Aged but not deceased

It’s our last few days here and we are able to take advantage of it.

The beaches are still closed but the beachside restaurants are able to open. We had been to Bugambilias Restaurant a few days ago but as Rosalie and I were up town finishing up our change of address with INM we decided to have a few drinks without the kids. it was great!

However, we had promised them a day in town so today after  Rosaie had her hair cut (aren’t you jealous?) we first went to a hardware store to pick up a better sun screen cover for the car. Then we went back to Bugambilias for our final meal out for this season. We also sadly, said goodbye to Melaque for this season.

It’s difficult packing right now. What do we take? What do we leave? It’s made easier by Raquel saying that we can leave whatever we want. Over the last few years we have collected a lot of stuff. Tables, chairs, loungers. crockery, cutlery; fortunately most of this stuff we can just leave until next season.

I had to wash and cover the car so that it’s ready for next October. We thought we would store some of our stuff in the trunk, but mostly we left everything where it is. I washed and sprayed the bikes with silicon spray to prevent rust and got those put away. We don’t seem to use them since we got the car, so maybe we’ll sell them next year.

Garry and Patti and us put together all our old clothes and give them to Omar. They also decided to go home with just carry on so we are storing their stuff for them. It makes life easier at the airport.

There was a lot of food left over so Rubii can take it home. She has about two kilometres to ride her bike so we will loan her our cooler bag until we come back.

The last swims have been taken. The water is beautiful and really cooling when we step out into a bit of a breeze.

We’re looking forward to being home but it’s still a sad day.

As we had to go into town yet again to try to get our address changed with immigration, we invited the neighbours along.

We pulled into town, Made arrangements to meet up with them later and went to get our forms printed out. We’ve done this so many times now I think we’ve just about paid for the printer.

We got to immigration (INM) and found that we had made a giant step forward. One of the forms was correct (Hallelujah) but we had to do a separate one for Rosaie. So, back again tomorrow. We have been told by several people not to bother as nobody checks anyway. I can see why! We did our few chores and met up with Garry and Patti.

On the way home we check on a regular basis to see if Bugambilias Restaurant was open. Today it was, first day reopening, and we all got choked up. None of us had sat by the ocean for nearly two months and this made a great change. Also, we were the only ones there.

The first thing that happened was the lady serving us put on her mask and gave us a bottle of hand sanitizer. We all ordered Margaritas and sat watching the waves crash on the shore. It was fantastic and great to get out for more than just groceries.

On the way home we stopped into the food distribution place to make another donation. Dr Alberto Pimienta Woo took our money and asked us to wait while he sent a couple of young ladies on their motor bike to get some masks for us. Because we made a donation we got them for free. But of course Rosalie had to buy a few extras. Which was fine.

When we got home we went into the pool as it’s getting a bit warm here 33C although the humidity isn’t too bad.

Now that we know we can get to Canada, providing Alaska Air doesn’t cancel, we are torn between wanting to stay and actually going. It’s been such a great seven months that it’s hard to leave despite the Covid 19 virus. Mostly it’s because we have lucked into such a great place to stay now. It’s beautiful and only $530 Canadian a month. We are looking forward to being home though. I’m sure we will equally be looking forward to coming back here again next fall. We heard that some of our friends have already booked their flights back here  for October.

Update:

Our fifth visit and we finally got our forms accepted at INM. It is an easy process if you have the correct forms.

We were expecting Ray and Tere over for dinner so we got together with Garry and Patti to prepare something special. We decided to do a bunch of appies. I made jalapeno poppers, always popular. Pattie did ribs, guacamole and salsa, Rosalie made a chocolate cheese cake in her instant pot.

That afternoon someone mentioned cocos to Omar. Five minutes later we had three on the table and Garry and Pattie had the same. Only two had milk and the other one was for general eating. We decided to have a Coco Loco contest. Neither Garry nor I had ever made them before so we thought it would be fun.

They were both great so I won’t tell you who one the contest as I’m too modest.

The party went well. We started off at our place and then switched to Theirs. While at ours, Omar got up to his usual tricks. The sprinklers were on and splashing the patio again so I turned them down when Omar left. We didn’t notice him return and turn them up again, so Ray got a bit of a soaking as he was on that side of the patio.

