May 16, 2016

Half way through my birth year.  Only 1 1/2 years left before OAS!

We are fully into the southwest monsoon.  It started slowly right after Sinhala and Tamil new year with brief showers every few days, then came the thunderstorms.  I had 4 lightening strikes in the paddy field in front of my house.  This is surprising since the house is relatively low and the paddy field is lower yet, right at river level.  There must be something metallic discarded in the field.  With the lightening came rain every afternoon starting sooner and sooner in the day.  Now, since Saturday night, the rain has been continuous and often heavy.  No swimming this morning.  Too wet and cool plus I don't want to take a chance that lightning will start up again.

Finally got around to making the green hot sauce from scotch bonnet peppers.  These are some of the hottest in the world.  Just the smallest amount on your finger just about blows your head off.  This will last a long time.  Even the left over pulp is potent.

The bounty of our work

Went to OZO for breakfast the other day.  They have jacked up the price and the quality is going down fast.  This will now be a much rarer occurrence than before.  Walked into town around Kandy lake afterwards.  This is the first time I have ever walked around the lake.  They have built a cobble stone walkway which is quite nice.  Saw some marvels on the way.  Water monitors.

About 5 feet head to tail tip.  Smallish one really.

This one's head looks a lot like the floating leaves around it.

My apple earbuds bit the dust after almost 10 years of use.  The headphones still work, but the remote mic and controls went.  The Apple franchise store sells Skullcandy products.  They seem to get a good rating, so I will give them a try.

The man came the other day to cut down two big bunches of tambili.  A much younger guy than the usual one and remarkably, he came with an assistant.

Up a tree

The rains have brought the ants indoors, so I have been over busy with ant killing.  Since my bathroom has an outside wall as well a door to the back porch, I always have a lot of ants trying to nest in the door frames and other dark places.  Here is the result of my current campaign.

The ball in the middle is a bit of white cotton batten.  I make a solution of sugar water with borax.  They come for the sugar and carry the borax back to the nest to poison the rest of the army, especially the queen. 

This was Saturday.  By today, Monday, they are almost all gone to ant heaven.

Saturday morning, Tania, Mike and I went out to a piece of land in Getambe to see if it would be suitable for a cooperative garden.  Not!  It is quite a walk in from the vehicle access road to a very jungly area crawling with leeches and swarming with mosquitos.  Happily, I had brought my gum boots which were much needed and a great protection from the leeches.  A few mosquitos did get me, but they really like Tania, so they went more for her.

Saturday afternoon was the playing of the annual Bradby Shield event.  Commonly known as "The Bradby", this is the blue ribbon of Sri Lanka's school rugby union season. It is played annually between two schools and traditional rivals Royal College, Colombo, and Trinity College, Kandy.  These schools are the most prestigious in Sri Lanka making the event a really big deal.  The game is played at the big international cricket stadium in Pellekelle rather than the regular rugby stadium in Kandy.  This year's game was a draw allowing Royal to keep the shield first for 6 months as they were the last to hold it.  

Rather handsome, really

After the game, there are a bunch of parties.  I went to the one at the Old Trinitian's Sports Club.  My friend Yoshita is a member.  We had a good time right up to the time around 11pm when the hoards of young male smokers started pouring in.  Since the game was a draw, the groups was somewhat subdued.  I would like to have stayed longer to do some dancing, but the band took a really long break and they were smoking inside the building where the dance floor was as well.  So we left around 2330.  I was coughing by about 0500 and continued after I got up.  Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.  I can add another very Kandian experience to my list.