Month: December 2022

Just before Christmas there are all kinds of celebrations and parades mostly between 1st and 12th of December to celebrate ‘The Lady of Guadalupe’. A very religious event. The video is part of one of those very colourful parades.

On Christmas eve I went into the laundry room to get something off the shelf and was startled by a huge spider. I don’t think I was worried too much about its size, but that darn thing could move.

Preparing for a battle with a spider

I grabbed a broom and prepared to do battle. Not only was it fast, it went straight up the wall and hung on the ceiling mocking me. I attacked with the broom and it dropped to the floor right at my feet. I must have screamed because it jumped and ran and hid behind my toolbox.

Me, when it dropped from the ceiling.

I decided that I had to bring in the heavy artillery and grabbed a can of Mexican-style Raid. Even then I’m not sure if I got it or not as it sped away behind the washing machine and I didn’t see it again. Needless to say, I don’t go into the laundry room anymore Because if it lives it’s going to be really pissed off. I’ll go back in after Rosalie brings me its body.

That evening, we went down the road to join the rest of our friends for pre-Christmas appies. After the trauma of the spider, I needed some relaxation; I think I was suffering from PTSD. There were fifteen of us and the food, drink and company were great.

Me, the next morning

Arriving home, and after I made sure the laundry room door was locked and barred, we watched ‘Hocus Pocus’ for some light entertainment before going to bed. Meanwhile, the local Mexicans were having a great time. The music played all night and was still going on in the morning. While we were having our morning tea, some guy next door started yelling and singing and was obviously drunk. I wouldn’t want his head later in the day.

Christmas day was a lounge around, and do as little as possible day. You know, like any other day. Although Rosalie had to prepare a dessert for dinner that evening. At about 5 o’clock, we again went down the road to join our friends for a fantastic turkey dinner, and of course a few drinks.

Back at the casa, we went up to the roof patio and watched ‘A Christmas Story’: one of my favourite Christmas movies.

The following day, we were back to normal with wine on the beach at Papa Gallo’s.

It’s that time of the year again. It seems to creep up on me as I’m still not used to these temperatures at Christmas time.

Thank you to those people who sent cards and e-cards. We of course do neither so I try to make up for it with the blog. If we sent a Christmas card from here we would have to send it in October and you may, if you’re lucky, get it for Easter. However, we think of all our friends and family at this time and are grateful to have you all.

When we see snowfall in Canada we feel a little nostalgic and wish we could be there. This only lasts for a short while so to get over it, having a margarita on the beach does the trick.

There’s been some entertaining up on the roof patio. Rosalie likes to have friends in so she can feed them with lots of appies and send them home full. This week has been really busy in this regard.

We wish all our friends and family Feliz Navidad y Feliz Año. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

All our love, Chris and Rosalie.

Our little lime tree was planted with great care. However, it doesn’t appear to like us and is slowly dying off. I wonder what I said this time? I even covered it with Christmas lights but to no avail. When it finally expires, we will still use it for a while as it makes a great inexpensive Christmas tree. After that, it will go where all our plants go when they die, into the empty lot across the street. With my knack for killing plants, that lot will be full soon after we get back next year.

It doesn’t look too promising

Memorial services will be held every afternoon at two o’clock at Papa Gallo’s on the beach until the end of the season.

I already have an orange tree to take its place so I won’t mourn too long. While getting the orange tree we also picked up three papaya trees for me to try and kill off. Why three you ask? Well, only the female produces fruit (obviously) but we have no idea which is male or female. I tried turning them upside down to look but Rosalie said I was being weird so I decided to take my chances.

Besides males and females, some are also bisexual so they can play with themselves for pollination. If you don’t treat them just right they get stressed and the females become males and don’t produce fruit. No comment there about females being awkward as Rosalie would beat me.

We have been enjoying strolling up to the town centre as it gets dark. We like to find the Churro cart and wait while they make fresh ones for us. The stroll ends at Papa Gallo’s for a glass of wine before heading home. When we get home, we sit on the roof patio and watch Netflix until one of us falls asleep. This usually takes about fifteen minutes.

Mmmm! delicious!

I can’t believe that we’ve been down here for two months already. Time sure flies when you’re having fun. We haven’t really been anywhere so far, we prefer to stay local and enjoy ourselves that way. I’m sure we will take a few day trips before the season is done. Rosalie wants to go to Puenta Perula which is about an hour’s drive from here. We’ve heard that it’s quite beautiful so we just may find a place to stay overnight.

There was a week of high humidity a week or so ago but things have cooled off a bit lately. There hasn’t been a 30-degree day for several days now. At night the temperature has been going down as low as fifteen so I have to wear long pants and my hoodie in the morning.

I have just discovered ChatGPT, it’s amazing! Just ask it a question and you get a concise well written answer. It’s AI (artificial intelligence) and sometimes makes mistakes but if it can’t find the answer it says so. Cool site.

Go Leafs!

Well, that’s that, and then there’s this:

Just a small sample of how large corporations are ripping us off. If I did this I would be in jail quicker than quick. Remember the guy who bought up all the hand sanitizer from Costco? I defiantly don’t agree with what he did but if he was a large corporation he would have gotten away with it.

