November 30, 2021 Marking 9+ Years

Life with the pandemic continues.  We are settling into a new kind of normal as omicron emerges.  Who knows what things will look like by Christmas.  For the moment, life is pretty much as it was before COVID except for masks and vaccinations.

We continue to play mahjong although we seem to be down to 3 players on a regular basis.  We are all on about the same level and are starting to get more sophisticated in our playing.  I have started to work through all the hands systematically so that I get to know all of them.  Don't win much, but it makes it interesting.

I went up to see Simon and Pauline for 3 days in early November.  Unfortunately, the dream of a retirement community at Flamboyant Villas is gone for the moment.  My friend Jez raised a number of very reasonable objections:  

• It's too far away from Kandy and him and his family.  A point well taken as we drove up there.  I forgot just how far it is.
• The situation in the country is only getting worse.  Therefore, it is not a good idea to create a cluster of ex-pats who have no reliable Sri Lankan as a buffer.  Plus, Simon and Pauline may pull up stakes if things get really bad. 

Lastly, I had detected that Simon was getting lukewarm on the idea anyway.  Turned out I was right.  Their house is slipping and is in real danger of collapsing if something is not done soon.  They need to spend their available money on getting their house repaired, not repurposing one of the villas for me.  

So it is back to Plan A, Gampola or Plan C which is another story.  I will get to that later.

Even though the rains continued and I was not able to swim, we had a very nice 3 days.  I learned about galette and have made one since.  Wonderful addition to the cooking repertoire.

The almost 20 acre property at Flamboyant Villas is like a botanical park.  They have planted so many interesting trees, bushes and flowering and edible plants.  These attract all sorts of birds and other wild life.

Seeds growing on a Barringtonia or Fish Killer (Bauhinia racemosa) tree.  They mostly grow on the coast, but this one is doing very well here on the edge of the dry zone.  

The tree is the national tree of Hong Kong

The seed pod.  I brought this one home as it is so decorative.

The flower

The Pride of Barbados doing beautifully in Sri Lanka

The flower up close

I think this is the flower of a Jerusalem date.

Here's Pauline with the tree

I think this is a coraltree

Flower of the coraltree

One of the star tortoise roaming the property.  This one is almost tame.  Her hame is Milly.

Milly's markings.  She has nail polish on her to protect her from poachers.

Here's Milly devouring a hibiscus flower.  She loves them.

Giant ginger.  It really is giant, growing to over 15 feet tall.

So back to Plan C.  An alternate plan is necessary as I fell down the outside steps just about a month ago.  No real damage, although I got a black eye for the first time in my life.  Just lucky as I could have easily broken something.  Only got bruised and scraped.  Thankfully, Vineetha was here and Sujatha came home after 3 weeks just as I was lying at the bottom of the stairs.  I lay there for a bit and then felt well enough to get up.  Unfortunately, on the way to my bed, I must have passed out because the next thing I knew, I was lying on my back in the hallway with Vineetha fussing over me and Sujatha holding my head.  

I was coming down the stairs very carefully, holding on to the railing, but due to the black algae, my feet just slipped out from under me.  Thankfully, there were only 3 steps left to go.  I really have to get a place with no steps.

My black eye

One of the things I have been thinking about for some time is moving upstairs when Tula dies.  Turns out that she will not be able to come home from her daughter's after her heart attack and Yazmin wants to fix the place up to rent it out.  She asked me if I could oversee the reno.  I indicated that I was interested in moving up there if she was prepared to fix it up to my standard.  The place is a real dump at the moment.  She said she was willing, so I am getting her some estimates for the work.  I will get 2 estimates from each contractor; one to just make it liveable, and one that brings it up to Julia level.  We will see what happens.  It would be great if it happens, but I am not counting my chickens.

November is always birthday season here, starting on the 3rd.  I celebrated my 69th in style again at Simpson's Forest Resort.  A bit of an adventure this year as I drove up with Yvonne and George Cooper who stayed over the night before.  George is one of the world's worst drivers.  Matters were made worse by the GPS sending us on some hairbrained route half of which was impassable due to landslides.  We finally made it after 1.5 hours when it should have taken 40 minutes at most.  No swimming as it was too late and too rainy. We did have a lovely lunch and cake.

A beautiful cake made by Lesley's neighbour Kanthi.  She makes the roses look like they are real.  Best cakes in Sri Lanka.  Next time I have to ask her to omit the food colouring.

