Caliraya Chronicle

What about the house?

2011-03-01T08:57:00.002+08:00

Well the house was all finished before Christmas. Up to date pictures are on the Picassa web site. However we have not got the electricity connected yet and so cannot move in. Before Christmas we were advised to wait until afterwards to apply and then grace fell seriously ill. Now recovered, but not back to full strength we are in the process of beginning the application for connection. Once that happens we can make the final move. It is already just over a year since we started building so I am anxious we should move as soon as we can.

St David's Day

2011-03-01T08:49:00.004+08:00

Is it really six months since I wrote anything here? Apologies, I must try harder.

Today is St David's day, St David is my confirmation saint and especially to all my Welsh family and friends I wish a happy feast day.

I always liked St David because he was "local" and reading his biography on Wikipedia it shows that he was strongly independent as well, consecrated archbishop by the Patriarch of Jerusalem. His monastic followers were expected to abstain from alcohol and meat and pull the plough themselves not use beasts of burden! Hmm.. perhaps I don't want to follow him too literally!

House Building Resumes

2010-09-04T10:21:00.002+08:00

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

2010-07-01T15:56:00.003+08:00

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

2010-07-01T15:47:00.003+08:00

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

2010-07-01T15:40:00.002+08:00

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

2010-04-09T16:09:00.003+08:00

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

2010-04-01T07:51:00.003+08:00

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

2010-03-15T22:11:00.001+08:00

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

2010-03-15T21:56:00.004+08:00

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

2010-03-15T21:54:00.002+08:00

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

2010-03-15T21:53:00.000+08:00

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

2010-03-15T21:52:00.000+08:00

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

2010-03-07T11:40:00.002+08:00

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

2010-02-26T20:22:00.002+08:00

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

2010-02-17T08:55:00.005+08:00

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

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!!

A new member of our family

2009-11-08T14:19:00.002+08:00

After much thinking about whether we should or not, we have finally taken the plunge and acquired a lady friend for Sisa. She is called Cassie, also a Golden Retriever, but of the American strain, so smaller and lighter than Sisa. She is 2 years old, the idea being we can have puppies!!!!!

She joined us on Friday and is still settling in. Sisa likes her but she hasn't yet learned how to play, sticks close to humans while being walked.

I have posted some photos of her here:-

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

Just So Stories

2009-11-08T14:15:00.002+08:00

I have always remebered these fondly from my childhood so couldn't wait to read them to Mary, my great-niece who lives with us. Having finished both original Pooh book and the new Pooh book not having arrived, we embarked on these a few weeks ago.

They are as wonderful as I remember with the proviso that in places they are totally non-PC. "The Ethiopian was a n****r and so his name was Sa**o". "Your children will be so lazy they will be known as the Mal**y people" that was last night's offering.

Perhaps life was just simpler then?

A Tale of Three Typhoons

2009-11-08T13:50:00.004+08:00

This is Typhoon season in the Philippines, but the ones we have just had are much worse than normal.

The first, which shot across central Luzon caused widespread flooding. The biggest town nearest us, Santa Cruz has its centre under water still and the only way to go any further than the main church into the centre is by boat!

The second typhoon brought winds more than rain, it ran over the north
of Luzon, then met up with a mate, another typhoon, turned round and
came back to Luzon and headed to central Luzon bringing rain and
winds.

But the worst was last weekend, Friday night, for us because it passed directly overhead with winds in excess of 150 mph. All night we just heard the terrible noise of the wind and rain except for an hour when the eye was passing overhead when there was a deathly silence.

Next day we had little damage, some banana plants damged, leaves torn off coconut trees, one mahogany tree uprooted but it fell onto a concrete post rather than the fence so didn't do any more damage. And, of course, our Internet access module blown down. However around and about, there was much more damage, driving down to Pagsanhan we saw houses blown away, big trees down, there had been a flash flood depositing tons of mud into peoples homes in Pagsanhan, rooves ripped up etc. So we got off lightly.

I have posted 3 photos taken after the first 2 typhoons at
http://tinyurl.com/yzsbknb
One is of a school completely surrounded by water, what looks like a river to the school's right is actually supposed to be a road.
The second is of rice fields now completely subnmerged in water, as Laguna de Bay, the huge inland lake has risen.
The third is a panorama showing Laguna de bay. The water in the background is supposed to be water, but that in the foreground is supposed to be land.

All were taken from way up our mountain, and it was misty so apolgies for the haziness of the pictures.

The position now is worse, there is even less land visible and the town of Lumban has all but disappeared!

