Happy New Year!

 

Best wishes to all for 2024. Much health, happiness, wisdom and peace of mind.

Photo by Anastasiia Rozumna at Unsplash
 

Well...

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas with family, friends, food and fun. Mine was lovely although by Boxing Day I was shattered! I lay down for a quick forty winks before dinner and woke up the next morning!

So, I have been rather absent from blogging lately, nothing´s wrong but my blogging mojo seems to have gone walkabout. I can´t think of anything interesting to say and don´t want to churn out any old thing just for the sake of it - rather like those school essays on What I did in my holidays which were of no interest to anyone except the writer.

So, I´m still here, still reading and commenting on other blogs and no doubt I´ll have something to post from time to time. I´m saying this because I hate it when a blog I´m following suddenly ceases, leaving me wondering what has happened to the writer. After following someone, sometimes for years, they feel like friends and it is concerning when they disappear.

I would like to wish everyone a happy New Year and let us hope that 2024 brings some sort of peace and relief worldwide for the dreadful things that have happened and are still happening.

A "Senior Moment"

This morning I was organising my bag when I realised my debit card was not in its little wallet. I had a quick look for it in the most obvious places whilst trying to remember the last time I had used it. I don´t always carry it, only when I'm actually going to use the card as muggings are unfortunately only too common here.

I remembered that the last time I´d used it was a couple of days previously when I went out for a pizza with some friends. Had I lost it there after paying the bill, dropped it, left it on the counter? I logged into my bank account and found the last transaction with my card was for the pizza...what a relief! I´d either lost it in the restaurant or it was somewhere in the flat since no-one appeared to be trying to use it to buy luxury items. I decided to return to the restaurant if I couldn´t find the card at home, in the hope someone had handed it in (haha).

I slowly and methodically searched the entire flat several times but there was no sign of my card. Had I thrown it out with the rubbish, wrapped it up with the Christmas presents, dropped it on the floor and kicked it under some furniture? The possibilities were endless. 

I was surprised about how calm I felt regarding the whole situation, no sign of panic lol! I´d decided, since there was no sign of it, to go to the bank next day and cancel the card and order a new one. This was all happening on a Sunday, by the way.

On the Saturday I had put up my Christmas decorations and removed a few ornaments, putting them away for the duration in a drawer. Guess what I found sitting in a bowl in the drawer. Yup!

One year ago

 

One year ago today...there I was sitting in the VIP lounge (courtesy of my daughter!) at the airport, sipping the largest gin tonic I have ever seen... just about to set off for a visit to Portugal and then Christmas in England with the family. Happy days!

Oops!

I´m beginning to think I shouldn´t be allowed out on my own!

Yesterday I had  hospital appointments for a CAT scan and doctor. This is a six-monthly event and my daughter usually takes me by car but this time she was busy. I went by public transport which means a bus and two underground trains each way. The hospital has several different units and I got off at the station I seemed to remember was the correct one for mine. Wrong! I was about a mile away from my unit and had to try and find my way at a fast walk up some steep streets not to be late.

When I finally got there, dripping with perspiration, I had a long questionnaire to fill in - that´s when I realised I´d forgotten my glasses at home!

Not a fun day but all´s well thank goodness.

Beating the heat

 

Take one light cotton knee-length petticoat, sew on two spaghetti straps, wear it pulled up under your armpits - voilá - a short cool "babydoll" (remember them?) to wear around the house. 

Photo by Raphael Wild on Unsplash
 

Too hot

Yesterday was the second hottest day here in São Paulo since records began. Today it feels even worse. The temperature indoors in my apartment was 32°C in the afternoon and this morning at 9:30 it was already 30°C indoors. It´s over 37°C outside.

I walked to the studio and back this morning, very slowly and trying to keep to the shade but I think I´ll avoid going out for the rest of the week while this heat wave lasts, it is just unbearable out there. Last night I slept with the fan on all night otherwise I wouldn´t have been able to get any sleep.

Unfortunately I can´t install conventional air conditioning as there can be no external additions to the building (for aesthetic reasons, for heavens sake!). The only AC I could have is a portable one and since my flat is mostly open plan it wouldn´t be effective. So fans are the answer, although at the moment they are blowing hot air! It´ll all end with another tremendous storm, I suppose.

Storm

We had the worst storm I´ve ever seen a couple of days ago. The wind was gusting at over 100km p/h driving horizontal rain straight at my windows. It came through the closed shutters and window frames and water was running down the walls (and over a couple of sockets!). I really thought the glass was going to blow in.

There were over 800 calls to the fire service about fallen trees and three people were killed in separate incidents. Miraculously my power stayed on although many areas were without as the trees had brought lines down. Today it is sunny with blue skies as though nothing had happened, the only reminder the number of branches still lying about.

