It’s my birthday

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me…

Naice is taking me to the new PIZZA HUT tonight! Oh, it’s all very well for you lot to scoff, but if you had to put up with Manaus pizzas for a year or so, you’d be looking forward to it too. I also got a nice new waterproof watch - boating, for the use of - and lots of e-cards (and two good old-fashioned paper jobs as well). Thanks for all your sarcastic comments about my advanced years and the various suggested presents such as pipe, slippers and Viagra (an interesting combination).

I’m looking forward immensely to the next fifty years.

How not to handle an angry sloth

Many of you will no doubt have wrestled at one time or another with the dilemma of what to do when you find a sloth on the road in front of you. All can now be revealed.

Following a very pleasant boat trip to the meeting of the waters with guests Alexander and son Jan, we were on our way back from the marina along a road that cuts through some jungle. Rounding a bend in the road, we were confronted by a small, three-toed sloth sprawled in the middle of the road like an old unravelling sweater (although they are good swimmers and excellent tree climbers, they can hardly walk at all). Since there was other traffic on the road toing and froing between the marinas and the main Avenida, the likelihood was that the critter would soon be squashed. But never fear! The Maguires are here! I leapt out of the car, while Naice put the hazard warning lights on and sounded the horn for the benefit of the other drivers. This was my first mistake. I rushed to the sloth and picked it up somewhat like you might pick up a child – that is to say face-to-face, securing the beastie with my hands under it’s armpits. This was my second mistake. Now it’s difficult to suppress one’s anthropomorphising tendencies when face to face with a cute little smiling face, slow-blinking brown eyes and big long arms waving about in distress. And for this reason, it took a few moments for me to critically analyse the hissing growl the little dear was emitting. And this was my third mistake.

This was one angry sloth, let me tell you, who obviously resented what to him must have seemed a wholly unnecessary intervention. So he did what any self-respecting angry sloth would do, and gripped me firmly with his toes. Not the sort of grip reserved for hanging around for days in trees, but the sort of gripped reserved for when your enemy comes at you with a sharp set of teeth. So he got me around both elbows and started to apply the pressure. The toes slowly sank into my skin and the blood rather more quickly started to pour out. Seeing this was a winning gambit, he endeavoured to get his legs into my sides, too. I started pushing him away with a force roughly equal to the force he was applying to draw me closer, so I found myself more or less strangling him, while his toes – nicely embedded now - started gouging out chunks of flesh. Another motorist stopped at this point, wound his window down, and shouted helpfully “watch out for his toes”. “Yes – thanks – I will,” I replied through gritted teeth.

Anyway, I managed to loosen my grip on him a little, and stop trying to push him away (it’s a bit like making yourself take your foot off the brake when your car starts to skid on the ice – sort of counter-intuitive), and rushed to the nearest shrubbery (as one does). Thrusting the two of us among the branches, all I could hope for was that he would prefer hanging on to a branch than crushing my arms. Fortunately I was right, and as soon as he lessened his grip on one of my arms I managed to spin him around a bit and direct the other limbs to other branches. And we parted company – he growling away to himself, and me trying to get some circulation back into my arms without leaving armfuls of blood on the road.

So there you have it. I doubt there are too many people who can claim to have been attacked by a sloth (or at least who would admit to it). I can’t say I’m proud of it, really, but I survived and learnt something. And now I can pass on this sage advice to those of you seeking the answer to your sloth-concerns: never pick up an angry sloth from the front.

And incidentally, if you want to know how I know it was a 3-toed sloth, I would respectfully refer you to the above photo of my elbow, two weeks on.

Happy New Year

Having so recently diced with death at the Hospital 28 de Agosto, we were most happy to celebrate the new year quietly by the pool…

So Happy New Year to everyone from Naice and I!

Visit to the Hospital 28 de Agosto

I don’t want to dwell on this too much, but one morning I was in the kitchen - I think it was the 28th December - chatting to one of our guests. After bending down to get some milk out of the fridge, I “took a funny turn”. Why do we use this expression - there’s nothing funny about feeling the lights go out and the floor speeding towards you at a suboptimal rate!? Anyway, I was led to the sofa by Naice and the guests, and we ummed and ahhed about what to do while my life force ebbed and flowed, and finally agreed it would have to be a visit to the hospital. I was bundled into the car (waiting for an ambulance here is an experience only the healthy onlookers can survive) and off we went. I’ll condense the rest of this, ‘cause it really is something to forget about if one can – first stop, childrens’ hospital – oops. Next, ambulance (hey!) to the public hospital. Bed, needles, nurses, doctors, poking, proding, waiting, x-rays, ultra-sounds, blood tests blah blah. Naice went off to get me a pillow and blanket (none of this in the hospital) and we got to stay the night. More needles, nurses, doctors, poking, proding, waiting, x-rays, ultra-sounds, blood tests blah blah next day. Still feeling shite, but preferring to die at home, ended up telling everyone I felt like a spring lamb and could they let me out now please? After some persuasion, they did.

Unfortunately Naice had gone off to town with the guests (well, I mean, we have to look after them too, don’t we?), but not wishing to delay things, I took up my bed (well, pillow and blanket anyway) and staggered out the front door to the nearest café. After a cup of coffee and a burger (no food for 24 hours by this stage), I thought I was going to hit the floor again for round two, but this time the fresh memories of Hospital 28 de Agosto and a desire to die at liberty conquered all. Shortly afterwards Naice appeared like my very own Florence Nightingale (although admittedly a little more tanned) and whisked me off home. And for the two subsequent weeks, while I have been poorly, I really haven’t felt like sitting at the computer - or very much else. In fact I found it all a bit depressing. But now that I am on the mend (don’t know what it was, but I hope it has gone and isn’t coming back), and have today survived my 50th birfday, I am definitely feeling a bit more positive. So there we are, and there you have it.

Toto Poll II

There was obviously some vote-rigging going on in the poll - one morning it was 6-2 and the next it was 7-1. On this basis I declare it fraudulent and demand a recount. I will re-post the poll in due course. However, it appears that Toto and Kelly have disgraced themselves: it seems that the former has got the latter up the duff. So this will now have to be taken into careful consideration.