'Piqued', of Manaus, writes...

I’m not one to complain, but….

The electricity went off again (as usual) in the last storm, but this time it came back on at an under-voltage. This is not something with which I have hitherto had to concern myself, but it transpires that this is just the sort of thing you don’t want when you’re running a pump. 'What happens?' I hear you ask. 'Give us a technical, blow-by-blow account – cause and effect and all that', I hear you a-clammering. And I can now tell you. What happens is that bloody thing catches fire – that’s what happens. Naice and I, having taken our customary naked rain shower (don’t knock it ‘til you’ve done it) were standing by the front door congratulating ourselves on having remembered to unplug the telephone, the TV, the Sky box, the air-conditioners and the fridge, when Naice pointed out the rather large cloud of black smoke billowing from behind the swimming pool filter. Although I ran as fast as I could to switch it off (and let me tell you there’s at least one very good reason someone invented underwear), I wasn’t in time to stop the whole thing going into melt down. Thank you Manaus Energia, you useless, incompetent pillocks.

Five days later (long story, won’t bore you), we now have a new pump and an ECB, protecting us from over-voltage, under-voltage, heat, lightning strike, frogs in the pool, dirty guests and frostbite. Or something like that.

So - what happened today, when the inevitable storm came and the power went off? I switched the whole electrical system off manually. Talk about having a dog and barking yourself…

Fishing III

We took the opportunity to escape across the river for a night on Saturday. There wasn’t much happening in the way of fish, but it was very pleasant nonetheless. We took Ozzie with us, and left Kelly with the run of the garden. On the other side of the river we met up with friend Charlie (in battlecruiser Sammy III), and Paulo, Robson and Joao (in the more traditional IV Neto).

The fish steadfastly refused to appear, but the food and drink flowed and a good time was had by all. The only problem with taking Ozzie is that he does need to piddle, so it’s off to find a suitable place twice a day (at least). Fortunately, since it’s low water now (regular readers will know that the end of October is low water), there are vast stretches of beach everywhere, so he was very happy.

Red Tailed Boa

We have a new visitor to the garden, who has surprised Naice and the dogs twice now. Last time, Naice managed to get it to pose for the camera. It’s really nice to see it as I believe it’s not that common. It’s also non-poisonous, which is always a bonus. They can grow to up to 4 metres in length, although ours is, thankfully, somewhat smaller. I haven't actually seen the thing myself yet, but no doubt will do in due course.

Good looking, isn't (s)he?

Amazon Pub Quiz

I’ve decided to try to organise a pub quiz here for all the ex-pats (and anyone interested in practising their English). I have a number of candidate bars, and all I need is to drum up enough support to get the thing off the ground. I also hope to persuade a nice kind band to play on the night for free-or-very-little. I also need to come up with some pub quiz questions and a sort of plan as to how it’s going to be done etc. Since my knowledge of pub quizzes is limited to those attended at the SEELB, I will have to draw on this to come up with a model. If anyone has any (sensible) suggestions, or knows of any online resource(s), please let me know!