Keep Track of Julia: March 13, 2024

Let's see if I can get caught up.

Mahjong has become a mainstay. All four of us enjoy it so much. We are getting more proficient, playing double limit games almost every week. I don't know what I would do without it.

Breakfast at the Grand Kandyan also continues. The group varies from 3 to 10. Of course, the price has gone up as the government raised the VAT (Value Added Tax) on January 1, 2024. More stupid moves to appease the IMF. Instead of enforcing a progressive income tax system, they up the fixed taxes thereby effecting the poorest people the most. They have paid lip service to the IMF by requiring everyone to have a TIN (Tax Identification Number), even foreigners who have been here for 136 days or more. How ridiculous! That is about 4.5 months. Tourists can get extensions up to 6 months, while Sri Lankan born visitors can get up to a year. Are those people going to pay income tax?

To add to the madness, they announced that they needed more staff to process all the new TIN applications. So they hired a bunch of people at more expense to the government. One step forward, 10 steps back.

My love affair with my dentist continues. I feel like I live at his office. He installed another bridge, put in the post for another implant and did an emergency extraction on 2 roots whose crown had broken off. I thought he would have to do surgery to get the roots out, but he managed to pull them out without having to cut the gum. Of course, I will have to have another implant put in the gap. Never ending.

One thing out of the ordinary was a Christmas craft fair at L'Atelier. My friend Lillian, who is a brilliant seamstress, made some lovely cushion covers of which I bought 2. Only 1 was ready at the fair. She managed to finish the second one only this week. She is almost as bad a me with this blog. There were also some nice preserves and packaged spices including bay leaf which is hard to find.

After the fair, it was off to the movie Napoleon. Way too long and historically inaccurate. The costumes and sets were fabulous though. It inspired me to read a biography of Napoleon which I am still into. It is quite a tome and will take some time to wade through.

I did interrupt it to read Kohinoor: The Story of the World's Most Infamous Diamond by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand. I wanted to read it before going to hear Dalrymple at the literary festival. More of that later. Dalrymple's part was very well researched as usual. Anand's part was less so and relied on only about 5 sources. Will stick to Dalrymple's sole work from now on.

Dinner after the movie made it a full evening.

I had wanted to do some repainting and other things in the house, so I got an estimate which came to about LKR.400,000. I decided to go ahead with it as I get my minimum RIF payment on December 1. In exchange for the expenditure which I would cover, I asked my landlady for a 5 year lease renewal with no rent increase. She agreed, so now I am covered until the end of December, 2029.

They repainted all the walls and ceilings with lime-wash, enamel painted all the wood work, revarnished the front door, the archways and my coffee table, removed the aquarium/terrarium on the veranda, took out the wooden railing on the veranda, took off all the windows including 2 of the big windows on the front of the house. This was not intended, but the frames have been eaten by termites and the hinges basically fell out. Removed the windows in my bathroom which I had replaced by a grill to keep the monkeys out. They drilled through the kitchen wall so I could run the gas piping through the wall instead over the counter and through the window. A bit of masonry and cement work. I had my regular concrete man come and redo my front fish pond which was leaking. They demolished the shelving unit in my office as it was riddled with termites which had destroyed so many of my books over the years. The china cabinet in the dining room had proper wood planks installed instead of the useless particle board ones that were there before. Another nesting place for ants and termites. The exit door from my bathroom to the back porch had serious water damage so that part of the door was covered with brass sheeting.

The contractor, Ranga had said that the work would take 2 weeks. Not that I believed him. Absurd under any circumstances, let alone in Sri Lanka. In the end it took from December 4, 2023 to January 12, 2024 to complete the work. The original team of 3 people, father, his brother and his son, started out strong and soon flagged. They were off allegedly with conjunctivitis for a week. Such bull! They likely had another job. Then their work became so sloppy and they turned up so sporadically that I demanded they be replaced. The contractor then sent 2 of his own employees. The first bunch had been sub-contractors. They were good, but slow. Plus they had to redo quite a bit of what the first group had botched. Then we had heavy rains and the house of one of guys was hit by a landslide. They had to take a few days to clean up the mess at his place.

Then the contractor started moaning that he was losing money on the job because it was taking so long, inferring that the delay was my fault. He didn't get very far with that argument so that in the end I spent just a little over LKR.300,000 instead of the original estimated LKR.400,000.

On December 10 we had the annual Film Club lunch. Quite well attended with a less than satisfactory buffet lunch at the Radisson. We had the usual raffle in which I won a sarong that I had made into a dress.

The decorating meant that I did nothing at home for Christmas. We had our traditional Christmas morning breakfast at the Grand Kandyan and Lesley and Ralph had their annual Christmas day party. It was really fun this year. We had a few laughs. Kumari and her husband also attended so I had an opportunity to meet him.

Ava kept us in stitches, passing around pictures of her and her 40 something lover and then complaining that she was in pain when they made love. She is 79. Just shows you can't be counted out until the very end.

Judith as court jester.

