Avocado season

Over a month since I have blogged so slapped wrist. Only excuse is that I am still very busy with work although things will calm down soon.

It is avocado season, and our trees still are not producing but luckily the neighbours are coming up with avocados – look at this whopper.

We are eating at least two avocados a day and I have become an expert in knowing which are criollo - which means literally creole or natural, but Dominicans say it means Dominican,  or injerto which means grafted. The latter have a different texture and taste and we prefer the former. So whenever we have a lovely criollo avocado we keep the stone to plant it.

I stopped Danilo putting the stone from this monster avocado straight in the garden and we are growing it first in water which he told me would not work and was a silly idea. Every day we would run to the kitchen and see what was happening. This is 3 weeks later. Oh ye of little faith.

I also had a yen for pickle but as I don’t know what you need for pickle I made Green Tomato Chutney instead.

It was delicious and even visiting American Tracy, who had never heard of chutney said it was delicious – I believe Americans call it relish.

Canguru continues to grow but is now in full on escape mode. She and her mum – Grita Mucho – do a runner whenever they can, and it doesn’t matter how often we fill the holes in the fence, they go for hours at a time, just like their predecessors Panda and Pandora who came to a very sticky end. We are now saving up to build a six foot wall all around the front garden, which will cost tens of thousands of pesos, so may take a while, and no way can we build a wall around the rear as it is acres! She is changing colour and although brown and white on her tummy, her back is now turning black.

The rat is still with us. We hear him chomping at night sometimes so now instead of going to bed with a teddy bear and a hot water bottle, we go to bed with missiles – wellington boots (are they called that in American?) and books. If we wake up in the night and hear it chomping we just throw a missile and it goes away. Not a long term solution – but a Dominican one. Danilo is getting fed up of being woken up by the chomping so methinks rat traps could be en route.

We have had two lots of visitors, Tracy and Mario who now has his visa for the US and leaves tomorrow and an American lady and a Dominican for a couple of days, and she brought me a wireless keyboard which fits perfectly on top of my lap top so it is all systems go again, rather than clonking away on a Dominican keyboard on my lap.

The really exciting news is that I have a Canadian friend flying in to Puerto Plata so  I am off for my annual 4 day holiday to Sosúa. Watch this space for my report on Sosúa where I am staying in Casa de Compai apartments, having my hair cut by a Russian lady, meeting some online friends and also staying in Tubagua eco lodge. I have never spent more than a couple of hours in Sosúa so this is an experience I am looking forward to.

I can’t wait for the break!