28th March

I’ve missed a couple of days, I’ve felt worn out, listless since Wednesday, no real symptoms, just a lethargic aching feeling. Finally took myself to the Malaria Clinic on Friday afternoon and found I’ve had my first dose of malaria. The doxycycline I take has stopped it, but the initial infection is what has been causing the symptoms. I’d hate to be having a full strength version, Shirlyeta is back at work, Tiffany is now off till Tuesday at least with malaria, coming to the end of the monsoon season and the mosquitos are finding more pools of stagnant water to breed in. While its raining all the time the mosquito larvae get washed out of the pools, now that there’s not as much heavy continuous rain more pools are being left for them to breed in. Apart from this week.

I’ve had a tender spot on my leg since Monday or Tuesday, a bit red and slightly swollen which the Doctor at the clinic said was probably the mosquito bite that caused it. It’s almost gone now, so the doxycycline is effective. The locals get given chloroquinine, which is effective but can take a while to act, and because it’s used so widely here, the risk of causing resistance to it by the malaria mosquito is increasing.

Now I know it’s not just me feeling depressed I’m a lot happier, I spent most of the week going 2 steps forward, one step back, Keithie decided that giving the crew cooking stoves wasn’t a good idea, they’d just get broken/stolen/borrowed whatever, so we have to look for another alternative. I’ll bring it up again at the next monthly meeting anyway with a few more arguments about how it will improve the work times, but I’m not going to get too involved with it. Adrian was all for it, so there’s an unexpected vote. We’ve got to get the idea through that we pay for 8 hours work, and expect a reasonable amount of the time each day to be spent actually working.

I went through this with David yesterday, with the example of him being in charge, quoting a contract for the roundabouts, on a basis of 5 people doing 4 hours per week tidying each roundabout, if he’s paying out 8 hours to each person, but only getting 4 hours actual work, he’ll lose money very quickly. He understands it, but trying to change life styles/habits/attitudes is going to take a long time here. The crews do work well, I’ve mentioned before, but you would lose money of you were contracting on a set price and budget.

We’ve got our coconut mulcher! Thanks to the wonder and technology of Solomon Island Telekom, Keithies email never arrived on Wednesday giving permission to go ahead, it wasn’t till Friday when she got back from Brisbane I was able to contact her, the price dropped even further in the meantime so that was good.

Rover Shredder Mulcher, list price SBD$11,875, our price SBD$6,875. 5.5hp petrol Briggs and Stratton motor, 3 rotating flail blades, the ladies are really happy. I told Jennifer and Imelda that only 4 people to use it, themselves, me and David. If you let everyone use it, I’d give it less than a week before it would have parts missing, or be broken. It is going to make life a bit happier in the nursery, no more kneeling and hand rubbing coconut husk through the mesh.

Hi to Luis in Portugal, thanks for your note.

We had Les from the Honiara Council Works dept call in Friday morning. He’s in a similar position to me, here as an advisor from Perth for 2 years, he’s got another year to go. There’s been a bit of non-co-operation between the Council and the Gardens, mostly personality clashes I think now, between different sections of the Council and the SEB, thankfully Les never got involved or wanted to. He’s keen to see the gardens bought back to life, and will be giving us a list of streetscape trees and shrubs to grow for the Council for planting out. Also, as the Council have responsibility for the Gardens, again personality clashes involved, he’s going to let us have the use of the Council heavy equipment for digging drainage, he’ll supply the back hoe, bob cat and truck with drivers for any work we need done. That will help when we start draining around the lily pond and playground area and also when we put the retaining walls in on the river bends.

My gecko family have either migrated, or they change colour in the different seasons. All the ones inside are now a dark brown with green and gold speckles, even the smaller ones.

I have a drawing plan to do for Will before Monday, showing the size of the Nursery expansion, I’ve found going into work at the weekends I get more done without the distractions, and also, I’m not tempted to go wandering through the Nursery or Gardens to catch up with everyone. Trying to find stuff for the class is impossible. I’m going to be spending most of what free time I have writing up lesson plans, assessment schedules, learning packs while they are out on practical work, and downloading what I can find on the net, if Telekom let me have uninterrupted access.

I spent most of Friday afternoon trying to download the manual for the shredder from the Rover Manufacturers site, pdf file, the best I could do was 55% downloaded before Telekom disconnected, and I had to repair or change the ip address, then start again. I gave up after 3 hours. Early mornings and weekends are the best times, another reason why I go in at 6.30am and work weekends.

The rainy season continues, it’s rained every day this week, and every night, sometimes heavily. The good part is that it’s not cold like Ireland, you don’t get that chill to your bones like I remember from Tullamore. It’s more like a warmish shower, sometimes like a heavy shower, but tolerable. The walks through the Gardens when it’s raining are more enjoyable I think, less mosquitos for a start, and you get the fresh rain washed aroma from everything.

I’m still finding orchid flowers being washed down off the tree tops, scattered along the paths or off in the undergrowth. I haven’t found any that look like the pictures I’ve got of the dendrobiums or bulbiferums, no doubt they’ll be listed somewhere, it’s just a matter of spending the time searching. Some of the orchids in the Orchid House are flowering now, small tiny white flowers, a few long stalks, but mostly clumps of star like flowers, I’ll have to wait till the dry season, then try to wrangle a trip to a few of the provinces and get more varieties to bring back.

Hi to Chip, Judy and all the people on the ranch, I hope Chip is following the advice, but I doubt it.

All the trees in the Memorial Gardens are now bridge grafted, and the ant barrier has been cleaned off. Now it’s just a matter of wait and see how successful we’ve been. I have doubts about some of the grafts, but we’ve got plenty of good branches to retry with, and the trunks are big enough to keep attempting grafts on for a few more times.