Week 6 Villa - Part One
Beez Neez now Chy Whella
Big Bear and Pepe Millard
Sat 2 May 2020 23:47
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Our Sixth Week at Sleeping Indian, Jolly Harbour – Part
One    Sunday the 26th of April . After our traditional Sunday
boiled eggs, heaven to say the very least, I settled to finish last
week’s blog while Bear did some internet research. We have some very unusual
electricity here, a mix of 120 and 240 volts and some very strange plug holes
that Bear hopes to ‘modify’. Then we both worked side by side on the upstairs
patio. It was fun, me on the ladder, Bear on the step ladder working our way
along the ceiling. Yes, but why did I have the outside
edge in a stiff breeze with the big drop. Because I had more to
paint and do it quicker (hurricane shutter box as well as my half of the the
ceiling). Just to keep Himself from tripping over his pouting lip, I took to the
stepladder to do the outer overhang with Bear holding the paint pot with one
hand and me with the other – by my knickers – how would they stop anyone from
falling......, yes but at least they would act as a
parachute due to their significant size. Have you ever seen anyone
realise that they were in clear and imminent danger after letting something
unsolicited fall from their lips....... Recompense was a loaded cappo. Least I could do judging by the ‘stop a speeding train’ look that
flashed in front of me, way too
scary. The real comedy occurred when I asked my beautiful
assistant to open the second of our three ‘big boy pots’ of emulsion. To save
opening the huge lid there is a little plastic pull cord attached to a two inch
re-sealable plug which he indeed pulled and managed to splatter me from hips to
feet and himself from glasses to chest.......Mmmm....
 At five o’clock we went to the front garden to do
some serious pruning, cannot look at this mess any
longer and we have the skip to fill. Bear removed the big rocks from the
front, initially they were hoyed in the skip then I made him dumpster dive to
retrieve them for the rockery. What am I supposed to say
about that......, payback for the parachute comment. I better stay very silent then hadn’t I, good choice.
Now we can see what can stay and what has to move or face the skip. We packed up
at six thirty and I lost at Mex Train. Butter chicken and rice upstairs watching
some animal programs before long showers. Not a bad days
work, especially for a Sunday...    Monday the 27th. Bear put
my cup of tea and breakfast carrot along with my tablets, on a plate on the
table outside. I came down to find this little madam
had pushed my medicaments all over the place. Huh. Jane (new property manager)
came at ten – on the dot, love at first sight. Efficient, straight and countless
other complimentary descriptive words. We mentioned that our small gas cylinder
was empty and the big one was almost used “No problem, we keep some full small
ones at home, drop it off in the morning and order a big one that will be
collected this afternoon and delivered full on Thursday.” Wow. We chatted for a
couple of hours and booked a follow-up meeting for tomorrow at two along with
Ian (hubby) a builder who will go through our needs.
The skip after yesterday, hope to fill it much
more today as we attack the garden in a serious way. First job for Bear was to
pull out a scraggy bit of
tree.   Next task was to dig out the remnants of a
dead palm which made quite a hole. We stood for a
while discussing the four huge African milkwood cacti
– vicious things and as soon as you prune them they drip ’milk’ everywhere. The
garden is just too small to warrant such dominant, nasty things so the two on
the left have been put on death row. For now, Bear got down to scraping and
bagging as many chippings as he could save (expensive here) then loosening the
topsoil with his small crowbar. I scooped with my trowel and slowly we began to
go from left to right. It was clear that in the past five or six yards of
topsoil was hoyed across the patch making it too high for the path and drive,
too many plants were put in with no consideration for spacing over time, and we
found the mud had piled around the base of the carport upright rotting the
bottom six inches........that will need to be chopped out and a concrete inset
to make it up – yet another job found. Richard and Joel dropped the new air con
units off. Tuesday the 28th. First thing as promised, Jane and
husband Ian arrived with a full, small gas cylinder. We spent four hours in the
garden, showered and prepped some snacks for a proper visit from Jane and Ian.
Due to their efficiency and doing exactly what they say I have named herself
Lady Ronnie (after the Ronseal advert, it does what it says on the tin, so Ian
has to be Lord Ron). How can we have guests during lockdown ??? Well, businesses
here can now carry on as usual with the compulsory wearing of facemasks. Lord
Ron was here to look at the work we need doing in readiness for a quote and Lady
Ronnie to go through villa management and information we need re suppliers,
internet, television etc as we move to Absolute Properties. Lady Ronnie has a
self-set limit of forty rental places to keep up her high standards, we are
lucky to slip in at number thirty-nine after she lost two (one died, one sold).
