Sunday 3rd January

Happy New Year!

And to put a more somber note to that, condolences to Gytha on the death of her father over the Christmas period. I hope Hogmanay went safely, and the brood were well behaved.

Last week was a fiasco, we had continual power cuts through Honiara, people wanted to go on holiday on short notice, the crew who were working were really good about everything, even when I had them out till 2 am finishing off the Post Office Gardens. I was down there yesterday morning, and it is amazing to see that no one walks across the sacking on the gardens, they use the footpaths and walkways through the area. And there isn’t any rubbish thrown into them either. David and I are now considering using more copra sacks through the other gardens as we upgrade them. I’m not sure what will happen when we cover them with wood chip, but I’m hoping that by the time we do, that people will have lost the habit around that area. We need more rubbish bins there as well, so another thing to look at soon.
I mentioned that we had received the funding from the EU just before Christmas, so I thought it would be worthwhile to look through our application and remember exactly what it was that we had said we would do. It was a long time back, I think April/May last year that the application was drawn up, and things have changed a bit since then.

Just skimming through the document, I appear to have really put myself into the firing line. In addition to the Level 1 & 2 Hort Courses, I’m also meant to be training up 4 of the staff, 2 up to Level 4, the other 2 to Level 3, and running Environment Classes in the local schools, 3 times a week. Plus, starting the Nursery, landscaping through Honiara, liasing with Kastom Gardens about running self sufficiency courses. I can see the Environment classes being fun, by the time I get through the AGW BS, and get started on the actual problems. It’s a pity groups like Greenpeace and even the political Green parties have got so side tracked with AGW and lost any credence. They had good environmental policies, till they decided it was easier to just blame CO2 for everything. Idiots.

I’m building up a collection of photos of the rubbish in the streams and places around here, to use as examples of what might, just possibly, be causing the reefs to die off, and the fish to become scarcer. I know I’m going to be fighting uphill against AGW, everyone here thinks the Solomons are going to get a huge payout from the Western Countries over it. They haven’t realised yet that if Copenhagen 15 had gone through it would have had the effect of keeping the Solomons as a backward subsistence economy forever, with no hope of improvement or progress. Yes, I know everyone should have solar panels on their roofs etc, but they won’t supply a manufacturing or business base, so all putting solar panels and installing wind generators does is make the manufacturers richer and keeps the Solomons poorer in the long run.

I keep thinking it would be a good idea to have a nuclear powered ship tied up at Honiara and feeding the town with electricity, on a rotating basis, if the USA wants to start muscling in here again, along with China, India. We’ve only got 60,000 people here, and the power grid is only for the city, outside of Honiara it is kerosene lamps and in the villages where they have wantok in parliament they might have solar panels for light bulbs.

I’ll be busy in New Zealand during the 2 week break, finding educational material, Tiffany wants a good laptop, there’s a few things I want to bring back as well to give me a few other interests, in case I get time to be bored. I have to visit Lyndale Nurseries to see about importing bare rooted cuttings, Carann Agencies in Hamilton for nursery equipment, other places for various contacts for future reference.

We still haven’t power on at Ranandi, it’s been put on the list for “maybe tomorrow” but I think it may be on the “soon” list. The phone is working, but without power to run the modems, computers, or the airconditioner, neither of us wants to be sitting in a hot container for most of the day.

New Year here was remarkably quiet. All the ships in the harbour roads let all their foghorns and sirens go at midnight, but other than that it was quiet. No one got killed, very few incidents in town, all in all a quiet non-eventful weekend.

I’ve mentioned kwaso a few times, the local home distilled firewater that is everywhere. David had one of his wantok, 24 yrs old, die on Friday after drinking a 300ml bottle straight. He was dead before they got him to #9, and nothing the hospital could do. The police are cracking down a fair bit lately on the distillers, but as usual it all revolves around wantok, and some get away with it, and others get picked up to settle old disputes. Similar to the betel nut sellers through Honiara township, most have wantok working for the council or the police, so they are allowed stay, despite the HCC banning the sale of betel nut in the town.