I went up to Flamboyant Villas on the 27th as Simon and Pauline were in Malta. Just a quick up and down visit to pay the staff. I had a good swim including a lovely back massage from the pelting rain. Pushparani gave me a nice lunch so it was a nice break from the decorating mess.

Hopper nights at the Kandy Club also continue to mark my calendar on occasion. At least when Simon and Pauline are in town over a Friday night. The hoppers are good but they continue to forget to light the heaters under the chafing dishes full of curry. Cold curry, yuk!

Michael Moonesinghe came up with some lovely baked goods from Colombo. Took the opportunity to have lunch at Slightly Chilled with Deanne, Devika and Janie who was visiting from the UK.

Jim Aitkin's annual Robby Burns Dinner was held this year on January 31. Usually it is on November 30, St. Andrew's Day, but it was not possible last year. My contribution was To A Louse. Jim wanted me to do the Immortal Memory, but I had been sick from an allergic reaction to all the turpentine in the oil paint and was not up to it. The drive out to his place outside Gampola was horrific. Driving rain and fog. Viv Wright did a wonderful job of getting us there. We got lost a couple of times. Once a fallen tree blocked the road making Viv back out of narrow, soggy and windy roads. Hats off to her.

Janie and her husband have a lovely guesthouse just outside Gampola. Devika and I went over for the day. I had a good swim although the chemicals in the pool were harsh and I had some chafing from my swimsuit. Fred, Janie's husband laid on a wonderful Sri Lankan lunch. A lovely day altogether.

The place is huge. The front room could easily accommodate 100 for a party. It was a derelict bungalow that they virtually rebuilt.

The garden leading to the swimming pool

They also have a wedding hall that can easily take 300 to 400 guests. There is a huge veranda on the front with this amazing view.

The house

The swimming pool.

Since I was doing so much decorating, I decided to have new lamp shades made as the old ones were a bit makeshift and looking tired after 10 years. My blacksmith made the frames and I covered them. I think they turned out rather well.

The frame

All finished

The Sri Lanka Literary Festival which has traditionally been held in Galle expanded its venues this year to include Colombo and Kandy. One of my favourite authors, William Dalrymple was on the agenda, so I went off to hear him. The event was held at the Hotel Suisse, an old colonial hotel which I had never set foot in. It is a lovely old place, well kept and full of old world charm. Dalrymple was very interesting. The 45 minutes went by in a flash. In fact, 45 minutes was way too short.

I had invited everyone who attended the talk back to my place for drinks. We were 8 all together. Afterwards, Simon, Pauline, Jim and I went out for dinner to the The Topaz. Another hotel I had never been to. The hotel is nothing special except this it is high on a hill with wonderful views. The buffet dinner was quite good but not exceptional. The only thing of note was the number of foreign tourists. The dining room that must seat at least 100 people was full. Looks like tourism is on the way back to Sri Lanka.

My good friend Debby's niece arrived in Kandy on March 1. Brittany had been travelling for 4 months covering Thailand, Australia twice, and Sri Lanka. She travelled around for a bit and then came to Kandy to visit me and to do some volunteer work. I had never met her and had last seen her father, Danny, Debby's younger brother, when he was 18 or 19. I had this image of a teenage daughter, but, of course, I was dead wrong. She is 34 and very well travelled and accomplished.

This picture is not from this trip but an old one. Sipping a Singapore Sling at the new, ugly Raffles.

The volunteer opportunity was at a school for mentally challenged boys. Particularly suited to Brittany as her younger brother has Down Syndrome and she worked in the mental field for 15 years specializing in autism. In typically Sri Lankan fashion, they got the dates of her arrival mixed up, did not consult their board about bringing her on and generally cocked things up so badly that after 2 days they asked her to leave because they did not have board approval. She decided to spend her last days on the beach. At 2200 on the night before she was to leave for the coast, they called saying they now had board approval and could she come back. Idiots!

She joined Simon, Pauline and I for a film called The Ashes about Salvador Dalí, Federico Garcia Lorca and Luis Buñel covering their student days up to the time of Lorca's execution. Quite interesting. Then dinner at the Royal Bar to give Brittany a taste of Kandy night life such as it is. She also joined us for breakfast one day. Hopefully, she feels she had a good visit. I certainly enjoyed meeting her as well as her company.

What seemed like interminable rains have stopped and we are now fully into the hot and dry season. A second agave has flowered, so I had both plants removed and replaced with some blue agave.

The flowers

The old plants

The new plant in a newly painted pot.

It's time for the cat update. They are all a year older and still in good shape except Buddy who looks like hell but seems to be healthy.

Chewy who is now 2 and Putha who is now 6 are the best of friends. They play/fight together, sleep together and keep me company together.

Fluffy who isn't really mine but who hangs around quite a bit. He is huge and an unfixed male of indeterminate age, although I think he is only 3 or 4 years old. He is very friendly but is either marking his territory inside my house; although not as much as before, or literally scaring the crap out of the other cats. The other night he was chasing Chewy. She got so scared, she peed and pooped all over the place.