Lets hope we don't get any more like that.

Tree Planting

2009-09-05T12:22:00.002+08:00

On Thursday Grace and I went tree planting, in conjunction with Isuzu Philippines. There were about 60 people and between us we planted 1500 saplings on the Caliraya-Lumot watershed.

This is part of a concerted effort to reverse global warming and reforest the Philipines where illegal logging is still a big problem.

The people here just cut down trees to turn them into charcoal which they can then sell, possibly the only way they can earn some money. The government is too weak to enforce the legislation it has passed and so the problem continues bringing in its wake, land slides and disasters.

Fighting Entropy

2009-08-13T15:32:00.002+08:00

I seem to spend an awful lot of time holding back entropy, far more than I ever did in the UK.

For example, we have recently had the following electrical goods, all from the UK, fail on us:- toaster, microwave, DVD player, Hard Disk recorder.

The toaster fell foul of a cockroach. It took up residence inside the machine and wouldn't come out, despite shaking turning it this way and that and finally poking it with a stick. Partial disassembly followed and finally it made a bid for freedom, only to meet the business end of a shoe! However afterwards the toaster would only toast on one side. No I haven't actually put any bread in it, just tried it to see!

The microwave, who knows, it just gave up the ghost but has been repaired now.

The DVD player exhibited fascinating behaviour, it suddenly wouldn't switch from standby to on. Jiggling a few buttons got it to turn on, then it was fine. But eventually button jiggling just didn't cut it any more. So it went off to a repair shop who got it going again within 24 hours. Good going I think.

The hard disk recorder made clickking noises then showed an error code of 7061 and won't load its software. Extensive reseach on the web reveals that no-one knows what a 7061 error actually is, thouigh many have had it. Maybe a new disk will cure it, but maybe not. I have to get a new disk, IDE, so not so easy these days and try it. I'll keep you informed!!!

The NHS - not so bad!

2009-08-13T15:26:00.002+08:00

Those of you living in the UK will sometimes take part in the age old pastime of NHS bashing, I am sure!

However, two weeks ago, the wife of one of our workers was having difficulties breathing, he took her to hospital, where they put her on Oxygen, kept her in for 2 nights, diagnosed a highly irregular heartbeat, told her she couldn't do any strenuous work (including washing clothes) and let her go.

The bill for all this was came to more than 4 months wages for the guy.

How can people here afford health care?

The answer is they can't. They often wait and hope and get worse.

So be grateful for Nye Bevin and the NHS!!

JC's First birthday

2009-07-22T10:08:00.004+08:00

If you look back to a post I made a year ago, you will see the story of JC being born in our garage.

Well last Thursday was his First Birthday. So a big party was held. As there was a severe tropical storm heading across the Philippines at the time, it was raining heavily, so the party was held, you guessed it, in the garage.

Some pictures follow, but more can be found at:-

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

Harry Potter and the 0.5 Blood prince

2009-07-22T09:52:00.002+08:00

Okay, if you are an avid JK Rowling fan, skip this entry now.

I make a practive of reading the HP book about 1 week before I go to see the film. So a week ago I settled down and read the book.

I felt her writing style had deteriorated and the book itself seemed to go nowhere. The only interesting part was the big battle scene at the end encompassing Dumbledore's death.

I thought there is no way you can make a film of this, so awaited seeing the film with interest.

Firstly, the film is very good. As with the last film, the writers have stripped away the (incredibly large) amount of unnecessary detail in the book and managed to actually produce a coherent story from it. I was surprised that the battle scene was removed, but on reflection, I can see that it would have been out of charcter with the rest of the film. No Dudley and his parents, no silly ghosts or talking pictures and all those tedious vists to the Pensieve reduced to the only 3 important ones. Good story writing. The only bit left, which needs removing, but I can't see how to do it, is all reference to the half blood prince. At least we were spared all the various theories as to who he might be, touted in the book. But actually, it doesn't seem to me to matter. Still then you would need a new title!

Actually, someone should write a book of the film, that would be so much better than JKR's sloppy version!

Holidays - always fun

2009-07-15T14:33:00.003+08:00

Having had 3 chilly weeks in the UK in April and May, (my first visit back for over 2 years and it was cold!), we decided to use some of our air miles and have a 10 day break in Phuket and Singapore.

Phuket was for relaxation and Singapore was for some serious shopping!

