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The Melaque party started out small and has grown quite a bit. It was initially only for our friends who had been to Melaque. Maybe eight or ten people. Then, over the last few years, we met more friends who had been there and the party grew a little. I started feeling bad about all our friends and family who were missing such fun and eventually if you even knew where Mexico was, you qualified to come. Then, of course, you can’t leave the neighbours out. This year there were invites for over fifty people and about 29 people were here.

I was up early on Saturday morning to start getting things ready. I had already borrowed all the neighbour’s tables and chairs so all I had to do was arrange them so we all had somewhere to sit. Then Rosalie put the table clothes on while I set up the Taqueria.

The party was supposed to start at 3 pm but we had asked Peter and Suzie to come earlier for a visit. They arrived on time and then Gordie and Karen showed up, and people kept coming early. We started as a small group chatting and way before 3 pm we were a large party chatting. And so it began.

Everyone was here on time so Peter and I opened the Taqueria at about 5 pm and we started serving at about 5:45. Peter was the server and I did the cooking. I lagged a bit with the tortillas and should have had a bunch ready beforehand. But I didn’t, and we survived. We put a tip jar up and primed it with all sorts of peso notes, including a 500; all we got was a bottle cap, a wrapped candy and a toonie. I also think one of the 500 peso notes is missing.

The beef almost ran out but a lot of chicken was left. Our roasted onions weren’t as big a hit as last year but the tacos were well received. When the last one was finally served I thankfully sat and enjoyed a taco myself.

It was my birthday a month ago and I got a couple of belated birthday presents. Both were very practical. The first was a coffee mug from Gordie and Karen with a lovely inscription. The second was a sippy cup from john and Lesley for my wine so I don’t keep spilling it on my laptop. Also lovingly inscribed, this time with my initials.

I found that I had more time to mingle this year and actually found a few people who would speak to me. And then, even after praying all week that it wouldn’t, it started to rain! Luckily it only lasted a few seconds and then stopped.

We didn’t set the Jenga game up ahead of time this year. I think it was because we didn’t have as much room as usual. I did offer to set it up later but the enthusiasm was gone so I didn’t do it. Perhaps next time.

It was an early end and not many people stayed after about 8:30. Some had to drive home and preferred to do it in the daylight. We didn’t have so many die-hards as usual and I think I saved a bit of tequila because of it. Linda and Art were the last to leave and we sat chatting with them for a while. The cleanup waited until next morning, although we did bring in all the booze.

I was up and at it at about 8:30 am the next day and had the whole place cleaned up by 10:00, tables and chairs returned to their rightful owners, glasses and cups rounded up and taken in, taqueria dismantled and put away for another year, banners taken down and the yard raked. I didn’t find any stray people sleeping under the bushes, but I think we’re getting a bit too old for that. Rosalie had to do the dishes so she had a bit more of the work than I. We had several visitors during the day so that gave us the incentive to do nothing for a while.

All in all a great party and we look forward to doing it again next year. Or, perhaps we can have a Qualicum party in Melaque!

With the day of the Melaque party fast approaching, Rosalie had trouble finding suitable tortillas. She searched high and low…she said! Seeing as how it is my Taqueria I decided that we should make our own. Oh boy!

There were lots of recipes and we tried several. Rosalie took on the flour ones and I the maize. We mixed the dough as per instructions cut it into small pieces and put it in the tortilla press, yes, I have one of those. The dough made beautiful little tortillas, perfect for tacos…and then they started to shrink and grow thick. I don’t know why this occurs but the same thing happens when I’m making perogies. I even tried refrigerating them before pressing them but that didn’t work either.

The corn ones didn’t shrink. So, I rushed them to the griddle and cooked one up. It was okay but it broke apart really easily as corn tortillas tend to do. So we abandoned the homemade idea and went on a tortilla hunt.

We drove to several grocery stores in Parksville before we found what we were looking for at Thrifty’s. I grabbed an arm full and after picking up a new propane tank at Canadian Tire to cook them with, we flew home feeling relieved that we had something to feed our guests.

The weather doesn’t look too bad for the day but the days before are nasty so it’s holding up preparations. The food can mostly be done ahead of time but the setup will have to be done on Friday and Saturday morning.

The setup involves me sneaking around to the neighbours and stealing borrowing chairs, tables, umbrellas and anything else I can lay my hands on that will be useful. Then I have to arrange all the said tables and chairs several times until Rosalie is satisfied. I’m sure that in the last two years they ended up exactly where I had them the first time. Ah, but it just wouldn’t be the same without the wife supervising and making things ‘better’.

I don’t know why I put us through it. We end up with a bit of a hangover, a yard full of discarded cans and bottles, and a whole lot of chairs and tables that have to be snuck back to the neighbours before they find out they’re missing and report me to the authorities. And of course, there is always that one guy who sneaks into the garden to steal carrots and passes out in the beet patch. Oh, wait, that was me.

