Wednesday 8th July

Thank God for spreadsheet for dummies, otherwise known as Microsoft Works Spreadsheet. I’ve got the costings to the nearest 20 dollars, I need some accurate figures and then I’ll be able to start fresh with a zero bank balance, but I’ll know where the money is going. We’ve been losing $15,783 each month, just on wages, without catastrophic stuff like truck repairs, weed trimmer repairs.

It makes for a difficult time.

Davids wantok William turned up today, received his termination letter, he didn’t come to work Monday, and got very upset. He is after redundancy, not termination hoping to get a bigger payout, instead of having to work the months notice out. As I pointed out to him, even if we paid him redundancy, he’s had so many advances on his wages this year, he hasn’t got anything to collect. He has 3 weeks holiday time owing, plus this months wages which he’d get as a redundancy payment. Unfortunately, what he owes is still $207 more than he has in credit, so he is going to end the month still owing money and not collecting anything.

He went to a lawyer, or said he had been. Then came back to work threatening to take us to the Employment Court if I didn’t change the wording on his termination letter to redundancy, instead of termination notice. Which is when I pointed out his wage advances. If he works out the month, he might just have some spare, but I doubt we’ll see much of him now. We counted up his days absence do far this year, 23 up to Monday, which isn’t bad for 5 months. Nearly a month off in 5.

The joys of employment issues never stop.

The little truck I’ve been driving, otherwise known as the rust bucket, has to have the tray replaced completely, so David and I are stripping it off tomorrow and Friday and replacing it with a timber deck. We have Vasa wood here, harder than Kwila, and a nice dark colour when it is oiled, so the truck will look quite good when we have finished. David got an exemption notice from the Police so we can continue driving it for a few days while we make repairs. David feels embarrassed when ever he sees me in it, all the other whitefala in Honiara drive new SUV’s, 4WD, Mitsubishi/Toyota/Landrovers and there I am in a beaten up truck, full of rust and dings, and quite happy about it.

It’s late here, we got caught at work with the power cuts this afternoon, and the crew had to wait till 6 pm before we had their wages done. Tiffany only just made it to the Bank in time to get the cash. Very few people use direct payment, actually, very few of them have bank accounts anyway, there isn’t enough money left over to put in the bank.

Wednesday 8th July

I'm dropping this in as an interesting thing to read.

http://www.garynorth.com

It's Not Just That Global Warming Is Fake. What Matters Is Why This Fakery Is Being Promoted.
Gary North

July 3, 2009

Global warming is based 100% on junk science. The most vocal promoters are not interested in the details of physical science. They are interested in two things: political control over the general public and the establishment of international socialism.


Junk Science vs. Real Science

For a detailed, footnoted, 12-page article, written by three scientists, two with Ph.D's from CalTech, click here.

This paper was sent to tens of thousands of natural scientists in the United States.

Over 31,000 scientists have put their reputations on the line and signed a politically incorrect petition opposing the 1997 Kyoto agreement or protocol. Here is a photocopy of a signed petition.




Here is a letter from a former president of the National Academy of Sciences. He asks recipients of the petition to sign it.

Back in the 1970's, the bugaboo was the coming ice age, as this Time Magazine article promoted. Not to be outdone, Newsweek got on board. The article warned: "Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects." Want more examples? Click here.

It, too, was based on junk science. It, too, had the same solution: government control over the economy. The goal never changes: government management over the economy. The justification has changed. If the voters won't accept control over their lives on the basis of one brand of junk science, maybe they will accept another. As they used to say in the Nixon Administration: "Let's run this up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes."


Socialism's Last Stand

The global warming movement is not about global warming. It is about the creation of an international political control arrangement by which bureaucrats who favor socialism can gain control over the international economy.

This strategy was stated boldly by economist Robert Heilbroner in 1990. Heilbroner, the multi-millionaire socialist and author of the best-selling history of economic thought, The Worldly Philosophers, wrote the manifesto for these bureaucrats. He did this in an article, "Reflections: After Communism," published by The New Yorker (Sept. 10, 1990).

In this article, he made an astounding admission. He said that Ludwig von Mises had been right in 1920 in his article, "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth." Mises argued that without private ownership, central planners could not know what any resource is worth to consumers. With no capital market, the planners would be flying blind.

Heilbroner said that for 70 years, academic economists had either ignored this article or dismissed it without answering it. Then Heilbroner wrote these words: "Mises was right."

