Easter comes and goes

Far too long again since my last blog post – I have no idea where the time goes.

All my brain tests were more or less normal, and I must admit the CAT scan was so impressive. For the price of US$50 you are seen immediately - the receptionist said I looked much better than last time! The results are available a few hours later and not only do you receive a written report but also photographs and a CD with even more photos on it. Here is my brain! Very impressive but Dr. Google was not very helpful in explaining what I am looking at.

Apart from the fact my brain looks like I happy face in some of the images, I have noticed no improvement in brain function. I am told it can take years so I am just getting on with it and adapting where needed. My worst performance is in the kitchen, maybe as it is there I do the most multi- tasking. As I mentioned before, my brain is like the internet – it goes slowly, and sometimes it totally switches off and I go blank – but only for a few seconds. I continue to do stupid things such as forgetting to put the cup under the coffee maker so the coffee goes all over the floor, or forgetting to put coffee in it and end up with a cup of hot water. I even put dried cat food instead of sugar in my coffee the other day. Cooking is a challenge to remember how to actually cook some recipes and I may remember one minute and then forget the next, so now I get all the ingredients out before I start. I have a wooden spoon next to my laptop when I am cooking, so I don’t forget and burn things, and a bag of washing powder when I am washing. I also write lists all the time when something comes into my head that I need to do, so I don’t forget. It is liveable with, just a little frustrating.

It has been a busy few weeks. The bookcase is finished – here is Danilo studying in his cow pyjamas.

We need more books to fill it up, but no doubt they won’t be long coming. He has started his Master’s degree in Criminal Law – which means I have been checking things on line and typing up his assignments so I am effectively also doing a Master's in Criminal Law. The university is the Dominican Open University and he is doing it part on line and part attendance so everything is done via the University website – which is appallingly slow and complicated to follow so it has taken me ages to upload assignments. I think I am getting the hang of it now.

Chivirico and Albert came for Easter week so we had to make habichuelas con dulce (sweet cream of beans), which I still loathe but it is essential Easter fare. Apparently I make the best beans that they, and Danilo, have ever tasted. Thanks to Aunt Clara's Dominican Cooking.

Knowing that they never eat vegetables at home, we had a mainly vegetarian week with vegetable chilli, dips of hummus and baba ganoush and home made naan bread.

Kids making naan bread

We also had Irish stew without meat and served with buttered cabbage. Chiv was amazed seeing that I cooked “salad” as cabbage usually eaten in salad here.

When they weren’t cooking they seemed to be fascinated with the library so it was great to see them joining Danilo in reading.

In the meantime, life goes on as normal. As I am finding it harder to write shopping lists and keep forgetting things we need to buy, Danilo is taking it upon himself to shop without a list as he knows what we need, he says. This was one of his proud purchases last week.

Yes, that is a pig's tail. I cooked it by boiling it in water with various herbs and spices, onion and garlic and then roasting it in the oven. I ate the meatier end (bit closer to the body - and  the pig's bottom) and Danilo had the tail itself. It tasted just like pork - but not sure worth doing again!

Aftermath of The Incident

So here is the update on my current condition. I am still numb and a little swollen on the left side of my face, so I can’t smile and I dribble a bit from the left side of my mouth. It feels like you have had an injection from the dentist and I look a bit like a hamster on that side, with his mouth full of sunflower seeds.

According to Danilo, I am more grumpy than usual, so he calls me Grumpy 2 as opposed to the rescue boxer who is Grumpy 1. I also have memory problems. My brain is working as if it is connected to the internet, and I want to say something but have no idea what the word is – either in Spanish or English, but then, around 30 seconds later the internet comes back and I remember the word.

Given these issues, I went to see a neurologist. There are no appointments here, so the first time I went, he wasn’t there and nor was his secretary. The second time was around 10 am, and the secretary told me I was number 19. But he didn’t arrive until 2 pm, and our last bus home is at 6 pm, so there was no way we could get home. I asked her to put me on the list for the next day. No can do as you can only ask to be put on the list on the day itself.  I had to go the next day at 8 am, to be put on the list for the afternoon. But she said I could phone as well. So, the next day I phoned at 8 am to be told I was number 6, and to get there at 2.30 pm. I did, and for some mysterious reason I had dropped from number 6 to number 8, but at 5.30 pm I got in to see the neurologist.