When Ray and Tere left, the four of us ended up in the pool. The bats were getting a bit too close so I waved my noodle in the air to fend them off. They backed off enough for us to exit the pool and return home.

The following night invited Mike and Pat over as we might not see them until next season. Everything is in seasons now, not years or months. While talking to them we got the email saying we could quarantine at Spidey  provided we followed all quarantine rules. Yipeee! We had a great visit and after desert, we asked Garry and Patti over.

The flight is a Go, Raquel has okayed our storage plan and we now have a place to quarantine. It’s all looking good for this weekend.

 

 

Well, almost.

We had taken the car to town  to get it looked at as it was running really rough. We had to hobble into the nearest repair shop as it was about to pass out for good. They told us it would take two hours. Two days later, they were still saying two more hours.

Finally, one afternoon, my phone rang and Juan said “I have to tell you something “UH OH! ” Your car is ready” I almost passed out from the excitement. Garry was a car salesman and I asked how much it would cost in Canada and he gave a rough estimate of between $400 and $600 Canadian. Gulp!

I asked Juan how much and he said they had to replace the fuel pump. I could see the dollars flying out the window.

With some trepidation, I asked, “What else?””Well,” he said. “We had to replace the sensor.” I almost told Rosalie to cancel our flight as we wouldn’t have enough money to fly home.

He then said there would be labour on top of that. I started to sweat. They had the car for two days the bill was going to be huge. I contemplated leaving it with them as payment.

Then I asked what the total was. “$2,420” he replied. It then dawned on me that pesos are written with a dollar sign also. After a quick dive into the currency convertor, it came to $142.89 Canadian. Hallelujah, we could almost afford that!  Now you can see why we own a car down here. Repairs are so inexpensive.

While we were waiting for the car, I tried to find the form online to change our address for the immigration people but with no luck. So later, when we were in town we stopped by to get them to try it again. They were closed! The following day we got the form printed out. We had four forms of nine pages each. Very costly, 38 pesos about $2.24. When we got back to INM. She said the info was right but on the wrong form. I now have the correct form but am afraid to submit in case it’s wrong again.

When we got home there were a couple of goats lounging by the front door. I immediately thought of BBQ then remembered the only time I tried goat I hated it.

My iCloud email password refuses to work so I went to my iCloud to change it. The problem is that I have two-step security and after I enter the iCloud password it sends a verification code to my email that, of course, I can’t access.

 

If anyone wants to contact me, use the old paddington98@outlook.com address. Unless I owe you money, then I don’t live here anymore.

Omar appears to have come up with another thing to annoy me. He’s set the sprinkler so that I get soaked as soon as I get into the hammock. I don’t mind it too much as it is somewhat refreshing in the heat. (It’s not true he doesn’t do it intentionally, Chris is an idiot: Rosalie)

With all these problems, Rosalie is constantly telling me to stop banging my head against the wall as I might damage the paintwork.

 

Well, we finally got our bush trimmed. Omar went in there as if he was cutting his way through the jungle. He was hacking away and there was leaves and bits of plants flying all over the place.  We think he went a little over board and now we have very little privacy but a great view of the yard. We still change there though, just to see if we can gross out the neighbours.

Click on any picture to get a better view.

We went to town yesterday to submit our forms for the change of address with Immigration (INM) . We went to our local print store and they printed nine pages of each form.

The cute young lady at INM took one look at them and said we had the right information but the wrong forms. I had to control the tears! This was our third visit. She tried to print us a  sample copy but couldn’t do it for some reason so I’m on my own with Rosalie once again. We have to go back on Monday after I have another hair pulling stressful weekend trying to find and interpret the stupid forms.

The day wasn’t all a loss.  When I got up this morning I noticed that the WiFi was back to normal. Slow but almost reliable. I took a chance and tried to download the software for my MacBook. It worked!!  It took three hours but it worked!! I’m back on-line but still have email issues. I’ve submitted a request for it to be sorted, so I should have it reinstalled in a month or two!

