(p.s. pics just posted are of the walk we take every day, down past the apartment blocks (bottom one), the path above the beach towards the Ocean Baths, and a view of the Baths themselves - yes, they are that big. See where the waves are breaking? That's the edge of them.)
Apologies first for the appalling posting yesterday, quite awful, I recall thinking even as squinting at it developing through half-closed brain while typing. Mind you, that doesn't preclude a re-performance tonight. Plus, Star Wars has just come onto the television as I write now so anything gained through a lower state of exhaustion will no doubt be lost though distraction and amusement.
Morning chores: three stops: post office (closed, we discovered, they only work weekdays), library (swapped the Noah's Ark for a pirate ship and borrowed a ton of books - less ecclesiastical and entirely to my liking), and the estate agents (only able to drop the one week's rent cheque, no sales people to sign things with, so pretty brief visit). Then Fruit Break and off to the beach - hottest time of the day but we only went for a short dip. Littles refused to have anything to do with me and entirely stuck to Daddy, so I went off and did a few laps of the baths. Definitely well out of condition, need to do this more often - the width is about 50m and I barely had time to do 10 lengths, what with flapping and flailing and puffing and panting. Pretty poor. However, after that surfer's tip with the blu-tack and the Littles going to school (though I'd have to get a car first), things might change. eventually. Meanwhile can't wait for my wetsuit to turn up.... wonder if I'll be able to fit into it.
... as I write the locals are once again indulging in some primitive rites at great volume. At least it's still a decent hour. We have some neighbours (we can't decide which side they're on, the noise is so pervasive) that are reasonably quiet most of the time but occasionally erupt into violet quarrels. Mostly it's the teenagers being told off at about midnight to 3 a.m. at about 2,000 decibels (the Mr thinks possibly it's a couple quarrelling but I think it's kids problems). Sometimes it's just an overflow of exuberance - we woke up one morning at 4 a.m. because they were on the veranda having a sociable drink and chatting, but of course it's exactly the same with these paper-thin walls as if they were doing so sitting on the edge of our bed. Even I can't really sleep through that - well not yet, anyway. Yesterday we woke up at about 3 a.m. with the lot of them apparently hosing down under the ... well, hose... downstairs, perfectly amicably and as if were the most normal thing in the world the demand that 'right give us the hose now, my turn' in the very early hours of the morning, in the pitch black. Thought I was going bananas but no, it's just them. Why did I get onto this... not sure. Anyway.
We had a nice plan this afternoon to go to a place called 'Treetops', which is an adventure-type place for anyone from 4 years old upwards - they rig you into a harness and you go on flying foxes and climbing up trees and the like, great stuff. Non was looking forward to it no end, including the wearing a blue helmet bit and so on. Oh my god. Did she bawl. Not only did she bawl because she couldn't bring herself to do it properly, she bawled because she wanted to continue on the course - again, and again, and again. Would you like to go home? You don't have to do it if you're not happy with it - NO NO NO NO I'm very happy (snot streaming), I want to go on it AGAIN!! NOW!! ... I won't go into details. Goodness me. We let her go round the beginner's little course, with huge amount of noise, distruptiveness, delay, assistance from the supervisors, all sorts of stuff, I think 4 times - and then finally I had enough and said that no enough was enough we really were not going to do this any more. So we went home. In the meantime we'd been eaten most conclusively by the local mozzies - this despite the precautions we'd taken in applying newly-purchased 'jungle strength' insect repellent with lots of labels on it saying 'caution, do not overuse, avoid contact with eyes etc, if poisoning occurs then call this number... ' etc etc. Of course, the poor Mr was the worst affected, his whole face seemed to swell up with two of three bites, looked as if someone had beaten him up good and proper. He's so good at not scratching, it all seems to have gone down very nicely. Anyway, it was all a bit of an eye-opener because it really gets to the nub of her problems - she absolutely CAN'T bring herself to follow instructions. Physical ones that is. She's done OK, after two years or so of continual application, to follow instructions at a desk. She's just about learned to read the 'star bit' (i.e. the question) and actually admit to thinking about what it means on her own. But physical direction, she will simply not do. Not that she doesn't understand, just that she will NOT do them. It's exactly the same as her not deigning to swim properly - I can talk myself blue in the face but she won't follow simple instructions that are more than well within her capability. In short, I think a major re-think in education tactics is well overdue. We'll see what we can cook up. In the meantime, I don't think we'll go back to that place with her for a good year or so.
