Wednesday 13th May

6.22pm and we have the most spectacular lightning and thunderstorm going on. I’m not going out to get pics, it means going through the trees here to the cliff edge, and the rain is coming in from that direction. Maybe in another year when the camera isn’t quite so new. The thunder sounds like a bowling ball rolling along the boards, then the crackle and flash of the lightning comes after a few seconds.

I know that isn’t the usual sequence, but it seems to happen that way a fair bit here, or else there is more lightning that I don’t see happening further over in the hills.

I’ve been hoping for a good storm out in the bay to get some good pics of, but the weather pattern seems to be holding South at the present. It’s been so humid and hot the last week, I’d almost trade some of the weather that hit NZ the last week, almost.

We’ve been given the go ahead to try for a 2 story building in the Nursery, Forestry are really pushing for us to be out, and if we can get a new building purpose built, it will suit us a lot better. Initial costing is way over our budget by about $500,000, but it had all the bells and whistles which we can do without. Instead of 4 toilets, we’ve cut it to 2, and a few walls we don’t need, so it’s going to look fairly basic, which is good. Office and classroom upstairs which the Japanese will love, anything that has an educational component is exactly what they like to see, and it ties in with my future plans for the Nursery.

I haven’t heard back from Keithie about cutting out the free work, Bruce called a couple of times today about the building proposal, and never mentioned it either. We’re still chasing as much contract work as possible, I’ll catch up with Les at Council tomorrow and twist his arm for the Council Plant Supply Contract for the Nursery. It’s not as spectacular money wise, well, not as quick that is, but selling 200 – 300 plants at a time at $40 - $70 each depending on species certainly fills the coffers.

We had a 15” Diamond Python call into the office today, David saw it outside the door, picked it up and put it in the shrubbery away from the office. The weather is definitely changing, a lot of different things are coming out for the dry season. Beetles, moths, snakes, a lot more green tree lizards around, and the bloody mosquitos are driving me crazy at work along the track. David is going to try to find the python that lives around the lily pond for me, so I can get a photo. It’s about 6’ long and he says it is about 4” thick. I’m guessing it lives quite well off the frogs there. I wish it would catch the cat that lives in the house there, it keeps killing the lizards and skinks around the lily pond, and moves to fast for me to get with a bush knife.

One more day of exams for the students, then a days break Friday, Graduation Ceremony Monday, barbque and food on the lawn area, pics for the paper etc. And hopefully they will all get a job in town with the hotels and other landscape people. They’ve all done well, considering I still use a lot of English, at least I can understand them when they ask anything in toktok pijin. Then it becomes a matter of thinking up a suitable example from here that I can use to demonstrate or explain with.

Family, genus, and species still confused a few, and cultivar/hybrid, so we went back to the Family = Melanesian, Genus = which province they are from, species = wantok, cultivar = themselves. I know it’s a bit of a rough and ready comparison, but it works for them.

The heavy rain has finally arrived, 30 minutes after the thunder started. Pounding down on the trees and roof here.

I’m on a roll tonight, I’ve got electricity, and water both at the same time, so the poor little washing machine is working overtime.

Hopefully I’ll have a quiet day Saturday, and manage to upload some pics to my Webshots albums finally. The connection here is so slow, I’m having to resize all the pics so I don’t spend all day uploading them one at a time.
Hi to Polly (Fionn) in Bantry, nice to see you again.

Pic is of one of the statues carved by Kennedy and Frank in the Museum Grounds

Tuesday 12th May

After having a night to think it through, I asked Shirleyta and Tiffany for a list of all the free stuff we do through town, and a rough guess at how many crew and for how long each week, we spend on them

It took a while to compile, but the final figures came to $14,750 per month in wages alone for work we don’t get paid to do. Nearly half our monthly wages bill, add in diesel, tools and maintenance for equipment, and we’d be close to $20,000 a month.

I wrote it all up, added a letter saying that due to the present financial shortfall as discussed, we have cut back on all free work until such time as we are in a better financial situation, and sent it off to Keithie. I’m expecting a blast tomorrow at least, or then again, it may be what is needed to show where all the money is going.

We have enough contracts to keep everyone employed at least 4 days a week, and with the private work slowly coming in, we should be able to keep everyone on fulltime. Here’s hoping anyway

Priced another big job today, one days work a week for 4 people, mostly lawn cutting, a bit of weeding, and some more shrubs to be planted around one of the PDL Toll houses. PDL Toll are the Logistics Company that supply all the back up for RAMSI and the Army here, food, clothing, supplies, equipment etc. It used to be Patrick Defence Logistics, but Toll Holdings bought them out a couple of years back.

I got a letter back from one of the MPs about the Orchids, Not bad, one reply from 50 sent. But at least we’ll have Orchids from Malaita, which has some really spectacular flowers there

And one MP and one former Prme Minister having their photo taken for the Solomon Star and an article about their generosity.

There’s not a lot been happening lately, I’ve run into a brick wall, mostly with the exam week with the students, power cuts, working most weekends juggling contracts and staff numbers.