I hadn't realised how diffciult it is to use air miles to book a "free" flight. Firstly, the flight maybe free but you have to pay taxes and fuel surcharges,so the flights ended up costing about $100 each (US$). Then you have to scour the flight database to find which flight will take your type of free ticket. This meant that we had to fly to Singapore one day, stay overnight then fly onto Phuket the next day, thus further increasing the cost. By now it is only a tiny bit cheaper than using the low cost carriers!

However, all would have been well but when we arrived at our hotel in Phuket, we were told that our reservations had been cancelled the previous day. Not only that they had already rebooked our rooms.

After a lot of protests from us, we found out that the firm we had used, Asiativ aka asia Online aka Asia Trails Thailand, claimed it had gone into liquidation. They sent me an e-mail timed one minute before my check in time to tell me this , hence our voucher was worthless. So we had to spend 2 nights at anew hotel acrosss the road from the one we had booked and then moved to that one. And of course paid again.

I am currently giving information to Barclaycard about this, and from the website it looks as if the firm is still trading, though they are not answering any e-mails!!

After that, it got better. We went to Phang Nga (James Bond island - from man with the Golden Gun), and did generally relax.

Then Singapore, we saw some friends, ex-Informatics people in my case, and Filipinas in grace's and did a lot of shopping.

I mostly bought stuff for the camera, actually for the flash system and today I actually spent 45 minutes playing with it all and taking some pictures to see how the various toys work!!

Now I must get on with getting my photos onto the web.

Next project!!

And I shall try very hard to blog more frequently!!
Bye for now.

Another Birthday, another year

2009-07-15T14:24:00.005+08:00

Well folks, here I am again. I have no proper excuse for the long gap in blogging except that, being retired, I seem to have less time than I did when I was working!!

Last Sunday was my 61st birthday. Catherine and Alex and Louisa, who were here last year for my 60th, sent me a flag (England = St. George) and here it is flying above my Byzantine Empire flag.

It was just a quiet celebration, a few friends from the village, including the Parish Priest, and a few of Grace's family. A nice Bar-B-Q with Australian sparkling wine.

A pleasant day, and it stayed (mostly) dry!!

Learning Tagalog

2009-03-23T15:52:00.002+08:00

I am still struggling with trying to learn Tagalog. So I thought I would share some of my thoughts with the world!

I have been using a book which i thought was quite good and am (strongly?) motivated by the fact that we go to a Tagalog Mass every Sunday.

In order to help me understand, I have the Ordinary of the Mass in Tagalog, with English translations of some parts, and the reading and prayers for the Sunday in both languages in a loose leaf folder.

All this has done is confirm my deep suspicion that it is impossible to translate from one language to another.

For example, the Tagalog word for "Lord" is "Panginoon" pronounced "pang - in - no- on" (Tagalog has no dipthongs, double vowels are sounded as two vowels) except in all the Psalms where "Lord" is rendered "Poon" - what happened to the "angin"?

Understanding spoken Tagalog is made more difficult by the fact that Filipinos speak it very fast, so it sounds like a machine gun. But I now have a theory as to why they do this.

My theory is two fold:

1) Tagalog has a lot of multi syllabled wiords, by which I mean words with 4 or more syllables, so they have to rush through those words; and
2)Tagalog takes a lot more words than English to say anything.

Again an example:
The doxology from the Eucharistic parayer in English goes:
"Through him, with him and in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honour is yours, almighty Father, for ever and ever." 26 words, 37 syllables

The Tagalog reads thus:
"Sa pamamagitan ni Kristo, kasama niya, at sa kanya ang lahat ng parangal at papuri ay sa iyo, Diyos Amang makapangyarihan, kasama ng Espiritu Santo magpasawalang hanggan."
27 words, 59 syllables

One more example, I won't bother with the count this time:-
"May all of us who share in the body and blood of Christ be brought together in unity by the Holy Spirit"
"Isinasamo naming kaming magsasalu-salo sa Katawan at Dugo ni Kristo ay mabuklod sa pagkakaisa sa pamamagitan ng Espiritu Santo"

Then there are the words that don't actually mean anything, ng, na for example. If you leave them out it is bad Tagalog and the Filipinos will have difficulty understanding you, but they don't actually have any meaning.

You may gather from all this that my language skills have not progressed very far!!!!

Dog Show

2009-03-23T14:54:00.002+08:00

In February, or possibly very late Jan, I can't remember now, they had a dog show at the local mall.

So we went along and entered Sisa.

He didn't mange to win anything but here are some pictures showing Grace in Kennel maid mode!