I had meant to go out shopping that afternoon but thank goodness I had an attack of laziness and stayed home.

Pots galore...

I had quite a successful time at the bazaar, but it sure was a long day. My daughter came to spell me from time to time so I could go to see to Toby etc. On the whole it was a fun experience. They´re now talking about having a Christmas bazaar which sounds like a good idea.
 

Odds and sods

I´m sitting here at the computer with a smell of burning in my nostrils - I think my cleaner just killed the hoover by plugging it into the shaving socket in the bathroom which is 220v whereas all the 'usual' sockets in the rest of the flat are 110v. I don´t know what she was thinking, using the hoover in there as it is all tiled. We shall see if it still works.

Talking of burning...the other day I was simmering Toby´s chicken broth while I worked on some intricate glaze tests for my pots. I became so focused on what I was doing that I completely forgot the pan on the stove. After some time I thought a neighbour was making toast, then that they had burned something...then I remembered the chicken. My pan had boiled dry and burnt black. My flat reeked of burnt chicken for the rest of the day...and me a vegetarian!

Every now and then there is a young man on the treadmill in front of mine when I go for my daily gym session. He looks to be in his early thirties, is tall and well built with short dark hair and very light eyes, altogether a handsome chap. When he has finished his session and gets off the treadmill he often turns and gives me the most beautiful smile. If only I were fifty years younger! I probably remind him of his grandmother, sigh. 

It´s our building´s birthday bazaar this Sunday and I´m busy getting organised and choosing which pots to try and sell. It will be interesting to see what happens as I´ve never done this before. I´ve bought bags and tissue paper, ribbon, price tags and have a cloth for the table, and I´ve made some business cards. I think I´ve thought of everything. My daughter is coming to help me and give me some moral support.

Finally, a little rant. I have recently subscribed to a VPN so I can watch British TV, after many years without. I don´t watch much but really enjoy pottery and nature programmes and good drama. One thing that has really struck me, though, is the awful quality of the advertising. The adverts seem to be so dumbed down and inane, if not downright silly that it is difficult to watch them. Some of the time the action is so removed and irrelevant to what they are trying to sell that you only realise what it is in the last few seconds. There is nothing witty, charming or amusing about them, gone are the days when you could "go to work on an egg" or "put a tiger in your tank" - real classics of the art of advertising. I´m sure the agencies are charging a fortune for their services, it´s a pity their clients are not more discerning.

 

Ugh!!!!!!

 

I was coming home the other day when I saw one of our condominium´s employees sweeping up a load of leaves by the security gate. As I entered I glanced idly down and saw that some of the "leaves" were lying on their backs waving legs in the air!

I realised they were hoards of dead or dying cockroaches, escaping from the drains which had been doused with insecticide. Just remembering it makes my flesh creep. I don´t mind many things but I have an absolute and irrational horror of cockroaches. 

As they flee from the poison they swarm over the parking lot and into ground floor rooms, thankfully uninhabited, but I believe they sometimes invade the first floor flats. Thank goodness I live on the eighth floor - they don´t come up this high (they can´t reach the buttons in the lift lol). 

This treatment is carried out at intervals but never really gets rid of the pests. I remember once being in a communal ground floor room with a craft group when we were suddenly invaded by dozens of cockroaches during one such cleansing. They can move really fast if the poison hasn´t yet taken effect and I shot out of there like a bat out of hell!

Photo by Erik Karits at Unsplash
 

Young men?

I nearly choked on my breakfast egg this morning when I burst out laughing...

I was reading an email from the building administrators explaining the rules for stall holders in the upcoming bazaar we will be holding as I have decided to sell some pots there. It is our building´s 50th anniversary as well as Halloween. For reasons best known to itself Google Translate has started to automatically translate all my emails into English. Included in the instuctions was the following:

• Metal and wooden supports, such as racks and young men, can be used according to the space available, not hindering mobility and logistics on site.

´Nuff said!

Five times and counting...

Today I had my fifth visit to the dentist this year, another broken tooth! My vitamin D levels are fine so it must be old age and dry rot. I´m pretty fed-up as not only do I have to keep coping with my dentist phobia but it is also costing me a pretty penny. Humph!

Busy doing nothing

I don´t know why I am always so busy, after all I´m retired now and have a cleaner who comes for the day once every three weeks to do the strenuous stuff (five minutes hoovering and my back seizes up), yet I seem to be constantly on the go, with nothing much to show for it. 

