With the boxes came the jobs

I'll start at the end of the year. It was a day of cooking. We made a whole plan of what to cook, for their would come some visitors. We baked chocolate vanilla muffins filled with grape jam, quiche, failed 'boterkoek' (wise cooking lesson Anthony keeps teaching me: don't let no sugar out, don't let no sugar out) and the nicest: oliebollen. They were very nice and brought us a little of the new-year's-eve feeling. And with the box came the icing sugar, which made them really as they were supposed to be. I guess we didn't quite had enough baking for the year, so we also baked us pizza(bless the pizza pans! for their smooth, non-sticky, non-burning skin). We had a last 2011 swim. And when found ourselves very surprised by the huge waves the sea brought us. After the swimming came the cooking, after the cooking came the eating, and after the eating came watching The Gremlins, but better said: came falling asleep until 23:00. We woke up and saw Ann decorating the Christmas tree and started helping her. I had some christmas balls which you can decorate with chalk, and we drew some stars and bells, and also wrote down some funny oneliners on it we got familiar with here. Then, at 23:45, I realised it was already 23:45, and I told Anthony it was already 23:45. We didn't had any visitors yet, either. But then we heard dogs barking, car stopping and a fence opening. A friend with his family came by and he took some fireworks with him. At 00:00 he lightened them. The first was pretty neat, the second was of a very short time in comparison to its price. But fireworks here are rather special. Due to the fact we're on a hill, we could sea some expensive, Disney-alike fireworks. And at the islands further away we could sea light flashes. Then we sat inside and ate the baked stuff. Even though there weren't many visitors, they still enjoyed our bakings. When they left, we started a chaotic Jan van Haasteren puzzle, and puzzled until 3:30.

Next day was a day of either being sick or cleaning. Anthony felt awful and I felt like cleaning. When the sun had switch with the moon, we had a cleaned up, nice-ikea alike room and a fit Anthony again. In the evening we enjoyed those things by listening and making some music.

So, with the boxes came the jobs. Monday we went downhill to clean up the store room and spray some poison to kill all life in there. There were huge spiders, fat lizards and rancid other things. We even saw a tiny black scorpion. It took quite some hours.
Anthony also helped the guy who lives downhill with the mixer he needed for his reggaeband. But it turned out the mixer didn't work so well. So the next day, Anthony went to town to get it. And eventually, after quite some trying cables and explaing,just in time for the next band practice, he got it working very well. In the night of Monday, round 2:00, I heard some loud noise and I thought someone broke in. But it was Roger who was trying to repair the leaking pipes in the bathroom. This was when the bathroom-mess started.

The rest of this week we had to go to the toilet next to the bathroom, where there's no flush-possibility except for a bucket with water. This, though, is still quite fancy here, since there are lots of Vincentians living in the bush who only have a hole in the ground. Later in the week we also lost the sink and the possibility of keeping the floor dry in the shower. It's quite a job to do a bathroom. But I guess in some days it will be fine again. Ant and his dad are working very on it. Drilling holes, tiles, picking away cement, construct and fixing pipes and a new flushing system. It'll be so pretty soon.

Tuesday, Anthony and I went for a relaxing drink at Beach Combers, and had a really nice Pina Colada, very coconutty and some fries, very potatoish! And in the evening I cooked Ehhhhh-Spaghettht, falafel and we had a dinner outside, on a nice table, underneath a sky full of stars(and clouds, but that's not quite important in this story, I think) as if we were on a really fancy holiday. We even had a marshmallow hot chocolate as dessert.

On Wednesday, Ant and I went to the botanical gardens and the city. We went by minibus, and almost were in accident because of the driver was taking over on a two-way street and he wasn't quite speeding his speed. So we almost bumped into another car, but fortunately he decreased his speed. On our way to the gardens we walked along a cemetery and a woman started yelling at us : 'they diggin 'em up'. Something curious is that quite some people here have a tumor on their ear. We saw some people with it in the city.
The Botanical Gardens were pretty and nicely maintained. There were weird palms and some parrots, pink dragonflies and an enormous jungle-tree. In the city Anthony and I did some shopping, a thing we didn't do for a while. And we ended up with two dog collars, a dog leash, two floating tyres for in the sea and a stomach filled with ice-coffee, bananacake and fries. In the afternoon we had to try out our floating tyres. Together with Baxter and his new leash, we went to sea. Our floating tyres were A-mazing. We decided to try to learn Baxter how to swim. Normally he is very afraid of the sea. But somehow today, he was kind of following us into the sea, up until his chest, Very brave.