Heilbroner was one of these people. There is no reference to Mises in The Worldly Philosophers.

This admission was the preliminary section of Heilbroner's manifesto. He was cutting off all hope by socialists that there is a theoretically plausible response to Mises. The free market economy will always outproduce a socialist economy. Get used to it, he said.

Then, in the second section, he called on his socialist peers to get behind the ecology movement. Here, he said, is the best political means for promoting central planning, despite its inefficiency. In the name of ecology, he said, socialists can get a hearing from politicians and voters.

The article is not online. An abstract is. Here is the concluding thought of the abstract.

The direction in which things are headed is some version of capitalism, whatever its title. In Eastern Europe, the new system is referred to as Not Socialism. Socialism may not continue as an important force now that Communism is finished. But another way of looking at socialism is as the society that must emerge if humanity is to cope with the ecological burden that economic growth is placing on the environment. From this perspective, the long vista after Communism leads through capitalism into a still unexplored world that roust [must?] be safely attained and settled before it can be named.

Heilbroner did not care that a worldwide government-run economic planning system would not be called called socialism. He just wanted to see the system set up.

Heilbroner's peers got the message. That was what Kyoto was all about.


Conclusion

If you like poverty, inefficiency, and bureaucratic controls over the economy, and therefore control over your choices, the "climate change" movement is ideal.

If you want to subsidize China and India, neither of which will enforce the rules laid down by unelected international bureaucrats, this movement is for you.

If you want to pay more for less energy, there is no better way than to pass the cap and tax bill which the House has passed. It will be sent to the U.S. Senate next week.

The rest of us should oppose it.

I hereby authorize anyone to reprint this article or post it on any website, just so long as the text is not changed.



© 2005-2009 GaryNorth.Com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction without permission prohibited.

Tuesday 7th July

Solomon Islands Independence Day today. Plus the Swearing in of the new Governor General. I went along to Lawson Tama Stadium early this morning, well, I thought it was early , about 8 am, and there were already 10,000 people there. The stand was full, and the shaded bank was already near full. I was hoping for some good photos, but everyone had to keep back behind the field fence, so you’ll have to excuse the pictures being so distant.

I was thinking while I was there just how much Helen Clarks 9 years of government took away all the things that should be celebrated, or more appreciated. I couldn’t name the NZ Governor General if I tried, the last one I remember is Dame Cath Tizard, and Lord knows how long ago she was. Everyone in the Solomons knows the past one, and the new one, the decision making process for Governor General has been a major topic in the newspapers and radio for the past 3 months, the out-going GG has toured all the provinces saying goodbye, and today was a really big celebration of both Independence and the new Governor General.

The same goes for ANZAC Day. It’s a toss up between Sydney and Melbourne over which one I would go back for, or even the Commemoration at Torbay in Geelong. As far as New Zealand goes, other than the Cenotaph Dawn Service, it’s barely acknowledged in comparison with Australia. Typical of the grey society socialism creates, Nanny knows best in everything, and woe betide anyone having fun. Or being nationalistic. I’m pleased John Key bought back Knighthoods, I may not agree with the choices, I didn’t get one for a start, but the appellation means more historically than some Order of New Zealand medal ever will. I could go on and on and on about things I’ve noticed from being away from New Zealand for so long, then going back and wondering what the hell has happened. But I’d be typing for ages to do that. I’ll just slip things in as I notice.

I’ve had a few days sort of off from here, we had a meeting with Keithie on Friday, the outcome of which I had to spend the weekend going over in my mind trying to come up with some way of making it sound reasonable for the work crew, and us, then power cuts all weekend haven’t helped.

Keithie has finally accepted that we can’t keep doing the *free* work anymore, it’s taken me 4 months to get this realised, and it wasn’t till our bank balance got to one months pay left that she took action. I’ve mentioned before that half our work is the parks, roadside plantings, verges, etc, which we do, but no one pays us for it. It costs us $15,000 a month in wages, plus $5,000- $7,000 in overhead, diesel, tool repairs, plants etc. considering our income from contract work is only $19,000 a month, we’ve been losing $20,000 a month for a long time. All the letters asking for payment for the upkeep of the gardens and parks have gone out, asking for sponsorship for the parks, payment for specific ones, like the Central Police Station, City Centre, NPF Plaza. NPF have been good, they immediately agreed to $2,300 per month, and Kiethie is putting $1,000 a month into the Memorial Gardens.