And this:

Rosalie has turned her hand lately to cooking as a hobby. I enjoy her dishes and her enthusiasm. I have also learned all sorts of ways of telling her I don’t like a particular dish without actually saying I don’t like it. Any new skill is a good skill.

One of the off-shoots is that she has started making different flavours of margarita. So far she has tried mango and papaya. I love them both but can’t make up my mind which I like best so she has to keep making them until I can finally decide.

Also this

Our rent was due to be paid so we went to the Intercam bank to withdraw some pesos from our account. We walked in, took a number and were seventh in line. Now, in a Canadian bank that means a five minute wait. This however, is Mexico.

Our second stop was Barra so we decided to go there first to buy some plants but the place was closed for some reason. So back to the bank again and continue standing in line. We still had our original number but still had to wait forty five minutes before getting served. Total time from when we first walked into the bank was an hour and twenty minutes.

There are three tellers but only one was open. The tellers not only deal with customers but also members of the staff who come up and speak to them regularly.

It was exhausting!

Once the money was in my wallet it had to go to the BanaMex bank to pay the rent. It was getting too late that day as we were expecting visitors so the plan was to go back the next day during siesta time when most Mexicans are off eating their lunch.

The way to pay the rent, is to have a photo of our landlords credit card and present it to the teller. They then take our cash money and give us a receipt which we take a photo of and send to the landlord via email. It works well especially as BanaMex has a bit more efficient way of dealing with clients. The whole thing this time took about five minutes.

Go Leafs! Oh, for the non North Americans, the Toronto Maple Leafs are my favourite ice hockey team and are doing great right now. I take a lot of abuse because I’m a fan of an eastern Canadian team so folks like to rub it in a bit.

Again, Go Leafs!

We wanted to brighten up the yard by adding a few more plants. As it happened, friends of ours, Dan and Linda, were thinning out their garden and donated a whole bunch of beautiful plants to us.

I happened to ask how they grew banana plants. We now have two plants to find out for ourselves. Apparently, all you have to do is dig a small hole, stick the plant (about a foot tall) into it, water it a bit and wait. Apparently, when we come back next fall, we will be able to eat the fruit.

Because of this, I have been digging holes and planting like a madman. They gave us so much stuff that I had trouble finding places to put it. I’m concerned about the soil as it seems to be mostly sand and small gravel. I was told to dig and plant so that’s what I did. I had to take the attitude that if it comes up, it does and if it doesn’t, too bad.

When I first planted them, most were very droopy and sad looking but after a few days some were showing signs of recovery so I live in hope.

I started to relax and then they said they had a lime tree for us. I had to dig a good sized hole which was fairly easy once I had watered the ground a bit. The soil is still very sandy and gravely so I had to do something about that.

Dan and Linda told us of a place just outside of Barra where we could get some peat moss. We found the place fine and after some language problems found what we were looking for. It wasn’t peat moss as we know it. I think it was more likely coconut husks which will work just as well. We also bought an aloe vera plant with several babies. The whole thing cost 100 pesos, about $7 CDN.

When we went to get the lime tree they also had a lot of good garden soil for us so I got a couple of five gallon buckets of that too.

Digging up the tree was a bit of an ordeal as it is covered with very nasty thorns. Luckily, the roots weren’t too deep, so Dan and I had it out and into the back of the car in no-time. I got nailed by a few thorns and as usual had to give blood to the cause.

When we got home I found that the hole I dug was just right, so I put some of the peat moss, good soil, some of the sandy soil, the tree in and watered the heck out of it. It looks great just where Rosalie said where to put it. She’s quite proud of herself because of her location planning. I bet she’s even telling her friends that she dug the hole as well.

First off, our internet problem has gone away as Starlink finally got us up and running again. I guess it was just a game of waiting. I’m disappointed with their support though. It was four days before I got any sort of a reply. Apparently, they had a large outage, so they would have been very busy.

It was the day that Martine came to do the cleaning. When she’s there we like to make ourselves scarce as she is a whirlwind and it’s not good to get in her way. A drive to Cihuatlán seemed like a good idea. We needed a new light for the kitchen. There wasn’t anything that would work, but then again, we didn’t look too hard as it was lunchtime and we were getting a bit peckish.

On the way home, our gas was getting low so I pulled in to get a fill-up—only our third since arriving. The attendant was polite and fun so he got a tip. Then I tried to start the car. Nothing!

I lifted the hood and saw that the battery terminals were very corroded. I cleaned them up with a bit of help from the attendant who got the hose and gave them a good wash. He also got a large adjustable wrench and used that as a hammer for a bit but still nothing. I shouldn’t have been surprised as I was scraping gunk off the terminal like peeling cheese. Obviously, the battery wasn’t getting charged.

It’s fortunate that there are some good friends here. One phone call and Jerry was on his way with his truck and some jumper cables. In the meantime, the attendant and another guy pushed us to a shady spot to wait. We were getting hungry but had some ‘yacca’ that we bought from the tianguis earlier so ate that to keep us going.