He said nothing could be done about my face, maybe it would improve in time, but maybe not. He told me smoking was dangerous for my health, and I replied that so was being shot and attempted suffocation and being beaten up. He shut up after that. He told me that I have a Traumatic Brain Injury, otherwise known as a TBI, and to have another cat scan and blood tests which I will do next week. In addition, he gave me a prescription for two anti-depressants. I am not depressed, but am taking the one which helps memory function which is helping a little but have not bothered with the other one, as according to Dr. Google it is for panic attacks, post traumatic stress disorder and erectile dysfunction – none of which I have.

In the meantime, Chivirico came to see how I was, and it was lovely to see him.

I went to see my American friend Grace, who comes to the country once a year with her Dominican husband. That was a lovely break and as usual she provided me with loads of kitchen equipment and baseball goodies for Chivirico and Albert.

In addition, my friend Heather was in the country, helping people in Consuelo, and she hired a car and drove all the way up here to see me. She brought the all-important Cadbury chocolate with her as well.

Grumpy Grace loves her evening cuddles

Danilo adores books, so he is building a book case along the whole of one wall in the living room and at last has put shelves in the utility room so the kitchen will be less cluttered.

Our spirit level has gone walkabout (nothing new there) so we had to check if the shelves were level using a peanut. If it rolled one way or the other, they were not straight. I think it must have been an odd shaped nut as they look a bit wonky to me.

In the meantime, Peggy, a Canadian lady has been staying for the last couple of months. She has around another month to go. Loves cleaning and mopping which is great for me, but we still managed a night out at the local bar!

Visitors galore

Since the beginning of the year, Wasp House has had many visitors.

First ones of the new year were Rosa and Catherine, American who lives in Sosua and Virginia and Canadian Brit who lives in Canada, with frequent trips to Sosua to visit her Dominican husband. Both always come laden with goodies and this time was no exception. I should point out that Danilo calls Rosa "Awesome" as she taught him the word, but surprise surprise he can't say it properly so he calls her Orso, which means Bear in English. Hence she is known as Bear.

They didn't stay for long, but we had a great time, even though they made me walk all the way to the village centre in the sun (crazy gringas).

The next visitor was a Danish orthopedic surgeon and his Dominican wife who came for the afternoon so that he could learn about the house buying process here from Danilo, and hot on their heels was Sandra from Canada, who I had come to know via Facebook and she was a fan of my books.

Sandra also came laden with amazing gifts for her four day stay and I was a little concerned as I knew she didn't like spiders so I was hoping that the tarantulas kept away. I was also concerned as Wasp House is not five star luxury, or even one star really. It is more like glamping - I did warn her!

Unfortunately it rained solidly for four days and Wasp House is not good in the rain, as it floods and feels damp. Plus there is little to do here in the rain. Poor Sandra did not have to put up with tarantulas, but she did get a nightly visit from our resident rat, and when a bat flew through the living room - that was it.  She had to cover herself up from top to toe!

Just after Sandra left I went to Santiago to talk to a group of communications students studying at PUCMM - the top university in the country. The talk was to be in English as it was as part of their English course and their professor, Melanie, was a friend of mine. Different expats had been invited to talk to them.

The students then had to make a television programme and a radio programme about their favourite speaker  - which was yours truly and so a few weeks later the students and Melanie with a few kids and the odd boyfriend and husband all descended on Wasp House.

Danilo took charge of Melanie's delightful children and kept them busy.

Following all the videoing, photographs and chatting we all headed up to eat goat in the local goat restaurant. Here are some of the students with Danilo and I sitting outside the restaurant.

And the final visitor was just a week ago.

Here she is en route with her chauffeur.

Zelda is a one year old Great Dane/German Shepherd cross whose owner had to  leave to return to the United States, so the delightful Easton, another friend, offered to drive her here to come and live with us. She has settled in beautifully and is adored by one and all.

Including the 17 year old cat, Zebedee.

And apart from all of these visitors I have been crazy busy with two major writing assignments which have now been submitted.

In addition I was a guest on a pod cast by Billy Atwell about facing your fears. If you want to listen to it and hear my voice it is here.

And last but by no means least, I met a lady called Madeline Sharples via a Facebook page called We Love Memoirs which is for people who love memoirs and who write them, and it is a fabulous group of people. I read Madeline's memoir, called Leaving the Hall Light On and was totally blown away by the story and her writing. She then was kind enough to read What About Your Saucepans? and asked me to write a guest post for her blog which you can read here.