The 2009 Census has finished here, and I’m waiting for the results. No one here at Ba’hai Compound has seen any of the census recorders, and in asking around the neighbourhood, no one else in the area has either. Tiffany said no one in White River settlement has seen any census recorder either. On a whim, ok, stirring, I went into the Census office last week, they were asking people who hadn’t been counted to contact the, so I took the opportunity. The background to it all is that all the recorders were issued with GPS recorders, and entered the data directly into the GPS unit. From what I can gather, all they did was walk around making estimates and hitting the button for every house. According to the office I have 3 people living in the house. It is going to be so inaccurate, and this is what we have to work out schools, employment, business strategies with?

The Post Office Garden is starting to finalise in my mind. I’m slowly going away from the canoe shapes, and starting to consider large crab-claw sails, still with the sea shape trimmed shrubs and rocks, I think the sails will be a lot more visible, and instantly recognisable. I’d like to think we can get them made in stainless, but the cost may make the Post Office baulk. And stainless would give me something to do as well, welding them up and installing. Putting them onto truck axel bearings would be good as well, so they could rotate. Oh the possibilities. I have to stop thinking and just do it.

The chilli sauce improves with age, well, a week in a bottle anyway. I made another batch last week just in case I run out, and that is in the freezer till I can collect some more bottles. It still has a good bite to it, but more mellow now, you don’t start sweating till 5 minutes after now. I’m getting a good deal at Kukum Fish Market for chillies now too, since I bought an entire stalls supply the other week. I’ve ended up with chillies soaking in coconut oil till I can get around to making more, I may just process them and use the oil as a cooking oil, it is a violent pinkish red, and really peels the skin off your tongue. A little would go a long way in cooking I’m thinking.

I’m going to make an initial application for a years extension to my assignment once Steve gets back. The last year has been a real disaster in terms of accomplishing anything, and knowing how long things take here, I’d like another year to actually get things settled. This year will be what last year should have been, if we hadn’t had the turmoil and political rubbish over the Botanic Gardens. Plus the fact I like it here, despite all the little frustrations. The living is cheap, the people are good, and there’s not really a lot for me in New Zealand at the moment. Still, a year can be a long time in paradise as well.

Monday 28th December

I hope everyone survived Christmas. It was remarkably quiet here, with half the population of Honiara away to their home province it makes for a strange feeling to go through town the last few days.

We managed to get the copra sacks down on Thursday before we finished for the day, $2 each and with 20 we got 10 extra free. Still not quite enough for all the gardens, but it will be a good way of showing David how effective having a weed cover on the soil will help keep it moist underneath. He isn’t too sure about the things I do, I have the impression that anything I or anyone does here is only effective as long as someone is here to make it happen, once I go it will probably revert back to how things were done before I changed things. Anyway, I’m trying simple things, that work, so hopefully the different ways of doing things will keep on being done. Still in the words of Stupid Bloody Johnson, “It may look a mess now, but just you come back in 500 years time”, I’m hoping it looks ok in 6 months, let alone 500 years.






Christmas Day was nice and quiet, I caught up on the washing, cleaned the house out, made some samoosa to take to Barbara and Terrys, and slept a fair bit. The last week has been a bit of a panic getting everything done in time, and working till midnight or later a couple of nights puts me into sleep deprivation mode. My new bread tins work well, I’ve finally got loaves that look like proper bread, although “proper” is just what people are used to, bread can be any shape, but the tins are great. Plus using cold pressed coconut oil give an oomph to the flavour.