So, what is it I get up to all day? Well, I usually wake around half past six, feed Toby and go back to bed for half an hour with a coffee and my Kindle. Then it is up and dealing with Toby´s eyes and giving him his heart meds, then shower and breakfast. After breakfast I have a general tidy around and maybe spend an hour or so on pottery work. After that I´m off to the gym, followed by a trip to the pottery studio on a Monday or the farmers market on a Tuesday. Then it is home for lunch, a bit of internet, wash up and read and have a little snooze. Time to do Toby´s eyes again then maybe some pottery, cooking or pop to the shops. Every ten days or so I do a large batch of cooking for the freezer. Feed and medicate Toby, have dinner and catch up on blogs and YouTube vlogs I follow. I don´t bother with TV, it irritates me. Toby´s eyes again, then off to bed about ten for a read before sleep. I´m usually pretty tired and have no trouble nodding off - and that´s it - a full day doing nothing much.

Looking after Toby takes a bit of time as he does not like having his eyes cleaned and treated, so I have to do it slowly to avoid a wrestling match. Reading back over what I´ve written it strikes me that I have a pretty relaxing day which suits me just fine as my last job was very stressful. I´m certainly never bored, anyway!

 

Chivalry is not dead

Today I popped out quickly to the shops without checking the weather. On the way back I got caught in a torrential downpour with no brolly. I sought shelter at a newsagent´s kiosk near home and stood there dripping while I waited for the rain to lessen. An elderly man rushed over the road and sheltered beside me before deciding to buy an umbrella from the newsagent and heading on his way. As he was leaving he turned to me and offered to buy me an umbrella also. What a gentleman! Naturally I didn´t accept although he was quite insistent, but what a lovely gesture.

Photo by Joy Stamp at Unsplash
 

Microwave

 

I think my poor old microwave is about to give up the ghost. I´ve had it for at least ten years, so I shouldn´t complain, I suppose. 

The reason I think this is that it is not behaving consistently. I would have thought that heating the same object for the same length of time would always give the same results, but that is not happening.

In order to coax Toby to eat I make a chicken broth and freeze it in an ice tray. At feeding time I put one ice-cube in a little pot and microwave it for thirty seconds and then mix it with his kibble. I always use the same little pot and sometimes it is hot to touch and so is the broth, sometimes it is cold and the ice-cube half-melted and this morning the cube was still solid! That doesn´t feel right.

I don´t actually cook in the microwave, apart from jacket potatoes, but I use it daily for making coffee and reheating food. I cook all my meals from scratch on the stove and freeze them in portions, much easier when you are cooking for one, I find.

Well, I´ll have to see how it goes, nothing lasts forever, after all!

Bowing to the inevitable

The other day I was trying to unpick some stitching on a dress and I was really struggling to see what I was doing, even though I was wearing my glasses. I´ve also noticed that working on details on my pots has become harder. After a visit to the ophthalmologist it has become obvious my cataract has worsened over the last six months and I have to either up my glasses to a five or have the operation. 

To keep increasing my prescription isn´t going to solve the problem in the long run so I have decided to have the op. and hope for the best. As I´ve mentioned before, I  can only see out of one eye so if anything happens to that I am well and truly screwed...anyway, I´ve booked the pre-op. exams so fingers crossed.

Why a pitchfork?

Have you ever stopped to wonder why the Devil has a pitchfork? No, neither have I until today when for some obscure reason the question popped into my mind. Most people (including myself) wouldn´t recognize a pitchfork or know what it is for but everyone knows it is associated with the Devil. Strange.

What intrigues me is the origin of the pairing. Back in the days before mechanization I imagine pitchforks were a common article in the countryside, but where did the link come from and how long ago? Pitchforks can have between two and five thin tines but the Devil´s one is most often pictured as a trident - some connection with the sea and Greeks gods?

Much food for thought, it will keep me going for several sessions on the treadmill.

Photo by Alfred Kenneally at Unsplash
 

Stats

My blog stats appear to have gone bananas. A couple of months ago my viewing figures started dropping for some reason and now they have suddenly shot up so I am getting more views in a day than I used to get in a month. I´ve just been blogging away as usual so these fluctuations are a mystery to me. Still, it´s nice to know people are reading my ramblings.

Poorly Toby

My poor little lad is not so well theses days. He is sixteen now and has a heart problem which causes fluid to accumulate in his lungs and abdomen. He is on heart medication but there is no cure and sadly it is just a question of keeping him comfortable for as long as possible. The above picture is from happier days.

Because he is blind he no longer enjoys going for a walk but happily potters about the flat most of the time. He has a constant cough and every now and then he takes a turn for the worse, stops eating and just wants to sleep so I expect him to breathe his last any moment and am ready to call the vet, then he perks up again for a couple of weeks. It is an emotional roller-coaster.