If you would like to read Madeline's book you can buy it from Amazon in Kindle and paperback - I highly recommend it. This was my review on Amazon:

"This is a very hard book for me to write a review on. It is about a subject which I have no knowledge of – a bipolar son who commits suicide. I don’t know anyone well who suffers from bipolar or anyone close whose children have committed suicide so I could not identify with the author or the book. But OMG this was a brilliant book, one which I could not put down. Leaving the subject matter aside, which is heartbreaking, touching, tear jerking and emotional, it is the raw honestly of the writing which takes your breath away. I had no idea a memoir could be so honest, so stripped to the bones, so completely revealing without any glossing over the subject matter in order to just keep that little bit of privacy and secrecy. And that honesty makes this an amazing piece of writing, which I loved. It is peppered with photos which really help the reader to understand and then there are the poems. Personally, I have read many poems in memoirs, most of which I just skim over. But there is no skimming over these, and I have never read or appreciated such powerful poetry. Congratulations Madeline Sharples for a fabulous work of writing both prose and poetry."

Esneaky esnake

Yet another animal story.

A couple of weeks ago, Danilo comes into the house holding some weird thing in his hand and explains to me that it is a snake skin. Where there is a snake skin - there is a snake, so off he goes on a snake hunt. Or a neesk hunt as snake is neesk in Danilo English. He is naturally wearing special neesk hunting gear - pyjama bottoms and tennis shoes.

The snake skin was found next to the wall, which in true Dominican fashion, although it has been built has not be plastered nor finished on the top. And the snake was living in the wall as you can see when I was looking down from the top of the wall.

So Danilo's plan is to get the snake out of the wall and keep it in a snake house. These are Boa Constrictors who live in the woods next to the house and they kill the chickens. But we don't want to have to kill them, so it made sense to just keep it in captivity.

Next stage is to get it out of the wall, so armed with essential snake hunting tools consisting of an  oven glove and barbecue tongs the work begun.

The neesk did not appear to want to come out so a bigger hole had to be made.

He looked all warm and snuggly in there but eventually the barbecue tongs were put to use.

By this stage Danilo also had a T-shirt wrapped around his mouth and nose as (and I never knew  this) snakes estink to high heaven.

And there is snake. around six foot long Boa. He/she was then placed in a large metal drum with wood and blocks on the top so that it couldn't escape.

Two hours later snake had gone. Houdini snake. Now here we are a couple of weeks later and another snake is living in the wall. Apparently not the same one. This time it is staying there undisturbed!

Goosey goosey gander

Goodness over two months since I last blogged, where does the time go to.

Here is a swift update on campo life in the Feliz household since Christmas.

The new year got off to a bad start as I came downstairs on the morning of January 1 to find Meg, our oldest dog, dead on the floor. No idea what happened as she was fine when I went to bed - I assume a heart attack. RIP Meg who was a very faithful dog and well loved.

The rest of the dogs are all fine and doing well as are the goats.

However, Danilo decided he wanted geese. I said no, and as usual he took no notice of me and I should have realised something was up when he arrived home one day with Dwendy Saya. They each had a goose in a sack.

I must admit they did look pretty so he filled a big washing bowl with water and set them and the bowl down in the back garden below the balcony.

They seemed quite happy, didn't make too much noise but the peace was not to last long. The next morning they were not there so it was all hands to the pump to go on a goose chase. I should mention at this point that he did not pay for these geese. He was given them as the man had to get rid of them as they were so vicious. This was not mentioned until they disappeared and he was concerned about the whole neighbourhood being beaten up by geese.

Danilo and Saya went out hunting and luckily a neighbour caught them just before they made it onto the main road. Geese were duly returned and locked up under the balcony until we came up with a plan.  Danilo was going to build them a pen but in the end we decided to put them in the overgrown vegetable garden as that was already enclosed, so in there they went.

However it was obvious the washing bowl was no substitute for a pond, so we got them a paddling pool instead. Which they adored.

It took a whole 24 hours for them to puncture the paddling pool, so there was no choice but to build them a proper pond.