Barbaras Orphans Christmas Party was really good. 11 of us in the end, Adele, Nicci and Paul, Jason, Dennis, Shabnam and Rana, Gabby, Barbara and Terry. A fair amount of alcohol was consumed, some very good methode champagnoise (however you spell it) from NZ, Morton Estate, quite a lot of beer, and I’m fairly sure there were other wines as well. The samoosa and the chilli sauce I took were greatly appreciated, I have a list of email addys to send the recipes to now, including Shabnam and Rana, Shab is vegetarian, and the chickpea/lentil pastries were all she wanted. I ended up having Barbara and Terry drop me at home after, I doubt I could have made it to the bus, so it was lucky that they were going to another function in the afternoon at the High Commission.






I managed to get hold of most of my family on Christmas Day, Telekom wasn’t the most co-operative as usual, but finally got hold of Rose and Mum. Left a few messages on answer phones, and will try to get Damian tomorrow for his birthday.

I made another batch of chilli sauce yesterday, after shopping at Kukum Fish Market. I’ve only got the use of Adrians blender till he gets back from Brisbane, so I’m making the most of it. There’s still 4 bottles in the cupboard, I gave one to Barbara and Terry, I owe Adrian one for the blender, and now I have 4 litres in containers in the freezer.

I mentioned a few weeks back about handling chillies, and how the oils from them can be quite hot, and how my hands were feeling more supple instead of the usual aches and stiffness from all the injuries. With all the chillies I’ve been using lately, my hands have not stopped feeling hot, and I can close both now and grip things, so I thought I’d see how nimble my fingers are and pulled out the crochet hooks and cotton. Another “things to do to stop going mad” hobbies. My Gran taught me so long ago I can’t remember when, but it was when we were living in Lippiat Road so I would have only been 4 or 5, then I kept it up every now and then ever since.
Anyway, 1 bikini for Imelda in exchange for her showing me how to make shell necklaces.



And speaking of shell necklaces, this is what Imelda made for me, $800 worth, and she is going to make me the full costume set over the next year. I’d rather pay her for them than the street traders, similar prices, but knowing and working with her I’d rather she had the extra income.


Another 3 day week, we only work Tuesday till Thursday this week, 3 day weekend then back into the mess full time next week. We still haven’t power on at Ranandi, I was being excessively optimistic last month, Telekom connected the phone, but SIEA are now saying they don’t have any meters available so we have to wait. It had better be soon, Tiffany and I are going spare in at BJS, it is too far away from the Nursery, and we don’t have any contact with the work crews during the day.

I’ve booked for the 9th of February till the 23rd to go to New Zealand for a break, so I have to everything finished before then, all the costings and sketches, plans for the Governor Generals, Post Office design, costings for Commonwealth Ave, everything that got put on hold before Christmas, that hopefully will get done now that everyone has had their holiday and are back at work. I think I’ll be looking forward to a holiday by February, although the work is good fun, it can get frustrating. Plus actually get started with the Nursery, once we get permission from Lands Dept for the development, I think Hasting Deering have a problem with arrears in rates, although they have the receipts, Lands are saying they owe for the past 5 years. Hopefully they haven’t been paying in cash, and have the tracking for cheques.

Thursday 24th December

The Post Office gardens are planted, we worked till midnight Tuesday night planting out. It was a lot cooler, and hardly any traffic or people around so it made for an easier job.







I’m hoping to get some copra sacks to put over the top of the beds to act as a weed mat and also to keep the compost and mulch in place without it being washed away by the rain.

The crew cleaned up one of the corners by the ANZ roundabout, the one that MID were complaining about. The planting had slightly overgrown, and there were a fw problems with people walking through the footpath, and then stepping out onto the road without being seen by the traffic. It got a Solomon style prune, everything back to about 30cm. ANZ are paying for the corner gardens there form January, so we can spend a bit more time getting it all tidy again.

It is finally raining, not showers, but real rain, with thunder and lightning. It started last night about 8 pm, and has been continuous since. Nice, it’s steady rain, not the deluge that we will be getting later in the wet, hopefully most of it will soak into the soil rather than wash off the top.