Coming in:

From Dog Show

Trying to steer him:

From Dog Show

Getting his attention:

From Dog Show

Surely its time to go:

From Dog Show

What again?:

From Dog Show

Judge, what judge?:

From Dog Show

Round again:

From Dog Show

This is getting dull:

From Dog Show

Going now?:

From Dog Show

The Opposition (who won) - looks more like a Red Setter to me!!:

From Dog Show

Beauty Pageant

2009-03-23T13:51:00.004+08:00

In January I was staying for a copuple of days at a hotel in Cavite, just south of Manila. Imagine my surprise to wake up to find a dozen or so pretty girls draping themselves around the swimming pool. It was a local College, organising their annual beauty pageant.

Why didn't we ever have anything like this at Portsmouth?

Anyway, a few pictures for you all to enjoy.

From Pageant

Apologies

2009-03-23T13:50:00.001+08:00

I haven't been posting anything for ages, not because nothing has happened but because things have been somewhat fraught and busy here. So I am going to make up for it now with several posts!!

We have the longest Christmas in the World

2008-12-23T11:58:00.003+08:00

So runs a commercial here on Philippine TV. But it is actually true!!

I am just about to finish Simbang gabi, the traditional Filipino religious custom of celebrating 9 masses before Christmas. The parish priest talked me into going. The masses started on Monday Dec 15th. Fr Rico said to me I had a choice of 2 masses, one at 4.00 in the morning, one at 8.00 in the evening.

Not surprising I opted for the evening 8 o'clock!!

So I turned up on the Monday evening, and to my surprise, the priest was wearing white not purple and we sang the Gloria. I couldn't work out what mass he was saying.

By the next day, I had realised he was anticiapting the mass for the following day. But we were definitely in white and singing the Gloria.

On seeing Fr Rico in the shopping mall, I asked about this and apparently, only here in the Philippines, for the special designated Simbang gabi masses (they are at a different time to "normal" weekday masses), they are regarded as Christmas masses, white is the colour and the Gloria is to be sung, this according to the local Ordo. Except (oddly enough) the mass on Saturday night, which was the 4th Sunday of Advent Mass, in purple - no Gloria. (So fulfilled Sunday obligation)

This tradition goes back almost 500 years. It seems strange (to me) to have Christmas masses in Advent, with the readings from 17th to 24th December masses, but Christmas preface etc.etc, interspersed with Advent masses at normal time, but mostly people here concentrate on the Simbang gabi masses rather than any others, so I guess it doesn't phase them.

The church was packed to capacity and more for the first couple of masses. Difficult to find a seat. After that numbers went down a bit, but still the church is full. The whole town of Cavinti seems to turn out.

The last couple of days we have had mass in the 2 village churches, Sunday afternoon in West Talaongan, yesterday in East Talaongan, so these were added in as designated Simbang gabi masses too. After the mass everyone goes round wishing everyone else a Happy Christmas. Part of this is due to the fact that the parish church is a long way away and for many people they simply cannot get there. There is nothing like a bus service. there are jeepneys, but on Christmas day I suspect they will be conspicuous by their absence, so the village mass is their one and only Christmas mass.

By the way, Merry Christmas to all my readers!

Termites 3

2008-12-17T13:59:00.003+08:00

For those of you wondering how our little white ant friends are doing:.......

The exterminators came back last week. Of the 8 or so cylinders placed around the perimeter of the house only one had termites in it. And they had really enjoyed the eucalyptus wood panels. So that cylinder was packed with the cellulose bait. The box attached to our skirting board was empty, the greedy little termites had eaten all the bait, so it was refilled. The box by the bahay cubo was untouched , because they had sprayed that cubo as it had other pests as well and that had dealt with the termites there.

So now they should be feeling their mandibles getting soft, then their exoskeletons and then termites terminated!!

Serendipity

2008-12-17T13:45:00.003+08:00

There are two routes from here to Manila. Okay, in order to fully appreciate this you have to know that Manila lies to the north west of us and in between us and Manila lies Laguna de Bay, an enormous inland sea. So basically to get to Manila you have to go round Laguna de Bay.

Route 1, favoured by most Filipinos, involves driving from here to Calamba allong the south shore of Laguna then onto the Southern Luzon Expressway (known as SLEX). SLEX is being upgraded, and hence is in turmoil, so it is not a fast road yet, and as for the road from here to Calamba it goes through lots of towns and one's fastest speed is frequently that of the tricycles, about 15 m.p.h!!

But if you are going to the southeren part of Manila, the airport for example, or Alabang where we do our European shopping, you really have no choice.