So now we have very happy geese. They are still very nasty geese, attack anyone who goes near them, not only by biting them (and their beaks have serrated edges) but also by smacking them hard with their wings. They are also very noisy and if anything moves, such as when the chickens and roosters fly down from the trees in the morning, they make one hell of a racket. No idea what the plan is for these geese - Danilo talks about getting them a female or two to breed more nasty geese.

Personally I am googling roast goose recipes for Christmas.

Continuing story of the balcony and goats

Remember where we were with the balcony? It was yellow and green, but we ran out of yellow, so clever me used turmeric as that is yellow - but it turned red! So Danilo had a cunning plan. He painted it green with white stripes.

So now the balcony looked like a tennis court, or a ping pong table. By this stage I had given up caring what it looked like, and then we became aware of the nuclear missile launch by North Korea. "What on earth has that to do with our balcony?" you ask. Well here is the nuclear missile being wheeled out.

Spot the similarity?

So we had to change the floor as according to Danilo we might be mistaken for a Korean nuclear missile site. I did try explaining that geographically there was a slight difference between us and North Korea but the change had to be done. So back to red we went, and so far, red it has stayed.

Of course, the painting was done in what were brown flip flops.

Anyway balcony is now more or less finished and I love it. We just need some more furniture and plants and solar lights and it will be  perfect - until it falls down.

We do have some furniture - bar stools so that you can sit up, drink and look over the garden,

And this very interesting Dominican seat made out of the fibres in the leaves of the banana plant - so apparently it can be out in the rain. There are four depressions for people to sit in - and surprisingly it is comfortable, but you all have your backs to each other. So I assume it is for people who don't like each other, who don't want to talk to each other, or maybe it is a Whatsapp chair where people sit and chat away on their phones?

We have had a problem with El Criminal, the male goat who arrived a couple of months ago.

He would escape constantly, but would come to the back door, so I would go back to the paddock with him and prepare to open the gate, and then he would jump over the 4 foot tall barbed wire fence. When I went off on book tour, he would still escape but would make the rounds of the neighbours, eating all of their planted yuca and anything else he could find. So to save paying thousands of pesos in damages we bought more wire and increased the height of the fencing in the paddock to 6 feet tall. Did it work?

Yes, for 24 hours and then he would still escape. He would jump from a standing start - as if he had springs on his hooves. So, he had to go. Stepson number 2, Alberto came and collected him, and exchanged him for a pregnant lady goat called Chilli Pepper.

She is very cute, very tame and doesn't jump. Not sure when the baby or babies are due but it shouldn't be too long I don't think.

I hope you all had a good Christmas - here it was the traditional Dominican family Christmas with me cooking the supposedly traditional British Christmas dinner on 25th. However due to the oven not working (rats ate the insulation) we decided to have paella instead which you can cook on the top part of the stove rather than in the oven. Then a day before Christmas my  mum bought us a new stove which is fabulous but we stuck to the paella plan. Here we are all eating Christmas lunch, stepsons, dwendy, foster kids, granddaughter and of course Danilo.

Wishing you all the best for the New Year - who knows what delights (and disasters) it will have in store!!

Balcony and Books

The saga of the balcony continues.

Number one dwendy, Saya, who calls himself the maestro has been doing the technical work with lesser dwendies mixing the concrete etc. I told him he should wear shoes or boots as people were telling me that concrete was bad for bare feet. This was the result when putting the final skim of cement which we decided to colour rather than laying ceramic tiles which would have been expensive.

The "shoes" were flip flops and socks which wasn't exactly what I meant.

The colour was to be yellow and green, to blend in with the sun and the garden, but they didn't have enough for the last quarter, so danilo decided to buy more yellow and add it the next day. However, he still didn't have enough so clever me suggested turmeric. However, what neither of us knew is that if you add turmeric to cement it turns red!

So it now looks as if it was the location for a mass murder. Danilo says he has a plan, but I have no idea what it is nor what colour the balcony will end up.

As I mentioned last week or so, Chivirico and I are off on tour to promote and sign my books, but before then I will be appearing on what is called Spotlight Sunday on a Facebook Group called We Love Memoirs. It is a lovely group of people from all around the world who enjoy reading memoirs and who also write them, although if you are a writer you cannot promote your work, apart from if you are invited to be in Spotlight Sunday. So on Sunday December 3 I will be on line on We Love Memoirs all day answering questions. People can ask whatever they like so it should be a fun day.  If you want to join the page before then so you can ask me anything so just click the link above to join the site. I am not sure of the exact time yet, but will let you know as soon as I know.