I am determined that when his time comes he will die peacefully at home, with or without the vet´s help. There is absolutely no way I´ll try and prolong his life so that he ends up in a dog hospital amongst strangers. For now we are just taking it one day at a time.

An old-fashioned key

 

You know those old keys which quietly multiply in the bottom of your kitchen drawer, totally useless as you can´t remember what they were for, well my kitchen drawer doesn´t have any, just because I want one.

I have an idea for something I want to model in clay and the ring-shaped end of the key would be perfect for what I want to do. I was sure I had an old key or two knocking around, but no, not that type anyway. I have Yale keys, those triple safety keys and ones with flat square ends but nothing with a hole.

No problem, thought I, I´ll pop to a key cutter as they stock blanks for all kinds of keys. No joy, though, they have everything but what I want - it is too old-fashioned I´m told. 

I shall have to start visiting my friends and rooting in their kitchen drawers.

Photo by Anna Zakharova at Unsplash
 

Spring hasn´t arrived

I was mistaken recently when I wrote a blog saying spring has arrived, we are actually in the last week of winter at the moment. I mention this because today the temperature reached 34°C and over the next few days the forecast is for over 37°C.

Naturally this means it is time to put the window screens up, the netting is attached with velcro and I usually roll them up and put them away for winter - the only problem is I can´t find them - I´ve searched everywhere! It is a large long roll and can´t have just disappeared.

Well done. Amazon!

Credit where it´s due...after my rant the other day about Shein (who have still not refunded me), I want to praise Amazon for their excellent customer service.

I bought a pottery tool from Amazon.uk about a month ago and had it delivered to my granddaughter who lives in England. I do this from time to time to get things which are unavailable here, but don´t have them delivered to me in Brazil because the import tax would double the cost of the item. My granddaughter then passes my purchases to whichever family member is coming here next.

So far so good. I received my tool yesterday but unfortunately found it was defective, in fact completely useless. According to their site I was entitled to a refund, within 30 days of purchase, after they received the returned item. The thirty days were up today. To return the item would take weeks and be expensive, but after some hassle with the automated system (my problem didn´t fit their solutions), I finally managed to exchange messages with a human being and explain the situation. Within minutes and after consulting his supervisor the answer came back that they would make an exception and give me a full refund and I didn´t have to try and return the tool. Wow, that made my day.

No ifs, no buts, no runaround - Amazon I take my hat off to you.

A menace in the square

Continuing the theme of observing the street and square while I am on the treadmill, every once in a while I can see a scam going on. It works like this:

A lad, apparently upset, will approach a passerby and ask for help, claiming that he earns money to aid his young siblings by selling sweets to passengers on the nearby trains. This is forbidden, of course, but does actually happen. He says he has been caught by an inspector and his goods confiscated. He does not beg for money but asks you to buy him a box of chocolate bars or whatever so that he can get back to earning some money. It is a rather sad and quite convincing little story, especially the first time you hear it, as he is not asking for money. There is a sweet shop near the gym and he tries to talk you into going there with him to buy him some stock.

The only problem is that there are several lads scattered in the square, all telling the same story and this group of scammers appear every few days. The other morning I watched from my treadmill as one lad convinced an elderly lady with a walking stick to go to the sweet shop with him. I felt very annoyed but couldn´t really do anything about it situated as I was. Occasionally the police turn up and nab the lads but a few days later they are back again.

I don´t know if they sell the boxes of sweets back to the shop or somewhere else, but it must be worth their while. They can feel rather menacing at times as they are strapping teenagers, not children. Another scam of theirs is to stand outside supermarkets and ask you to buy them a bag of rice or other staple item as they have no food at home, again they´re not asking for money. There is usually a pal round the corner with a large rucksack stuffed with the groceries they get.

Whenever they approach me I ignore them and keep walking, but it is not a comfortable feeling.

A bit of green

The treadmills at my gym are upstairs, 24 of them in two long lines. I always try to get one near the large windows overlooking the square so that I have something to look at to pass the time.

This is my view of the square, although it is not large it is a nice green area and I live just on the other side - no excuses for not going to the gym!.

The photo is quite deceptive actually as it is less than fifty yards across. Toby used to enjoy going for walks here but I no longer take him since he lost his sight as he gets very stressed if he is not sure where he is. Also it is not that clean. Unfortunately people bring food to eat and discard leftovers without using a bin. This attracts rats, and there are also problems with fleas and ticks on top of the spoiled food lying around. It is amazing how quickly a dog can scarf something down even if you are being vigilant. I always kept Toby on a lead on the paved area. My friend walks her dog there and lets her of leash then wonders why she gets bad stomach, but she won´t listen to me.