It’s all worth it though just to see all our friends and have some fun. Last year we had the die-hards who sat around with us drinking tequila until goodness knows when. It’s the fun times like these that keep us going.

Rosalie was checking our online bank account and found the format wasn’t quite the same; she couldn’t find her usual stuff. Not the money though, as little as it is, she managed to find that. Does that seem like a familiar scenario though? Every time we get used to an online program it seems to change, and not necessarily for the better. I think that there is a whole bunch of geeks out there, working to improve things and don’t know when they’ve achieved their goal.

Or, perhaps they do! Of course, they have to try and justify their jobs and they walk a fine line between incompetence and brilliance. If they come up with a great idea to save the general public time and money then they are jeopardizing their own existence, because then, they may not be needed anymore. If the program is so bad that a lot of complaints are generated then they could still lose their jobs.

I envision these guys and gals sitting in a darkened room in the basement smoking weed and plotting what to screw the public up with next. The major theme is “Let’s do an upgrade to make things appear to be better. If anyone complains we can put it down to them, not having the technical ability to understand it and they are the stupid ones.”

We’re not stupid but have to phone in any way to find someone to help us sort the whole mess out. After a 50-minute wait, we get some guy with a lovely East Indian accent that no one but we Brits can understand. He, of course, is a buddy of the geeks in the basement smoking weed and knows that his job is on the line too.

After proving who we are, by giving this complete stranger all our personal information we finally get to explain our problem. Then we are put on hold for several minutes while they check things out. Several minutes stretch into fifteen and they arrive back with no further information. “Sorry, I’m not able to help you with this I will have to transfer you to our Complaints Department.” Click!

Another fifty minutes go by and another guy, this time with an Eastern European accent (I think to intimidate us) asks again for all our personal information. (I can hear him taking notes so that in a few weeks my MasterCard will again be compromised.) This may be a coincidence, but who knows.

After two and a half hours we find out that our payment of $12 for our Netflix account was good after all.

Me at the end of the call

Oh! my new Master Card will be here in 5 to 10 days. Unfortunately, I have to phone in to authenticate it.

It’s slowly driving me potty. This weather is weird. Some days we’re finally in Summer and then a few days later back to Winter. I looked at the forecast for the next two weeks and the seasons are taking it in shifts; four days on and four days off. This is the only reason I wish we were still in Melaque where they had 180 straight days without rain.

The garden is as totally confused as I am. The forecast says rain, so I don’t water. Then we get no rain for several days. The sun comes out and it starts raining, just after I’ve finished watering. Unfortunately, our grow-op is as confused as the rest of the garden and is slow to take off. Perhaps I should buy some grow lights and do it in the shed.

I shouldn’t complain I suppose. We could be in the Ukraine being rained on by another mad man’s missiles. Could you imagine what it would be like if idiot Trump was still president? He would be supplying arms to his pal Putin. But that’s another rant I shouldn’t get into.

Regardless of the weather, we have done a lot of socializing lately. A dinner invitation here, a happy hour invite there; people dropping in just to visit. We’re having a hard time keeping up, and the wine keeps running out.

Even though I’ve cut back a lot on my wine consumption we still frequently run out and have to harass our supplier to get more. Forget this 28-day nonsense, I think they should concentrate on the 28-hour variety; I’m sure there must be some out there. I just remembered that back in the day there was a wine that came as a powder and all you had to was add water. I think that idea should be revisited. They should make it in cube form and that would bring a whole new meaning to the question “One lump or two?”

When people come to visit the wine situation gets worse as some of them are so inconsiderate. It’s not that they don’t bring any, it’s because they drink all their own and don’t leave any behind for us.

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”—― Hunter S. Thompson.

And, that is our philosophy!

I mentioned earlier that we were going to try some hydroponic gardening. So we started off small and within the weeks have an industrial-size project going.

It’s all my fault of course. As soon as I started building my first growing box I was hooked and wanted more. Rosalie, not wanting to encourage me too much, kept asking every two minutes if your first seeds were up yet. It’s almost as annoying as “Are we there yet.”

We started by investing in an inexpensive pack of starter plugs. All you have to do is soak them and insert the seed in a hole in the top, and then wait. The problem is that they were kept inside and the heat isn’t turned on at night so they took some time sprouting. I ordered a heat mat from Amazon and they seem to love it. When I put them out in the full sun they almost grew before our eyes. When they get a bit bigger they will be put into the system and that’s where they will really take off (I hope.)

I had various ideas as to which method I wanted to use but the first we tried (notice we) was called Water Culture which involves suspending the plants above a water solution infused with nutrients and oxygenated by an air pump.

