Monday 3rd May

I need an air pistol, about a .22 would be nice. My “pet” rat is getting annoying, it bit my foot the other night in bed, woke me up, as it would. I’ve been bathing it (my foot, not the rat) in disinfectant, and putting anti-bacterial cream on. Small bite, barely worth seeing, but it looked a bit red and angry during the day after. I would have gone to the Health Clinic if the bloody truck had started, but that wasn’t going to happen, again.

We’re putting the truck back into the garage again this week. The brakes, which have now been fully renewed from the brake shoes to the master cylinder, are still grabbing and pulling to the right quite viciously, and there is no feel to the pedal, it is nothing then suddenly you are banging your head on the windscreen. I’m past caring about it, I’d like to take it to a proper garage, but we have to use the company one.

I keep trying to stay enthused about the nursery, but after a year so far, and all we have is a drawing and a tentative lease, until we get the building permit we are stuck again. It is going to be another month of waiting now till the Planning Dept decide. Still it gives me time to mark out on the site, and we should have everything from Brisbane arriving by the end of this month as well.

We (Tiff mostly) have rearranged the office to make room for Kim to fit in, she’s Tiffs assistant for a while till things settle down. I was in at work yesterday emptying the cartons of folders, files etc, sorting stuff out. Today we moved the drop file cabinet in, I sort of put the files back in order, more along the lines of “Oh look an empty drawer, now it’s full” style of sorting. We need a better aircon, or two. I’m sure we could cook lunch on the container roof by midafternoon. I may paint them white, or get a hose spraying on them all day.

Pineapple, banana and pawpaw with fresh chillies chopped in is nice! Well, it’s sweet, spicy and nice, if you like chilli, I may go overboard with them. 1 pineapple, 1 pawpaw, 8 small bananas, the little round sweet ones, and about 30 little chillies. The juice is enough to peel the skin off your tongue, but it still has the sweetness from the pineapple. Good for breakfast, or so I’ve found this week so far.

Tony gave me a tin of Rat Glue to try, as they won’t eat the $500 poison. It looks like grey bondafil/bodyfiller and stays sticky forever. It is spread on a piece of cardboard at the moment, with the bench oven on one side, the wall the other, and a banana placed in the corner as bait. Joel tried it at his place opposite me on Saturday, and caught 2 rats Saturday night, and another on Sunday night. They get stuck, and can’t get off it. I wonder if I could do Rat onna Stick with Sauce barbque? They are plump bloody things, similar to the NZ Kiorie. Pale brown fur, not like the Norwegian ship rats.

If the glue doesn’t work, I know the poison doesn’t, I’ll get the crew to keep a look out for a smallish boa to put loose in the house for a while. With the bedroom door well closed at night.

The RCDF (Rural Constituency Development Fund) has been put on hold till after the election now. While it has been allocated, it is now being held so the MPs can’t spend it till the new parliament is formed in August. I think the outcry in the Solomon Star may have had something to do with Sikua making the decision over the weekend, and announcing it in this mornings Sol Star. I can’t see most of the current lot of MPs being voted back in, but this is the Solomons, and bribery is a way of life here. Buying votes seems to be the only way to get elected, if you don’t throw money around the wantok, you’ll never get a single vote. They receive a huge amount of money for development in each constituency, but it all seems to get wasted in dribs and drabs, instead of one or two major developments, it goes on small stuff scattered all over the provinces. It may keep the people happy in the short term, but there is never anything permanent done with it, vote buying seems to be the main use. $10 million a year from Taiwan just vanishes. Like the $8 million Cattle fund. I could go on, but it gets too depressing when you consider what all that money could have done.