The latest bell/whistle I’ve added to the blog, just to make it load slower for dial-up users, is a blog map, bottom right. I’m not convinced it’s a useful addition but it can stay there for a week or two to see if there’s a burgeoning blogging scene in Gwod. So far, it’s not looking good. There’s an 18 year old student- Mexico is my body, Chivas (the local football team, not the whisky) is my blood, He tells us. And there’s La Perla’ who’s a graphic designer who likes to go out drinking. And fair play to her.
I had to pinpoint where i lived on a huge scale map so it’s got me living East of Tlaquepaque, which isn’t strictly true. That’ll foil the burglars for a day or two…
So matey rings our doorbell yesterday, strimmer in hand, promising to work wonders on our front garden, lawn and trees, ‘Bien profesional, bien bonito’. I feel quite chuffed that I manage to haggle him down from 300 to 150 pesos (15 of your earth dollars). I close the deal with a handshake and leave him to it, wandering back to my design stuff. I hear the strimmer (weedwhacker in US parlance, I believe) whirring away. The doorbell rings again, he needs to go and get seed and fertilizer for the lawn and can I give him the money in advance. If this was the UK/ US I wouldn’t have done it, but after my dealings with the gasfitter bloke who sorted out the boiler, this is the level of service I was expecting. If you cut lawns for a living, you won’t have much in the way of pesos to buy extra stuff. So I gave him 130 pesos and he saunters off. This was yesterday. No sign of him today neither.
Then my hopes were raised when some gardeners pulled up outside the house today, but they were there for Senora Teresa next door. I asked if they knew about this landscaper from yesterday and they patiently explained, ‘parece que te chingó ese jardinero’ (Oi reckon you got screwed over by that there gardener bloke in Wurzel) which I’d sort of worked out for myself. Ah well.
It hasn’t put me off gardens, though. Oh no. In fact I went for a meeting with the director of Guadalajara’s Metropolitan Park to offer my services. I’m going to make them a website to attract corporate sponsors and more volunteers to the, frankly, near-insolvent parque. I had a wander round and it’s a big old space, but there weren’t many people there today. They come in the mornings- 6am, evenings, 5pm and weekends apparently. So the photos I took to put on the website are a little unappetizing for now. Bless them though, it’s had a rocky old history. In 1992 a local politician tried to sell it off as a golf course and pocket the change but got caught last minute during a close analysis of accounts after the streets exploded (long story), and since then they’ve got by with volunteers, military and community service people. They can’t afford to buy trees so all the new plants are grown from cuttings from local forests and they’re looking for sponsors for the BBQ areas. The plan is to be a world-class, self-sustaining tourist attraction by 2010. I reckon they’ll do it too, and let’s see if I can’t help with a bit of HTML.
In exactly one month we’ll be leaving our house and heading off on the road again. L.A. first, for a week, then back to blighty, then CA, then UK, then MX… and we haven’t even bought our tickets yet. Maybe this will be the weekend when everything starts to happen. There’s going to be bargains aplenty on craigslist.org. Books, electronics, CDs, everything must go… Would anyone like to bunnysit for an indefinite period of time? Bunnycam optional. Buyer collects.
Pahrump, Nevada is where one of Sita’s aunts set up shop a couple of years ago. It’s basically a weird martian landscape with scattered casinos, incongruous golf courses and enormous industrially air-conditioned houses with gardens full of gravel and cacti (see photo). Anyroad, this article on a new law they just passed banning foreign flags does not bode well for its political future. Reminds me of when the kids in my Spanish class in California told me off for having flags from Spain, Chile, Mexico and the UK but not the stars and stripes. They’re only flags for christ’s sake…
we made for Yoda the kitten way back in university in Swansea… I say for Yoda, but it was blatantly for us. Make your own cat TV with a cardboard box, cellophane and a long stick. Nowhere near as cruel as this though, not even close:
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I think March of the Valkyries would be a better soundtrack than “Under the Sea”…
