Water runs Dry!

I have to say, that now John has had the bulk of his money, his reliability has gone down the drain, he didn\’t turn up as promised yesterday afternoon, and he didn\’t come today, saying it was too hot to work in the garden! It was probably just as well, because I am still ready to rip his head off, for filling the front garden with gravel.

I spent yesterday doing pottering jobs, in the morning we had to go to town, to get some bits, and on the way back we stopped at the Admin Office for the Toll Road, they started a new scheme at the end of last month, \’Quick Pass\’, you register, they fit a chip inside your windscreen, which you top up with money online, and there is a separate channel at the Toll Booth, and all being well, you sail passed everyone else, it took a while, they are not exactly fast, but it was done, and we arrived home at lunchtime.

In the afternoon, I did the same to the BBQ, as I had done to the outside raised garden, I acid washed the brickwork, then gave it a coat of preservative, and finally varnished it, it turned what was a not very good looking BBQ built by John, into an acceptable BBQ built by John! I promise I will get around to some photos soon.

This morning, I went down to Honda at Copacabana, and the bike had it\’s first free service, I just paid for the oil, they said it would take two hours, so I went off for a walk, first it was time for breakfast, tinto (no that\’s not a red wine, it\’s a black coffee!) and a pastel de pollo. I then started to take stock of the shops available, why go all the way to Bello, when we have them on our doorstep, I went into a large Ferreteria, explained what I was doing, and was welcomed to the area, nice people. I found a shoe shop, that had some nice Caterpillar shoes, I need a comfortable pair for walking in June, and these looked just what I wanted, but I wasn\’t embarrassing myself by taking off my biker boots there, so said I would call back.

I have said many times, that manual labour is the order of the day here, not many companies use modern machinery.

Building a block of Flats

I came across this in the middle of town, the road closed off, all building materials in the road, hand mixing concrete, to build a block of flats, and you can see the ramp built to barrow the cement/concrete into the site, amazing in this day and age.