Wednesday 10th June

Thunder clouds behind Honiara

Work crew family swimming in the river

Another day, sunshine and busy for a while. We’re almost up to planting stage with Rove Prison. The truck load of soil Wilson got this morning was barely enough for half the garden area, but never mind, another load tomorrow.

It’s going to look fairly good when we get it finished, green duranta with gardenias in the front, duranta border with hibiscus for the side gardens and a palm at each end. In the words of Stupid Bloody Johnson, it may look a mess now, but just you come back in 500 years.

I spent another frustrating afternoon trying to get internet pages to open. I want to contact Carann Agencies in New Zealand and get prices for good planter bags for the nursery. After nearly 2 hours I finally go the home page for them to open, then the power went off for an hour, so it was start over again and finally giving up at 5pm,

I’ve managed to send 6 photos to VSA so far this week, ok, I know they are huge images, 4.5 MB, but they take an hour to load, then email times out just before they load fully, next time VSA want pictures I’ll send them on a thumbdrive so long as I get it back by return post. 1GB thumbdrive here is $800, 4GB are over $1200.

We’re having a lot of lightning and thunder storms the last couple of days. No rain, just the crackle and flash of lightning followed by the multiple car crash sound of thunder. It’s very impressive to be looking at a blue sky and over the hills behind Honiara are black cumulous clouds rolling and crackling with lightning.

The weather for the weekend is looking good, I’d like 4 days of calm on Savo, both to collect orchids, and also for the fishing.

Tuesday 9th June

View along the waterfront towards Honiara, rubbish, wrecked freighter

Caesalpinia in flower Mendana Ave Honiara

Had a busy day finally with the inmates from Rove Prison. Well, it’s always a busy day with them, I meant finally a day when I felt like I’d done something.

I had 2 of the guys up at the Nursery again feeding compost through the mulcher, they put through about 2 metres of compost, hopefully it will keep Imelda happy for a while potting. I only have them for 1 ½ hours a at a time, and they work flat out. It was getting close to 11am, and they were due back at Rove at 11, but they decided to finish off the heap first. The 2 wardens didn’t mind, they were busy chatting to Imelda and Dorisse, so it was closer to 11.15 when I dropped them back. David (Prison David) didn’t mind, just so long as we don’t make a habit of it initially while the programme is being trialled.

We tried to mulch some of the coconut husks, but they’ve got really wet sitting in the shade, and the mulcher just clogged up continuously, so it was back to the next compost heap for a good hours workout. The guys back at the prison have got the garden beds ready, we’re waiting on some good farm soil from the prison farm to arrive, then we can plant the area out.

It’s funny walking up to the Nursery with them. They have one warder for each guy, no guns, batons, chains etc, but they walk up holding hands. The warders are about half the size of the inmates, at times I wonder who is leading who in the work party. The guys have no intention of stuffing this trial up, I’m pretty sure they would suffer inside if they stopped it being a permanent exercise.

I’ve been really slack the past few weeks, not having classes doesn’t help, and the work crews are organised, there’s nothing there for me to get involved with. David has the work organised, he’s been doing it long enough to not need me telling him what to do. About all I do is make suggestions about the timing of jobs, so we don’t have the truck running all over Honiara needlessly. If we don’t have the soil arrive at Rove Prison tomorrow, I’ll take David and we’ll go stealing bougainvillea cuttings from around town. I’ve found a lot we don’t have in the nursery double white, double reds, apricot, so Imelda can do cuttings and we can grow them up. The same with the Hibiscus.

I think next year will be interesting politically here, the papers are filling up with a lot of mud slinging, it may get interesting as time goes by. So much wasted money by politicians supporting their wantok, instead of the whole village or constituency. They claim to have found the $10 million from Taiwan, now it’s a bun fight over who is going to get any of it. I’m just curious to know where or how they found it, was it in a briefcase or trunkbox under someones bed?

The humidity has dropped a lot the last week, it’s a lot drier, I don’t feel as though I’m in a sauna all day, another month and it will be a nice time to visit here. David said the fishing improves from now till November, with the tuna and marlin appearing. I’d love to catch one, but I’ll be happy with the kingfish or a good size grouper. There were a few small bluefin tuna at the market Sunday, about 30 kg size, selling for $70 and $90 each. If I could be sure they were reasonably fresh, and kept on ice, I’d be tempted to get one, and have tuna steaks and sashimi and salt cured fillets. I know I’m going to weaken one Sunday morning down there, the fish all look good, well, as good as you would expect at 7 am, before the sun gets onto them. Shirelyta was telling me off the other day for going early to the markets, you get cheaper prices towards the end of the day, the growers don’t want to take produce back. I know this, but I’d prefer to get stuff that is fresher than what it is after all day in the heat and sunshine. The fruit doesn’t get as badly wilted, but the bok choy, lettuce and cabbage all looks wilted by midday.