Route 2 is to travel via Antipolo, along the eastern and northern shores of Laguna and that brings you to north Manila, Quezon City as it is known. Although no expressway is involved, the road is good, not that heavily trafficed and so it is a fastish route. Also the scenery is much nicer, less towns more mountains.

On the weekend of the funeral, see previous blog, we travelled up to Moncarda by Route 1 as it was 11 p.m. and by then all good Filipnos (and probably the bad ones too) are tucked up in bed and the roads everywhere are almost empty.

Coming back on a Monday afternoon, I decided we would go the Antipolo way, Route 2. Anyway we made a wrong turn or didn't make a turn we should have, and instead of a 90 minute drive we were driving for over a couple of hours. But we didn't realise we had gone wrong because we were driving in nthe most spectacular scenery I have ever seen here in the Philippines. Mountains and valleys, a really beautiful road. We only realsised we had gone wrong when our road turned into a goat track! Then was then a lot of backtracking and saking before we found the road we should have been on!

Now I know that road is there, I will go back, it is not that far from here, with camera and try to take some pictures and post them here. Probably in the New Year.

A Life that never was

2008-12-02T12:32:00.002+08:00

We have had a sad couple of days. One of Grace's sisters was pregnant and nearly due.

Unfortunately the baby was stillborn on Sunday. So we all drove up to Moncada, where her sister lives for the burial which took place on Monday.

To me it was very strange. The baby was buried , in the good old English phrase, without benefit of clergy. I don't know why. The father is catholic, mother methodist but there never semed any idea of getting the local priest or methodist minister to come. On asking Grace she didn't seem to show any surprise at this.

I am told they said the rosary before the burial procession set out. A group of about a dozen people carrying the small decorated coffin walked the couple of miles to the cemetary.

Don't imagine a cemetary like an English churchyard - this is nothing like that. The tradition here is for above ground tombs, mostly made of hollow blocks and cement. In this cemetary the graves are adjoing each other with virtually no space between them. So to get from the outside of the cemetary to anywhere inside you actually have to walk on the tombs themselves. Somewhere between 2 of these tombs enough space had been found to dig a small hole for the baby's coffin. The coffin was placed on an adjacent tomb, the lid taken off for a final look at her and then placed in the hole and covered with earth.

Yes, I know that is essentially what a burial is, but this is the very first time I have been to one without some form of minister present to say the "official" words. I felt desperately sad and that something important was missing.

Pray for the repose of the soul of Bless Angela Pascua.

Memoirs

2008-12-02T12:20:00.003+08:00

No, not mine!!

I have recently been reading the memoirs of Hans Kung.

I have finished Volume 1 and am reading Vol 2 at the moment.

They are fascinating. The first volume paints an intriguing picture of the church before and during Vatican 2. Following all the twists and turns and meeting the people involved is interesting in itself but Kung goes much further. He is also tracing the history of his own theology and to do that, he briefly summarises his theological arguments for his major works. I have always admired his work and this behind the scenes insight I find gives a powerful extra dimension to the original books.

Volume 2 is very different. Writtem after Ratzinger becomes Pope, the early part concentrates as much on Ratzinger as it does on Kung himself. Not surprisingly as they were both professors together in the same university, in fact it was Kung who got Ratzinger into Turbingen. A critical comparison of Kung's theology and theological appraoch with that of Ratzinger is given. It makes it easier to see why B16 has taken some of his post papal stances.

Kung denies the charge that Ratzinger has changed, in fact he argues strongly that Ratzinger has not changed, that he still maintains the viewpoint inculcated in him as a Bavarian Catholic. On the other hand, Kung says that he, Kung has changed, influenced by his observations, his researches and his insights, he has moved from a neo-scholastic training to a historo-critical exegesis position. I can't do it justice here, but for anyone wanting to understand the theological arguments and crises of the last 50 years which so shape the church today, these 2 books are an excellent read.

Update on the Termites

2008-12-02T12:08:00.003+08:00

I am getting behind on these blogs!!

The termite guys came almost 2 weeks ago, that is how behind I am!!

They placed 8 cylinders in the ground all around the house. Each cylinder contains eucalyptuswood strips and the idea is that when the team returns they will see which cylinders have been attacked. Those attacked cylinders then get filled by this special cellulose bait. Meanwhile the 2 places they observed direct termite activity, skirting board by the front door and a bench in our "bahay kubo", (a thatch covered seating area some 20 yards from the house), were fitted with a closed box (small holes for termites only, filled with the bait.