The gang from left to right:  Gerry (our mahjong teacher), Bill (Gerry's husband), me, George (the bad driver), Yvonne (George's wife), Lesley (my other mahjong partner), Ralph (Lesley's husband)

Getting ready to cut the cake.

Seemed like 69 was a good age to revive the hair tattoo.  Well, really it was that my hairdresser felt like doing one.  So here is her tribute to Halloween.  She had never heard of a jack o' lantern, so it is a bit demented, especially the mouth.

Birthdays continued with Pauline's on the 22nd.  We went out to dinner the night before to a new boutique hotel called Ru Boutique.  A beautifully renovated old bungalow right on Kandy lake beside the Hotel Suisse.  The food was not spectacular although acceptable, but the setting was lovely.  Very good service as well.

Film Club took place as usual, so we are getting back into the old routine.

The month has finished with two more birthdays that we celebrated yesterday after mahjong with lunch at the Grand Kandyan.

Meanwhile, my former students from the Ceylon Electricity Board contacted me to ask if they could come over to have me present them with their certificates.  Apparently the course is really helping them with their promotional opportunities.

Chaminda the IT man.

Gayani, the Accounting Supervisor

Upali the Engineering Assistant soon to be an Engineer

Kalyani, the Human Resource Officer and the organiser of everything.

Receiving the gift.

Checking out the gift of a necklace, bracelet and earrings.

Closing as always with my animals.  

The latest addition is a bunch of tadpoles deposited by my singing frog.  No sign of the frog anymore, but there are lots of young'uns.

Buddy is still sick.  I had to get the vet out the morning of my birthday party to give him some shots.  Those lasted for 2 weeks and now he is having difficulty eating again.  He is so thin, only skin and bones.  I am so worried about him.  I am off today to get him some more antibiotics.

Baby disappeared for 2 months and showed up the other day for breakfast.  Fat as ever.  She has obviously found another home where they have kept her inside for some time.

My skinny Buddy.  

Buddy with his bandaged leg with his canula.

Draped over Nangi.  They seem to be happy.

Putha and Nangi snuggling.

All three of them holding me captive.

Getting some rare sun.

Tandem eating.

October 28, 2021

All manner of things happening these days.

We were on lockdown until October 1.  I finally managed to finish the projects I had earmarked for the lockdown period.  Admittedly, I did not finish them until the lockdown was over, but I had a good excuse.

I got very sick around the middle of September.  So sick. in fact, that I finally went to see a doctor.

For the first 4 days, I was on my own as it was still lockdown.  On the 5th day, I couldn't cope anymore, so I sent a tuktuk to fetch Vineetha.  I had the worst stomach ache ever; gastritis I am pretty sure, but a severe case.  My stomach was pressing on my diaphram so that I kept thinking was having heart trouble.  Plus my nose and sinuses were completely plugged up.  I was in bed for 4 days not even able to brush my teeth or have a shower.  Just managed to make it to the bathroom.  Couldn't eat, but made myself drink so that I wouldn't get dehydrated on top of everything else.  Lost about 10 pounds which didn't hurt.

Vineetha stayed with me for about a week and then said she had to go home because her granddaughter had to go for a follow-up doctor's appointment which never happened.  Not sure that I believe that it ever was scheduled.

I wanted to ask the young woman who lives in the annex and who is a home care worker to help me, but she was engaged by my landlady's daughter as my landlady had had a heart attack after receiving her second shot and was in hospital.  To make matters even worse, the daughter's husband who used to be a Kandy city councillor called the Public Health Inspector saying I was ill.  Three people showed up, two in uniform, asking if I had COVID symptoms, which I had not.

By that time, I had managed to drag myself to a doctor with Vineetha's help.  He checked my oxygen absorption rate (fine), and sent me for blood tests (also fine).  He gave me a note for a Rapid Antigen Test which I didn't take as I didn't want to vomit all over the lab tech.  He put it down to severe gastritis and prescribed an acid suppressant that worked and I slowly started to feel better.

The PHI and crew wanted me to go for a PCR test despite the fact that I couldn't even get out of bed to talk to them.  I told them I couldn't get to a hospital and that I would vomit if I had the swab stuck up my nose.  They took this as my refusal to have a test and got the young couple in the annex so frightened that they would not come out of their room for a week.  Idiots!  My landlady's daughter and her husband are included in that lot.  The opposite of helpful.

I am fully recovered now, but all told I was not myself for at least a month.

