All the best laid plans of mice and men and women, etc. etc...... I had planned on having a birthday party for Canada for our 150th, but cancelled because of this damned cataract surgery. It has still not taken place. After one cancellation because the doctor was not available and a second because the scan was not right, I finally have it scheduled for this Sunday.
In the meantime, I went down to Colombo to have the proper scan done. I could hardly wait to get out of there. Construction everywhere. A sea of cranes and it seems like every road is dug up. God only knows where they are getting the money for all this work. They are building useless buildings like the Lotus Tower. It will be the tallest structure in South Asia and will cost US$150M. Of course, the Chinese are building it. They own most of Sri Lanka anyway. Totally useless. Meanwhile, the sidewalks are crowded with tiny stalls with poor vendors trying to sell anything just to eke out a living.
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| The mock up |
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| The reality under construction. Not only useless but ugly with garish colours. |
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| This is what a Colombo street really looks like. No useable sidewalks, too much traffic, tiny shops. |
We went down on the main Kandy/Colombo road leaving at 0630 and getting to the hospital at 1100 with 20 minutes for breakfast. The hospital is under construction as well, so it was chaos there also. However, they did a very thorough eye exam and mapped my original corneas as well. On the way back, we took the new expressway to the airport for a toll of LKR.300 (about C$2.50) which hooks into the Kurunagella road and from there on to Kandy. It was well worth it to shave some time off, but it still took us 4.5 hours. I did manage to get a train ticket going down in the morning but only in 2nd class and no return tickets were available. So I ended up hiring a car and am very glad I did. I would not have wanted to take my chances at the bus stand on a Friday afternoon.
We are having our optimal fruit season now so we got rambutan, mangosteen, and cashews on the road back. Pomello, laullu, belli, soursap and avocado are also in season.
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| A veritable cornucopia. Lemon grass, limes, rambutan, tomatoes |
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| Avocado, butternut squash, mangosteen, watermelon, laullu, belli. |
Went out to the Coopers hear Rambukhanna/Mawanella last Sunday for lunch. They have a lovely old wallawa they have refurbished. Really beautiful but I don't know how they do the drive especially at night. The narrow concrete road over the paddy is hair-raising even during the day. Great lunch and a promise of a set of oriental flower Portmeirion luncheon plates from Yvonne who has a collection of Botanic Garden to die for.
The woman who was to host Stitch 'n Bitch this week cancelled on Monday, so I stepped into the breach. I made brownies but ended up overtaking them, so now I have really chocolaty rock candy. So I had to replace them with a raw vegan chocolate avocado cheesecake. It was yummy along with lemon or really lime loaf and puff pastry filled with kankong and feta (a sort of modified spanakopita), mushrooms, elle batthu (small green and white eggplants), and wingbeans. Turned out well in the end and I was glad to get it out of the way before the surgery.
I am now feeding 3 cats on and off. My lovely Patches, of course, a new boyfriend I have named Buddy Boy or BB and BB's brother. BB lets me pat him now. He is very affectionate and ends up winding through my legs to the point where I can't walk anywhere. I need to catch him and take him to be fixed. The brother is much more furtive and only comes around rarely. I think someone may own them, but people don't seem to look after their cats worth a damn around here. So I don't mind so long as I can get them neutered.
Here is this month's hair tattoo:
