely into a convincing argument. I put my thumb over the end of our hose & the meter stopped. I suggested the reason they changed the pump was because the seals had gone & would no longer pump. They agreed. With a newly sealed pump, pressure would remain in the system & air would be pushed to find an outlet. All the other houses are complete, so have a ball float shut off system, which means all the air is pushed to me. I am not paying for air. After some back & forth we agreed that I would take measures to prevent the further egress of air & if my readings returned to normal the following month, then the $16 Id previously paid would see me through to June. Thank you m’lud.

The Electricity company aren’t exactly error free either. I get an email notification of my bill, which I then take to their office & show to them, they print me out a copy, which I hand to the cashier & she takes payment. At the beginning of June I get a disconnection notice posted on my meter – I hadn’t paid my bill. I searched back through my inbox, but I hadn’t missed a bill, so I went down to the office & showing my ID card, paid my balance. I then asked why they’d stopped sending me my bills as that was a useful reminder when one has many other things to do. She checked my details & showed me my email address for confirmation. It was wrong, which was strange as I had typed it in myself last year to ensure its accuracy. I asked her how it could have changed & was told that part of her job was to audit their database which she had just done the previous month. Apparently my .co.uk suffix had looked like a typo to her so she corrected it to .com. Did she remember I typed it in originally, yes. Had I been in to ask why I hadn’t been getting emails & in fact, showed her the emails each month when I came in to pay, no & yes respectively.  Yet you change it without cause nor provocation & then threaten to cease service………..and……Breathe…..

 

What I needed was a little break…

 

More Than Mindu

 

You will remember from last time that I had met Einat, the most amazing woman who had an incredible & immediate effect on me. Fortunately, she feels the same way, so it was a no brainer for me to fly up to meet her in Quito to spend a few more days together before she heads back to Tel Aviv. She had arrived a couple of days earlier & whilst waiting for me to get my truck sorted, had ticked off most of the local attractions for herself. That meant we were able to take a trip within a trip. Cotapaxi was high on the list, but the weather wasn’t being reported favourably & Id donated most of my mountain gear to Oxfam. So we agreed on the cloud forests of Mindu. A couple of hours on an early morning coach saw us arrive in a quaint mountain village & Einat had booked us into a gorgeous boutique hotel across the river on the outskirts of town. The owner was French & the vybe was a relaxed, multi-cultural mix of innovative style to create a sense of comfort. Girl done good, real good! We take a stroll around town for lunch & are amazed to count off seven pizza places – legend has it an Italian came to town & fathered seven children to different women, who all grew up to start pizza businesses. The mornings were glorious & with the endlessly forested mountains, fringed with mist not yet burnt off by the golden sunshine, life felt about as perfect as it could be. We didn’t have to pay to go see the evening frog chorus as we could hear it from our bed, but we did spend an afternoon zip lining from peak to peak. It was way more than I was expecting, with a total of 10 long lines back & forth, you got a lot of zipping for your buck. The views were outstanding, though it took me a few rides before I could relax enough to enjoy them. We were very high & Im not ashamed to admit I actually saw myself plummeting as the shackle gave way & my fingers slipped from the cable. Of course the premonition would have been better placed before I was launched from the platform, so I was very grateful for the often lengthy walk between stations in which to get my sphincter back under control. After a few times though it got great & I guess I must’ve begun looking relaxed, because half way across No7, our “guides” began seriously swinging the cable to spice up the ride. The first few seconds whilst my brain tried to work out what was happening & concluding very quickly that I was about to plummet, was beyond terrifying. Being spun around to see what was happening didn’t make it any less scary. They had both been flirting with Einat & this could be the perfect setup where the old man has a mysterious “accident”. Shaken, but trying not to show it, I got back on the proverbial horse by doing the last run hanging face down. Superman style apparently, though more “The Incredible Falling Man” most likely. Yes, the ego needs to be reassured now & again that the body has its back, but if we do not rise to that challenge when we can, then we have already fallen.