Garry informed us this morning that West Jet had re instated our flights and we were welcome to go home with them. No fu..king way. I don’t trust those guys anymore. We still don’t see the reimbursement credit for our last cancelled flight.

Just for some light entertainment, Omar left the main gate open and we had two goats and a few kids (children) wander in. He chased them out and I mention BBQ but he said “Birria” (goat stew). I was thinking more of the kids. At least we were both on a similar track.

See Omar bravely chasing the goats away and leaving me to deal with the vicious kid.

 

I glued my guitar back together. No! Still can’t play it.

We’re sitting outside and it’s about 11 PM we would go in but don’t want the bugs to think they have the upper hand on us. We want to show them that we can go in when we like. I just got another bite and think we should go in while we’re ahead. The little bastards! If only we could bite back. After drinking my blood I hope they all get drunk and fly into a wall or something.

I’m getting punchy and need to get out of this place.

We have to get our bush trimmed. Well, it’s not exactly a bush but it thinks it is and acts like one.

It surrounds the patio and gives us privacy from prying neighbours. (Yes, you know who you are.) We need privacy because when we leave the pool we strip our swimsuits off and dry ourselves there. Thank goodness plants can’t speak or else they would all be saying UGHH! and turning away. I think they will be happy to be trimmed.

Our bush. Notice our bikinis drying on the rail.

I told Omar what we wanted but he ignores me and only talks to Rosalie. Too many thrashings I guess. He’s getting a bit complacent now that I’ve stopped them. Garry recommended a good flogging, and I’m starting to agree.

Omar is a neat guy but I do have some reservations about him. For instance, he gets our water for us and it seems that every second jug leeks. I don’t know if he’s encouraged by seeing me mop it up but he sure brings some crappy bottles. I woke up one morning and the leek was so bad I just swept the water out the door.  Now I set the jug outside and take the top off before bringing it into the house just to see if it leeks.

Raquel was here the other day and she says that she is going to keep a closer eye on him, to see if he’s doing his job well enough. Of course, we lie and say he’s doing a great job. She’s known him since he was a kid and there is obviously a great rapport there.

The ranch we are on used to host benefit parties for up to three hundred people.  The casa we are in used to be the horse barn back in the day. She told us the story of her son and Omar “borrowing” horses from here to ride into Jaluco. Like borrowing Dad’s car, Mexican style. Her son is now our dentist.

A couple who reside in Villa Obregon and whom we have become friends with, Ray and Tere (He’s Canadian, she’s Mexican) used to attend some of those parties and haven’t been here for twenty years. We are having them over this weekend so it will be interesting for them to see how the place has changed.

We were sitting talking to Patti the other day when we were surprised by a loud BOING! The bridge on my newly bought (but cheap) guitar had given way. I think the glue was weakened by the heat. I’m soon off to find some epoxy.

With nothing much to do, I have been spending more time on Facebook than I normally would. But I’m giving it up again. There is too much hate, conspiracy theory, people judging and general nut jobs on there that I don’t need it anymore.

I’m particularly pissed off with people who barely know us judging and criticizing us for not going home earlier than we are. Just because they were fortunate enough not to have their flights canceled four times. They can sit at home smug and be judgmental all they want, but quit posting it on Facebook. It’s none of your damn business anyway.

Rosalie was so incensed that she answered that particular post with one of her own castigating the guy. She must have been mad as she never normally does that sort of thing. I also blocked someone today for promoting hate and  Rosalie reported it to Facebook.

This doesn’t apply to anyone reading this so I don’t know why I’m bothering to write it.

End of rant. Grrrr!

Considering there’s nothing to do here, we sure have a fun life.

One morning Rosalie had to go and get her feet sorted out; you know the really important stuff, like a new design for her toenails. I dropped her off and went home to do a few chores.

She called me after a while and I went to pick her up. I decided to video some of the route while I was driving but found out after, that I had videoed the inside of the car and very little on the outside. Oh well, I’ll do it another time as it is an interesting drive.

We went to get our phones topped up at the Oxxo and had a word with Angel the manager. He said business is down and there are no cases of Covid 19 locally but he is taking precautions. He wipes down the counters and the door every two hours just in case. I think he would wipe down the customers too if he had a chance.

