House Building Resumes

Well after nearly a two month hiatus, we are under way again. Caused by finances, now resolved and we are on track to finish the house. Painting has been under way for a couple of weeks, new photos uploaded, tiles bought but not yet laid, windows should be in in a couple of weeks time. Still hope to finish in October.

Elections and Presidents

I meant to blog this about the time we had our own election, resulting in the coalition but never got round to it.

The election here in the Philippines was much more noisy and hard to understand. It went on for 4 months, with every candidate having a song (most had the same one actually, No One, No one, but you) and absolutely no policies discussed at all.

The parties here don't mean anything or stand for anything, it is all about personalities. Otherwise how do you explain them electing a boxer to their congress? Or why did 8 million Filipinos vote for the ex-president Estrada who had only served 3 years of his term before being ousted because he was both useless and corrupt?

Also they have a book to fill in because they vote for President, V-P, several Senators, the local congressman, governor, vice-governor, provincial council, mayor,vice-mayor, municipality council - all at once with hundreds of candidates.

I suspect they just tick boxes at random!

Anyway we now have new President, Aquino, who has said he will fight corruption. I hope he succeeds. Unfortunately he is unlikely to succeed before next week when I have to renew my driving license at one of the most corrupt organisations here!!

Not looking forward to it at all.

House update

Everything has slowed down so much now. Currently ceilings to rooms are being put in. We are using plywood rather than the ceiling board we used in the cottage because that board has a limited lifespan apparently.

Windows are waiting till we can paint, the logistics are frightening. I am still hopeful it will be finished by September/October time. We will see.

The Prisoner

I have just finished watching (or falling asleep to) the ITV re-make of The Prisoner. I can truly say it was terrible. Yes, I remember that no one understood The Prisoner when it first came out though every one watched it avidly, certain that it would all come clear in the end, which it didn't. But it was excellent!

This remake was clunky, dull and seemed to miss the point entirely. It seemed to imply it was all dreamed by 2's wife who was on special drugs to keep her dreaming, until her son murdered her. Anyway 2 appeared to be 6's boss in the security firm for which he worked and which he went back to, I think. Whatever.

Bad doesn't get close to it!

Week Six of house building

Last week was Holy Week which was a bit of a holiday so not very much got done, except... well Grace wants a fish pond, she got the workers to dig it out to a depth of about 4 feet, she said. If you look at the picture of her in the pond, you can see it is nearer five feet! Probably going to keep a shark there.

Now this week, we went to Dolly's graduation, pictures at
http://picasaweb.google.com/JPD.Britt/DollySGraduation#

So we were away 2 days. In those two days the walls of the west wing have risen, so now you can see our bedroom etc.

Pictures now uploaded at
http://picasaweb.google.com/JPD.Britt/Housebuilding#

Next week the roof trusses should be on! Wowee!!

New cocktail

I mixed a new cocktail last night, decided to call it a Caliraya Sunset, recipe follows:

2 measures golden rum
1 measure rossi vermouth
3/4 msre dry vermouth
1 msre grenadine
1 msre triple sec
dash of angostura
1 measure lime juice
stir in a glass over ice then top up with soda water.

Tasted nice but strong!

House Building- Week Three

I am going to restrict photos and reports to one a week now. Latest photos for the end of Week Three are now up. As you can see, hopefully, the East Wing is practically ready for the roof beams and trusses. The central block is coming on too, only the West Wing, our end is still waiting because the undercroft needs several strong pillars to support the floor above. Hopefully by the end of next week these will be in place. Watch this space!!


http://picasaweb.google.com/JPD.Britt/Housebuilding#

Church Crawl

Saturday was Visita Iglesia day. So at 4.00 a.m, yes 4 in the morning, we assembled at Cavinti Church and set off to visit 7 churches in Batangas in a convoy. Most people were wearing The T-shirt, I don’t know if they had one my size but neither Grace or I had them on. The Mayor was wearing hers though!

Now driving in a convoy is a skill, apparently not much practised here, where the usual rule is every man for himself. We managed to stay in convoy until we got on the motorway, then due to poor lane choices by the 2 cars in front of me, we lost our guide. Luckily I knew where we were headed and we arrived at Church 1 well before everyone else.
Encouraged by that success, I stopped at Starbucks for a coffee and sandwich for breakfast, so we arrived at Church 2 AFTER everyone else!

For Church 3 the convoy seemed to work and so we set out for Church 4, faithfully following another car until he pulled off the road, not knowing where to go. we pulled off too and then the Mayor’s car rushed past, so i shouted that she must know where to go and set off after her. Her driver drove very fast and it was a challenge keeping them in sight, but finally we arrived at the church only to find we had missed one church out completely!! Hey ho, nothing for it but to have lunch. For the next two churches we followed Fr. Rico’s car and made them safely. And so home.

Here are some pictures:-

Lipa Cathedral

Basilica of St Martin in Taal

San Roque

Immaculate Conception

All of us in Tuy Church

Our Lady of Lourdes, Tagaytay

New Addition to the Family

Following on our sad loss of Sisa, we decided that while Cassie is still relatively young to add a new puppy. We found a good Golden Retriever breeder, and bought a lovely little boy puppy, whom we have called Connor. he came home yesterday, 7 weeks old and already he has his first swim in the lake!

