Wednesday 22nd April

We finished off the remaining tubs this morning, well, David took everyone, he’s determined I’m not meant to be doing anything other than advising, he has the opinion that work is not what the white fella does here, we just advise, and the black fella does the work, or in this case the black women. I can see the two of us having a lot of fun eventually, with him trying to keep me in the office, and me spending more time in the nursery. It’s easier for me to teach by showing and doing, than trying to describe things in broken English/pijin. And I’d rather be doing things, not sitting in an office all day.

Another hot dry day, they are becoming more common now, when I arrived they were about once a week without rain, now it’s one day a week we get rain, but when it does rain, it comes down.

David and I are looking at the lily pond, it needs a lot of cleaning out. The wash off from the bank around it has silted it up, and there is very little clear water for the fish and eels to live in. Although the frogs seem to like it there. It’ll take about a week of digging and clearing out though, we need enough outside work to cover the cost of 5 people doing work we don’t get paid for. I’ll have to get a drain dug around the pond, to divert the mud from washing into the pond, then we’ll put the lilies into baskets this time, so we can trim and move them easier. At the moment they are planted direct into the pond, so the roots have spread all over the place. Nice colours in the pond, red, pink, blue, white, and lots of dragon flies, some with iridescent red and blue bodies.

I haven’t seen my 2 pythons since last weekend, I wandered the track again this morning, but they must be back in the forest litter, or still up in the trees. Our eagle hasn’t been back this week, but the red backed parrots are having a good time feeding off the trees close to the office.

Long weekend coming closer for me, half day at work tomorrow, a few things to tidy up there, then pick Rose up at Henderson Field, I’ll go into work Friday morning and show her around the Gardens, then get Tiffany to drop us off in Honiara to get the shuttle to the ferry at Vila. Hopefully the weather will hold long enough for a good weekend on Savo.

I may not be posting till we get back, so have a good weekend, and I’ll catch up next week.