Latest efforts

I have been working on a series of bud vases lately, these are all prototypes and haven´t been fired yet. I´ll probably just give them a white glaze, sometimes simple is best. 

Spring has arrived...

It is only the first week of Spring here yet we have hit over 30°C more than once. We´ll be completely roasted by Christmas!

Muscle up!

Well, I´ve just found out I´m wasting my time going to the gym for an hour every day and doing body building and using the treadmill. Apparently you can go to a clinic called Muscle Up, lie down and have some wires attached. These stimulate your muscles 20,000 times in 30 minutes, job done. No boring exercise or getting all sweaty.

Next brilliant idea will be to hire someone to pre-chew your food for you - no wear and tear on your teeth or jaws. Give me strength!

A good sort-out

Every once in a while I try and give my pottery area a good sort-out. We potters tend to accumulate loads of bits and bobs which 'might come in useful' because of an interesting shape, texture or possible tool. Bottle tops, pebbles, bits of wood and metal, string, yogurt pots,the list is endless. They don´t all come in handy, of course, but they do clutter things up so that you actually end up forgetting what you have stashed away.

Hence the need for an occasional blitz, which I did yesterday - and it took me all day! Everything is nice and tidy now and my memory refreshed about what I actually have, and there is a large bag of rubbish to be discarded. I must get rid of it quickly before I start rooting through 'just in case'.

All the ´ologists

With my second dentist appointment done and dusted I am finally up to date with all things medical for the time being. It really is a marathon. So far this year I have seen my cardio, gynae, ophthal, dermo, pneumo, thyroid specialist and lung specialist - all check-ups or follow-ups. Most of them ask for tests, scans etc so it is a question of traipsing here and there to do the tests then back to the doc with the results.

With no GP system I have to organise this myself, choose a specialist, make the appointments etc. Thank goodness my medical insurance covers me for all this, it is worth the high monthly fee I pay. One thing I like about this system is that if you don´t care a particular doctor you can choose another, unlike in England where you are stuck with whoever your GP has referred you to.

The fun and games will start again when I have cataract surgery in a couple of month´s time but for the time being I´ll enjoy the break.

Birthday

Birthday girl! Older but no wiser at 77! This was my first treat of the day, taken out by a granddaughter for breakfast, followed by cake. Later my daughter and SIL took me out to a festival, followed by lunch. Then I had an evening visit from son, DIL and grandchildren, and more cake, followed by a long phone call with my son in England. A lovely day all round.

I´ve spent the rest of the week trying to suss out the present I gave myself - a sewing machine. I already have an old one which I brought with me from England, but it is so heavy and also needs adjusting, which I can´t seem to get right. I am completely self-taught when it comes to sewing, in other words I don´t really know what I´m doing. When I first started sewing there was no You Tube with useful videos. Now, at least, with my new toy I can look things up. It is just a simple machine, nothing fancy and very light. I´ve managed to make a pillowcase for my very long body pillow and only jammed the bobbin six times...happy days.

At last

The painting is finally finished. New details kept appearing although I hardly ever saw anyone working on it but a face slowly emerged from the background and the smaller parrot gained feathers and colours. Now it has all been varnished, my photo does not really do it justice. By the way, the larger parrot does have a head - the painting continues round the other side but unfortunately I cannot get a proper look at it or a photo.

Another tip

Here is a brilliant tip I saw on Facebook the other day - unfortunately I can´t remember the name of the person who posted it.

Take a small cup and fill it with water then put it in the freezer. Once the water has frozen take the cup out, put a coin on top of the ice in the cup and return it to the freezer and leave it there.  

Next time you return from holiday or after a prolonged power cut take the cup out and check if the coin is still on top of the ice. If it has sunk this will tell you your freezer and contents have defrosted then frozen again and the food may have spoiled. If the coin is still on top all is well. So simple and so clever.

By coincidence I had a 14-hour power cut from seven o'clock last night. When the power returned I checked my cup and the coin was still in situ. Result!

Shein - not recommended

Dear Shein,

Over the last three weeks you have sent me 13 identical e-mails (in Spanish! - we actually speak Portuguese in Brazil) - translated they say:

Dear

We apologise for the inconvenience caused. We have arranged a refund for you in accordance with your request* and the refund has been deposited in your original payment account. If you do not receive your refund please check your payment account again. If you have any questions please feel free to contact us. Best wishes

Customer Care Center

*not requested!

You send me the same e-mail - without my name -  every time I tell you the refund has not been deposited. I think it is about time you used a human being to reply to me, although your e-mails come from Henry, Hilary, Paul, Abby etc. they are obviously computer generated (nice touch using Western names, by the way).