In the short term however, I’ve had to cut the work week to 3 days, while Tiff and I work on getting everything paid for. I’ve put a lot of trust out to the crew, and told them that as the work contracts come in, I’ll increase the work week, and hopefully by the end of the month we’ll be in a better position financially. Once I have that confirmed, and a better cash flow, I’m after getting everyone a pay rise. They’ve been working for the past 3 years on a promise of one, now that we have a better financial base starting it may be possible finally.

We had a 2 hour meeting Monday morning to discuss it all. David and I have a good system now, I don’t know enough toktok pijin to explain stuff completely, but I can understand it, David has the English and toktok, so I talk first, with all the details in English, David translates into toktok, then I go back over stuff he couldn’t put into toktok, till everyone understands fully. The crew aren’t completely happy with the short week and pay, but we all agreed, any work at the moment is better than none. I’m hopeful it won’t be for longer than a month or so, 6 weeks at most. The cost of living here is horrendous, and the wage rates aren’t great for the locals.

Base rate here is $3.50 Solomon, about NZ$0.70c , AUD$0.55c, US$0.40c, €0.35c, the work crew average is SBD$5.25 per hour. There was some talk of cutting the rate, I managed to get that stopped, all the crew have been there for 5 years minimum, and all have Level 2 Certificates, and can work without supervision. If anything I feel they are underpaid, if I could get $0.50c an hour raise by Christmas that will be a good start.

We’ve laid off 2 people, Davids wantok, and Wilson, the caretaker at the memorial Gardens. Davids wantok I won’t miss or feel sorry for, his excuses have been getting more and more outrageous by the day, and having seen him drunk in town on more than one occasion when he was supposedly off work sick doesn’t endear him to me. Wilson on the other hand I felt really terrible about letting go. He’s in his late 60’s, and just potters around the Memorial Gardens, raking leaves, talking to any visitors, which was fine by me. He knows a lot of the history of Guadacanal, which has been good for any visitors, but we just haven’t got the money to support him at the moment. If we can get back into positive cash flow soon, I’ll take him back.

In some ways I’m happy about the situation, it’s the sort of thing I enjoy doing, not the laying off of staff, but the crisis management side of the whole thing. We’re that far in the hole financially, everything is being considered, so even the more way out things are finally being considered if someone can be found to pay for it. Add in the choices for new work now we can decide if we want it and we should be in a lot better position soon. Either that or I’ll be packing and going.

I’ve had no water since yesterday, the pressure is so low through Honiara that half the town is without water, not a good look for the hotels and guest houses, along with the power cuts which are still happening more frequently. We lost power at work yesterday from 10am till 12, then from 1 pm till 4 pm.

But we have a huge Rugby Stadium going up, and 2 shopping malls with 300 shops with Aid money. It’s the main problem with accepting Aid money from some countries. Japan wants buildings, and won’t give anything towards infrastructure, along with most of the other countries giving Aid money. So we end up with huge buildings, and no services for them.

Here’s my latest creation from the kitchen

Coconut Bread

1 coconut, meat grated and cream extracted (see Method)
or 500 gm dessicated coconut, and cream made from it (see Method)

600 ml coconut cream, tinned if not making your own will work as well.

about 1 cup heavy coconut cream (see Method)

4 – 6 cups plain white or wholemeal flour Use either or a mix of both, although wholemeal will make a fairly dense loaf. Start with 4 cups, add more as needed.

2 tsps Salt

3 tsps dried yeast.

Method

Fresh Coconut

Grate meat out, there are a number of choices here. Either the Island style grater, which is a flat piece of steel with a rounded and notched end, and the coconut half is scraped over it into a bowl, there is a superior Indian/Malaysian grater, which is a multi bladed shape like a large lemon squeezer, with sharpened and notched blades and very quick to use. Or, the not so traditional european method and use a juice extractor, Champion style machine, although as you have to prise the coconut meat out of the shell for this, you will end up with the brown skin flakes through the coconut. You can scrape the skin off, if you want to be fussy. I used a Kenwood extractor, it worked, so whatever you have will probably be sufficient.

If you use a juice extractor, you will end up with about 1 cup of heavy coconut cream, keep this aside.

If you grate the coconut traditionally, wrap the coconut in a clean muslin cloth, soak briefly in 1 – 2 cups boiling water, and squeeze out the juice, repeat until you have 600 ml of juice, or a bit more. Or use a blender, as for dessicated coconut below.