I’m getting better at bartering, or else they are starting to recognise me there each week, and I’m getting local prices, not the whitefella prices. Giving out prints of the photos I took helps as well.

I’m trying to help put an article together with VSA for publicity in New Zealand, the article isn’t a problem, most of it has been written by Adele, based on my rambling thoughts, trying to get photos sent is a different matter. They need full size jpegs, 4MB size, it takes me an hour to load one pic, then 15 min to send, then I can start uploading the next one. So far this week I’ve managed to send 5 photos starting at 7 am and checking progress every hour or so. I was hopeful gmail would let me send a couple at once, and load quicker than hotmail, but nope, 1 photo at a time, and as slow as hotmail to upload. I get rather frustrated with broadband here. As you may have noticed.

I’m away to Savo, I know, I keep mentioning this, on Thursday, 1 pm from the Visitors Centre. 4 days of not very much to do, collect orchids, go fishing, drink beer and sleep on the beach. I’m taking a lot of spices with me, if I catch any decent fish I’m cooking them myself on the barbque there. The food isn’t much there. Imagine a foreign cook who has been told of European food, but missed a bit in the translation, and everything is almost what you recognise, but not quite. A bit like Arthur Dents cup of tea on the Heart of Gold in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. It’s almost exactly not what you expect.

They don’t do toast there either, as Rosalee found out. I guess that is too hard to translate into toktok.

I almost feel like suggesting my daughter comes up here for 6 months and teaches them how to cook, but that would probably go down like a lead balloon in Brisbane. I know Sir Alan at Sunset Lodge would welcome the idea. It’s never been particularly well known for the food there, the setting is gorgeous though, and close enough to Honiara to make weekend trips quick and easy.

Central Market Entrance
Central Market

Central Market

Monday 8th June

Had a funny sort of conversation with David this morning. He came into work with the work truck and everyone riding on the back, got everyone sorted with work, then settled himself into the office, looked at me and asked if he could ask me a question. He wanted to know why I haven’t dived into landscaping and told him what to do with the plantings etc through town. All I could say to him was that for the first 3 months of being here I’ve had the Level 2 Course to run, the nursery to change a few things in, and apart from the area outside the Post Office down to Telekom, what he’s been doing is perfectly good, and until we get a better selection of plants growing in the nursery, he’s done a bloody good job with few resources, and I doubt I could have done any better.

He’s got so used to advisors coming in, making changes to everything, then once they go it all falls apart because none of the changes or methods really work here. I told him I don’t break things that are working just to fix them, there are things we need to change, and we are slowly, one thing at a time, which works better here than expecting everyone to instantly alter how they do things.

My main focus is the Nursery, and getting more variety in the plants we produce, then we can start adding to the landscaping. It’s hard to do much with the selection we have at the moment, 2 varieties of Duranta, 3 colours of bougainvillea, 5 or 6 colours in hibiscus, rowea, and some prostrantha, allamanda, palms. What we do get done actually looks good, they are all hardy street plants, so other than trimming, we don’t have to be constantly tending them. Other than when some idiot drives over the roundabouts or crashes through the median strip.

I’d like to get some Nandina, for the burnt reds and orange colours, and maybe some of the hardier Australian brachyscome and erigeron for ground cover.

We’re going back up to Mt Austin again this week, hopefully, to see the committee from Kakabono. They are planting flowers furiously through the bare patches on the hillsides, I’d like to see them also plant fruit and nut trees to attract the birds back into the area, and some of the flowering nectar trees as well.

Our stakes in the tubs have lasted nearly a whole week, without being pulled out, so it may work. The longer leaders on the bougainvillea are clinging to the stakes, so another couple of months they should be up to the top and starting to bush out better.

Booked for Savo Island today. 1pm Thursday from the Visitors Centre for the weekend. There’s not a lot to do there, I’m not into the touristy things like village visits and volcano walks, done that in New Zealand and other places, and after one volcano another one is just more steam vents and bubbling hot pools. Definitely going fishing though, that never stops being interesting. Some orchids for the Orchid House, and a lot of fishing, some Sol Brew in the afternoons, a lot of pictures as usual.