I originally made a small purchase from you in May. Small because as a first time buyer I was cautious (thank goodness), wanting to make sure you were trustworthy and reliable. I waited 41 days for my parcel to arrive. The tracking system eventually claimed it had been delivered, which was not the case. My building reception has 24 hour cover and all deliveries have their bar code read and are registered on the computer. The receptionists are reliable and honest. It is also rather strange the "delivery" was on a Sunday.

Despite my queries you kept insisting the parcel was delivered but would not tell me the name of the courier company or of the person who signed for it. Instead you initially offered me a 60% refund, then in subsequent replies increased it slowly to 90%. I never actually accepted your refund offer but eventually you claimed I had and that it had been deposited in my account. That was nearly a month ago.

I don´t know if you are dishonest or incompetent, or just don´t give a toss about the odd dissatisfied customer. Accountability doesn´t seem to form part of your vocabulary. There is a consumer site here in Brazil called Reclame Aqui which has numerous similar complaints about you. I wish I´d checked it before buying from you. All I do know is I bought from you in good faith, have received neither my goods nor a refund and you obviously intend to just keep on sending me automated replies when I contact you. The sum involved is not large, but that is not the point. 

The correct and honest thing to do would be for you to send me a replacement item, free of charge, or give me a full refund. Neither of these is going to happen, I´m sure.

A disgusted customer

I woz robbed!

Stars in my eyes!

 

Well, that was a good´un. I managed to slam a kitchen cupboard door on my thumb so hard it sliced through the cuticle to the nail bed. It was incredibly painful and I saw stars...there might have been some swearing as I stomped up and down until the pain wore off and I realised I was dripping blood on the kitchen floor.

It had to be my right hand, of course, so putting on a bandage was difficult. I can understand how we outstripped the chimps evolution-wise with our opposable thumbs because it has been difficult managing the last couple of days without mine - it is also the same thumb I scalped on my mandolin not so long ago. Ho hum as John Gray would say.

Photo by Jan Antonin Kolar atUnsplash 

Frustration

It has been a bit of a morning and I feel very crotchety...

I bought my medication via the internet, as usual, but for some reason the transaction went wrong. I´d followed all the usual steps up to and including payment but the chemist´s system did not acknowledge my payment or send my order number despite the sum having been deducted from my account.

I tried phoning but got enmeshed in an automated system because my problem was not on their list of options and I couldn´t get through to a human being. In desperation I went to one of the local branches to see if they could help, but even they couldn´t sort it out after half an hour on the phone. After much discussion I managed to convince them to give me my medication as I could prove I had already paid for it, although it wasn´t really their problem. 

That was a result, at least, but it took up so much time that I missed my gym session, had to rush around the farmers market and had a very late lunch.

When the internet works it is excellent but when it doesn´t it´s a nightmare.

A little tip

 

If your bananas are ripening too quickly here is a suggestion - once they start freckling pop them in the fridge. The skin will go black over a couple of days but when you peel the banana it remains white and firm inside.

This was a tip from my cleaner when I remarked to her the other day that I was going to freeze my excess bananas as usual. I normally peel and freeze them whole but when defrosted they are somewhat mushy and best for smoothies etc.

I´ve been eating "black" bananas for a week now and they are still perfectly fine.

Photo by Matthew Feeney at Unsplash
 

Clothes

What better way to spend a Sunday than going through your wardrobe?

Like most women I find that as I get older the weight starts creeping up. I´m not overweight - according to my gynae I´ve put on 1 kilo in the last three years - but I could do with losing that and another kilo as well. The problem is that my weight seems to have re-distributed itself and settled on my tum. This means that some of my tops are getting a bit snug, and if there is one look I hate it is clothes pulled tight across a big belly...hence the wardrobe reorganizing.

I decided to try on every single top I have and discard those that no longer fit nicely - no keeping any because they may "fit me later"! My cleaner will find a good home for them through her church since there are no charity shops here I could donate them to. 

I am parting with some reluctantly, favourites which are borderline, but I am being firm. Except, that is, when it came to a lovely green and gold top with an Indian motif and a large Ohm on the front. It was a present from my daughter and I just couldn´t part with it. Instead I put it on, stuffed the largest pillow I could find up my front, and have been walking around like that all morning to try and stretch it...it is a good job I live alone!

Photo by Peter Plashkin at Unsplash
 

More wine and jazz

 I´ve never seen the square so full of people. 

Listening to the jazz

Checking out the stalls

Eating and drinking

Wine and jazz

When I took Toby out for a walk yesterday I found the square next to my building was holding a wine and jazz festival. There were loads of food stalls and crowds of people. Even Spiderman came to call! 