If you use dessicated coconut, put 500gm of coconut into a blender, pour in 600ml of boiling water, let stand for 5 minutes then blend and strain. Repeat once more. Keep the coconut meat, it isn’t necessary to let it dry out again.

Mixing

Put coconut meat, 4 cups of flour, salt and yeast into a large bowl, mix well.

Put room temp heavy coconut cream (if using dessicated coconut, omit this), and 600ml of coconut cream into the flour mix and stir well till mix is well blended. You may need more flour, it depends on which type of coconut method you have used. You may need more liquid also, use excess coconut liquid if you have any left, or water.

Once dough is to the almost not sticky stage, cover and leave for an hour or so at room temp to rise. It is 35*C average temp where I live, bread doubles in an hour here, adjust this time to suit your local temperature.

Once dough has doubled in size, tip onto bench and knead till it is stretchy and holds it shape without collapsing, again, add flour if needed.

Form into loaves and place in tins to rise again. You should get 2 loaves, normal household loaf tin size.

Heat oven to 250C, 450f, pour 1 cup of boiling water into a hot oven tray on the oven floor to create a steamy atmosphere and place loaf tins on the bottom shelf or next one up and reset oven to 210C 400f,

Bake 45 min - one hour, or until loaves have a good hollow drum sound when tapped on the bottom

Caution, the coconut may brown very quickly on the top of the loaf, cover with tinfoil if this happens and continue baking till done.


It is nice fresh or toasted with butter and honey, any other suggestions welcomed.

It’s really dry now, I’ve got the watering crew working 3 nights a week now, just to keep the plants through town in the tubs looking ok. Once we get everything replaced with bouganvillea it won’t be as bad, the crotons and duranta wilt so quickly and shed dried leaves if they go more than 2 days without water. The bouganvillea just sends up more flowers.

If we can get everything sponsored before the Japanese Grant comes through I’ll be a lot happier too. It won’t be siphoned off to pay for the free stuff, which I suspect is what has happened in the past to any money coming in.

Thursday 2nd July

Wednesday 1st July

Got a mid year package from VSA Auckland branch today, copy of the Listener, Whittakers peanut slab, packet of pineapple lumps, 2 Nestle cappuccino, tiki key ring, which was all appreciated. I’ll have to mention not to send chocolates again though, especially to here, both the peanut slab and the pineapple lumps were soft and melted, but an hour in the fridge and they are firm again, lost the shape a little, or a lot, but very nice.

David and I tried sorting out the rear wiring on the little truck this afternoon, it’s due for a warrant of fitness tomorrow. In the distance between the 2 tail lights, about 3’, there are 20 or more joins all with different coloured wire, different sized wire, and several inline fuse connectors. We’re taking it to the auto electrician first thing in the morning. If we could get new cable it would be easy enough to fix, but here it’s just a case of using whatever insulated wire you can find, household included.

There have been thunder and lightning storms on and off all day here, no rain in sight though, the lightning has been impressive, and the thunder really rolls across the landscape like a tank. The trees actually sway, and the ground vibrates under you when it rolls over.

I’ve still not figured out the water system in the house, after 6 months it is still a mystery. The last 2 weeks there has been no water in the afternoons when I get home, till about 10 or 11pm, but in the morning there is water to spare and high pressure. I’m used to it now so it can just be one of the things to accept.



Thursday 2nd July

Almost another week over with. The little truck failed the road fitness certificate, the lights decided to go on strike, and the rust in the tray and sides was a bit too much for them to accept. I took the sides off today, so we have a true flatbed now. David and I are going to strip the tray completely off over the weekend, and next week we’ll build a timber deck and sides for it.

After so much rain when I got here, I thought I’d be happy for the dry season to start. A week without rain and everything is parched, the trees are showing wilting signs, any small shrubs are just dried leaves and bare branches. It almost rained today, but just turned into thunder and lightning, and a dark heavy oppressive feel to the air. I think I’m used to the temperature, I don’t notice it so much anymore even when it gets to 35*C. The good thing about the dry season is that you don’t feel as though you’re in a sauna all the time, and you don’t seem to sweat as much.