Isn’t he cute?

And Now All This

Some while ago I bought Eoin Colfer’s Part Six of Three of the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I decided to re-read Mostly Harmless before reading this new episode. I hadn’t read Mostly harmless for quite some while and was surprised by how down beat it was. It seems that Douglas Adams had almost had enough of Arthur Dent and hence the book ends with the “final” destruction of Earth in all its probabilities - no chance for any sequels then! I felt that MH was disappointing.

So what about “And Now All This”?

Well I am only up to Chapter Three but it is good. It does follow on from the end of MH, in a very Douglas Adamsish way, it brings back those lovely Guide interruptions, which read as if DA had written them himself, and it well constructed and funny!

I don’t know if there will be any more, but all our favourite characters are safe in Eoin Colfer’s hands.

Alice in Underland

Last Tuesday we went for some Retail Therapy in Alabang to relieve the stress of house building! As part of this we decided to go to the cinema and we chose Alice in Wonderland starring Johnny Depp.

I was all prepared to be disappointed but actually really enjoyed the film. If you haven’t seen it and think you might do so, beware spoilers ahead! It is not Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, in fact that story is seen as aback story that happened to Alice when she was a little girl. Alice is now 19 and being proposed to by a chinless wonder from the aristocracy. She runs away, chases the white rabbit, falls down the hole, eats the cake, drinks the bottle to change size so she can use the key to get into the garden (all as in AinW classic). The story then is more based on Through the Looking Glass. There is a war between the Red and White Queens (who are sisters). The Mad Hatter is a leading figure in trying to overthrow the Red queen, but someone, and the prophetic scroll, says it is Alice, has to kill the Jaberwock. All the best characters are there, Tweedledum and Dee, the dormouse, the March hare, the cheshire Cat, he is wonderful, but the Hatter steals the film. It has quite dark moments and I wouldn’t take small child to see it, but if you fancy an adult Alice, go see!!

End of Week Two

I keep updating the pictures, same link as before, so interested parties can see, how things are going.

At the north end of the house the concrete pillars are up and I expect we will see walls very soon, - as we progress southwards, we can seee footings and foundations. The middle of the house, dining/kitchen and lounge segments are up to their floor level, our end, south end, is still below floor level because of the slope. Footings are in andf we wait to see the undercroft support pillars for the floor above.

All are working hard, Grace thinks we moght have a roof in 2 to 3 weeks!

Watch this space!!

First week of house building

Amid trepidation about the falling value of the pound, yet again(!), we started the house building this week.

You will find photographs with captions here:-

http://picasaweb.google.com/JPD.Britt/Housebuilding#

Everything began well with Fr Rico blessing the site, then we got a substandard delivery of hollow blocks (breeze blocks) You can see from the photos that I could (and did) crumble one with my own fair hands. Not what you want to use to build a house!

There has been much digging and pouring in of cement and all seemed to be going well until this afternoon. Now the actual site has a slope on it and I, foolishly, thought we might get a JCB and level the ground first. Apparently not. The work on the foundations has proceeded on the uneven ground with the result that the floor level at one end of the house, which is a foot or so above ground level, is 4 metres above ground level at the other! No the engineer and the architect didn't spot this problem either.

So now we are going to have an undercroft at one end of the house and my office is going to be high in the sky! I can't see any feasible alternative, so that is how it will be.
Actually the undercroft will provide another terrace facing a different direction from the main one and might also be useful as a small photo studio, who knows?

Nothing like a Sunday afternoon stroll

Last Sunday, Valentine's day, Grace decided we would go for a walk. When I say we, there were 13 people involved. Because the walk actually started at the Japenese Garden, the Pajero was crammed full of people for the short drive down there.

We were aiming for a waterfall. It all started well, we went through Japenese Garden, branched off and were walking in fields in a general downwards direction. Japenese Garden is at the top of our mountain so i guess any direction is down. We had a bit of a scramble down a narrow path and after 20 minutes came to a pleasant river.

From Waterfall

We then set off up and down very narrow and muddy paths for a further 45 minutes and finally decided we were lost. Because , on average, there had been more down than up, on the way back to the river there was more up than down, so I was quite tired when we got back there. However we met a lady who told us where we should have gone and so off we set once more. Again we had narrow and muddy tracks, I had the wrong footwear for this, and more down than up until finally we found the waterfall.

From Waterfall

It was definitely worth the effort! Various members of our party swam across and besported themselves in the waterfall, including Annabell and Michelle.

From Waterfall

From Waterfall

More pictures can be seen at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/JPD.Britt/Waterfall#

The walk back was a lot of up and not much down and by the time we were getting near to the Jaopenese garden I was puffing like an old grampus, which I probably am anyway!.

Given that we started about 11 and finally got home about 4.30/ 5.00 it was quite an expedition. Oh yes, I got attacked by leeches as well, I think when I was sitting taking the photographs. So there was quite a bit of blood.

Still not everyone can do a jungle trek on Valentine's Day!!