The building on the right is where I live so you could say this is right on my doorstep. The festival continues today, I can hear the jazz starting up while I type this, I may pop over later.

It´s the little things that make life difficult

The vet has changed Toby´s heart medication...he has to have 1/4 of a tablet once a day.

 Look at the size of the wretched thing sitting on my finger. Even using a tablet cutter doesn´t really help as it crushes the quarters. Give me strength!

Update

Just to say that those tiny ant-like figures on the side of the building are abseiling workmen covering the damaged area with netting. Presumably this will stop any further metal cladding plates from swooping and soaring around like paper airplanes, instead making them drop straight down the side of the building. 

They are very difficult to see and I don´t know how to draw those red circles round them! One is about halfway down near the right edge and the other further down just below where the trees start. It gives you an idea of how large the building is.

Cyclone!

A couple of days ago I noticed it was very windy in the morning while I was having breakfast. I looked out of the window when I heard some crashing and banging and saw some large panels flying through the air. Some of them landed in the five-a-side football fields - luckily there were no games being played - and some landed in the road. 

The wind got steadily worse and panels continued flying at intervals. The local news said we were having a cyclone and the building losing the panels made the headlines. Eventually the civil defense turned up and closed off the local streets before someone got hurt. The panels were large and made of metal and could easily decapitate someone. Three days later the streets are still closed off.

This is the culprit, a neighbouring building which is 30 stories high, the panels were part of the cladding. They were flying through the air like sheets of paper with no way of telling where they were going to land.

This photo shows one peeling off. It is a miracle no-one was hurt as the street some of them landed in is used by commuters and very busy before it was closed.

One panel fell in these trees directly below my study window in our grounds.

Another landed on this car parked right below my sitting room. The photo gives an idea of the size. Needless to say I closed my wooden shutters where I had them as a precaution, although the large windows in my kitchen and sitting room which faced the danger do not have shutters. The wind did not die down until the end of the day. Three landed altogether in my condominium.

Elsewhere quite a few large trees came down and in the evening we had a power cut. I was on my way out to a birthday dinner and had to finish getting ready showerless and in the dark, then walk down eight flights of stairs, and back up again when I got home later and get ready for bed in the dark. Exciting times!

A happy potter.

I have been making fewer pots lately as I´ve been exploring new ideas and experimenting with glazes. It can be quite challenging and most of my tests don´t work but I am enjoying myself, and once in a while it pays off. I was very happy today when this plate came back from firing. It turned out just how I wanted, using a technique I invented (it´s not a painted design). I´ve been smiling all day. 

Well, that´s a first!

I finally got around to using my Mother´s Day present. 

It was a unique but very enjoyable experience. The "egg" is filled with warm water and a large quantity of Epsom salts which leave you completely buoyant. You climb in, shut the lid and float for an hour with changing lights and music. It is large enough that I could float with my arms and legs extended without touching the sides. It was hard to relax at first but once I accepted I wouldn´t sink I floated quite happily and the hour sped past. A present with a difference!

It´s not finished...

 I was a bit hasty in my last post, assuming the headless parrot painting was finished! Maybe the head will appear round the other side...watch this space.

A large parrot

I can see this tower from my bedroom window, I´m not sure what its function is but it´s something to do with the tower block on the right. 

Up to a couple of weeks ago it was white all over, then one morning I saw the graffiti artists had struck overnight and all down one side was an elongated tic tac toe game from top to bottom. A week later some painters started covering this up with what I took to be a colourful abstract design. After a couple of days when more detail had been added I realised that it is actually a painting of a large parrot, albeit without a head!

Old posts

I noticed the other day that a couple of people are reading my old posts from 2009 from when I did the Camino de Santiago. I hope they find them interesting and feel inspired to do a Camino themselves. It was such a special experience that I went on to do three more, walking over 2000km altogether. I still want to do another one, health and finances permitting.

 

Well, I got that wrong!

Silly me...in a recent post I was concerned about rain spoiling our Saint John´s Feast party...I got the wrong month, it will be in July, not June! Don´t know why they are holding it so late though.

Bertioga - part two

The village of Bertioga is on one side of the channel where it widens to meet the sea. The other side is a jungle-covered hill and rocky headland with a little lighthouse at the point. Both sides have the remains of forts built in the 1600s by the Portuguese to defend against French, Dutch and Spanish invaders who would be caught in cannon crossfire should they attempt to sail up the channel to Santos.

 

 Looking across the channel from the headland towards the fort right on the point where sea and channel meet.