Recalling the saga off the Cattle Development Fund that went missing, the Govt are still finding bits and pieces of the $8million tucked away in various bank accounts, so now it’s just $2.5 million missing, and for here that’s really close accounting. I still feel that they are going about it with the wrong type of cattle, European breeds, when we have water buffalo all the way through Indonesia and Malaya that thrive in the conditions here.
David at Rove Prison gave me a good lead for funding to get the Nursery into native plant production today. He worked in Vietnam for a while starting up nurseries and seed banks for indigenous trees that were under threat from logging. It’s a Danish organisation, and they seriously fund facilities for forest seed collection and propagation. I may get everything I want one way or the other.

Tiffany and I have a meeting with the UN Development Head tomorrow with Wills, going over their criteria for funding. I’m losing track of what we’re applying for, and from whom, and exactly why we’re applying for funding. And also the constant bending or altering the purpose of what we do. I’m hoping it will all settle down once we get one set of funds to start with, so I can start doing something rather than just make shift stuff to keep busy.

It looks as though we’ll know by the end of July about the Japanese Grass Roots Funding for the Nursery building, and I think from what Wills mentioned the UN Grants will cover classroom equipment, which will give us good resources for teaching, over head projector, powerpoint set up and text books, and a good photocopier. I shouldn’t mention powerpoint presentations, I have a disconcerting habit of falling asleep within 5 minutes of sitting in front of any. I said as much to Steve a few weeks back, and he replied that he’d seen me do exactly that at VSA in Wellington at one of the orientation meetings. The ones I’ve had to endure have always been such ponderous, boring, dull presentations, and as soon as they start showing bullet point style stuff, one point at a time, I’m usually snoring by the second slide.

I’ll have to remember that if I get to doing them here.

I was a bit worried driving home tonight. I had Maelyn in the cab with me, Sarah, Jepthath, William, Jack and Angela on the tray behind me, with no sides only the tip tray rear still there. Drove through Honiara in rush hour, police everywhere directing traffic, and not one of them thought anything unusual was going past. Everyone on the back thought it was a great laugh, I think a few of them just wanted a ride to Central Market on the truck for the fun.

There was an accident in Papua New Guinea a couple of weeks ago, 2 trucks collided head on, 60 people injured, a few killed. After seeing how everyone rides the trucks here to market, or just to work, I can understand now how so many people can be involved. I’ve counted 40 people in a truck, and yes it was full to over flowing, people sitting on the sides and doubled up on the floor, plus all their market stuff in bags and boxes. Doing 60 – 80 kmh along Mendana Ave. The funniest one I’ve seen was a truck with about 30 people on the back. They had loops of rope tied to the cab, and everyone was standing in between the loops, going all the way to the rear of the tray. As the truck swayed around the corners of the potholes, the lines of people swayed sideways, like a wave travelling down the truck. As always, everyone was laughing or singing loudly.

Mendana Ave is reverting to pot hole alley again, very quickly. If the Romans could build roads that are in some places still in use, why can’t we build a road that lasts longer than 3 months before falling apart????

There are a few more letters in the Solomon Star asking why the betel nut sellers are still selling in Honiara township, after Council banned them late last year. Along with the associated spitting and betel nut juice everywhere, there is the mess from the nut husks, and the rubbish that accumulates around the stalls. It’s going to take a while I think before Honiara starts to recover properly.

I’ll get pics of the stalls through town this weekend, Pauls’ little roadside stall at the end of my street is typical of the street ones, the ones in town are nowhere near as flash.

Tuesday 30th June

Jocelyn has the gardeners position for NZ Aid, so she is happy. It’s 3 months trial, 20 hours a week, $5 per hour, and $30 per week transport allowance. After tax etc she’ll get about $80 of it, plus her bus fare, not a great amount, but it’s a start for her. After 3 months she goes onto permanent and a pay rise as well. $80 will buy 10kg of rice at the discount shop, or 5 kg of rice $55, and 5 small tins of shredded tuna to go with it.

Without their own gardens the people here would starve with the prices for food in the shops.

You can get a lot at the markets for that, some of the food like cassava, I’ve tried but I’m not that hungry yet to try it again. Well, not without a lot of spices to liven it up. And taro is ok, but really starchy and I have enough weight problems without adding to the problem.

I wish there were more newspapers like the Solomon Star around the world, there probably wouldn’t be the problems with politicians. Another one is being questioned in the letters section over where $9.7 million of development funds have gone. It appears his wantok got the majority of it, and haven’t started the work yet, after 7 years. But I assume they have a good house, tv etc in it while the rest of the villages are still living **customarily** as it’s put here, without anything. It’s really hard to comprehend just how deep wantok goes in society here. If you don’t support your family, extended out as far as possible, you get ostracised for life.