We were hoping to have a barbque with the crew at the beach this afternoon, there is still the chance, if the rain eases off for a few hours. There are only 8 of the crew left now, the others have taken holidays and gone home for a couple of weeks. Tiffany and David are staying at home, Renee has been to her grandparents on Bellona for a holiday, she comes back on the Christmas Day ferry. Tessie wanted to go but unless David or Tiff went as well, she couldn’t go on her own on the ferry.

I’m having a quiet Christmas Day here, Barbara and Terry are going to a Garden Party at Keithies, then we are having a proper Kiwi Christmas at their place on St Stephens Day. Tiff and David are talking about putting a hangi down at some stage over the weekend which will be good.

Have a Merry Christmas, I’m taking a few days off till Monday to catch up with a lot of stuff I’ve neglected over the past month while we have been busy, so all the things I’ve been promising people will hopefully get done.

Merry Christmas Al, Murph, Gytha, Zoe, Rhonda, Rosalee, Damian, Tarsha, Jesse, Kahu, Hayden, Leigh, Louise, Scott, Zambezi, John, Sylvia, Mum, Joe, Chip and all the Family, Mary and Tim, Tj, I hope everyone has a happy and safe Christmas.

Monday 21st December Chilli Sauce

We’re all winding down towards the Christmas break. Trying to get things done is beyond getting upset about now, if we get the gardens planted this week I’ll be happy. I’m trying to get the idea of incorporating the potting mix with the soil we put into the gardens at the Post Office, instead of just putting it on top, so that the fresher mix is diluted a bit with the soil. Difficult concept to explain I’m finding out, but I think I have got the concept through. I want to put old copra sacks over it all once we have planted the area, to keep weeds down, and also to stop the mix from being washed away if it rains. That is proving to be a difficult thing to explain as well, I’m a glutton for punishment at times trying to introduce too many new things at once.

Caught up with Kennedy again, the two of us would be dangerous if we worked together more often. I’ve been thinking of putting a formal Marae into the Governor Generals Residence, so I had to check with Kennedy if that concept is used here, and they have a similar formal greeting and ceremonial area in the provincial areas. Which they do in most of the more Polynesian Provinces, and the others have a vaguely similar style of thing, so that may go ahead as well.

We’ve got the canoe shapes sorted in our heads, I have to find the plants now to give the wave and white water effect against the canoes, and also ones that will take the pruning to give a wave shape. If I can get Hebe diosmifolia to grow here I’ll use that against the canoes for the white and green watery effect, and possibly Strobilanthes for the deep purple with blue flowers for the deep sea. And some double white flowering bougainvillea against the rocks I’ll put in at places to represent the sea hitting the shoreline.

The big statue has morphed into a globe now, with figures around it, so it gives a fixed point for our canoes to be heading towards, the whole idea is to have the canoes carrying the messages to the world, which hopefully is going to represent what Solomon Post do.

I had a word with Kennedy about a statue to go into Commonwealth Avenue as well, at the junction where it meets Mendana Ave. I’d like something fairly big, but squat. MID get upset about sight lines for drivers, so it can’t be too high. We threw a few ideas around, then settled on a man/fish shape, which ties the wharves at the bottom end of Commonwealth with the business centre of town at the other end of Commonwealth. One of the Provinces, I think Ysabel, has a Man/Fish ancestor in their history, so it is another bit of the whole Solomons Culture being used and displayed. Thankfully I’ve always had an interest in different cultures history and legends, so I’m able to drag stuff out of the memory bank and use it as a starting point. I’ve learnt a lot more dealing with Kennedy, and he’s more than happy to spend the time educating me as well.