Apparently eating the bait and taking it back to the nest for all other termites in the nest to eat, has the result of making their mandibles soft, then they can no longer attack wood, only eat the bait. Finally the bait turns their entire exoskeletons soft and they die. (No I dont feel guilty)

While the team were here they found 2 above ground termite nests which they destroyed. They opened up the mound and then one guy reached in and pulled masses and masses of the little white perishers and eggs out until finally he found the core: this is a hard mud construction about six inches by four by two. Chopping that open we find the king , a black termite about half an inch long and the queen, a hideous worm like creature, two inches long and half an inch in diameter, greyish white, she lays egs, about 500 a day. Then there was general spraying of the area to destroy them all.

Unfortunately there are 9 different species of termites in the Philippines and only 1 builds a mound. The other 8 have underground nests you cannt easily find. Hence the bait method. And they can travel up to 50 metres in search of food.

I'll keep you posted after the team return!!

Teeth and Termites

2008-11-11T11:53:00.003+08:00

You may have noticed a "T" theme in the last couple of blogs. This is quite accidental I assure you.

At the end of last week, we realised we have termites. They have munched their way through several inches of skirting board near the front door.

We called out an exteminator firm linked to the University of the Philippines, and they are going to place cylinders containing a poison (for termites) in the ground all around the house plus a unit where the infestation occurs and keep the cylinders topped up and monitor the process for 12 months. The whole thing will cost about £400. It seems quite a lot, until you think about the amount of damage the little critters could do. All our doors and doorframes are wood, we have wood furniture, including speaker cases. The damage could be enormous.

The night before last, while cleaning my teeth, I realised that one tooth had a bit missing, close to the gum line. Well I haven't been to the dentist for 18 months, possibly 2 years, so my fault. Anyway off both Grace and I went for an inspection, clean and whatever. It is always, for me, a very nervous time going to a new dentist - you never know what you are going to get. But the practice we went to was excellent. They gave us an appointment the same day. For me, the dentist cleaned my teeth, using ultrasonic cleaning, and removed the decay and restored the tooth that had the bit missing. She also identified two or three others that are likely to go the same way so I am going back on Thursday to have those restored.

Meanwhile, for Grace, they have identified a problem at the back of her jaw where she had 2 teeth removed 15 years ago. So now they are going to give her a fixed bridge there. The temporary crowns for her go in on Thursday too.

The cost was very reasonable. For both inspections, cleanings, my restoration and the temporary crown for Grace, I paid 3000 peso, about £39 in total.

The only thing that phased me was in the dental surgery, you had the chair/recliner, the bright light, the device that gives you the rinsing liquid, all standard, plus a TV tuned into some local drama series. While the dentist was cleaning my teeth she kept looking at the TV to keep abreast of the plot! Apparently the other dentist, who was treating Grace, had the same set up!

Its just something I am going to have to get used to, I know!!!

Toussaint

2008-11-11T11:40:00.002+08:00

The weekend before last was All Saints Day (Saturday) followed by All Souls (Sunday).

Other than the attempt to introduce trick or treating into the UK recently, All Saints always seemed a bit of a non-event in England. But here it is very different.

On All Saints day, the Filipinos go to the cemetaries en masse. Grace, Richard, Nell and Mary went off to Tarlac to visit cemetaries there, leaving me on my own. So I decided to go for a day out.

Predictably I headed for a shopping mall south of Manila. The roads were empty, where normally you would be crawling along behind jeepnies and tricycles, I could bowl along at a steady 50 or 60 mph. Until, that is, I came to a cemetary. At every cemetary, traffic slowed to below walking pace. Every jeepney, tricycle for muiles around seemed to parked outside. There were market stalls set up and hundreds of people in and around. This was the case at 8.30 in the morning and still at 8.30 at night when I drove back home.

In the evening the cemetaries were all lit up. There seems to be electric lights in every tomb and there was a real party atmosphere. The day is used for tidying up the graves, placing and planting fresh flowers as well as giving a chance just to be with their dead relatives and friends.

As I was siting having a coffee, someone asked me why I hadn't visited a cemetary and I replied that the cemtary I would want to visit was thousands of miles away, and I thought of Ipswich cemetary and my Dad's (and maternal grandfather's) grave and my grandmother's grave. Both of which are still not properly marked. I must get headstones for both of them.

Predictably the next day Mass was packed, so much so that Fr. Rico delayed starting the 8.00 mass until 8.30 to allow everyone to get there!

Our Parish Church

2008-10-27T14:34:00.003+08:00

I am acutely aware that I have kept mentioning that I will post some pictures of our parish church and have not done so.