As we came back through Jaluco, we stopped for a taco at our favourite taco stand. We paid twenty-eight pesos ( about $1.66) for two tacos apiece. they were, as always, delicious. Some of the locals spoke to us in Spanish and asked where we were from. At first, Rosalie said Pinal Villa and then realised that they wanted to know if we were from Canada. That was the first meal we had out for about six weeks.

When we got back home, Omar presented us with a bag of mangos and one breadfruit (Jaca). We had a few mangos ripening on the table so we started in on those first. Boy, were they good, I had juice running down my arm and dripping off my elbow. I guess the fruit he had wasn’t for us after all as when he was gone so were the fruit. The next day though he brought the Jaca fruit back for us. Then today, Patti brought some of their share over as they had had enough.

We went for a swim to cool off as it’s starting to get warm here, 34 degrees. Later I was sitting on the patio and decided to play some AC/DC.

I got our Bluetooth speaker and started to blast away. It was awesome. Rosalie wanted to go back into the pool so I took the laptop and speaker over there so that she could still hear it. The neighbours could hear it but weren’t sure where it was coming from. But of course, Omar had to spoil it by getting out the ride on mower and starting it up to drown out the music. I think he likes that thing, he seems to spend a lot of time on it.

Rosalie told him my name again. He said he remembered but that she’s his favourite so that’s why he talks to her.

After the rooster at the old location, I now have a new nemesis. Every night I’m woken up by a single mosquito. I have no idea how she gets in. We make sure all the screens are closed and the door to the wash area is secured, but she still finds me. I took a can of Raid and a can of Off to bed last night. I had to place them well apart or else we would have had a small can of Roff. I sprayed liberally but still woke up with a  bite on my shoulder the next morning.

Our car is still at the garage. We may get it back later today, or not, who knows?

No! Didn’t get it back yet.

 

The first thing we found out today was that our flights have been canceled for the fourth time. So now we’re scrambling around looking for alternatives. I think we may have one on Alaska Air and we would be home on Sunday 24 May. Earlier than we expected. We’ve had enough of the uncertainty and need to be back in Canada. Updates later.

I needed to reset my Mac book as I was having a few issues. My fault, not theirs.  I have done this many times with windows and had no problems. So I followed all the instructions, backed up my data, and formatted the hard drive. So far so good. What I didn’t realize, that unlike Windows, Mac needed to access a good internet connection for its software download. As we are now into several days of crappy internet, it won’t reset. I guess I’ll just have to have patience. I do have my old laptop here so not all is lost; except my emails. But that’s another story.

Since we moved into our new location we have to do a change of address for both our bank and our ‘Residente Temporal’ and for that, we need a rental contract. Raquel, our landlady, got one for us and we all went over it with a fine-tooth comb. We had to hammer out a few sticky points. Raquel pointed out that we need to give a damage deposit but said: “Forget it, you won’t be doing any damage.” Boy! She’s a real tough negotiator.

The next day when all was signed we hopped into the car and started out for town. Then the third issue of the day reared its ugly head. The car started to run really rough. I coaxed it into town and we tried to do our business with immigration but their computer was down. Now so we have to go on-line and do it ourselves.

We managed to get home but it was obvious that I need to get the car seen to. I called Mike and he made a few recommendations. Unfortunately, I didn’t think we would reach the closest garage he recommended so we took it in, to a little place nearer to us.

The guys did a diagnostic scan and saw nothing wrong but they mentioned the word ‘bomba’ (pump). It hit me that it had all the symptoms of a wonky fuel pump. Of course in Mexico you don’t make an appointment for two weeks in the future, you get it done right now. Juan, the young guy who spoke English apologized and said they would need the car for two hours to do more poking and prodding and he would call me back.

Update: We booked our flights and it goes like this. We get a ride to PV. Then, we fly to LA and stay overnight. (If we can find a hotel). The next day we fly to Seatle and then to Vancouver. From there we fly to Nanaimo where Peter will have dropped off our car. Then, we drive home only to be kicked out of the trailer park because as of now, we can’t quarantine there.