Rosalie got so excited that we had to take a few plants from the dirt garden to get things going. Our first try didn’t kill any plants but we had to change the water after three days. Being nubies, we didn’t realize that we had to get the PH level of the water just so, before adding nutrients. So the water was emptied out and we started again. This method is so simple that we bought another container to double our growing area.

The other method we chose to use is the Nutrient Film Technique. This involves running shallow water through tubes with the plant roots just in the water. The water then returns to a reservoir to be pumped through again. So I built one of those too. I have to make sure that we don’t hear the water running as it likely would have Rosalie and me fighting for the bathroom.

The NFT system is almost set up

We now have places for forty-five plants. Green plants such as lettuce, spinach and kale grow best but I had to bring Rosalie back to earth as she wanted to grow trees and bushes and particularly blueberry bushes. And of course, she wants a couple of marijuana plants. I said no but I noticed that we did include some poppy seeds.

The water culture containers are located under a beam on the deck so we can attach strings and grow things like peas, beans and cucumbers. There are also some tomatoes and peppers.

Hopefully, we won’t starve this summer. I think I’ll turn the old garden patch into a mini soccer field.

Painting trellises is the boringest job imaginable. Boringest? Okay, most boring, but I prefer boringest.

Now the sun room’s down and we have our deck back; all there is to do is paint everything. It’s been quite the Job so far. Not only did we decide to paint the decks but also the surrounding trellises. That’s where Rosalie comes in. She has way more patience than I do and has done a great job of painting all those fiddly bits that I hate. I have had to do some though, under Rosalie’s supervision of course. Apparently, I didn’t do too bad.

Before painting the deck I have to sand it. OMG, what a large project. I didn’t have a palm sander anymore so I went and bought one from Home Depot. The sander was $109 and the battery was also $109. I was lucky that I have a Ridgid drill because the batteries are interchangeable. 

The whole thing has been a lot of work but with Rosalie’s help the project has gone pretty well, with the exception of me spilling a little blood here and there. It will be worth it in the end as the deck is already starting to look better. I would have gotten more done but our social life keeps getting in the way, usualy for the best, as that way I get a break and we also get to socialize with our friends that we love to do.

Rosalie, when she’s not painting trellis’, continues with her other passion, cooking & baking. The food’s great but she keeps wanting to buy more appliances to cook with. Anyway, so far, she hasn’t given me food poisoning so it’s worth it.

Rosalie with her latest creation, a round lasagna

I too need something to do other than keep working, so we discovered hydroponic gardening. No, not for marijuana…well maybe sometime in the future, who knows. At the hydroponic store we dropped a few bucks to get some start-up equipment. We’re going to try two different methods so it could get interesting.

A few seeds have been started to get us on our way and expect to put those in the hydroponic devices in the next week or two. It would be a help if there was more sun. The seeds are growing indoors mostly but I bring them out for some sun in the short time that it does come out.

The excitement started after watching a guy on YouTube grow cucumbers a foot long and weighing half a kilo, in twenty-eight days.

The tree in our yard has given us great service as a shade tree but was starting to die off so we had to take it down. I had planned to do it on Tuesday so on Monday I decided to lop a few branches with my new super duper battery operated, auto tensioning, self-lubricating 10″ chain saw. I got it for free from AirMiles so I know it’s top of the line. I once was a logger for a while, so I had a vague idea of what I was about.

I took a few branches down and before I knew it the whole thing was on the ground and mostly bucked up. I had to stop as the battery needed charging. The lot looks a lot better now and has opened up the yard. In my defence I was unsupervised. Rosalie was inside busily baking. At least I got the right tree and still have all my limbs.

The park staff were great and hauled all the branches and dead parts of the tree away so that saved me some work. They will have to come back though as I have to do some trimming. Now I have a saw I will be looking for stuff to cut down. Don’t come near me if you have a wooden leg.

If anyone says they prefer it with the tree, remember that I have a new super duper battery operated, auto tensioning, self-lubricating 10″ chain saw. And, I probably know where you live.

With all the mass shootings in the USA, which seem to be going on forever, I was happy to read a blog from one of my favourites, Ben Travato. Here is the link if anyone would like to read it. Ben Travato

Enough of that depressing subject.

When we go to bed in Mexico it’s like “Don’t come near me it’s too hot!”; here, it’s “come and cuddle me it’s so chilly.” Will this nasty weather never end? It is getting warmer though, we haven’t had the furnace on in the evening for three nights now. We even stayed out on the deck with our propane table fire going until 10:30 one night.

I was starting to get bogged down with all the chores I had to do, so I made a list. It doesn’t look nearly as daunting now. I plan to knock them off one by one and hope others don’t crop up to replace them. All these little things are from the end of the saga of the sunroom. Now it’s gone we are rearranging and making things more comfortable. Hopefully, it will be over soon and we can finally relax.