It’s elections here next year, I’ve mentioned that before. The Solomon Star and the Island Sun are running hot with letters castigating various MPs and their faults. The big thing at the moment is the suggestion that women be given 10 reserved seats in Parliament just for them, without having to contest in the main election process. I’m not in favour of it, where do you stop with it? 10 reserved seats for dwarves, 10 reserved seats for gays???? It may take a while for women to get accepted in Parliament here, it’s a very patriarchal society, and has been for all its history. Change by legislation never works. And there are women who do stand a chance working for election in the provinces now.

I keep thinking of the disaster Helen Clark proved to be in New Zealand by the end of her term, the whole socialistic Mummy Gov knows best attitude. All it did was make everyone dependent on the Government, and stifled any innovation or willingness to just get up and do it.

I’ve been telling a lot of people for the past few years to buy gold, and store it, instead of getting sucked into shares and property schemes. Gold is now just under the $1000 per ounce mark, I’m picking it will hit $2000 per ounce by the end of this year at the earliest, or by May next year. The US economy is heading south at a great rate, if China and the Asian countries start dumping the reserves of US currency they hold, it will drop the bottom right out of the US $. I can’t see that throwing more money at everything as Obama is doing now will help, it was having cheap credit and too much money available that lead to this whole thing, more money floating in the system isn’t going to help stabilise anything. I saw a report last week, the US has borrowed or printed 4,385% of currency above what gold it holds in storage. I know no one uses the Gold Standard anymore, but it’s a bit like Terry Pratchett wrote, we mightn’t actually use gold, but we need to know it’s there. (Making Money, Moist Von Lipswig). And given the lack of manufacturing in the US now, the US $ is backed with promises and not very much else. Buy Gold Now!

It was a quiet weekend in Honiara, only 3 stabbings, 5 burglaries, 16 yr old student got caught with a couple of others burglarising (?) a house, big shock headlines in the Solomon Star about it, wondering where his parents were, what were they doing while he was out at 3am robbing houses etc. And also should he be allowed bail to sit his 6th form exams, who will guarantee his behaviour etc. The stabbings were all Kwaso related, drunken idiots fired up playing with bushknives.

The burglaries were all ex-pat houses, RAMSI or consultants, with laptops, cameras, stereos etc taken. My laptop travels with me all the time, I never leave it in the house if I’m not here, or if I’m going away it stays at work locked up. Same with the camera.

We had a terrific thunder storm today, no rain, but great lightning and thunder. A lot of crackle, and crashing noise, several long rolls of bookcases falling over sound effects, and lightning dancing everywhere. It’s certainly the start of the dry season, we can expect a lot more of it for the next month or so till the weather pattern settles. The report for this years El Nino isn’t looking good, it’s starting to affect the ocean currents now, with warmer water moving closer already, so we will be a lot drier than normal. The usual rubbish about stop CO2 emissions in the paper, save the sea ice or we’ll all drown, and what will the polar bears do without sea ice. As Archimedes demonstrated 3,000 years ago, if it’s floating in the water now, it displaces an equal volume, so melting the sea ice won’t make a damn bit of difference to sea levels, and all that the polar bears use the ice for is to hunt seal pups, and if the ice isn’t there, the seals will be on land like they are everywhere else there isn’t ice, so the bears will have an easier time getting them without the ice.

And my plants need CO2 to grow, so what’s it going to be, a desert without plants, or more plants sucking up the CO2?

We need more sunspots, the current sunspot cycle is the lowest on record since the Maunder minimum, when the Thames used to freeze over and ice fairs were held on rivers and lakes in Europe.

That’s my Monday gripe session over with.

Friday 5th June

Kennedy and Tiffany
Shirelyta giving forth fo rthe TV News

SEB Work Crew World Environment Day March

WED Parade Mendana Ave

It’s World Environment Day. We had a street parade through Honiara, up to the Cultural Park opposite the Solomon Island Bank. Mix of music, the obligatory speeches from the politicians about “Climate Change” and how we can prevent it happening. I keep thinking of King Canute whenever I hear that. Although all he was doing was proving to his courtiers that the King was not omnipotent, and he could not control the sea or nature. It would be nice if the present bunch of scaremongerers would realise it as well.

The music was good, started with a bit of Island style gospel, well, sort of like gospel singing, then the reggae boys came on and it improved considerably. Very heavy on the Bob Marley RIP, and a bit of homegrown music. Most of the work crew stayed on for the day, listening to the music in the sunshine.