Well yesterday, I took my camera with me, but unfortunately there was a funeral following upon Mass and so I couldn't get to take all the pictures I wanted. Anyway here are 3. One of a long view up the church from the door, one of the sanctuary and one of the water feature I have mentioned.

I will try and take some better ones!!

A Week in Chiang Mai

2008-10-27T13:25:00.008+08:00

Having spent the month of September here in the Philippines, Grace and I had to return to Malaysia to pack all our stuff, with the movers of course, clean and hand back the house. As a sort of present to ourselves for doing this, we then went for 6 days in Chiang Mai.

I have been to Phuket and Bangkok before, Grace to Bangkok, but this was our first visit to the north of Thailand.

We were booked into a hotel called Karenthip Village, named after the winged elephant that stands in the front of the hotel. Here is the winged elephant with Grace:-

Chiang Mai is totally unlike the other Thai tourist spots I have visited. Much more relaxed, easy going, slow pace of life, a very pleasant place indeed. It is an old walled and moated city although it now spralls outside the old city too. Lots of good restaurants, although we did find one poor one(!!) and lots to see and do.

We only went on 2 trips. First was to Doi Suthep the temple on the hill, from where you get a magnificent view over Chiang Mai itself. Here are some pictures from there:-

These are the steps, some 200 of them we had to climb to the temple (there is a cable car for the faint of heart)

This shows the view you get of Chiang Mai from the hill.

And this was Grace getting a good luck woven charm bracelet in the temple. Women cannot get the charms from a monk, only men are allowed to do that so there is a non-monk sitting there especially to give the bracelets to women!!!

Our second trip, the next day, was to an elephant farm, where we got to see the elephants up close and watch them performing their various tasks. From what one gathers, the elephants in this farm are amongst the best looked after in Thailand. Included in the display is elephant painting and the photos below show some of the stages of the picture being painted by one elephant near us. They do actually do this!!

Not bad eh?

Grace fed one elephant and then climbed onto another:

And finally we had an ox-cart ride and a ride back on an elephant:-

The rest of our time was spent wandering, shopping in the various markets and eating and drinking!!

One of the occurrences that amused me, is that everyone we met took Grace for Thai. This meant they immediately starting chatting to her in Thai, and though she does know a few words, she is not really at conversational level. So she just smiled and nodded. The poor person talking to her would then continue until finally, unable to contain myself any more, I would say " My wife is not Thai" upon which they would say " But she looks like Thai!" We are thinking of designing a t-shirt for Grace for our next visit saying something like "I may look like Thai but I am NOT Thai"

Just to finish up with here is a picture of a 600 year old pagoda in the centre of Chiang Mai and then the jade Buddhas in the Temple of the same name.

Its been some time.....

2008-09-21T11:16:00.002+08:00

since my last blog. So I feel I should post some updates.

We arrived here in Philippines on September 1st for a 4 week stay. The main object of which was to sort out my visa.

I am happy to report that the visa was approved, my passport stamped and my Alien Registration Card issued in just over two and a half weeks. Many thanks goto the people in the Bureau of Immigration in Manila who helped enormously.

So now I have a probationary 1 year residence visa, I have to report annually in January to prove I am still alive(??) and next August I can apply for the final Permanent Residence visa.

We had several trips into Manila to submit documents, submit passport, collect documents collect card etc. but it was well worth it.

Also we have had remarkable success with our internet connection. A temporary pole has been attached to our tower so the receiver module is now 85 feet in the air and we are getting a good signal, even in torrential rain conditions.

Actually the first full day we had this installed, the rain came and the internet vanished, but this was because the installers had placed a suppressor box upside down on the tower so it filled with water and hey presto - no internet. Since then, fingers crossed, no problems.

Last Monday (15th Sept) was our parish priest's birthday (49) and there was a big celebration and party. We were invited and got seated at the (equivalent of) the top table. The food was very good, but they don't have the wine drinking tradition here, locals either drink beer or Spanish (or local) brandy. So it was an alcohol free party!! But none the worse for that.

Once I get my camera here (currently it is still in Malaysia), I shall take and post some photos of the church. It has a really nice running water set piece with a pitcher at the top feeding water into two bowls below and which ends with a "bath" about the size of the ones we had in St M's and B's, but I don't know if it is used for Baptisms as I haven't seen any yet. But I think Fr. Ray would like it!

The most exciting news for me (so sad), is that we have discovered an English Grocery. It is in the Festival Mall in Alabang, which is about 2 hours drive away. It is attached to an English style pub, serving steak and kidney pies, fish and chips, apple crumble and other English delicacies. But it means I can buy Marmite, cider, Guinness, sausages, Jaffa cakes, gravy browning, horseradish sauce, and of course mint and apple sauce. Lots of other things too, but it makes for a nice grocery trip.