Rosalie’s already relaxing

My turn

As soon as the weather gets better I will be painting the deck. Once that’s done I’ll tackle the Big Green Egg counter; it’s been a mess and hard to clean for some time now. I also have to paint the deck on that side. I have 15 chores left as of today and three of them are fairly large projects. Still. it keeps me out of mischief.

The new roof will be installed next month. There was only going to be one slide covered as we thought that the other two would have to come in for several reasons. But after talking to Brian, the park manager, it was decided to do all three. Our trailer is a big investment and we want to protect it. So now we have to get an updated quote. The problem will be tracking down Brad, the guy who is going to do the job. He’s very busy, mostly in the park here. I left him an email so we’ll see.

It’s seventy years since the Queen came to the throne. Her dad George VI died on 6th February 1952. So I’m having a problem wondering why they are celebrating 70 years later on 2nd June rather than 6th February. I was six at the time and remembered my older brother coming home and telling the family that the King had died. I know that they are actually celebrating my birthday. The coronation was on my eighth birthday on 2nd June 1953. I was eight then and got a lot of mileage out of it, and still do.

The streets of Rochester were decorated with banners and there were street parties all over the place. I was made to stand on a chair while everyone sang happy birthday. Each of the kids was presented with a mug full of candies. The mug had the royal coat of arms printed on it. I kept mine until a few years ago when it got lost in one of our many moves.

This was about a block away from our house

Also at that time, they made a miniature of the coronation coach. This was the first of many Matchbox Toys. I had one that I used to race on the pavement and I probably ended up wrecking it.

I met the queen a few times…no I didn’t. I’ve been close though. If the camera panned a little to the right in the following picture, you would see my best friend John and me.

The queen was visiting the Bishop of Rochester, my hometown. Later when she was leaving we rushed over to where they had the weekly market, beside the railway tracks, and waited for the royal train, The Royal Scot, to pass, not really expecting to see anything. There were about six or eight of us and as the train passed by we saw the queen; she saw us and waved. It was awesome. I also saw her on another visit to the Bishop and was only a few feet away.

Is the British royalty relevant today? Probably not to most of the world, but you have to be a Brit to understand our attachment to them. I personally can’t figure it out, even though I’m 99% Canadian I still have that same attachment. Perhaps it will all change when Elizabeth’s gone and Charles takes over; who knows? The rest of the Royals seem to be a bit blah, after her. But I think that it’s been the same throughout history, except that now the scandal-seeking press and social media bring it all to the forefront, exposing every little wrinkle. Fortunately, Elizabeth herself has been nearly spotless.

Back in the day, royalty, like Henry VIII, Richard III and the first Elisabeth would have had your head off, if you suggested they were doing anything wrong, Ah! Those were the days. Long may she reign!

Pizza wars are over with the egg being the clear winner, even Rosalie concedes defeat. So, the Big green egg won the pizza war and the Instant Pot won the rib war. I’m sure there will be more fights in the future. The upshot is that we will be eating some great food and having some fun and friendly fights.

Actually, Rosalie is leaving me alone a lot these days as she’s gotten heavily into baking bread and cakes and stuff. Not only do I have a little more freedom I get to eat some great creations. A few are not so great but they are rare.

We went to the local garden centre in Bowser and I managed to snag eight jalapeño plants before they sold out. We also picked up a few other plants to start our belated gardening season. So, it’s mostly planted now.

I took down all of the sunroom except for the roof. It looks a lot better now. After all the dust had settled I had a lot of crap to get rid of. I was going to take it to the dump myself but decided to call a long-time friend, John, to haul it away for me. He and his wife Lesley came to the trailer as well as Peter (yes, that Peter) and Suzie. I cooked some hamburgers on the egg and we all had a nice lunch.

After lunch Bob and Marleen, our neighbours showed up. Rosalie went over to invite them for dessert. Bob’s a dessert fiend so they couldn’t refuse. Rosalie had made an awesome Chocolate and Strawberry cake. But unbeknown to me she decided to celebrate my birthday a little early with a round of happy birthday. I was very touched even if the singing was a tad off key. Well, a tad might be an understatement but it was great anyway.

Now that I have my computer back I can inundate you all with useless blogs; well, it keeps me amused. Also thank you all for the very useful suggestions as to what I should do to prevent further mishaps with wine. The best so far came from Lesley who suggested a sippy cup. I may have to look into that.

With this cooler weather, we use about a 30 lb tank of propane a week. We’ve been going to Comox as it’s cheaper there at Costco. We were paying about $25 a tank. Jim came by one day and said he gets his from Bowser for under $30. I worked out that it cost us $15 to drive to Comox and back so now we get it locally without all the hassle of driving so far.