Caught up with Keithie there, she’s confident Honiara Council will back and support us more now. There is a new Mayor and Town Clerk who are easier to work with, so we may get more work, and funding from them for the work we do on their behalf through town. Add in the training as well, and it looks like Forestry jumped a bit too soon.

The local tv crew were there, trying to get me in front of the camera talking about environment issues, climate change CO2 etc, but I managed to keep away. I’d probably say everything they didn’t want to hear. Shirelyta had a bit of a say though, the trouble they had wasn’t in getting her to talk, it was more trying to get her to stop.

Kennedy was there, the tourism office is happy with having a statue by him there, but as usual, it comes down to price. We’ll keep working on it. I really want more art work around town, but it’s going to always be a risk at the moment till people start to appreciate stuff more.

Someone drove through the ANZ roundabout last night, not too badly, well, the driving was atrocious, but the damage wasn’t too bad, just a few plants around the edge. And only one of our stake sets in the bougainvillea has been damaged so far, which is better than I expected. I didn’t think they’d last one night, but we still have the weekend to go yet. If they last this weekend, they should be there for a while.

I finally told David today about the Forestry ultimatum, we’ve put off telling him until we had some good news to go with it. Now it appears we won’t be evicted, I took him over by the river to our toktok seat, under the breadfruit tree on the riverbank and gave him a copy of the letter from Forestry. I let him read it, then said we have good news as well, and we have Council backing us finally. He’s very upset over it all, he’s been working for SEB for 7 years now, and really tries to do his best for Honiara, and making the town look good with the parks and gardens. In a way he’s pleased about it, it gives him a reason for letting the 2 night security guys go, they do a good job, but spend too much time with Robert the Forestry employee who lives next to the nursery, feeding him stuff about what we’re doing, and believing the rubbish Robert tells them about what SEB are doing.

I’ll be pleased when things settle down, it’s been one crisis after another since I’ve been here, not major ones like this till now but stuff that suddenly comes up and disrupts everything for a week or so.

One more week, then another weekend on Savo.

Wednesday 3rd June/Thursday 4th June

It’s been one of those days when nothing seemed to matter much, a bit of goofing off, a bit of work, more goofing off, fun.

My guys from Rove Prison couldn’t get permits signed yesterday, so another day before they can get day release and come up to the Nursery. Not to worry, they have done a great job so far, and tomorrow will be digging all the stones out of the garden beds, and deep digging to break the soil up. Then we’ll add in the compost and some fertiliser. It’s looking like Monday before we’ll be finished now, I was hoping for Friday, but this is the Solomons.

We had a couple of young guys plastered on Kwaso hanging around the Gardens this morning, one of them was one of the crew that put the water flow meter in last week, and was becoming a bit of a nuisance with his mate, so I put them both into the truck and ran them into Point Cruz, hoping they’d not find their way back. They arrived back this afternoon, considerably the worse for wear, I had Andrew cracking up. We were building some steps for the meter readers so they can get to the flow meter for readings, and the 2 drunks were on the river bank opposite us, singing, and being nothing more than a mild irritation. I said to Andrew that that was what he looked like on weekends when he goes out chasing girls with his mates, all drunk. He gets so embarrassed, he doesn’t drink, and he and Imelda are usually together at weekends, but he’s just fair game for winding up.
Anyway, the drunks got to the stage where they were starting to harass some of the schoolgirls studying at the tables, David was doing his best to ignore them, he doesn’t like dealing with trouble very much, so I wandered over, managed to get them away from the students for a while, but it didn’t last. Then it got a bit aggro, one of them started with the whitefalla/black falla burble, which didn’t impress me at all. After a few cheap insults going my way, managed to get things under control, and got them started on the road out of the gardens. Both of them too drunk to be much of a physical threat, more bluster and bravado, but still not pleasant. Kwaso is like meth with the effect it has on the locals, totally unpredictable, all of the murders here lately have been after a kwaso session, no wonder the police are really cracking down finally on the distillers. Since the murders in Central Market, there’s been a more visible police presence through the town, I still don’t go out at night though.

After that episode I felt like some light relief, so I got the short bits of bamboo offcuts from the lengths we are using in the tubs and made some throwing darts with them. About 30” long, cardboard fins, and a length of string to throw with. I don’t think anyone had seen them before here, spears and stuff yes, but not the short throwing darts. I was a bit worried about the first throw, I usually stuff it up, and hit the ground about 3’ in front of me, but I must have got everything right this time. Drifted the first dart about 100 yds across the gardens, put the second one about 5’ from it, then everyone wanted to have a play. I’m pleased I wasn’t in competition with anyone. Jacks first throw was about 20yds past mine, then it turned into a competition amongst them all. I’ve got to make about a dozen more tomorrow for all their kids now. Some of the guys would be great javelin throwers, the girls weren’t far behind the guys in distance either.