Thankfully, I was fine to received my second shot which was scheduled for October 12.  Of course, I showed up there only to be told they had changed it to the next day.  So I went trudging back expecting pandemonium but was surprised to find that it was very well organized.  They sat me down keeping social distancing in mind and within less than a minute, a nurse came and gave me the shot.  Maybe she injected me with water as there was no mark, no itching, no swelling, no nothing.

While all that was going on, my lovely Buddy Boy also fell sick.  He was with a cannula on IV for 5 days and seemed to be rallying.  They did blood tests and determined that he had an upper respiratory tract infection.  At the end of the IV treatment he got a long lasting antibiotic that lasted only for 3 days and then he started to decline again.  Of course, it was a poya day (monthly full moon holiday) and I couldn't get hold of his vet.  In the end, my friend Deanne gave me the number of her vet who did come out and gave him a shot to bring down the swelling in his mouth and throat.  He wanted to give him 2 shots, but he wouldn't put up with the second.  He nearly clawed my hand off.  That lasted for another day.  

By this time, my vet was open again, but their mobile service was not working and there was no way I could get the cat to them, so I had to call Deanne's vet again.  He managed both shots that time and brought some medication that I could give Buddy with his milk.  Milk was all he was ingesting by this time.  After another couple of days, things had not improved much so I took him into the vet.  I didn't want to deal with Deanne's vet anymore as he charged double what I pay even for the mobile service.

Turns out that he has at least 4 ulcers in his mouth.  We found this out only after giving him a general anesthetic.  So another cannula has been put in and he is back on twice daily IV treatments for at least a week.  Happy days!  He is still alive and that is all that matters.  Will cost me LKR50,000 or more in the end, but what choice do I have?

So yesterday was spent taking Buddy to the vet and later in the day going to an appointment to see an opthamologist about getting the cataract in my left eye dealt with.  I had already gone for 3 appointments with another eye surgeon who works out of KPH where I had my right eye done in 2017.  He sent me for the usual refraction and biometric tests.  Turns out that I have astigmatism in my right eye due to a scar on my cornea from the cataract surgery.  No-one; neither the surgeon nor the optometrist who did the follow-up mentioned anything about astigmatism.  The surgeon put down the fact that I don't have perfect distance vision with my right eye to the fact that they had to insert a strong lens.  They were not able to determine the proper lens strength apparently due to fact that I did not have a topographical scan of my eye prior to receiving laser surgery about 25 years ago.

This latter is at least in part BS.  The surgeon screwed up and scarred my cornea.  So this new guy was reluctant to do the left eye, but said he would consult a colleague as to whether the surgery could be done in Kandy.  In the end, he came back with a story that they had some kind of infection at the hospital and were not doing eye surgeries there for the foreseeable future.  He recommended some guy in Colombo.  I don't want to go to Colombo.

So off I went yesterday to see another eye surgeon recommended my friends Lorens and Jim. I set up the appointment through Doc990 which is an online and telephone service for specialist doctor's appointments.  My original appointment was for 4:15pm.  Doc990 advised me that she would not be arriving until 5:30pm, so I went then.  At 6:30pm she had still not arrived.  I was furious, so I demanded a refund from Suwasevana Hospital and left.  Doc 990 advised me that she arrived at the hospital at 7:22pm, almost 2 hours late.  No apology, no explanation.  I do not want to deal with a doctor who has so little respect for her patients.  After all that, she only spent less than a half hour at the hospital according to Doc990.  Shameful!  Back to drawing board.  Hopefully I can manage to get this done before Christmas.

On a brighter note, we have resumed mahjong and Film Club so there are some social things to do.  Unfortunately, on a sadder note the woman who started the film club, Clare Leask died about a month ago with cancer and my friend Judith who organises Film Club now has had a basal cell carcinoma removed that is malignant.  I don't think Judith is in any imminent danger, but it is scary in any event.

All my projects are complete now:  chairs reupholstered, leather pillows made, marionettes refurbished, and an oriental carpet repaired.

These marionettes were made for me in Udaipur by a local puppet theatre 35 years ago.  There are only 2 puppets really.  The smaller one is a man on one side and a woman on the other.  After all that time, the costumes and the jewellry were disintegrating.  I gave them to my seamstress, Anu, to redo them.  She did a great job as you can see.  I repaired the jewellry, so now they live again.

We have had unending rain so that even though the pool has reopened, I haven't been able to go swimming.  The rains have done wonders for the plant life.  Here is an interesting plant growing in the garden next door to Lesley and Ralph.

Bugs are also being driven indoors with the rain.  This one was interesting.  He was cleaning his long antennae with his front legs.

