Bad to Worse

I've now moved into my new lodgings and without doubt it has made a big difference being somewhere where I don't have to wet nurse everyone else. It's relatively peaceful, without barking dogs or loud karaoke music blaring out all night or even first thing in the morning. There are the ubiquitous cockerels that start crowing at around an hour before sun-rise (4:30am) but they seem distant enough not to disturb my slumber.

Whilst on the subject of chickens, spit roasted "chooks" seem to be a firm favourite here. All throughout the town there are racks of spinning chickens being roasted over charcoal grills. I've taken to eating these on the odd occasion but with some reservations and apprehension. This stems back to the time when I was working in Iraq and the consumption of "chickens on the side of the road" led to a bought of chronic diarrhea. If that wasn't bad enough, working in flat, featureless desert left very little scope for concealing yourself for a poo when caught short and there simply wasn't time to make for the horizon.

Cock fighting (or is it fighting cocks - either way you say it, it sounds perverse) seems to be one of the favourite pastimes here. That and basketball. Just about every one (male) has a fighting cock that they sit around admiring and preening all day long. I've yet to see a cock fight and I was wondering what happens to all the losers? Perhaps they end up being spit-roasted - that would explain why the ones you buy off the side of the road are so scrawny and tough. At this point they cease to be cocks and are chickens or chooks. Either way, I don't want to be accused of eating cocks.

The house, or resort, where I'm living has its own pool and a small but functional gym. I say functional but I haven't actually used it yet. This should be an ideal time to get my lardy arse in shape but until now I've been working quite late, and usually end up going for out dinner and a couple of beers straight after work, which simply puts paid to any notion of energetic exercise. If I'm to climb the volcano on the neighbouring island of Negros, I had better start working out soon.

Gardens, pool and gym at the new lodgings

Another thing that I've noticed here is all receipts are hand written. I didn't think that this would be such an issue but when you're in a hurry, having to wait for a receipt to be written out seems to take an age. I'm not just talking about the occasional receipt, the company has a fair amount of purchasing to do. The commercial suppliers and wholesalers are the worst: first comes the bill of sale with a hand written description of each article, followed by a receipt. It takes forever.

I think I'm a bit culture shocked because all the little things are starting to irritate me. For example, my driver has one CD that he plays ALL the time and I didn't like it the first time and it definitely isn't the sort of CD that grows on you - I should know. There's a line in one of the songs that goes: "I fell in love with you, blah, blah blah, cos you wanted me to". No, I didn't forget the words in the middle, that's exactly what the guy sings. It's like he run out of words or just couldn't be arsed to think something up. And as soon as the song comes on I sit there becoming more and more agitated as it gets to the blah, blah, blah bit and I just want to yell at the CD every time he sings it. Yes, I should buy some CDs and burn some alternative music to listen to but have you any idea how difficult it is to lay your hands on a blank CD in Toledo City?

Breakfast

It's not all bad news. I've never been very keen on mangoes but at the resort where I'm staying served me up a fresh mango for breakfast (along with the cold, oily, fried eggs, sausage dyed bright red and square bacon) and it was the most delicious fruit I've ever eaten. Wonderfully sweet and juicy with a melt-in-your-mouth flesh. At least that's something to look forward to in the mornings to share with the flies . . . . .

The slipform for the chimney has started again, thankfully. Although there was quite a serious accident involving Dave. For sensitivity reasons I won't go into details here but at least Dave's ok (although hospitalised). Whilst the slipforming is underway it's usually quite hectic and the working hours are long so there isn't much opportunity to get out and about to explore. However, the slipforming should be completed before the end of this month so I'll hopefully I'll have more time then.