I missed Les at Council Works, he’s away on holiday till next week, so I hope Keithie has better luck with the Council Head of Works tomorrow. There’s space at SICCHE for us, it’s a bit cramped, but will be ok, and we can probably steal a bit more as we need it if we go there. Although the Nursery site isn’t required to be close to town, any land within 30 minutes of Honiara would be fine. We’ve got warehouse space at BJS Agencies as a stopgap for the tools and equipment, and hopefully we can get a lockup building somewhere close.

Steve called out today with my CARE parcel from Rosalee, (Thanks Sis). Filters for the camera, good china cups, 2 for Tiffany and Shirelyta, t-shirts, and gardening magazines and books. The magazines and books kept all the crew quiet for a couple of hours while we had the afternoon rainshower. Any more magazines always gratefully accepted. Tiffany was all through them getting landscape ideas, and Imelda was after all the plants from them. I’ll try to visit the Plant Quarantine people next week, and see what we can import into here. Where the money to import them will come from I’m not sure, but I’ll cross that when it happens.


All the crew were asking if New Zealand was like the pictures in the magazines, with the gardens and street design. It’s a totally foreign concept here, having parks and gardens full of flowers, shrubs etc, after looking through the magazines, everyone is keen to do the same thing here, if we can get the plants or seeds. As I’ve said repeatedly, the crew I work with are really keen, hard working and hungry to learn everything.

Another morning spent waiting for internet access, I’m getting used to it, still bloody annoying, but ok, I get to post 2 – 3 days at once eventually.

Most of the trees around the Gardens now have bamboo darts stuck in the branches, while the guys practise aiming and throwing. I’ve been busy a few times making up new ones, till I told them to make their own from now on. There is now a severe shortage of cardboard and bamboo around the office and garden. All of the cardboard has gone into tail fins.

We finally had all the “t”s crossed and the “i”s dotted and 2 of the guys from Rove Prison were allowed out on day release to work up in the nursery making mulch for the garden beds at Rove. They had a long lecture from the Prison Admin about behaviour, then got a brief one very similar from me. I mentioned that if either of my 2 ladies in the nursery felt threatened or harassed by them, they would be back inside so fast it would all seem a dream to them. It probably wasn’t needed, the guys are really quiet, and polite, like everyone in the Solomons. They worked really well feeding compost through the mulcher all morning, we’ve got another day or so to go yet, and David the advisor there is keen to get them outside the prison more often, especially the ones coming up for release.

I may have another job there in a while as well, running Level 1 and Level 2 Horticulture for the inmates, which will be another interesting experience.

It appears that Forestry jumped a bit too soon with trying to evict us from the Gardens, Keithie managed to have a meeting with the Honiara Town Clerk today, and the decision from Council is that we stay, Forestry can wait for us to get the Nursery buildings done first, then they can have their building back. And that is all, we stay in the Gardens, and carry on doing what we have for the past 7 years.

I’d give anything to be a fly on the wall at the Forestry/ Council meeting. The Council own the land, and they have been more than happy for us to manage the Gardens and maintain everything.

David had the crew out late last night, putting bamboo stakes in the tubs along Mendana Ave while the traffic was quiet. We’ve staked the bougainvillea, I’m trying for tall spires of flowers from them, rather than close cropped bushes. It’s just wait and see now how long the stakes stay in without some drunken idiot pulling them out.
Once we get more plants growing in the Nursery, we’ll replace all the crotons/duranta with bougainvillea.

The weather continues hot and dry now, it’s no wonder everyone walks here, and not at a fast walk either. I still end up way ahead of everyone if we are going somewhere, I’ll gradually slow down I think, but it will take a while.

I’m going to Savo Island definitely again next week. We’ve got a 3 day weekend, Friday 12th is Queens Birthday weekend here, so I’ll pull an afternoon off Thursday, collect a few orchids over the weekend, do a bit of fishing finally, and come back Monday.

Tuesday 2nd June

Paving at Rove Prison
Formwork being put in

Paving formwork

Well, it finally happened. Forestry have given us till the end of June to vacate the Botanic Gardens, office, nursery and all. It’s going to be an interesting time finally. I thought Keithie would be going to fight it, but other than the usual letters expressing indignation etc, we’re looking at this as a step forward, and a chance to call in all the favours, and get our own area away from the conflicts that happen here when you have 2 or more Government Departments dealing with something. It’s a bit like the mafia turf wars, a lot of internecine fighting and personality conflicts.

