June 9, 2017

Britain went to the polls yesterday and made the right choice.  Congratulations to them!  BC also made a choice when they went to the polls on May 9, although it is an unclear one.  Shame on Christie Clark for not stepping aside and forcing a non-confidence vote in the legislature.  She is only demonstrating why people shouldn't vote for her or her party.

It has been an eventful time since last I posted.  I lost two friends.  One, Tamami, went back to Japan as her husband's contract was up.  She is a lovely person and I will miss her as well as the lovely Kupee Mayonnaise she used to bring back from Japan.  Happily, we have Skype and talk quite regularly.

The other loss is more permanent in that my friend David Leask died on May 14.  Happily, he did not suffer long as the cancer took him quickly once it was diagnosed.  I had a chance to spend some happy hours with him before he passed away.  His wife, Clare, has been amazing throughout the whole ordeal.

David's was the second funeral I have attended here.  The first being the one for my friend Nirmala who died only 6 weeks after I arrived.  I was much more involved with David's arrangements so it has given me a much closer view at how funerals go here.  He lay for two days at the funeral where people could come to pay their final respects.  Clare had to be there the whole time, so I spent the first day there with her.  Normally, the body is laid out at home and is an open casket affair.  Clare wisely chose a funeral home with a closed casket, although it kept being opened up for the Sri Lankans who wanted to view the body.

At the funeral home with the casket closed

The next day the funeral was held at the Mahaiywa General Cemetery in Kandy.  It was presided over by 3 Anglican priests and was thankfully short.  The highlight was the singing of Swing Low Sweet Chariot by Andrew Fowler-Watt, the principal of Trinity College.  Andrew is trained as an opera singer and did a beautiful rendition.  The song had the dual benefit of not only being appropriate to the occasion, but it is also the anthem of the England rugby union team.  David was a great rugby fan.    He was cremated, so after the ceremony, the coffin was moved into the burning chamber which is just to the left of the photo.

David was born in Ceylon, planted tea here for 10 years and spent the last 24 years of his life here.  Needless to say, there were a lot of Sri Lankan mourners at the funeral.

Clare with Malcolm Wright in the background.  Holding up!

After the funeral, some of us were invited back to Villa Rosa, a lovely boutique hotel that is just next door to the Leask's, house for a reception.  A second eulogy was delivered and Clare quoted a beautiful poem.  We all toasted David, some of us with his beloved Lion Lager beer, and had some lovely remembrances of him.  He will be missed.

On the more mundane front, we have entered the second term of the School of English.  We now have 55 students and have started adult classes with 20 employees of the Ceylon Electricity Board.  Lalindra and I have divided the work so that I go to the school on Monday and Friday and he does Wednesday and Saturday.  We both do the CEB classes on Thursdays.  This works out much better for both of us.  We each saw a profit of LKR.100,000 from the first term which is not bad.  The monies we make from CEB is pure profit and amounts to about LKR.25,000 each/month.  Really helps to supplement my pension as the cost of living here is going up all the time.

Hair tattoos are going on as per usual.

April

May.  Nilan blackened the back of my hair so the tattoo would show up better.

The other piece of news is that I am going in for cataract surgery on Sunday, June 11.  Should be a piece of cake.  It is being performed at Kandy Private Hospital (KPH) which is very close by my house.  Clare is picking me up after it is done and Veenitha is staying the night with me just in case.  Looking forward to seeing clearly again.

Sri Lanka is known for its exceptional vision care.  This particular doctor has performed about 50,000 of these surgeries.  Practice makes perfect!  He did the eye of an acquaintance who was very happy with the results, so it is all good news.

On the critter front, my landlady is feeding a lovely neighborhood dog who I have named Sweetie.

Here she is curled up in the car port where she is fed.  She has taken to coming into the garden and lying guard at my front door.

A young male cat has been sneaking into the house to eat.  He somehow found out that the top of the grill by my front door is open.  He climbs up the mesh and jumps through the open grill.  I have found him on two successive mornings happily sleeping in one of the armchairs in the front room.  I don't mind him coming in, although Patches is of two minds.  Sometimes she just looks at him and other times there is a big fight.  I don't like him jumping through the grill, though, so yesterday I got some mesh and closed up the rest of the space.  I saw this morning that he did try to get in, but was foiled.

My friend Deanne has a lot of snakes in her garden.  Here is the molted skin of one of them.

From a 6' long rat snake

As always, winding up with Patches.

Having a nice nap on my laptop.