We had been warned that El Niño was on the way, and it looks as if it arrived this morning, the forecast is for sweltering weather now for nine months… that should be interesting, also a test of my stamina!
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To be honest the Valle de La Aburrá, which includes Medellin and district, is warm all year round, sometimes a little warmer than others, but in the main, the only thing that changes is the colour of the sky! El Niño adds another dimension, if it is going to be for nine months, I can see there being problems with water supply at some stage. The Government have already given the go ahead to raise the price by 2%, for some that will make life even more difficult, fortunately, although every peso counts, it will not make life too uncomfortable, when you think our water bill last month was only £15 and that included filling the swimming pool, normally it is a fraction of that.
This morning I took the bike down to Honda in Copacabana for it\’s service, I should have known not to take what they said last time as gospel, I should have phoned, they were busy, and I had to take it back this afternoon, but there was no problem. After the aborted visit to Honda, I went round to the Medical Center, I had to change the date on the authorisation for a Specialist appointment, for some reason Doctors can only issue an authorisation for six weeks, not many appointments come through within that time, but it was no problem, and once my number came up, it only took two minutes, then back home.
On my arrival, Marcela was working on the pool, she came to open the gate which she had locked, and then Pépe ran, I think he was only going to jump up at me, but Marcela thought he was going to bolt, I knew what she was going to do, and shouted \’No\’ but it was too late, she made a grab for Pépe and her flipflops went from under her, and she went flying, if we had had security cameras, it would have made a good YT clip, it looked as if she was the back up for Colombia\’s Goal Keeper, and she took the skin off her knees on the concrete…Ouch!
I have now found out something about Marcela, she loves taking control when others are injured or ill, but if she is the one on the receiving end, she is a wusssssssssssssss ha!ha! she wouldn\’t let me near her knees, and made a real meal of it, but when she thought I wasn\’t looking, she was fine, when I appeared the oohs ahhs and the limp re-appeared.
I then took to the workshop, I had promised our neighbour that I would make her a new house sign, when I was straight, I guess, I am now as straight as we ever will be, so I made a start. I had the timber it was a hardwood cut off, from one of the vigas, but at 5\” x 3\” I needed to cut it down it\’s length which is the 5\”, my Pro Bandsaw started off fine, and then due to the density of the wood, the blade was running and getting nowhere, so giving it a little pressure, the blade came of the wheels, and kept coming off, so I gave up with that, and did something that can be done, but you have to be careful, it is dangerous, I used the table saw, the problem with that is that the blade only stands 4\” above the table, so I was cutting with the blade inside the timber, which is asking for kickback, as I took it slow, and kept backing off to stop it binding, there wasn\’t a problem, now I have got to plane it, and then rout the name before, varnishing it.
That done it was time for lunch, and then back down to Copacabana with the bike.
Back home (this time with no incident), we both got ready to go and meet the family at the Notarys Office in Bello, we were supposed to be going for a 5.30pm appointment to sign some documents, Marcela has spent weeks chasing round collecting the papers they needed, and yet they still didn\’t have things ready when we arrived, it was eventually 7.30pm when we were able to sign and go our own way. So we stopped off for a pizza, and then home, to find Pépe doing guard duty at the fence, in truth, he had probably heard the car coming up the road.
An Englishman in Colombia 