Another week and I’ll be back on Savo for another 4 day weekend, hopefully that will recharge the batteries and I’ll be looking forward again.

Monday 11th May

It’s so good to have order restored again. I’ve got electricity, water, an empty fridge after everything defrosted and went off over the weekend, but mostly fruit so that’s cheap enough to replace.

I managed to get Andrews and Emorys application forms on Friday, after a 2 hour wait in the National Training Unit office. Now all we need is copies of all their certificates, references etc and send it all off for approval. It may take a month or more for the applications to be processed, Steve has had a word with his counterpart in the NZ Aid office, so hopefully they will look kindly on them.

Now I know how the system works here, I’ll see how successful we are with Andrew and Emory, then start looking for Nursery training for a couple of the girls next year as well.

We’re running out of money as usual to run everything. I’ve been going through our accounts, and we do an awful lot of free stuff as part of the keep Honiara beautiful thing. Keithie is concerned and is talking about laying off staff, I’m trying to get more contract landscaping work, mowing lawns, keeping gardens maintained for the RAMSI and PDL people. Then we’ll have to take a good look at what we do, and who we can charge for it. The Childrens Playground is maintained by us, it’s a constant drain for paint, timber repairs etc, and we don’t have any income from it or anyone to charge for the repairs, it’s not the only place, David and I are going to get together this weekend and go through our contracts and workload, and drop anything we do for free until we can find sponsors or income to cover it.

It’s all a bit Walt Disney, SEB is Keithies brainchild, full marks to her for being so persistent in getting it all underway. Now we have 20 families dependent on SEB for income, and it’s moved beyond being a hobby project, we need to be a lot more business like

One of the many Chinese shopkeepers in town yesterday swept his shop out, and as they do here, just piled the rubbish around the base of one of the trees, and set fire to it in the main street. Consequently, the tree burnt through, and collapsed. We’re going to replace the tree, but the shopkeeper is getting a bill from me in the morning for the damage and replacement, and if he kicks up about it, the police will be charging him with destroying Council Property. It may wake a few of them up, although that is going to be a long hard job. All of them are the same, they sweep all the rubbish onto the sidewalk, and leave it, even with a rubbish bin next to the shop.

I can sympathise with the locals for burning out Chinatown in the riots in 2006.

Tiffany and Keithie have a meeting with Forestry tomorrow, about the threat to have SEB evicted from the Gardens. It’ll be interesting, we’ve been maintaining the Gardens for the past 6 years out of our own funds, if they evict us, there’ll be a bill sent for the work we’ve done, plus I’ll be packing everything in the Nursery to take with us.

All the students started the final week exams today, 2 exams a day till Thursday, then graduation Friday. As much as I’d like to keep some of them on, present circumstances aren’t going to let me. I think all of them should pass the tests, I’ve made them all multi choice, ok, a few I’ve played with, by giving them several answers all correct to mark, but overall, everything is from their workbooks.

Just realised I’ve been here 3 months now. Looking back, there’s been a few changes already, the Nursery plants are looking better, the potting soil is working, now it’s time to concentrate on getting more income producing work. And David is more trusting of me and what we are trying to do.

Pic is of the Stadium at Town Ground, a more useless waste of money I've yet to see here.

Sunday 10th May

I’ve finally got power back on at the house, it’s been patchy since Friday evening. There was a really good thunder and lightning storm Friday evening and my power decided to go and hide somewhere for the weekend. It has been on at odd times, an hour or so yesterday morning, a few hours this morning, but nothjing you could actually trust to be on continuously

We spent Friday at the gardens, tidying up, clearing the rubbish etc, I’ve got one more exam to write up tomorrow, while they are starting the first 6 for the week.

Saturday I went into the Gardens, the power was on there, so I worked in the office with the airconditioning on. Apart from the interruptions by people coming through the gardens wanting information, I got 4 exams written up between yesterday and today.

Other than the rainwater tank, I’m without water again, it’s just a waiting game now till it hiccups and gushes forth. I haven’t been able to work out the piping system here yet, so I’ll leave it well alone now I’m used to it.

Pic is of a moth that was in the office yesterday, it’s about 100mm across, and about 125mm long. If anyone knows the name, please let me know.

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.

Tuesday 5th May

My apologies to everyone I was talking to online yesterday or today, and I just vanished abruptly. Out Telekom, emphasis on the “Our”, is having bandwidth problems, so they continually cut access at odd times, or slow down the rate for uploading and downloading. It’s driving me up the wall here. It took 2 hours this morning to open my hotmail account, from 7.45am till 9.30, then just as I got it to finally open, the power was cut off for 2 hours.

I’m learning a lot of bad toktok pijin words from Shirleyta, she’s teaching me the ones you can use in mixed company, and also ones you try not to use if the minister calls in.

I gave up trying to upload anything at all today, probably a good thing, I’ve got 4 more exam papers to write up by Friday, so not being able to goof off is a good thing.