David has the problem of his wantok at work, we’re finally getting rid of him this week for poor attendance and work, but it’s taken a long time for David to be able to explain it to all his family. I have the same trouble with it as well, William is a good worker, when he wants to be, but has a slight problem with kwaso/marijuana/alcohol/betel and we catch him wandering all over town instead of being with the work crew. And he is well educated, just fell off the rails a bit and without the wantok system, he’d be on the streets with nothing. But he is a disruptive influence at work, with the rest of the crew having to carry the extra workload when he doesn’t turn up, or just wanders off on them.

6 more weeks and I’ll have clocked up 6 months here, and not done a damn thing on what I’m meant to be doing. And the way it is going, it’ll be another 3 months till anything gets started. It’s bloody frustrating.

Friday – Monday 29th June

I think it’s been the slow accumulation of little aggravations. Friday I just gave up any semblance of working, and spent the day goofing off with David, scrolling the net, reading pages of stuff about snakes in the Solomons, in general just goofing around. It must have been David as well, he bought a dvd into work for the crew to watch after lunch, it was about 35*C and dry, and the road crew were swimming in sweat. It was The Mummy 2, for the umpteenth time for me.

The heat here is really sapping the energy from everyone, I find I miss the humidity already. It’s like a really dry oven, all the road plantings are wilting, even the bigger trees and palms are suffering already, and we have another 5 months of this until the rains normally arrive. If the el nino takes hold, it could be February till we get significant rainfall again.

Saturday I spent cleaning up the house, couldn’t be bothered going into Honiara for shopping, so just went to the local Barack Enterprises shop. Everything is as cheap or cheaper there as in town anyway, just not the range. They still insist on getting the Papua New Guinea low bicarb Coke, it’s disgusting. No bite to it, and there is nothing worse than flat coke, well, there may well be, but for the moment flat coke is the top of the disgusting drinks table.

Our funding proposal finally got sent to Japan this morning, now it’s just waiting to see if they approve it and we can finally start moving ahead on what I’m meant to be doing here.

Barbara from NZ Aid contacted me a week or so back, looking for a gardener for their property. I took Jocelyn along today, she is the tiniest lady from the last course, barely 5’ tall, if that, and built like a match with the wood shaved off. But, she can work and carry huge loads all day and still be smiling at the end. It’s a fair sized garden for her to look after, I’ll go there again Wednesday morning, and draw up a plan for her to follow for trimming and planting, and maintenance. I have to take her into the NZ High Commission tomorrow to fill out the security papers and employment contract, hopefully she’ll get a good wage, plus one meal a day, and bus fares to and from White River.

One of the forums I belong to, 419Eater, one of the members has had a huge emotional shock. His parents, both in their early 70’s, are off to Nigeria as Missionaries for the church they belong to in the USA. He is a bit at sixes and sevens over it, and is worried about it all. Being as they talk about it as being the final thing they will probably do, they are both looking forward to spending their final years there. He was asking for advice, all I offered to him was my experience with VSA. We often forget that our parents had a life before we came along, and had dreams about what they wanted to do at some stage in their lives. Then usually all that gets put aside to raise a family, and it isn’t till later on that the old ideas or desires manifest themselves again. I, and others in the forum weren’t probably as sympathetic about it as he might have wished. We were all for it, and wished his parents well in whatever they do, it’s certainly better than spending your life in a rest home with the endless rounds of bingo and arguing over the tv.

We had another snake in the nursery over the weekend. I have no idea what it is, venomous or not, but it is very aggressive, and fast. It made a few lunges at me when I was trying to take a pic, so I gave it a wide berth and didn’t bother trying to pick it up. I’ll post the pic in here, if anyone recognises it please let me know. I haven’t been able to find any identification for it yet.

Our big boa from last week is settling into the lily pond area, it took me a while to find it this morning, but it is peacefully settled amongst the ginger and helliconia plants there. I was thinking it may be pregnant, the body looked too large for what I think is normal, that or else it had just eaten a large cat or cuscus.

Monday 29th June

Sorry, it's been one of those weekends, when nothing got done, and even less got planned I'll try to catch up tonight when I get home

In the meantime, here's Andrew cooking the barbque