June 18, 2013

In an effort to blog more consistently and keep everyone up to date, here goes.

I have contracted what seems to be a monsoon cold.  It started out as an earache just on one side of my head.  Stabbing pains for a day.  Then it changed into a dull ache with a little throaty thing added in.  Now it is just a low grade sniffle.  It has not held me back.

Here is my typical day:

• up around 7
• oil pull for 20 minutes (for anyone who doesn't know about oil pulling, look it up.  It is an Ayurvedic technique that really works)
• check e-mails and Facebook, blog and start on any work that needs doing
• Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Veenitha, my maid arrives around 8
• Veenitha makes tea and then breakfast
• workout for 30 min.

This is the view from my little exercise area.  Monsoon clouds.  Kandy town is just over that hill.  To the left of the house by the coconut palm is the Mahaweli Ganga (river)

•  take a shower and get ready to do whatever is going on that day.

Yesterday it was fruit and vegetable shopping and going to Gampola to meet my friend Jez and go to a local potter to have my plant pots made.  The potters are a husband and wife team who work in a small but very clean shed next to their home.  They are used to making small things like curd pots, oil lamps, etc.  My pots are a bit of a challenge because they have to be 2 feet high.  They threw one as we waited just so we could see how it would turn out.  Here they are doing just that.

The wheel is hand powered by the husband, while the wife does the shaping.  This really is handmade.

They have to make the pots in 2 parts and then pound them together before they fire them.  After they are fired, they will be coated with bees wax mixed with cinnamon and fired again.  The wax gives them a beautiful brown sheen and the cinnamon makes your house smell great.  God only know when I will get them as it is the rainy season and things take much longer to dry than normal.  Oh well, no hurry and they are nice people.

In typical Sri Lankan fashion, they gave us what they call plain tea.  No milk, but lots of sugar.  So much sugar that you almost gag.  Jez told them I don't take sugar, so their very pregnant daughter-in-law brought out tea without sugar.  This tea had just as much sugar as the first cup.  It is clearly anathema to them that tea can be drunk without sugar.

• back home with a small bite to eat and then in for the night with my downloaded movies

Great day all told.  Nice to catch up with my friend Jez as well.