The fact that several sherbets were consumed was by the by but my notebook was
filling with telephone numbers and contacts for this and that. The lovely pair
had to leave at five forty-five to ensure being home before curfew at six. We
were both shattered and soon fell into bed at half eight, only managing one
episode of Lucifer (well we do get up between half five
and six, mmmm nothing to do with the alcohol consumed, well, that may also add to the
reason).   Wednesday the 29th. Jane
popped in just after breakfast and whisked us up the road to see a villa that
Ian has just finished with a tiled deck instead of wood – oh, it looked gorgeous
all the way from the door to the dock edge, beautifully level. Them we looked at
the the staircase, equally gorgeous, so hope they are within our budget. Back to
ours and we continued the leveling of the garden. Decision taken, out came
Bear’s saw and down came the incredibly heavy branches of the offending
milkwoods. My beautiful assistant waggled the first
stump and with a bit of brute force and out it
came with a satisfying pop. We can finally see some garden,
  Richard and Joel
came to start work on fitting the bedroom air cons. First, unhitching the
outdoor bit used by both rooms and then they set about removing the units
upstairs. They managed to get the new one up in the
front bedroom but will connect it when they come back. We have said if any
household emergencies come up they should deal with them as we are in no rush.
We had a planning meeting over the upstairs balcony
as budget will not allow for the shiny steel uprights we have decided on a new
wooden top bar and wires through the original uprights, if we can varnish or
paint to a decent standard as replacing will be a major headache. Lovely emails
back and forth with Shana (the website lady) who has already changed our
property management details.   The current look of our
bedroom wall. Cannot wait for Adam to collect our curtains (currently in
store in Plymouth) and post them out to us as the old yellow jobs from the
lounge are quite horrid. Bear has a swingy arm for the television so it can sit
away from said curtains. A pretty ugly hole but it
gives us a clue as to the gap between the outer and inner walls. The boys are
going to tidy up the Heath Robinson wiring before they hang our air con
unit.   An interesting working
girl went by and our faithful little gecko enjoyed a
bit of sandwich.   Meanwhile, back in
the garden it was time for some destructive fun. The poorly
looking palm in the ugly pot (of which there are two) were starving and horribly
root-bound. No way could we get pull or dig them out, nothing for it then, out
came my trusty little club hammer. With some glee the
first clonk split the offending thing and soon bits were
flying in the skip. Pure joy and great fun to
watch.   No way was I going to
dig a hole big enough for the whole thing so we got to work with Bear’s saw and
trimmed it in half. Digging out took ages using the
crowbar and trowel but eventually I was throwing a bucket of water and some
honey (poor man’s rooting powder) in the new home for the poorly chap who had
long ago given up looking a lush green. We hope he will shoot up, leggy, but taller than the
milkwoods.  We finally got the patch level, I painted between us (and the
neighbours drive to our right) the slate grey that the drive will be and
transplanted the sharp and blood-letting chap that had
been in the corner (Bear is seen keeping at a respectful distance). It really is brutally sharp. We looked him up
later - Wiki says: Euphorbia milii, the crown of thorns, Christ plant, or Christ thorn, called Corona de Cristo in Latin America (coroa-de-cristo in Brazil), is a species of flowering plant in the spurge family Euphorbiaciae, native to Madagascar. The species name commemorates Baron Milius, once Governor of Réunion, who introduced the species to France in 1821. It is imagined that the species was introduced to the Middle East in ancient times, and legend associates it with the crown of thorns worn by Christ.  
We bought blue shade
screen in Cape Town to make a sort of roller blind using curtain tracks
as seen when we visited Mary and Rod, but since we purchased a real one from
next-door-but-three it became obsolete. Plan, to put up a wooden frame around
the top edge of the car port ceiling, staple a layer of the shade cloth to
protect the wood panels when we get bougainvillea trailing over the top as it
will give them something to grab hold of. Having measured our needs on the lounge floor we had enough to use as
weed guard on the patch, then it was time to spread the
chippings we had saved. Bear has been pondering and mulling, you know I like to mull. In the recess to the right
of the front door is going to be a proper shower – OK then, the
original plan was to put a tap and seat for folks to wash sandy feet on
returning from the beach.
Time for a game, supper, showers and fall
into bed. For some unknown reason the blog would not
go through as one message so - Continued |