And even more book news. Life After My Saucepans has been chosen as one of the top ten expat books of 2017 which I think is pretty amazing!  The list was compiled by the Expatbook shop and Expat Nest. You can read the full list here.

So just a reminder, for those who live on the north and north east coasts of the DR, Chiv and I will be on tour with  Life After My Saucepans and  What About Your Saucepans?  in Sosua on Thursday December 7th at Midtown Bar and Restaurant from 2 pm to 6 pm. I will be having dinner at Taberna El Conde at 7 pm if anyone wants to pop in there.On Friday evening from 7 pm I will be at Dan and Manty's Guesthouse in Las Terrenas and on Saturday at One Love Surfshack in Las Terrenas from 5 pm till 7 pm and probably later! Early next year it will be Santo Domingo and Punta Cana. 

Hoping to see you there!

Dead rats and geysers

The good news is that the balcony is still standing! The wood was taken out from under the plato and it didn't fall down. Now it is being plastered (with cement) and the next stage is for the non rottable (is that a word?) wood to be put in for the railings.

Last weekend we had a visitor. Meems, American, and fellow blog writer, came from Sosua where she lives and Danilo had arranged for Chivirico to be here too. We had a fabulous weekend helped by the fact she came laden with wine, chocolate and real American steak. She also bought me a very special gift of a limited edition picture of A Woman of Valor in Hebrew. Here is it in English.

When someone comes to stay there is lots of work to be done. Dogs have to be bathed, house has to be  mopped, beds have to be changed. On the Monday of the week Meems was due to arrive on the Friday, the hot water stopped working. The tank is situated outside at the side of the house and you just flick a switch for 20 minutes and hey presto, hot water.

After three days of nagging Danilo said he had fixed it as some wires were wet but asked Saya (Number one dwendy) to finish the job off on the Wednesday, which he did. Thursday morning I am preparing to mop and noticed there was no water in the cistern. I assumed that the lads had used it all in the plato making but as the street water was due to be piped in that day I wasn't too concerned - although to mop, you need water.

Danilo told me a pipe leading to the water tank had broken itself (Dominican speak, no one ever breaks anything, things break themselves) so off he went to Moncion to buy some new pipe. He came back, fixed the pipe and I went for a shower. My shower lasted all of 30 seconds before the newly fixed pipe fell off and the water stopped. Danilo redid the pipe. This time when he turned the water on it didn't even last 30 seconds before breaking. So all the water had to be turned off - luckily the cistern was filling up by now, but we had no water in the house.

The next day, still with no water, Danilo bought a metal pipe and that seemed to work, until he had a shower, forgot to turn the water heater off and obviously the thermostat isn't working and the release valve on the top of the tank opened sending fountains of hot steam up to the top of the house. At least now we have (boiling) hot water and water in the house for mopping but you have to remember to turn the hot water off after 10 minutes or we have our very own geyser.

Meems arrived to a clean house and I was going to cook pizza for dinner. I opened the oven to switch it on and was faced with the appalling smell of decomp as they say on the crime shows on TV. I slammed the oven shut and yelled at Danilo to start the barbecue. I assume there is a dead rat under the oven but we can't get it out so until we can the oven is unusable.

So we had a useless water heater (fixed), a useless oven (not fixed) and then the fridge packed up (fixed by fridgeman).

A new goat was delivered by Alberto. His name is El Criminal, and apparently he is a young Boer goat, bred for meat. He has no horns and is furrier than the others and seems to be fitting in well. Here is Danilo carrying him to the paddock in the rain.

And here is El Criminal in all his glory

Finally, the book signing tour is sorted. I will bring copies of Life After My Saucepans and some of What About Your Saucepans? and will also sign any you might have.I will be starting it in Sosua on Thursday December 7th and in the afternoon will be at Midtown Bar and Restaurant from 2 pm to 6 pm. I will be having dinner at Taberna El Conde at 7 pm if anyone wants to pop in there.On Friday evening from 7 pm I will be at Dan and Manty's Guesthouse in Las Terrenas and on Saturday at One Love Surfshack in Las Terrenas from 5 pm till 7 pm.. Early next year it will be Santo Domingo and Punta Cana.  Obviously I cannot go on the road without a bodyguard, so Chivirico will be coming with me. Hopefully as many people as possible will turn up for a chat!