Thursday 9th September

Ok, I admit defeat, I’m ending the week 4 days behind schedule, only one day of the schedule completed, the post holes have been dug, half the builders mix is here, but nothing else. No posts, wire, posts in the ground, weedmat completed.

I haven’t got the propagation house marked out yet either. Tuesday the person who borrowed our hammers and nail box failed to return then, till today, the handsaws are still out being used on someones house, the builders string line is being borrowed by someone else marking out their house, the axe is being used by someones wife to cut all their firewood, the bushknives have all gone missing as usual, both tape measures, the 100 metre and the 50 metre one have been borrowed and not returned yet. No I can’t just walk down the road and buy another, hammers are $200 - $400, String lines are $85, handsaws start at $300 for a cheap Chinese copy of the Japanese copy of a Sandvik or Stanley, and having spent nearly $2800 last month on tools, there would be questions raised about me buying them all again 3 weeks later.

And there is no definite reason that anyone can pinpoint to show why. Apart from the normal Solomon Island “tomorrow” belief in something happening. I think if I was more results or detail orientated I’d be going spare, but even this is starting to get to me a bit.

Having only one truck again doesn’t help, the old one is in the garage having the starter motor rewound, for the past 2 weeks. There aren’t any modern rewinding tools here, so it comes down to a little old man who comes in at some stage every day, sits down on a knocked up wooden stool, and commences to hand wind hundreds of coils of wire onto the motor. He’s been 2 weeks doing it so far, and it isn’t any good saying anything, he is the acknowledged master of the craft here, and if he gets annoyed, you don’t get it done. Which means getting the motor flown to Brisbane, and rewound there for a considerable sum of money. And no, there aren’t any spare parts here, or spare motors to suit the truck. I have to admire the work he does, it is absolutely brilliant, practically a lost art in any industrialised country now. But it is still 2 weeks in and possibly another one till it is finished. And we are back to one truck and a shite load of work to get done.

Then again, it could be worse and I could be in a country without trucks at all, and relying on water buffalo or donkeys for transport. And a considerably slower pace of life as well. I don’t think I’d cope too well. Too many things to get done and I want to do them NOW!

I might feel better after the weekend, when I have a whole new schedule to dream about following for next week.

High points of the week,

We now have another 500 Archontophoenix seeds in tubes, my zucchini have all sprouted and we have 28 in bags now, the chilli seeds sprouted, the red silverbeet , and the Digitalis rubea. Still waiting to see if the Cordyline australis sprout, and the Jacaranda have survived being transplanted into PB5 bags and are slowly growing. I could say growing fast, as you can actually see the growth rate each day.

Tiff and I had a site meeting with the people developing the new Honiara Casino site at Town Ground end of Honiara, we are high on the list of getting the landscaping to do. They saw my plans that I’d done for Heritage, and looked at what Heritage did, liked it, so they know we can produce. I’ll work with Kennedy on this one though, I got a bit annoyed about Frank using my ideas for Heritage and not acknowledging the fact it was my plans that got him the job.

Anyway, end of another week with some things done, some things not.