Tuesday 21st July

Success, we finally got the tray off the little truck, with a bit of hammering and cold chisel work. Then we found the drill bits have gone missing, so it’s another trip to the hardware tomorrow to buy drills, nuts/bolts and wood screws. It may be finished by the weekend, but I’m not saying which weekend

Andrew had a bit of a mishap getting the tray off, and broke the rear window, luckily the glass didn’t all fall out, so I’ve got it all taped up with clear packaging tape till we can get another one from where ever. He came and got me to have a look when he did it, all worried and really apologetic. I looked at it, looked at Andrew, back at the window, then told him he’d be a bit broke for the next couple of weeks when I took the $400 out of his pay for the window. His face was priceless, jaw down to his waist, eyes out on stalks, till I started laughing. He’s slowly getting used to me.

I’m getting used to the pace of life here. 6 months ago I’d have been having a total stress-out over the problems and the time spent on simple things. Now I just light up a cigarette, joke with the crew, wind poor Andrew up all the time, and just accept that it will get done, just not to my arbitrary time frame. Actually even a few months ago, not necessarily 6.
OK Libby, last week.

I’m going to take Steve up about another house, or else he can give the property manager hell about this one. It’s Tuesday evening, 7 pm, and I’ve been without water since Sunday afternoon again. Everyone at work thinks I’ve gone native, swimming in the river every day and walking around till my clothes dry on me. If I let my hair grow a bit more Jennifer will plait it island style, like corn rows then I’ll never fit in with the ex-pats here. Not that I want to anyway, I get annoyed with the attitudes from most of them.

Just had one of my gecko family climb up my back, then onto the laptop, and it waited while I got a few pics. Actually, getting it to go onto the wall was the hardest part, it was quite happy walking up and down my arm. Just a small one, I think the bigger ones eat anything smaller than them, so it’s not a good thing to be a small gecko with no where to run.

Rose is after another job, she asked me today for a reference, I’ll be sorry to see her go. She works well, always happy, and has learnt a huge amount. But with being on a 3 day week, it’s hard on all of them, and if they can get a full time paying job good luck to them.