On Thursday, Anthony digged out the last part for the pizza-oven. Cause with the boxes, came the stones for the oven, and we can almost start building it, so the preparation needed to be done. This was when Ant discovered a Manacou nest behind the house: huge hamster with very artificial colours (like cows). They also went down to the container to poison the termites, and Anthony saw an actual termite-queen, huge and wearing a crown and stuff. I read on the internet that the termite-queen is the insect who lives longest, for not less then 7 years. A man came by to chop down very high trees. He is very specialized in this. He climbs up in the tree, with only his socks on and chops with his machete or chainsaw. He never fell down. Thanks to him we have an even greater view and the fruit trees get much more sunlight. We also had a tree with loose branches which could fall down at the electricity cables any time. That one's gone too. We piled up all the branches and wood and burned it down. There's only one problem, Baxter doesn't like the man and keeps barking all the time. So I took him for a walk to the beach. He listens very well, especially when he's on the leash. He's the dog Ceasar Milano might have trained, but then better since it his own character. A man on the beach was asking me whether 'I sell him'. I said 'No.'. We barbecued some corn which tasted like popcorn.

Friday, after cleaning up more wood, Anthony and I wanted to have a drink on 'Young Island', a tiny island very near to the beach, which looks very very perfect with palms and white sand and all. Anyway, we walked there, unfortunately with Baxter (because he barks to dogs, and we are afraid he gets himself into a fight, and you can't really get rid off him without having him peed on peoples bags on the beach). Then we waited a while for the tiny boat to bring us to young Island, Baxter waiting for us at the beginning of the pier, and when the boat finally came, he told us : 'No visitors'. Pff. There was at least one soul very glad with the news. A tail-wagging Baxter awaited us at the beginning of the pier and walked with us to the beach. For the first time we swam at this other beach, where the sea is actually quite nicer to swim. We tried getting Baxter into the sea again. At a certain point he got kind of crazy by his fear and turned the learning process into a game, by running away from the water, and following it when the water rolled back into the sea. Running away from us and jumping at us. Then another dog appeared all of a sudden and he just walked into the sea as if it was the road he was on a minute ago. We wished Baxter would follow him, but he didn't. Ah well. Then the two dogs played with each other, but as soon as the dog came near us, Baxter started growling at him. Then Anthony's parent were at Beach Comber so we went sitting there too. We ordered fries and cocktails and while drinking we saw Baxter walking home on his own. Very nice, such a dog. Then, it got Happy Hour at Beach Combers, and we all orded another cocktail, but it turned out they weren't includeed in Happy Hour... So that's that. While talking, we heard a 'Hey Nederlanders' all of a sudden, and it turned out there was a Dutch family staying over in the hotel. To bump into Dutch people here is quite rare. It's not like a 'French' campingsite where you bump into your neighbours, while the only purpose of your camping-holiday was to get away from them. We chatted some Dutch and then we all went home.

Today, this very very Saturday, Anthony and his dad worked a lot on the bathroom and I, for some reason, woke up with green fingers. I had a little Ireland-flashback and pruned some trees, got rid of vines and weeds and sowed some seeds. I hope they'll come out. It's pretty different because of the warm climate. But the little seedlings are now sleeping in our room, and I hope they will wake up in (maybe less than) a week. Furthermore I cleaned the BBQ spot. Before, when we were barbecueing, we had to watch it ants weren't falling into our shirts, we weren't tripping over some rocks and we had to search for a spot to put down the BBQ tools. Now we can walk again and see where we put things, without having the fear of getting bitten by red ants.

With Anthony playing his bassguitar as background music, I'm enjoying a warm and soft evening, with an extraordinary view on an orange sky as a proove of a sunset. A Happy New Year to you too.