#5 Celebration and Gardening

I think we have made the adjustment to being here and living in Mexico. There are so many things that are different. It takes at least 5 minutes to get hot water in the morning. So I turn on the tap, use the toilet, brush my teeth, brush my teeth sports guard, read two chapters of my book and then....Voila, I have hot water except for today when it just refused to get hot and this is living in Mexico. 

This is the restaurant right across the road from us. It is only open for dinner. We eat at about 6 in the evening and so when we go there, we dine alone. The locals don't start thinking about dinner until about 8 and start making firm plans around 9. This has become a very popular local spot. I have no idea what time they stay open til because I am sleeping well before then. Last night I went to the sounds of live music. Occasionally during the day they will jam here and they have a trumpet player who is quite good. 

This is the crepe place almost across the road from the above restaurant that makes crepes that you would never see in Paris. We gave them another try the other night with something else they make but alas it would also get a 3/10.

Oh look GN they have your idea!!!

Many years ago this guy died in San Blas. I am so into history!!! Anyway, every Jan.31st, everyone comes to honour him and lay flowers in tribute. All of the neighbourhood students come and line up like poor little soldiers and then march for miles up to the fort where I imagine they collapse onto the grass and swear that they will never make their kids do this!!!

Lots of speeches. Lots of dignitaries. Lots of flowers. 

I wasn't expecting these guys to turn a 90 degree angle and come my way so I had to back up into a tree to take this pic. 

And look what was hanging around the corner......I so wanted to take their picture but didn't want to get my camera destroyed so I panned, clicked and hoped for the best. About 4:30 p.m. every day two truck loads of these guys go by. I wave and smile and there is never a smile or wave back. I'm going to take a pic one day. Maybe just before we leave town.

Marta, Danny and I are driving to a friends house to pick up a shovel for the upcoming gardening. A herd of cows on the road? Nothing unusual there.....

Martha and I drive miles out of town to go to a nursery to pick up soil for the gardens I'm going to work on. The scenery was amazing. Mountains, valleys, windy scary roads!!!

Thank goodness we had help loading the "soil" into the car.

Smoked fish for lunch. From the left, Ady my English student and a helper here at Martha's, Christian Ady's son who just about has his head in the fan, The Man Raymondo, Martha, Danny Martha's amazing daughter who just left yesterday and I miss her already and one of Sylvia's lovely daughters who speaks perfect English and teaches it in Tepic. 

We had marlin which is in the upper right hand corner. This restaurant is really good because they take the cooked fish and wrap it in foil. Other places just keep cooking it all day. Kind of ends up like fish jerky.

What an amazing tiled wall leading to the bathrooms. Ray asked if this is how I wanted my kitchen wall to look. No but I sure love it here!!!

We have a very large porch. The only issue is that there are two air conditioning units in the middle....this is Mexico. We have two sliding glass doors leading to each section. I've been adding plants since we arrived and now I'm done. This is my side.

This is Ray's side. The plant on the left is a bougainvillea. It had no blooms and Martha really wanted it to bloom so I've been giving it lots of love and fertilizer.... It has started to bloom with orange blossoms. Now Martha wants it high she says for the sun but I know it is so everyone on the street can see "her" lovely plant. Too funny!!!

I honestly never check the expenses on the mastercard account. It's thousands every month and gets paid off in full and then is back the next month. For some reason, maybe I was having a board moment, I checked what the charges were as we seldom use it here. There was a strange charge of $191 to some software company. My immediate response was, "Ray what have you bought now?" He claimed innocence and reported it to the bank right away. Within 24 hours the amount was back into our account and they had cancelled our cards. Wait, what was that? The cards have been cancelled? We then learnt that our new cards had been mailed to our home address. Oooopppsss.... Now RBC is going to courier us new cards to Iguanas Ranas where we live. The house doesn't even have a number on it!!! This is getting really funny. Five days later the card arrives. Yes, card not cards. Now we are waiting up to 10 days for the minister of finances card to arrive. How come they sent him a card and not her??? How come his card takes 5 days and her is going to take 10. 2023.

I get Ray involved and we really clean up the garden on the back left. On the table are the left overs waiting to be put into big pots. I planted a pot of herbs. That will be fun to see grow and used in the kitchen hopefully. Oh, and the soil, that all of the villagers use in their gardens that cost us 45 pesos a bag, it was CLAY. Pure and simple clay. Totally yuck to plant in!!! I was so disappointed.

I've added a couple of colourful plants in the front and will buy some more. The climbers are clematis. Sure would be nice if they bloom while we are here. 

A couple of things. I went into town yesterday to the really big pharmacy to get some more diuretic that I need a prescription for at home but not here. They don't have the 20 mg. but they do have 40 mg. I buy two packages for $3, 80 pills in all. She doesn't tell me to only use half and this is life in Mexico. By the time I got back home my bun was dripping. I hate to mention the heat for when my bun drips I have to. 

And that's it for this week. Hope yours has been a good one. Thanks for sharing this blog with me. See you next Monday!!! God/Goddess bless you!!!