That is about it for the present.

John Carlos

2008-07-31T12:15:00.000+08:00

I shall never forget Wednesday 16th July 2008.

It was the last full day for my family in the Philippines and we hadn't finally decided what we were going to do, find a sea side, go to a water theme park or what.

Just after breakfast grace told me that May, who lived just outside our gate and was (very) pregnant was about to give birth. The midwife was there and didn't think that the house was suitable for a birth as it had mud floors and more holes than walls (this was because it was being rebuilt)

So it was decided to move May to our garage. This is a big double garage bigger than the house May was living in and with good solid walls , roof and floor. And so we waited. All day there was a procession of people in and out of the garage. I looked in a few times and saw May walking about as the labour proceeded. Once it got to a more serious stage, Catherine was in there holding May's hand and helping. I had thought it was the kind of event where men weren't wanted/needed but on one visit I saw one of the friends leaning across May's head and pushing down on her tummy to help persuade the baby to come out!!

Finally in the early evening a little boy, John Carlos, was born. Both Alex and myself rushed in with our cameras to take photos. All the local children were there as well, including Louisa, getting biology lessons at first hand.

I think that being born in a garage is something to be proud of, after all wasn't another JC born in a stable and isn't a garage just the modern equivalent?

Here he is.........

That's Mum's knees in the foreground!!!!

Holiday in Philippines

2008-07-31T11:40:00.000+08:00

This posting continues those made in my other blog, Letter from Malaysia, about my daughter's, son-in-law's and granddaughter's holiday with us.

Having arrived in the Philippines, on day one, while Grace was running around with final preparations for the Birthday party, we spent the morning on a boat trip around Lake Caliraya. I had been on one of these before and really enjoyed it. That was in a covered banca boat. However when we arrived at the lake shore it was obvious there was a problem with that boat's engine, which was in pieces on the ground.

We were switched to another boat, a smaller one with no cover and guess who had forgotten his sun screen? Yes, me of course! It was an overcast day so I didn't worry too much but of course the sun came out later on!! And a smaller boat is more uncomfortable, less to sit on and hard planks can be tough after a couple of hours!!

Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable experience.

In the afternoon, Louisa started collecting coconuts...

Then the guys from Smartbro came to repair the internet connection, knocked down during the recent tornado....

and up the mast they had to go.........

Next day was the party, covered in earlier blogs and the next day after that was recovery day!

And Alex had a go at climbing the mast!!

That's as high as he got. Quite high enough for me!
Then on the Monday we went to Lake Taal to look at the volcano.

and take some pictures......

In the afternoon it rained so much the lake disappeared from view completely!!

Tuesday was adventure day for Catherine and Alex. The Mayoress of Cavinti had been at the party and had invited/persuaded/arranged that the two of them would go down to Pagsanhan falls by climbing down the vertical ladders of the gorge wall. We decided Richard, should go with them.

Here they are being put into the safety harness

On picking them up after the descent, going through and behind the waterfall and then rafting back down river, they were soaked!!! But had had a wonderful time.

Here are some pictures of the minor waterfalls just to finish the posting....

Wednesday gets a post to itself!!!

My 60th Birthday - The Party

2008-07-31T11:26:00.000+08:00

It was great!!

Lots of people there and all had a good time.

Unfortunately we had rain, but the marquees gave us shelter. The only real casualty was me, when half way through the afternoon I sat on a chair. leaned back, over balanced and fell into the mud, necessitating a change of clothes - and I wasn't even drunk!!

Here come the pictures............

Early arrivals.....

The family march up from the garage..

Grace and her Dad

The Cake!!!

Lighting the candles

Blowing them out!!

Cutting the cake

And lastly, Mary and friend measured against Alex's knees!!

My 60th Birthday - Final Preparations

2008-07-31T11:08:00.000+08:00

Well it had to come, you can't remain 21 for ever!!!

Grace, my wife, had been planning this big celebration for months and my eldest daughter, husband and granddaughter had all flown over from the UK to help celebrate, as well as having a holiday.

So on the morning of the 12th July there was enormous hustle and bustle........

Putting up the welcoming banner

Getting into our party frocks!!

Laying out all the tables under the marquees

And assembling the waitresses and waiters

Did you just catch a glimpse of that pig? Well here you can see her in all her glory......

And yes it was delicious!!!!!