When I first came to Sri Lanka in 1987, I became friends with Carolyn McAskie who was the Canadian High Commissioner at that time.  She shared a wonderful idea with me of a small retirement community of like minded individuals living independently but together.  It has never left my mind.  Wherever I have lived, I have always spotted places that would be suitable for such an arrangement.

Well, at long last, I think the dream might come to fruition.  I have friends here, Simon and Pauline Lazenbatt, who have a beautiful boutique hotel in Naulla, called Flamboyant Villas.  Check out their  website at https://www.flamboyantvillas.com/index.  They are also on Bookings.com, TripAdvisor, and Facebook.  Anyway, there has not been a lot of tourist trade since the Easter bombings and nothing since the pandemic.  I broached the idea with them of converting Flamboyant into a retirement community more out of self interest than anything else.  Happily, they have agreed and we are proceeding with the project.  We will begin by converting one of the villas for me as a permanent residence and proceed from there. Hopefully, within the next year, I will be living the life of Reilly at Flamboyant Villas.

All the other cats are fine, although I have not seen Baby for some time.

Buddy and Nangi snuggling.  You can already see the degeneration of Buddy's fur.

Buddy today.  Looking ratty and scrawny, but still breathing.  We are expecting the vet at 10am.

September 6 Getting Vaccinated

Again, more than 2 months have passed since I last posted.  Since then, we have been locked down again, since August 20.  We won't be released until September 13, another week.  This lockdown is a bit different from the others in that it is being very mildly enforced.  There are no buses, which is hurting the poorest levels of society; daily wage earners, factory workers, agricultural worker, casual labourers.  However, those who can afford a car or a tuktuk, are moving about, as are some pedestrians.  

We managed to continue to play mahjong until about a week before the full lockdown.  I also had some nice evenings with my friends Simon and Pauline Lazenbatt before the hammer struck.  The pool also reopened on July 12 so I got a few swims in before they closed it again.

My friend Ralph celebrated his 69th birthday with a party at their house attended by about 20 people.  Gatherings were prohibited, of course, but we went ahead anyway without any difficulty with health restrictions in place.  They followed this up with an anniversary party much in the same format about a week later.  We even got a Sunday lunch squeezed in there.

The pool closed again on August 18, augering the full lockdown.

Initially, I had decided not to get vaccinated.  I am not an antivaxer, but there was so little information about the vaccines they were rushing to produce that I was wary.  I recall the swine flu epidemic in the early 1970s when almost the entire city of Calgary lined up at Mawata Stadium to get their shots.  It must have been the same across Canada.  6 months later, more people had died from the vaccine than from the flu.

Two factors have changed my mind; the greater of them is the advent of a vaccination passport.  Although it has not been mandated here yet, I think it is coming.  They have already been asking for it on buses.  The second is the Delta variant which is now sweeping the country.  My friend Marleen's son Mikael is a biotechnologist and says that these variants are developing inside the bodies of the unvaccinated.  So now it almost feels like a civic duty to get vaccinated.

The next step was to find a vaccine.  I did not want to get the Chinese Sinopharm and was sceptical about the Sputnik V as well; both of which are available here.  I finally settled on Moderna as it is said to be 94.5% effective and can be stored in a normal freezer.  I missed the first round of Moderna shots in my area as I was still procrastinating.  I also had to get registered with the Grama Sevaka (GS) who is the government official who oversees each community.  I did that along with my friend Ava, who is anti anything related to COVID regulations.  However, she does travel by bus, so she decided she had to get it.

The week we registered, we attended a lunch of the Thirsty Club that meets on Thursdays.  Ava had complained that she had not been feeling well but that she was feeling better.  Long story short, she was finally tested and was positive for COVID.  No surprise as she was constantly refusing to wear her mask claiming that it didn't do any good.  Completely irresponsible in that she could have infected thousands of people travelling on the bus and going into town every day and wandering around.

Thankfully, none of us in attendance at the lunch have displayed any symptoms for over 2 weeks now.

After registering with the GS, we heard that they were going to be vaccinating with Moderna on August 25.  My tuktuk man, Asoka knows the GS and got her to fill in the necessary forms and give them to us.  I went along on the 25th only to be informed that they were giving 2nd doses, not 1st.  So it was back to the drawing board.