I had to go to the World Bank offices today, they have a problem with their indoor plants, all sufferring and not thriving. I walked in, and it was like going into a refrigerator. They have the aircon set to 16*C, coming from a central point in the ceilings with vents aimed at the walls. All the plants are against the walls so they are in a constant freezing cold downdraft, and being kept watered as well. I’ll have to find some Draceana marginata or Sansevieria to go into there. Even Spathiphyllum. And tell them not to water them every day. I’m working on getting small fountains into the foyer there, the plants will always suffer, so as a better alternative if we can put small fountains and waterfalls in it will still give the friendlier effect that they want. We also picked up a little job for there as well, 5m of wall to put some bougainvillea onto, in a narrow alleyway that a couple of offices face onto. It’s just a matter of fixing some mesh to the wall, putting a small garden bed along the base and planting 10 or so bougainvillea mixed colours to grow up. But still another job that we get paid for.

I made another batch of chilli sauce tonight when I got home, I must be feeling better than I have done lately. 3 hours later and my hands are still hot from the splashes of it that got onto the skin. It seems to be a bit hotter than the first batch, but it may mellow with a week or so in the bottle.

Anyway, here is the recipe, and the much awaited photo set how to do it series.

1 medium pineapple
1 average size pawpaw, well, average can mean a lot of things, so it’s good there is a photo to show what is average here.
1 clump of garlic
3- 4 onions
a good size piece of fresh ginger root (look at the photo)
Tomatoes, I used two 450gm tins, because they were cheaper than fresh tomatoes, which ever you find the cheapest
4 tablespoons of brown sugar
2 tablespoons of whole black peppercorns
2 teaspoons salt
1 –2 litres of vinegar, I use rice wine vinegar because I can use the bottles for keeping the sauce in.

And of course, chillies. I had only the small birdseye ones this week, you can use whatever combination of chillies are available.

Chop, peel, crush, slice, everything and throw it all into whatever pot you have, as usual in my case the wok is the mainstay. I used a tablespoon or 2 of cold pressed coconut oil to get everything heated, then added the tinned tomatoes once it was hot, followed by a litre of vinegar. Left it simmering, slow rolling movement is all, you don’t want boiling, the splashes are a pain to get off, and don’t ask how I know.








After about an hour, when it had thickened down, I put it through the blender, added a bit more vinegar to get a slightly runnier texture, then bought it all to a boil for about 15 minutes. It thickened a little more, then poured it into the vinegar bottles and put them into the cupboard to mellow.







It is hot. Although in saying that, it could do with more chilli, about half as much again I think. I’ll try the next batch with a few more chillies.








I’d only just finished putting it into the bottles when Kennedy arrived, about 8.30, so there went the rest of the night. We spent ages going through my photos, found the one of the Viking long boat beside the Liffey, and Kennedy got the concept straight away, so he is going to use the same idea but with Solomon Island Canoe shapes. I’ve got a fair bit of work to do before we can get it finished, trying to find suitable plants, a few large rocks to go into the area, and just generally get the sketches done up so the whole thing is clear for us to show the head people at the Post Office.

We spent most of the evening talking about different stuff, from Island customs, to different styles of artwork, and we think we have a good design to go into the top of Commonwealth Ave now.

Friday 18th December/Sunday20th

We finally caught up with Kennedy at the Post Office. It took less than a minute for him to grasp the idea of the canoe prows, with the planting creating the sea. So after about 30 minutes Tiff finally dragged me away, Kennedy and I were walking up and down the gardens, measuring out sizes, shapes, getting more and more excited. He’s going to come around tomorrow and we’ll spend the afternoon sketching and designing, I really like working with him, as people may have noticed. I think knowing that I was responsible for getting the statues at Heritage, and constantly telling him I want more art work in Honiara helps.

We told him we were probably going to be doing Government House grounds as well next year, and that really made his day. It’s good Tiff is a bit more level headed than either of us, we’d be knee deep in sculptures if Kennedy and I had our way with everything.