At least it gives me something to really do, and something I’ve done a couple of times now, starting a nursery from scratch. I’m meeting Les at the Council Works tomorrow to see if Council have any land we can lease, or work in with Council over. If I can sell him the idea of working alongside us, and getting the Council plants from us, with training for the Council staff as well, it may work.

Failing that there is land available at SICCHE, the Solomon Island Training Centre on the Kukum Highway.

Pity, I can see the Gardens falling back into a wasteland again, Forestry haven’t the staff to keep up with the maintenance, and the few that are meant to be working with us, at the moment, are the ones cutting the trees and clearing spaces in the forest.
Tiffany and I haven’t told David yet, he’s going to really stress out about it when we do tell him, so I’m hoping we can have an alternative in place quickly before we do tell him.

The job at Rove Prison is going really well, all the paving is done, we start getting the garden ready for planting out tomorrow, digging all the stones out, and adding good compost and mulch to it on Thursday, then planting on Friday. I’ve got 3 of the guys coming up to the nursery tomorrow to run the mulcher, I need about 2 metres of mix for the prison, and they can do enough for Imelda and Jennifer as well, to pay for it.

It’s taken a couple of days to get permission from the Head of Corrections here, luckily there’s a couple of Kiwi advisors working at Rove Prison who are really good to work with, and keen to get the guys outside working. It beats sitting around inside looking at concrete walls for sure. I’ll have to get inside to see the job they want done in the recreation area. From what the guys say, it’s just concrete floor, walls and bare of anything.

Paul my local betel nut seller, stopped me tonight on the way home, and he wants some more pics taken for his family. I’ll have to charge him for them this time, I’m out of paper and nearly out of ink, so I’ll work out a cost per print for him. He was really pleased with the one I took the other day, even though it’s not the best, too much blue in it, and I needed a flash to bring out the shadow detail more. Not to worry, I’m getting used to the camera, and can only get better with it the more I use it. Getting used to the dark complexions here is taking me a while to adjust for, shots I would never usually use a flash for, if it was a European person, I need it to give some detail and lighten faces.

Monday 1st June

Spent the weekend playing with the camera again. Mostly pics of the lilies in the pond, working out what all the settings do. It’s got RAW setting, same as the little nikon did, I’ve never tried using it till now. Huge files from it, 5.8MB pics, it’s meant to be good for publications with all sorts of programmes able to use it for colour/tone adjustment. Thankfully it has a convert programme for RAW to JPEG, even so, I’m still getting 4MB files which are brilliant. Run them through Pixresizer and get them down to a manageable size for emailing and posting.

We had the Anglican Arch Bishop for Melanesia annointed (?) yesterday here, whatever it is they do when a new one is appointed anyway. The Church of St Barnabus was overflowing, tents on the lawn, people everywhere. I was stuck in traffic, being moved on along Mendana Ave, it was as bad today with the Football Final on at Lawson Tama Stadium. Uncles FC vs Kossa FC, there was a long procession from the stadium about 5.30pm with all the Uncles supporters carrying banners and waving flags, Uncles won, 1/0. Football has a huge following here, there are usually 20,000 people at Lawson Tama for a game, the last week as the finals have been on, it’s been nearly full.

I’ll have to stop playing with the camera and get down to taking some actual pictures with it, instead of ones that might be good for screen savers, but of no use to VSA for publicity about what I’m doing here. I’ve had a couple of emails from Wellington asking “So where are the pictures then? I’m more used to being behind the camera, not in front of it, and who wants to see pics of some fat old fart when the scenery and people are a lot better to look at.

Steve is insisting on pics of the work at Rove Prison, I know it will be good publicity for VSA, so just to shut him up I’ll get some tomorrow.

I’ve had water and power all day here, so I’m on the last rinse for the washing, it’s 7.45 pm, the floor has been swept, mopped, I’ve got the starter for this weekends bread put away, everything is back to normal finally, and only a 4 day work week. I’ve booked to go to Savo Island on the weekend of the 12th this time. Friday is a holiday, so I’ll go Thursday afternoon, come back Monday with orchids, and maybe some fish if I can get a good ice box for them.
I’ll fill this with pics of the lilies in the pond, oh, and one of my local betel nut seller Paul. He’s got the stand at the end of the road by the corner shop, does a thriving business.