Thursday 7th May

Thanks to the generosity of Solomon Island Electricity Board, I have power once again at home, which explains my absence to some extent. The other reason is that our internet connection at work is back to it’s go slow problem again. I know this sounds unbelievable, but it took 1 ½ hours for my email to open this morning, after which, I opened one email, wrote a reply, hit send, and I got a 404 page not found message. To say I was a tad frustrated is close. We managed to get through the day with it running in fits and starts, my apologies to Rose, Chip, Moira, Marianne for either not answering or vanishing halfway through a conversation or a message post

Our Rover Mulcher has more than just a bent blade. We’ve really worked it hard, and the blades, which spin on a steel shaft have actually worn into the shaft, about halfway through a 15mm steel shaft. The problem now is where to get replacements. The actual Rover Agent here in Honiara is Solomon Motors, who lost their import licence last year, and now deal through Farmset for Rover parts. Farmset have to deal through their head office in Papua New Guinea, who order the parts from Rover Queensland, so we could be a while yet. I wrote to Rover Aust. about it, and got a brief “We don’t deal with the Public” reply, so –10 points for Rover Industries Australia. Philip at Farmset is going to try and get the shafts made up here in Honiara at an engineering shop, they can’t be too hard to make, only 180mm of 15mm steel shaft with a hole at one end for the securing pin, but this is Honiara so I’m not holding my breath over it yet. It would be nice if they could do case hardening on the shaft, or had some good high bright shafting.

It really becomes a nuisance, after getting it all set up in the Nursery, and the girls actually wanting to use our made up potting mix. Once we get this problem sorted, and a good supply of replacement shafts secured it will all go smoothly again. We have 4cum of compost to put through as soon as possible, all the prepared potting mix has been used up. I have to admit our plants are growing a lot faster and looking better, even Jennifer and Imelda think it’s been a good improvement

I’ve had a good couple of days with David working out planting plans and schedules for the garden beds in town. Some were planted at the start of SEB becoming involved, and it was a throw every plant at the space, and step back approach, a bit like Stupid Bloody Johnson* and his “It may look a mess now, but just you come back in 500 years time”

Outside the Telekom Office block is a bit of a really mixed bag of plants, Crotons, Duranta, Hibiscus, Cordyline, Heliconia all tangled together. Both David and looked at it, looked at each other, and said “Hibiscus all the way down the street”. It’s about 50 metres of frontage onto the western end of Mendana Avenue, up to the Supreme Court and if we can get the hibiscus up to shoulder height they’ll block a lot of the traffic fumes and visual stuff. Getting a range of plants here is awkward, there’s not a lot of choice in what we plant yet, just what we can produce in the nursery mostly Duranta, Cordyline, Crotons, Hibiscus and Bougainvillea. Our palms have to be well grown enough to stop people hacking them off with a bush knife at night, actually that applies to most plantings we do in town and along the median strip.

We’ve stopped pruning the Bougainvillea for a few months, and the Hibiscus. I noticed a lot of buds forming last week walking through town, so asked the pruning ladies to hold back on cutting, already a lot of the bougainvillea are in flower, purples and hot pinks, with a few of the orange ones opening as well now. Once I can get some good solid poles, I’ll get the bougainvillea in the tubs trained up about 2 – 3 metres so the flowers hang down.

It’s elections next year here, and already the letters are going into the Solomon Star about the graft, lack of visibility of the MP’s, wantok getting all the province funding, so it’s going to be an interesting year ahead. Hopefully it won’t turn into another civil war with all the factions running amok in Honiara again. The security warning is still in place, stay away from the centre of Honiara at night, travel in groups at night, do not wander the streets etc. Still a way to go here, although it is a lot safer than Auckland at night. Most of the burglaries are where anyone associated with RAMSI are located, my personal view is that if you are going to splash money, and live high consumption lives here, in front of people who have no income, you’re being stupid. This is still a country recovering from 8 years of Civil War, corruption in Government, with 80% unemployment in Honiara and a lot of ethnic violence against different Island communities. Interesting place for sure.

I could have quite cheerfully killed Adrian this morning. For all his shouting, abuse, and get everyone working to time etc, he went out with the work truck this morning after David and I had got the day planned. It turned into a shambles very quickly. Adrian had the truck drive him all around Honiara looking for wine glasses while David and I waited for an hour for the truck to arrive with the chipper and the crew. Then when they did finally arrive 2 hours late, Adrian proceeded to shout and abuse everyone for taking too long over the pruning and tree cutting, and trying to rush everyone to get the job finished in time. I had a few brief words with him this afternoon, he’s going to get a few more tomorrow once I’ve stopped seeing red and calmed down. I’m not having my tree crews shouted at while they are 15 – 20 metres up a tree with chainsaws and bushknives. One sure way of an accident. And all because he commandeered the truck for his shopping.

He keeps going on about planning the day, and when we do, he proceeds to throw a spanner into it so fast you don’t even see it coming.

Oh well, it’s sunshine, hot, and it probably won’t matter in another 50 years. And I’ve got another weekend away next week getting Orchids and a day or so fishing.

Bob Dylan, Live at Budokan cd’s tonight, with The Band on earlier.

* Stupid Bloody Johnson features as a part character in Disc World.

Pic is of a rain cloud over the island west of Savo at 6.30 one morning.