I’ve got so many ideas going through my head for Government House, I’d like to put a Formal Greeting area in, like a Marae and Meeting House in New Zealand. I’ll have to pick Kennedys brain about that, and find out the customs here a bit more for things like that. Plus fountains! Tiff just shakes her head when I mention fountains now. I’ll get one in Honiara before I go. One way or the other. I’d like to put one similar to the El Alamein Fountain in Kings Cross into Government house at the building entrance forecourt. It’s a big U shaped enclosure, there is a garden there at present, struggling to survive surrounded by ashphalt and buildings. A good misting fountain there would cool the whole area.

And I only came here to advise on setting up a nursery and training school. The way we’re going I’ll be demolishing half Honiara and redeveloping it. Still, good fun, and it gives the crew something to do.

It is still chaos down at the wharves. Close to 2/3 of Honiara are going home for the Christmas period, which means every boat is packed to sitting on someone elses shoulders capacity. It’s really good being down there watching, schoolkids saying goodbye to their host families after boarding here for the school year, friends saying farewells, the huge amount of stuff that gets packed into, onto and around everywhere on each boat. As I’m learning, you have to be first on board to get sitting room space, latecomers get pushed further and further out onto the open deck or up on the bow. Every bit of space has a person on it. the walkways are packed with cartons, bags, people, the smart ones take mattresses to sit on, the slower people have the steel deck. Home comforts are non-existent. Some of the trips take 30 hours, to Temotu can be 2 days, or longer depending on the weather.







Picked up the initial payment from the Post Office as well today, with the MID payment as well it means I’ll get back everything I’ve spent so far the last couple of months. It is close to $4,500 I’ve used to pay for things now, we needed two new tyres for the big truck today, well, we needed them a month ago, but the arguments over the cost dragged on and on. We’ve been driving with what were basically racing slicks, no tread, and the canvas was starting to show on one wheel. Neither Tiff nor I felt like having an argument so I wrote out a cheque for Emory to get 2 new tyres now, $1800. Luckily I don’t have a lot of expenditure.

Next year we’ll have better pricing, I have the crew filling out work sheets each day now so we can track where and when they have been, then work out which contracts need adjusting. Pulling numbers out of the air might work when you don’t have to worry, but trying to run SEB as a business means we need to take into account everything, from truck repairs, wage tax, NPF (National Provident Fund) payments, diesel, rubbish collection.

Sunday 20th

Kennedy didn’t arrive yesterday, but it gave me the excuse to do a big clean up through the house, Mopped the floor, found enough washing to get 2 loads through the machine, clothes then sheets, then did a few sketches of the PO to work from.
Still no truck, so everything is walkabout, by the time I’d gone I’d gone into town, wandered around the shops, visited the wharves again, then arrived back home it was into the afternoon already.

It is still chaos at the wharves, although it seems to be organised chaos. I’m going to find some excuse to go on one of the ferries for a trip at some stage next year. Tiff keeps on at me to visit Bellona, which is a 20 hour boat trip, leave Honiara about 4pm/6pm, arrive at Bellona between 2pm and 4pm the next day. If the weather is good, and the Weather Coast isn’t having a storm.

Barbara and Terry from NZ Aid had a Christmas party for their house staff today, and invited me along as a thank you for finding Jocelyn for them as their house gardener. I have written before about some of the customs here, the patriarchial society, the strict religious views some Islands have. It was like being at some 1950’s party in NZ or Australia, all the women are at one side, the men sit as far away from them as possible. And they don’t mix at all. The couple of pics show the divide really well. I got the position as barbque chef for the afternoon, which suited me, Terry and Barbara were free to wander around talking. Terry was with VSA many years back, and did a few assignments in Africa, on the Serengeti Plains, and East Africa. If you can get him talking about his time there it is extremely interesting. I admit I go around to their place just to get Terry talking, he’s got a huge amount of stuff to talk about, from living with the Masai, the oddball people you meet on assignments, the fun you can have if you’re prepared to give anything a try. He works for the Red Cross now, and has been back and forth to Fiji most of this year brokering deals with Frank Banimarama and the Military.