 

 The ruin of the fort on the headland side was reached by a narrow path through the jungle and next to it were the remains of an ancient monastery. I believe nowadays it has all been tidied up and is more accessible.

 We continued to go to Bertioga for holidays for a number of years. Over time a road was built along the coast so it became easier to get to, although I missed the trip 'up the Amazon'. Instead there was a fifteen minute ride on a little car ferry which trundled back and forth from the headland to the now growing village.

In later years we wild camped on the beach instead of staying at the Lido Hotel, but it continued to be an idyllic place. My parents actually bought a dugout canoe which was looked after for us by a fisherman. It was the most tricky thing to try and paddle in, turning turtle at the least excuse!

One year when I was in my teens I decided to swim across the channel from the headland to the village and my mother accompanied me in the canoe. I waited for high tide as the current was extremely strong, but it was still a very foolhardy thing to do as I was no swimmer, only being able to do the breaststroke and never having swum any distance before. It took me a couple of hours and I could hardly stand when I reached the other side. My father was furious when he found what I´d done.

Sadly those halcyon days of childhood holidays are long gone and the sleepy fishing village exists only in memories. Nowadays Bertioga can be reached in a couple of hours by an inland motorway and has become a busy and somewhat tacky resort. The miles of beach are still there but no longer backed by scrub and no longer empty. There are high-rise apartments as far as the eye can see and beach vendors every few minutes.

Sigh...

The games people play

This ornament sits in my kitchen. When my cleaner comes she always arranges the little chicks looking at Mum after doing the dusting.
 

I rearrange them to be either going around in circles or

facing away from Mum. 

I have been waiting for my cleaner, Zara, to say something about this but she hasn´t said a word so far, maybe she hasn´t noticed. I know it is just a silly game, but it amuses me. Maybe my second childhood is looming.

Rain, rain go away...

It has been raining steadily for two days here which is most unusual at this time of year, winter is usually very dry. I hope it stops soon as this weekend we are having a communal open-air party to celebrate the Feast of Saint John. This is celebrated all over Brazil with traditional country music and dancing, bonfires and  special food as well as a spicy punch called quentão. People dress up as peasants in straw hats, check shirts and dungarees or long dresses and there is sometimes a shotgun wedding often performed by children.

I believe it was originally a religious Catholic festival brought over from Portugal in the 16th century by the colonists. June has Saint John´s Day and also Saint Anthony´s Day so they are both celebrated. Let´s hope this year the festivities won´t be too damp.

Bertioga

When I was a child, aeons ago (in the ´50s actually!), we used to go on our family holidays to a place called Bertioga. It was a small sleepy fishing village about 30 miles up the coast from Santos, a major port then and now in Brazil.There were no roads to Bertioga back then, it could only be reached by a winding salt-water channel from Santos on a small foot passenger ferry called a barca, and the trip took several hours.

The barca arriving in Bertioga where the channel widened as it met the sea. 

The city of São Paulo where we lived (and I still do) is on a plateau and to get down to the coast and port we traveled by coach on a highway called the Serra do Mar which wound down the mountain range via a series of switchbacks and hairpin bends with steep drops to the side and magnificent views of the coastline, a thrilling start to our holiday. 

In Santos on the little ferry we would settle down for a quiet trip putt-putting along the sinuous waterway which narrowed and widened between jungle-like vegetation and mangrove swamps. I used to wonder how the helmsman never lost his way as the channel divided, twisted and turned in a positive maze to my childhood eyes. Occasionally a clearing would appeared on one of the banks with a bamboo hut and a few chickens running around and someone would get on or off the ferry or we would pick up bunches of bananas. I used to imagine it was just like traveling up the Amazon.

 

Eventually we would arrive in Bertioga where the channel reached the sea, and tie up at a long wooden pier where we would be met by the hotel proprietor in a rusty old Ford pick-up truck. My brother and I traveled in the back with the suitcases as we drove along sandy roads to the hotel which was along the beach a kilometer or so past the village. 

The Hotel Lido was a no-frills, family-run place getting on in years, but it was the only hotel there. There was no electricity so they ran a generator every evening until 10pm and you had a candle and matches on your bedside table should you need to get up in the night.

The hotel led directly onto the beach, which ran for miles with golden sands backed by scrub and only the occasional person in sight. It was a real paradise for children as we were free to run wild, swimming in the ocean and exploring unsupervised (what were my parents thinking!) all day and only went back to the hotel to eat and sleep.

To be continued...sorry about the quality of the photos!
 

Gawd 'elp us!

The complaint of one parent has managed to get the Bible banned in an American school for "vulgarity and violence".

There was a play in the '60s called "Stop the World - I want to get off"...I know the feeling!

Photo by Samantha Sophia on Unsplash