I had numbers for the central vaccination registry in Colombo, the mobile vaccination group for Kandy, and the military mobile vaccination people.  I got some information from the central registry that they were doing 1st dose Moderna in a couple of places in Kandy, so Asoka and I set out to find one of them.  We stopped and asked some policemen, who knew nothing.  I couldn't get through to the military number until we had driven around for a while.  They were supposed to be running the clinic.  When I got a hold of the captain in charge, he knew nothing about it.  A wild goose chase.

That same day, my landlady got a call from our former GS.  A know crook; he always wanted a backhander when he did anything.  He is now the GS in the area where my friend Devika lives.  She had tried to get me registered in her area, so that I had a better chance of getting the jab.  He remembered me and thus the call to my landlady.  He said he knew where I could get a first dose and that he was going to bring somebody who would arrange it.  In the meantime, Devika had spoken to him and after putting him in his place, found out that they were giving 1st doses to anyone who wanted them at a maternity clinic near where I used to live.

Asoka and I went there on the day and found that chaos reigned.  The clinic is a small space and people were milling around (forget social distancing) in the tiny parking area and garden in front.  A young man who could speak English came to my rescue and took me to see the GS.  I didn't realize until later that it was the crook.  The GS said I couldn't get the shot as I was outside of the area.  I retorted saying that I had been informed that anyone who had not had the first shot could come there and receive it.  All this through the young helpful translator.  I don't know what the translator said to him, but the next thing I knew, I was taken inside to speak to someone who I suspect was the Public Health Inspector (PHI).  He looked at my form, and immediately said they would vaccinate me.

So, I ended up the first in line.  They were using AstraZeneca which is less effective than Moderna, but at that point, I didn't care.  At least it is recognized by Canada and the EU and most importantly, I got the passport.  No side effects whatsoever.  I have had worse spider and ant bites than the reaction in my arm.  So finally, I am shot up.  Second dose is on October 12.  

As I was leaving, the GS followed me out.  Through Asoka, he identified himself as the GS at which point I remembered him from before.  As Asoka and I left, Asoka said the GS expected some money as he had helped.  What a crock!  He had done nothing and received nothing in return.

On the home front, I have been fortunate to find a wonderful series of books written by Ian Hamilton, a Canadian author.  The protagonist is a forensic accountant hamed Ava Lee.  They are great.  I highly recommend them.  The first one is the Water Rat of Wanchai.  I have read 8 of them in the last week alone.

My big adventure was going to Arpico yesterday to do grocery shopping.  It is not officially open.  You have to sneak in the back door and all the lights are off, but they were fully stocked, so I am in good shape.  I did a big shop before the lockdown was declared, so I am not wanting for supplies.  Plus lorries are coming by quite regularly.  This was my fruit and vegetable hoard.

Cilantro for pesto and parsley

Passion fruit, yellow watermelon, limes, pineapple, papaya, 5 kg tomatoes for sauce, avocados from Lesley

King coconut (tambili), coconut (pol), potatoes, ginger, garlic, red onion or shallots

Kang kong being cooked for pizza topping

The lockdown has been made a bit difficult by the never ending rain we have been having.  Great for the plants though.  The downside is that it drives a lot of bugs indoors; big spiders, whip scorpions, etc.

The caladium in the side yard is loving the rain as the hosta beside it.

This shield bug (superfamily Pentatomoides, family Acanathosomatidae) had to be relocated from my bedroom.

My passion fruit vine is finally producing fruit although it is slow to ripen due to the lack of sun.

Juicing my crop of passion fruit.

Overall, I am doing well despite the desperate situation in the country.  The President has declared a state of emergency because of the hoarding of essential food items like rice, sugar and milk powder.  The supply of cooking gas is also in peril because one of the main suppliers has stopped importing because of an inability to get letters of credit due to the almost nonexistent foreign currency reserves.  

The government also banned the use of chemical fertilizers overnight, again due to the lack of forex reserves.  We are coming into the maha (big) crop season and despite the expected import of M$63 worth of organic fertilizer, there a strong likelihood that the maha crop will fail.  You can't go from chemical to organic fertilizer overnight.  So we may be looking at a near famine.  Dire days ahead, but I remain optimistic that we will muddle through somehow.

In closing, as always, my furry babies.  

My 3 loyalists having their afternoon nap.

Buddy and Nangi keeping warm

All 3 of them on top of me.  Impossible to move.

Buddy and Putha in my lap as I am trying to read

Buddy with Putha behind.  Buddy has been in a number of fights with Daykai and has been limping around.  I also had to remove leeches from both his and Putha's mouth a while back.  I didn't catch one in time with Buddy and he couldn't use his mouth for a day due to the swelling.  Never a dull moment.