Jocelyn is doing a great job at their house with the gardens, everything looks good, no weeds, and her little garden plots have been keeping the kitchen full with fresh vegetables for the past couple of months.

We’ve got 4 days this week, I’m hoping to have the PO planted either Monday or Tuesday, then give it all a good watering Wednesday night to carry it over the Christmas weekend. I’ve given up trying to get any more prices for equipment till after the holiday period, no one is interested at present, other than Tiff and I, so it is really frustrating to even try.

Wednesday 16th Evening

It is turning into one of those chaotic periods. MID have come forth with the last 3 months payments, and also said that we will be doing Commonwealth Avenue next year, so can we please submit a budget. Which Tiff and I have had on the slow burner while we have been doing the other funding proposals.

The EU grant is approved, as I mentioned, we have the German Embassy proposal nearly finished, trying to get the figures right when no one has accurate ones to start with, everything is approximate, so we copied East Anglia CRU and fudged the data to make it fit. Speaking of which did anyone else see the twit that is the Head of the IPCC say that just because the data was altered and changed to fit the assumption, it didn’t change the facts? You have to wonder what planet some of these people are living on. And that idiot Al Gore claiming the North Pole will be ice free in 5 years? I hope I should live so long as to be able to see that happen. Well, not happen is more likely, he really is a complete idiot.

We have so many different Funding Proposals going on, I lose track of what we are applying for in each one, I was working on the Nursery basics, irrigation and pumps, thinking it was the same one Tiff was working on, and getting prices and figures, she was asking me for bits and pieces to enter into the spreadsheet she was doing, and it wasn’t for a couple of hours till we both realised we were working on different things. Hopefully we can get it all sorted tomorrow without any interruptions.

Tiffany took a phone call late this afternoon, afterwards she asked me when I was taking my break next year, I’m working on a couple of weeks in February, then told me we now have the Governor Generals Residence to do a complete landscape design and installation for starting in January. Big area, about 6 acres, swimming pool, formal gardens, I was there earlier in the year doing the basic courses for the gardeners, and it is going to be a really good job to get. As soon as Tiff told me I began picturing the main driveway down, I’m going to need hundreds of palms, trees and shrubs, screening hedges for private areas, formal gardens, they have a few defunct fountains and water features, so they’ll be upgraded, and I’ll get hold of Kennedy as well and get sculptures mixed in as well.

I wish I was getting paid for this stuff.

I just want all of this to start, at the moment Tiff and I are stuck in the BJS office with all the conflict that happens there, and shuffling paper around doing proposals, and I’m getting totally frustrated with not actually doing anything.
Ok, next year I’m going to be crying for a break at some stage, but it will be because we’re working, not from sheer frustration. It’s taken nearly a year to get to this stage, I feel that this year has been to all intents and purposes wasted with the fracas over the Botanic Gardens, but the good thing about it all is we are now setting up on our own, no other people involved, and we’re actually going to be a lot better off once SEB gets settled.

We’ll be planting at the Post Office on Monday, it is all dug out, the crew will be making compost and mulch for the beds tomorrow and shifting soil on Friday, then I’ll send the girls down Monday to plant everything. So much for 2 weeks work, it’s taken 3 days so far, and if we’d had compost ready it would have been finished tomorrow. I’m hoping Solomon Telekom and the Bank South Pacific decide to upgrade as well, the whole strip will look a lot better all uniform. Fixed price as well, so the faster it gets done the more we make, even with finding makework for the crew so they still get the 5 days a week I promised them. We can get the town gardens done properly next week in time for the Christmas period now as well.

Everyone has worked really well on the job, knowing they have 2 weeks work coming up to Christmas helps, and with the work coming for next year it will be a lot better for everyone.