As usual, the Mr made us a lovely dinner - our favourite barbecued lamb slabs (I don't know what cut they are, that's the most descriptive term for them), and salad and so on - lovely. .... Ah, the empire Strikes Back. I am your father, Luke. Dum dum de dum, dum de duuuunm. Such fun. Carrie Fisher looking continually rather annoyed, and Harrison Ford improbably frozen, with that indescribably ugly person who plays Luke perspiring indecorously all over the place. You gotta love it. Right, I'm off. It's the weekend, and I think it's going to be another noisy neighbour day. Lots of love to you all, V xxxx
Morning chores: three stops: post office (closed, we discovered, they only work weekdays), library (swapped the Noah's Ark for a pirate ship and borrowed a ton of books - less ecclesiastical and entirely to my liking), and the estate agents (only able to drop the one week's rent cheque, no sales people to sign things with, so pretty brief visit). Then Fruit Break and off to the beach - hottest time of the day but we only went for a short dip. Littles refused to have anything to do with me and entirely stuck to Daddy, so I went off and did a few laps of the baths. Definitely well out of condition, need to do this more often - the width is about 50m and I barely had time to do 10 lengths, what with flapping and flailing and puffing and panting. Pretty poor. However, after that surfer's tip with the blu-tack and the Littles going to school (though I'd have to get a car first), things might change. eventually. Meanwhile can't wait for my wetsuit to turn up.... wonder if I'll be able to fit into it.
... as I write the locals are once again indulging in some primitive rites at great volume. At least it's still a decent hour. We have some neighbours (we can't decide which side they're on, the noise is so pervasive) that are reasonably quiet most of the time but occasionally erupt into violet quarrels. Mostly it's the teenagers being told off at about midnight to 3 a.m. at about 2,000 decibels (the Mr thinks possibly it's a couple quarrelling but I think it's kids problems). Sometimes it's just an overflow of exuberance - we woke up one morning at 4 a.m. because they were on the veranda having a sociable drink and chatting, but of course it's exactly the same with these paper-thin walls as if they were doing so sitting on the edge of our bed. Even I can't really sleep through that - well not yet, anyway. Yesterday we woke up at about 3 a.m. with the lot of them apparently hosing down under the ... well, hose... downstairs, perfectly amicably and as if were the most normal thing in the world the demand that 'right give us the hose now, my turn' in the very early hours of the morning, in the pitch black. Thought I was going bananas but no, it's just them. Why did I get onto this... not sure. Anyway.
We had a nice plan this afternoon to go to a place called 'Treetops', which is an adventure-type place for anyone from 4 years old upwards - they rig you into a harness and you go on flying foxes and climbing up trees and the like, great stuff. Non was looking forward to it no end, including the wearing a blue helmet bit and so on. Oh my god. Did she bawl. Not only did she bawl because she couldn't bring herself to do it properly, she bawled because she wanted to continue on the course - again, and again, and again. Would you like to go home? You don't have to do it if you're not happy with it - NO NO NO NO I'm very happy (snot streaming), I want to go on it AGAIN!! NOW!! ... I won't go into details. Goodness me. We let her go round the beginner's little course, with huge amount of noise, distruptiveness, delay, assistance from the supervisors, all sorts of stuff, I think 4 times - and then finally I had enough and said that no enough was enough we really were not going to do this any more. So we went home. In the meantime we'd been eaten most conclusively by the local mozzies - this despite the precautions we'd taken in applying newly-purchased 'jungle strength' insect repellent with lots of labels on it saying 'caution, do not overuse, avoid contact with eyes etc, if poisoning occurs then call this number... ' etc etc. Of course, the poor Mr was the worst affected, his whole face seemed to swell up with two of three bites, looked as if someone had beaten him up good and proper. He's so good at not scratching, it all seems to have gone down very nicely. Anyway, it was all a bit of an eye-opener because it really gets to the nub of her problems - she absolutely CAN'T bring herself to follow instructions. Physical ones that is. She's done OK, after two years or so of continual application, to follow instructions at a desk. She's just about learned to read the 'star bit' (i.e. the question) and actually admit to thinking about what it means on her own. But physical direction, she will simply not do. Not that she doesn't understand, just that she will NOT do them. It's exactly the same as her not deigning to swim properly - I can talk myself blue in the face but she won't follow simple instructions that are more than well within her capability. In short, I think a major re-think in education tactics is well overdue. We'll see what we can cook up. In the meantime, I don't think we'll go back to that place with her for a good year or so.
As usual, the Mr made us a lovely dinner - our favourite barbecued lamb slabs (I don't know what cut they are, that's the most descriptive term for them), and salad and so on - lovely. .... Ah, the empire Strikes Back. I am your father, Luke. Dum dum de dum, dum de duuuunm. Such fun. Carrie Fisher looking continually rather annoyed, and Harrison Ford improbably frozen, with that indescribably ugly person who plays Luke perspiring indecorously all over the place. You gotta love it. Right, I'm off. It's the weekend, and I think it's going to be another noisy neighbour day. Lots of love to you all, V xxxx
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