4/5th April

I still feel like death, lasted at work till midday yesterday. The students had a Soil/Nutrients test, I got them through that, collected the papers, and Tiffany dropped me off at home. I was running a fever, sweating like I was in a sauna. Crashed out when I got home, woke about 4pm, took another couple of Maxiclear, some Brufen, and fell asleep again till 3am. Fever seems to have died off today, still have the clogged sinus, but not as bad as the last few days, I can breathe now.

Tiffany and David arrived late yesterday afternoon with a large bag of Island Lemons and ginger root, and instructions to juice them up, and drink it to get the fever down. The lemons are almost limes, or close to a lime. It was either the juice or the antibiotics, but something is working anyway.

Today is clear, no rain in sight, sunshine, but it’s hard to say definitely. It can change in minutes here at times from blue skies and sunshine, to thunder head clouds and heavy rain.

I had a big splurge at Wings Supermarket today, $413 worth. It all fitted into one carry bag. Frozen crab sticks 1kg, $125, 1.5 litre Coca Cola $18.35, 500gm Mainland Tasty Cheese $45, small jar of Kalamata Olives $40.60, 2 packets of Pappadoms $29 each. 2 jars of sweet and sour sauce from the “out of date” bin for $10 each. A couple of plates and 2 more soup bowls, and there it all went. I was looking for frozen baby octopus, but it’s just advertised, they never seem to have it, or else I’m going in on the wrong day or time.

5 minutes after I wrote the first bit, and it’s raining again. I was meant to be at an afternoon bar b que with the NZ AID Organiser today, out by White River. I’ll give it a miss till I feel like I can stand up without wanting to fall over.

I think my neighbours are building a fish smoker, they’ve been cutting, banging, folding sheets of galvanised tin all morning, and building a frame. All they have is a hammer, saw, bush knife and a couple of 2m lengths of timber to use as a folder. It’s looking good so far, nice sharp corners, and it all fits nicely together.

Sunday.

I thought I was feeling better, but it was just a brief intermission. Still have the sinus problem, but at least I can breathe mostly, the fever seems to come and go, Steve was worried that I’ve picked up a resistant malaria strain, if so, it’s new to the islands. All the strains here up till now have always been dealt with by Doxycycline, if it persists I’ll go back to the Malaria Clinic for more tests.

I’ve still got the exam papers to finish marking, it’s now 10pm, I’m putting it off till I can read them without sweat dripping off me at work in the morning with the air-conditioning on.

Started off trying to bake some bread this morning and the gas bottle finally ran out. Not too bad, 8 weeks from a 9kg bottle, $172 for a refill. The bread turned out ok, the extra hour or so spent rising didn’t hurt at all, if anything it improved it a bit.
I’ve been trying to come up with different ideas for the planter boxes and gardens along Mendana Ave, and the median strip through the town. If I can get some Impatiens, and Cerastium or Plumbago to use as fill for the planter tubs, and amongst the plantings in the gardens along the street it will give a lot more colour than the foliage colours we have now. The Bougainvillea are starting to come into flower, I’ll have to remind the crew not to prune them for a few months now, to get some length on the stems. We’ve only got B. glabra in the tubs at the moment, till we propagate different colours. I’ve seen a few nice Bougainvillea around the town, double white, pinks and double red, and what they call “Raspberry Ice” here, with variegated foliage and a hot pink flower, it was called “Cream Delight” in NZ. I’d love to get some “Scarlett O’Hara”, “Killy Campbell” and “Hawaiian Gold” and “Temple Fire” to propagate and plant out, just for the vibrant colours.

It’s hard trying to come up with plants for the median strip tubs, all it takes is some over enthused late night person staggering home with a bush knife cutting and hacking as he goes to ruin it all. We lost another 4 palms the last week with someone slicing them off with a bushknife at night. Another good reason not to go out on the streets late at night here, you’re never sure if they’re just happy, or smashed on kwaso, the local illegal homebrew. $10 for a 200ml bottle of it, about 80% proof spirit, yeast, sugar, water, and a quick distillation and the locals get a little bit out of control. Considering beer is $10 a can, for 5% alcohol, and most spirits retail in the $250 and up range, $10 for 200ml of 80% is a good price. The effect isn’t pretty.

Rose is arriving on the 23rd, so I’ll be back with pictures again. We’re going to Savo Island for a few days, hopefully do the volcano trip, and a few other bits and pieces, fishing included I hope. Either that or sit on the beach and get plastered with wine, rum punch, and gin and tonics while waiting for lunch/dinner to be served.

Maybe we’ll do both, early morning activities, followed by rest and relaxation.