Shirleyta and I looked at another house we’ve been asked to landscape. I’m turning it into a tropical garden, banana, pawpaw, bougainvillea, orchids, palms on the slope above the house to block the chinese peoples view. All simple straight forward stuff, a few days work for the crew, so that’s good. We’ve got a contract to look after one of the gardens we put in last month, a few days per month for 4 people once a week, mowing the lawns, trimming shrubs, clearing rubbish.

David was a bit hesitant about it, as I said to him, it’s 4 days pay for 4 people we don’t have to worry about now, one day each week, a few more contracts like that, and we’re home safely with everyones wages. We’ve got the middle of the Road, MID, contract finally signed with the Council, 3 days per week for 15 people, from sweeping to mowing, planting, tubs, and the highway from King George IV School to Henderson Field to mow and plant.

David and I felt so embarrassed, together, that’s a first, over the Taiwanese warships that called in over the weekend. I’ve mentioned the $10million dollars that has gone missing from Taiwan supposedly for the Cattle Development Fund, this weekend 428 sailors from the ships decided that the best thing they could do for Honiara was to clean the town up, and they picked up all the rubbish through the town on Friday. David really felt embarrassed that tourists could come here, and they had to show the locals how to pick up rubbish, and how to make the town look tidy. On top of which, the Taiwanese then put on a full days entertainment in Lawson Tama Stadium of martial arts, bands, displays of Taiwanese traditional dance, and food.

Needless to say, the ships left yesterday, and the rubbish is already back through town. It can get depressingly frustrating here at time.

The prison job is progressing really well. The guys from inside are good to work with, keen, and hard working. We’ve got most of the formwork in place for the centre garden area, and flagpoles. Hopefully the concrete will be poured tomorrow, all hand mixed, and then we start with the paving and garden.

From next week I’m embarking on a serious get fit, well, get moving campaign. Walking to and from work each day, it should help get the last few kilos I need to lose off me, being as David continuously tries to stop me actually doing stuff. It’s going to be a running battle with us for a bit longer yet, although he’s slowly coming around. I’m down to one meal a day, I’ve cut the coffee out a lot, back to water again during the day, although the difference between coffee and the water here is neglible, they are both the same colour at times.
Our Rover Mulcher has been used so much it’s started to buckle the exit plate underneath. Or one of the blades has become bent. Whichever, it started making a clanging noise today, so there is my early morning fix-it job for tomorrow. It’s certainly paid for itself in the short time we’ve had it. There has been over 5cu m of compost, coconut husk, and potting mix put through it so

far.

Pic is of one of the orchids in the Orchid House

Sunday 3rd May

It’s been a mixed weekend as usual. Adrian has been asked not to return to the Prison job, his attitude towards the prisoners wasn’t all that good, not in a demeaning way, but just his usual shouting and overbearing manner. So that leaves David and I at a bit of a loss, I’ve got 2 weeks left with the students, and exams for them next week, the work crews are all busy, but hopefully David can sort them out early in the morning and continue on at the Prison. It’s a nuisance, but not to be unexpected.

David had my little truck on Friday afternoon, and went home with the keys, and was out of phone area, so I walked home. I must be getting better, it only took me 45 minutes to get to Kukum from the Gardens. Managed to get hold of him this morning, and he bought the truck back this afternoon. Full of apologies, and I think Tiffany gave him an earful as well. I gave him a loaf of fresh baked bread for his troubles, so he felt a bit better.

The power was off all day yesterday from 8.30am till 9pm, I walked into Chinatown and bought a new tip for my surfcaster rod, it got damaged in transit I think, but all ready for Savo now. It left me with all the washing to get done this morning, but without a vehicle, there’s not really anywhere within walking distance I felt like going to. The day started off brilliant sunny, then turned to rain for a while this afternoon. It’s now back to hot and humid at 9pm, I’ve got all the ceiling fans in each room on trying to get some air movement.

Spent most of Saturday inside, it rained, and without any power to get the fans on, it was humid and sticky and I was hoping David would find the keys and bring them back. It was good though, read through the Nikon manual, I’ve got a lot more controls to play with on the camera, and more settings than I’ll probably ever use, but then again.

Rose got me thinking about doing postcards for here, there aren’t a lot available, and most of the ones that are available, are all about 10 – 15 year old pictures, from before the troubles. And not very good pictures at that. The Nikon has a few settings for picture quality and colour, that relate to using Adobe for colour balance and definition, which is great for publications, ArcSoft and Irfan View are good, but Adobe has the wider number of people in publishing using it. I’ve reset the Nikon to High Def for everything, thank the Lord for Pix-resizer, actually, thank someone else for telling me about it a few years ago. Great for resizing any size picture down to a manageable size for web pages and email without losing any quality.
Now that the weather is changing, my little garden is starting to actually grow now, it looked really sad for the last couple of months. I think the constant rain wasn’t all that good for the plants, now we get 4 or 5 days a week without rain, it’s all starting to grow better. I’ve tried again with more beans, and coriander, some cayenne chillies, and capsicums. I’ve still got a lot of seeds to use, a few at a time to try and get the right time for them. My cucumbers have taken till now to set fruit, there’re a lot of small cucumbers formed, hopefully they will all grow.

Pic is of my fresh bread from yesterday