Lockdown was lifted on Monday and will remain so from 0500 to 2000 daily until Sunday when we will be on lockdown again for the whole day. Both my maids have been coming, so you would think I have been relieved of housework, but not so. The deep cleaning wasn't getting done when I was on my own. We are catching up, but it is a lot of work and all three of us have to get down and dirty.
Our burden was added to yesterday when I finally got a hot water heater installed in the kitchen. A big job involving electrical, plumbing and drilling through concrete but now we have hot water on demand for washing the dishes.
Otherwise, staying at home has been not too bad.
I have been entertained by the usual line up of critters:
- went into my bathroom one night to get ready for bed and found a medium sized grey spider facing off with a whip scorpion. I broke up the fight by killing the grey spider. Didn't really want to kill it, but also not what I need going on just before I get into bed.
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| Ugly buggers. Not really scorpions, really a type of spider and not harmful, but so ugly it is hard to let them live. |
- continuing on the spider front, a couple of interesting ones showed up on the wall of my veranda. They are quite lovely. They start out as small as a finger nail and can grow as big as the palm of your hand. Fun to watch one grow. They seem to be harmless as well, although one scared me when I found it spread out on the side of a book I picked up to read.
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| This one is just about as big as a quarter. |
- two more cats have been added to the menagerie. They are both unfixed males which means they spray. I have spent a lot of time cleaning up said spray. One of them, I think Mali (you will be introduced in a minute), was sleeping and peeing on the cushions on my sofas making me have to wash them almost every day. I must be getting old, because after a few weeks of this, I realized that I can close my veranda doors for the night and prevent any cushion peeing. DUH! Now feeding 7 cats. 3 kilos of cat food only last a week.
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| Meet Mahli. Mahli means younger brother in Sinhala. He is so named because he looks a lot like Baby and Putha, so they must be related. The other cats are not fighting as much with him anymore and he has allowed me to pat him. As soon as we get friendly enough, he is being wisked away to be neutered. |
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| Another unfixed male, I named Tambili Daykai, Daykai for short. Tambili means orange in Sinhala after the King Coconuts of the same name that are orange on the tree. Daykai mean two in Sinhala. There was another Tambili that used to come around, but sadly, I am sure he died, so this is Tambili Second. He doesn't come all the time, but sometimes. He is very skittish, so don't know if I will ever be able to catch him for the snip. |
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| The billing jam. It is not that great as jam, more of a preserve, so I added it to some rose apple preserve that Ralph gave me, a couple or rose apples from the neighbor, and some veggie mince meat I got from Sally and Jerry at Christmas and made a pie. Mmmmmm good! |
Speaking of the neighbor, the one directly across the street is quite the gardener and grows all sorts of things. The other day, he gave something new to my landlady who shared it with me; tree spinach. I had never seen it before, but I boiled it up and it is just like the local spinach. Unfortunately, you can't eat it raw as it is slimy, but it is just fine cooked. Tula told me to take the stems and plant them. I did and lo and behold they have sprouted in less than a week.
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| Going into the pot for washing and boiling. |
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| New sprouts. |
The coconut palms have been producing like crazy and we were unable to get them picked during the lockdown. Finally, the other day, the man came to pick and dehusk them. He did a great job and I got 7 coconuts from the deal. He says that our black pepper vines and our clove tree are also producing, so we should be able to harvest soon.
Another of my plantings has also finally born blooms, the trumpet lily.
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| Finally in bloom. |