Jerry showed up after about fifteen minutes and our little old car was soon on the road again. Before we left the attendant got another tip for helping us out.

Back at the casa, I tried restarting the car and sure enough, it started just fine. I have to remember to check the terminals more often. Also, I understand that covering the terminals with Vaseline helps so I’ll do that.

After checking in with Martine and putting our stuff in the fridge we finally got our lunch at Resta-Rita by the lagoon.

The next day I cleaned the terminals and tried to start the car. Dead! Jerry came to my assistance again and I drove to ‘Cowboys Auto Repair’ where they installed a new battery. I also got the terminals changed as they were in bad shape. The total cost was $154 Canadian so not too bad and the car is running great again.

One morning I got into the shower, and after a while, I realized something was a little off as I wasn’t getting wet. Our water had run out. I checked everything I could but to no avail. I checked the ‘tinaco’, a huge tank on the roof, and it was empty. We called Castulo and he said he would be there in five minutes but showed up half an hour later.

Our water comes from a well and I haven’t quite figured out how it works yet. The water seems to be there for the house alright but I have to throw a switch to get water for the garden hoses. I don’t think I should get involved too much so I’ll leave that one alone. There was nothing Castulo could do, and as it was a Sunday, he couldn’t get the repair guy to come out. He told us that he would be here early the next morning, and would get someone to fill our tinaco that day, to hold us until the following day.

Our tinaco on the roof.

By the next morning neither the guy who was supposed to fill the tank, the repair guy, nor Castulo had shown up. We waited a while and then Rosalie called Castulo again and finally he and the repair guy arrived to do the job. This involved lots of back and forth in Spanish, borrowing some tools from me, and Castulo hopping on his motorbike and running uptown for supplies every few minutes. I also heard a bit of hammering and banging but didn’t dare look to see what was happening.

It’s a bit of a challenge living without water. It makes showering, laundry and flushing a little difficult. We have plenty of drinking water in 20-litre jugs so we got on fine. I used the jugs to fill the toilet tank and must have stirred up a lot of sand because when I flushed the bowl was full of the stuff.

That same morning we were expecting Eddie at eleven AM to hook up our IPTV. He didn’t show up either! It’s lucky that we have nothing better to do than sit around waiting for people. It was an Amazon delivery day so we had to stay in anyway. Not that we really expected them to show up on time, or at all, for that matter.

Finally, Castulo bought back the old noisy pump as the other one was being repaired. It gives us water and I only need to turn it on to water the garden. It’s been a week now so we are getting used to the new/old system.

StarLink update.

Our system stopped working five days ago so I sent a request for support to StarLink. They took their time answering and eventually answered that the WiFi was out in our area. I thought this was a bit strange but who knows?

Our problem is that we have a 30-day trial period and that is up in a few days. If we send the system back we have to pay for shipping. I have cancelled the contract so don’t have to pay for the service we aren’t using. However, when do we hook it up again? I hope they let us know when it’s ready again.

I often need something to do other than read and drink wine so I do a few odd jobs around the place; before drinking the wine, of course.

The washing machine wasn’t filling up very fast so I cleaned out the filters. It made a slight difference but not much. After I put it back together, the hoses were leaking all over the floor so I ran up to the town for some new washers. Saying ‘new washers’ suggests that there were old washers, but there were none. It fixed the problem though.

The light over the patio wouldn’t light so I put in a new bulb. It still didn’t light.. I pulled the fitting and the whole thing fell apart in my hand. Another trip to the hardware store for a replacement. It works now.

The stairs to the roof have cute sconce lights to illuminate the stairs. There is a switch at the top and bottom but only the top one works. I discovered that the lights ran off the main breaker which was located at the bottom of the yard.

The wall running down the side of the garden has lights and creates a really nice ambiance in the evening. However, just after we got here there was heavy rainfall and they haven’t worked since—another job for Sparky Wells. When I took the switches apart they were all corroded and I had to replace three of them. The one for the stairs works agin now but the garden lights are going to be more of a challenge.

I was waiting in the hardware store with the old switch plate so I could show them what I needed and realized that it was modular. You can take out the switch and either replace it with a new one or an outlet socket. And the plate takes up to three units. Very convenient.

The biggest problem is that all this stuff is outside without proper protection. Even the main breaker for the house is on an outside wall and exposed to the elements.

Rosalie thinks the light in the kitchen isn’t good enough and I have to agree with her, even though it means another job for me. I pulled the old one down to see what I was in for and found that it was a very low-energy LED setup. I now have to find one on Amazon or maybe uptown to replace it.

Me, after fixing all that stuff.

Our shade cloth on the roof is a bit of a challenge as it’s quite big (16′ X 20′)and tends to sag in the middle. I’ve ordered some clips to see if I can pull it a bit tighter to raise it up a bit more. Unfortunately, the delivery is caught up in Amazon neverland and I see that the expected delivery date is yesterday.

I put up all the wire mesh to keep the cats, dogs, small kids, goats and turkeys out. That worked out well. Now I wait until a cat comes in over the neighbour’s wall and I chase it. I want to see its expression when it hits the mesh. Boy! I’m evil.