We also spent an almost spiritual afternoon at a butterfly & hummingbird sanctuary. In a large, aviary like structure covered with netting, hundreds of butterflies surround you & flutter on about their day. Over-ripe bananas are set out on plates for you to scoop a little on your finger, to entice a butterfly to land, which they do, a lot, which is surreal. They’d also filled the structure with exotic plant life & very kindly put up name & species details, so I’m looking forward to including some in my garden next year. Humming birds are wondrous, but have an innate sense of when a camera is pointed at them & effortlessly avoid being snapped. We waited patiently & failed nonetheless, though displaying dedication above & beyond, Einat secured elusive video footage to preserve the moment. As often though, these things are over all too quickly. Too soon it was back to Quito, where we spent our last night in the old town, before we had to say good bye. Up to that point it wasn’t a subject we spent much time on. Yes we knew it was going to happen, but for the whole time up until then & especially whilst in Mindu, we had been living only in the moment & without consequence, free to be whoever we wanted to be. They say if you are the smartest one in the room, then you are in the wrong room. Einat bought peace & introduced challenge back into my room. I was free to be better because of her & it felt great. I want to spend a lot more time with this woman, lifetimes in fact.

We were pretty grown up at the airport, so it felt a little unreal, almost like just seeing a friend off on holiday. It certainly didn’t feel like any kind of actual ending & denial is on another continent after all. The harsh reality is though, Einat is now back in Tel Aviv. We carried on as something of an LDR, but without an idea of when that could change, we were just treading water in a choppy sea. When it became clear that we didn’t have a solution, I ended it…… but then couldn’t keep to it, it seems neither of us can let the other go. I don’t want to leave Ecuador, Einat doesn’t want to leave Israel & there doesn’t seem to be much of a third option. Not exactly Sophie’s Choice, but whilst straight up logic says “enjoy the memories”, every other part of me is demanding “do whatever you need to do to keep her in your life”.

The selfless thing here is to let her get on with her life, the selfish thing is to ensure that life is with me, but whilst kidnapping served as a big romantic gesture for early man, its a practice that is somewhat frowned upon these days. So in an ‘off again, on again’ sketchy plan, we are going to meet in September, though location not yet known, I will no doubt follow in Prince Williams footsteps & make a very important visit to the Holy Land.

The future is not set, there’s no fate but what we make for ourselves.

 

 

Its Competition Time

 

As I will be moving in to my new house soon, I feel it should have a name to personalise it as my home. For some reason, my usually fertile mind currently resembles the live stream from a goldfish tank. My best shot at the moment is with reference to the estate name, ‘Rincon Las Cascadas’ (Waterfall Corner).

If I add a small rock outcrop to my pool & divert a return pipe, I could create a small water fall & then  use “  La C A  S

C

A

D

A

on my gate post. But its quite a lot of work & not very imaginative. I cant think of anything original along the lines of ‘Dunroamin’ & don’t want to express any left of centre religious leanings by using Valhalla, Nirvana etc.

So Id like to throw it open to you guys for suggestions. The winner will be the one drawn out of a hat before I move in. If I should receive more than one suggestion, then the one I like best will receive an all expenses paid holiday with me & a Blue Peter Badge (NB expenses not covered by this offer include, but are not limited to, any form of travel, any form of nourishment or beverage, any form of activity, any item whatsoever. You will not receive a Blue Peter Badge). So get to it, let those juices flow & allow your imagination to fly free, you’ve got 3 just weeks to find a new house name for me.

 

Going Dark

I am hoping to get some kind of confirmation that I can have fibre internet access installed to my house by this coming Wednesday, but as this is Ecuador, my breath is not being held. This could well mean I have to write the next update on my phone again, though if the move pans out as Im expecting, the blog will likely just be a series of smiley emojis as seen relaxing on the coffee deck 🙂

 

Till next time, when I’m officially a Homeowner

Si x