By the way, the flight for Vancouver to Nanaimo is almost as expensive as the rest of the flights put together.

We dropped the car off at about 2pm. They said they would need two hours. It’s now 9pm and no word. At 2pm siesta time starts and ends at four. Add in the two hours work time and we get to 6 pm.  Too late to call us. Ah well! Manana.

It’s no wonder that I go through a bottle of wine a week.

The other day I noticed Omar sneaking around the yard looking guilty. He had a net on a long pole and I think he was surreptitiously gathering mangos. He suddenly ducked down and called to Rosalie. He could see me but can’t remember my name. I told him it was ‘Mucho Importante Senor Wells’,  but he just doesn’t listen. I also said Chreeees but he didn’t get that either.

Anyway, Rosalie came running out but  I think she was confused with the interpretation as I think Omar was being chased by a herd of bees and she should have been heading indoors. Anyway, things soon died down and Omar brought us a bunch full of mangos. I know I use him as a foil for my sick humour but he’s really a nice guy and we like him a lot.

I’ve been whiling away my time trump-busting and conspiracy-mocking on Facebook. Notice I don’t use a capital ‘T’ as I don’t think he deserves it. I’m sure I’ve upset a lot of people but TOO BAD. I’m entitled to my opinion and I think everybody should speak out against the stupidity going on in the world right now, especialy south of our border.

It’s amazing how many people believe some of the crap that’s floating around out there. I even see more and more of the flat earth idiots coming out of the woodwork. If we start to believe half of these people we are surely doomed. I think we are anyway and I’m a very positive person as a rule.

End of rant!

We went for our weekly supply run today. As soon as we got to the store I started to panic. No white wine in the lovely little green tetra packs! After Rosalie calmed me down and stuck my thumb in my mouth, we went to a different store and I was able to stock up. Phew, for a minute there I thought I would have to go back to drinking red.

I’ve had some lower back pain problems lately. I’ve had them since I was a kid so nothing new. I asked rosalie to try some massage and pressure but I should have known better. She had a grin on her face as she realised that she could not only inflict more pain, but she could also get to touch stuff without permission and a written consent form.

I suffered through it and the white wine helped a lot.

Omar mentioned a while back that he would make us a Coco Loco. A coconut filled with booze. I asked on several occasions where our coco loco was, but he kept sluffing us off.

We were sitting minding our own business enjoying some quiet time (all day) when I heard: Thump, Thump, Thump. Okay, now what’s he up to! Maybe I’ll have to reinstate the trashings for disturbing us.

We walked onto the lawn and there was Omar at the top of a ladder hacking at the coconuts with a machete. He was bringing them down by the bunch.

After a while, he arrived with five coconuts followed by Garry and Patti. The nuts he used where East Indian and were yellow where the local ones are green. Rosalie saw the potential fun in this and was all of a tremble and rushed in to get the necessary ingredients: Vodka, limes, salt, sugar and mint.

Omar took off and we didn’t hear from him for a while. He was working around the yard finishing up his chores for the day. We razzed him until he finally went home, got changed and came back to do the deed.

He cut out the tops of the Coconuts and poured the coconut water into a jug. The traditional way is to drink from the nut with straws but we didn’t have any. And we were also out of little umbrellas. He added all the ingredients plus a few pieces of coconut meat and poured it for us.

Rosalie and I were a little apprehensive as John, Peter and I had tried making this ourselves some years back and it was hardly palatable but very memorable. As it turned out this one wasn’t too bad. Omar said to not use too much Vodka but that went by the board as we all, including Omar, topped up.

My back’s been acting up so I had taken one drop of CBD oil earlier in the day so before long I was abuzz. As the afternoon wore on we were all telling tales and with Rosalie acting as interpreter, Omar joined in and we all had a great time.

Omar speaks Spanish very precisely and slowly so I can have a little conversation with him. Rosalie thinks it’s great as she can have a good conversation with him. It’s interesting, as sometimes I can step in and help her if she can’t dredge up the word she wants. Omar doesn’t speak English but understands quite a lot.

That was a great afternoon and definitely no more thrashings for Omar also my back wasn’t quite so painful anymore.