I’ve finally got water to the house. Henry the Plumber and I were out playing this evening, putting a new ballcock into the water tank, changing lines over. It took a couple of hours to fill the hot water solar roof tank, but it is full and working now. I may change the line over later if it isn’t enough, but it is just a matter of changing a T joint around, so my line feeds straight out, instead of off the branch. Plus having the tank actually full for once helps with the pressure.

I’ll be able to catch up on all the washing tomorrow night, it was close to 8pm when we finished tonight, I waited till the hot water began to run and had a long shower finally with hot water.

My head is full of ideas for the Governor Generals Residence, I’ll have to go back up there and have a long walk around and start thinking and planning, then break it all into separate areas to work on in stages. And get hold of Kennedy, he is so good to work with, so many ideas and inspiration flow out of him once he grasps an idea or concept. I hope they have a big budget for this, and a reasonable time frame, it isn’t going to be a quick patch up job. It’ll help the gardeners employed there as well, they need something to learn from, instead of just wandering around weeding and hacking.

Wednesday 16th December

The plumber has been, changed all the pipes around from the header tank, put the non-return valve on the inlet side of the tank instead of the outlet, re-connected all the fittings, drove off, job complete, but missed out one slight feature.

He never checked to see if there was any water coming to my house.

My connection to the main feed line is still halfway down the slope, so it has to come back uphill, to where it crosses over the road then down and into my house. I’m going to have one more try at explaining what is needed, then do it myself at the weekend.

It is the most complicated insane plumbing system I’ve ever seen, the basic premise seems to be that gravity does not work here, so you can have pipes going where ever you want, physics and Newton are not relevant.

Long time readers may remember back in March/April I got involved with a landscape plan for Heritage Hotel here, that unfortunately got dropped due to financial problems with Heritage. What they ended up doing was taking some of my plan, and had Frank Haiku do the sculptures, but they never did the full idea so as the pictures show, you now have these magnificent sculptures set out in a wasteland of white coral rock, without anything to soften or cool the atmosphere around them. At least it’s a start I suppose. I would have put some greenery around them at least, to soften the building shape, and definitely some fountains to cool the air, but never mind, some of the idea got used.






I was at the PO again yesterday afternoon, I’m convinced Kennedy and I can come up with a long abstract canoe shape to go into the frontage, and I could use white and blue flowering shrubs around it for the sea and waves. I’ll keep thinking. Luckily I have all my Ireland photos with me, so I can show Kennedy the public sculptures in different places. Wellington has some great public art works, as does Ireland, so I’m sure we can work something out between us.








My phone is working again, what happens is whenever Telekom have an outage, I have to take the battery out, take the sim card out, replace the sim card, battery, turn it back on, reset all the time/date/alarms and it works. I can see me putting up with that rigmarole every day too. Not.

Digicell didn’t get the contract, it has gone to some obscure providor based in Papua New Guinea, so it is going to be wait and see now. And it’s only for cell phone, not internet. Why does beating my head on a solid wall seem like such a good idea at times?

The chilli sauce is improving with age, 2 days in the bottles and it is slowly getting smoother to taste, still makes you sweat like a faucet is open, but the sharp bite is mellowing now that it has cooled down. I’ll have to start a bottle collection, the Chinese Rice Vinegar bottles are ideal, all I have to do is find a dozen or so before next weekend. I’ll do another photo set for making it next weekend again, a few people thought the last curry making set was hilarious, so we’ll have another attempt with making chilli sauce. And you’ll get an idea of quantities as well, my ¼ pineapple, handful of chillies, a few of something else is hard to describe accurately for those who like precision.

The EU Grant has been approved, which gives us €100,000, or close to SBD$1.1 million to play with over 2 years. So the nursery is looking like going ahead finally, there are still another couple of Grants to be finalised although they are like the icing now we have the main source of funding to get started. It’ll take a year or two to get fully established, then hopefully we can cut out the begging bowl approach and be self funded and not reliant on Aid money.