Kelly is now 62 days pregnant (pic). Those of you who are up on your canine pregnancy facts will know that she is likely to “drop” within the next 3 days. Just what we need.
Whoever was responsible for the interior design of the Pizza Hut in Manaus, should be awarded the Architectural Ineptitude Award 2008. It must have taken a huge amount of thought to produce an interior totally devoid of curves, and an immense amount of dedication to select only materials with absolutely no sound deadening qualities at all, in order to generate that special fish-market-on-a-Wednesday-morning sound quality. Admittedly there were more than 4 customers when we were there, which is probably the minimum number required to really start to get the right effect of the clash of bouncing, echoing, harsh metallic sounds whizzing around and through you. It’s like the orchestra forgot to bring its instruments and decided to talk and shout its way through the 1812 overture instead.
As for the food, well, things are a lot better. The Pizzas almost taste the same as the PH standard, although of course the cheeses are made up from some crazy local recipe of flavoured rubber, and they don’t (at least didn’t) have any garlic (at all), and their version of pepperoni (I wonder about the etymology of the word – one might think it had something to do with PEPPER, but I could be wrong), just isn’t. Oh – and they don’t do Coca-Cola – just Pepsi (maybe that’s a PH-wide phenomenon now, I don’t know). AND they don’t serve wine (well why would you – after all, I can’t think that anyone would ever consider drinking wine with pizza or pasta, can you?).
Anyway, apart from that, it’s a really great place.
On the eve of my 50th birthday, our licence to adopt was granted. Those of you who know the ongoing adoption story will understand the significance of this. In the end, we only received the final documentation last week, hence the delay in reporting the news. Anyway, the licence - or habilitacao – is valid for two years and allows us to legally adopt through the Brazilian adoption system. We have now been placed on the list and are no. 67 out of 78(!) Of course there are other ways that things can happen (with the blessing of the authorities), and we may have some more news soon. I’ll keep you posted.
Naice and I went on another jolly in the Shamrock a couple of weeks ago (pics), and enjoyed a night or two away, sleeping in the boat in the middle of nowhere. There’s nothing quite like it. On our way back, we visited a small island on one of the lakes near Naice’s brother’s house, and have discovered that it (along with a plot of land 1km x 1.3km) is for sale, at R$50,000 (currently about £16k). We are now investigating the possibility of buying it and building our own lodge on it. You know there may be a few things wrong about Brazil, but on the other hand where else could you buy your own island for the price of a hatchback, with views like those in the pics? Anyway, if anyone has £5k - £10k kicking around that they don’t need for a few years, let me know… Incidentally, the pagelayout editing on Blogger is K R A P, and the photos will be all over the place, I know. If anyone can recommend a better home for the blog, let me know. 
I’ve started making my own liqueurs, using the local sugar-cane hooch Cachaca and adding different regional fruit. Done on a very scientific basis (pic), I’m hoping that someday I will achieve worldwide recognition for the product (or if not, that it will at least be drinkable). To the right of the pic is the cheapest 40 proof drink in Brazil - the famous "51", and next to it the rather more refined version, "Sagatiba". 51 can be had for around R$3 a bottle; Sagatiba is approximately 5 times more expensive. In the foreground, Maguire's secret fruit mix...
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.
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…
!
Allow me to introduce Toto (to be more precise, Totô), the newest member of the household. Having been abandoned by our erstwhile neighbours when they moved to another part of Manaus, Toto sat patiently on a heap of sand outside their house for days on end. Taking pity, Naice decided to give him some food…and the rest is history. I am still fighting a rearguard action and won’t allow him inside our gate, but as you can see he now has his own house (painted and weatherproofed by yours truly), gets fed twice a day and likes to take his walk with Ozzie every morning and evening. 
First of all, Naice and I would like to wish a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to one and all. Thanks for visiting the blog and I hope you’ll keep reading in 2009.
And so another December rolls along. My 49th, in fact, as in January I will turn 50 - a most unfortunate condition, and not one I ever thought would come to pass. Still, as someone once said, the alternative is worse.
November has been a very busy month, and when we totted up the pennies we were about R$1500 better off than at the end of October. Unfortunately the death of the swimming pool pump, the washing machine and our fixed internet connection cost us R$1449.50. So our profit for the period, which no doubt the sharper among you have already calculated, was R$50.50. An achievement, nonetheless, I think.
After the extreme frustration of our ludicrous internet and telephone connections during October, we now have one of these mobile-phone internet connections. Still crap, but at least it seems reliably crap (so far). So I can get back to my cyber work and my constantly interrupted correspondence (and of course, the blog).
On the subject of the blog, words of encouragement from an excellent blogger were warmly and gratefully received (see recent comments, if you can – I can’t - and the blogroll). So I’m back scribbling again. And I have some photos (well, they’re not actually to hand, but I’ll post them up tomorrow). One is of an insect the gardener found the other day and – for once – didn’t kill. On the other hand, I’m not sure who would have come off best in a fight, since insect and gardener were roughly the same size. Okay, some hyberbole there, but really this thing was humungous - so large, in fact, that after photographing it, I rushed off (on?) to the internet and just typed in “largest beetle”. Back came a long list of references to what is, without doubt, a rather magnificent example of Titanus Giganteus. I measured it at just over 8 inches from feeler to arse. Amazing. And to think it can fly, too. I Mean, it's almost the size of a microlight. You really don’t want one of these things hitting your windscreen at 40 miles an hour - or even hitting your head at 1 mph, come to that…
Naice is nearing the end of her first term at University now, and hopefully will stop tearing her hair out soon. I think term finishes on 12th of December, so then we can relax (well, concentrate on the guests) for a couple of months. Since no one is coming to visit us over Christmas/New Year (other than paying guests), we’ll have to make our own fun, so we’re still thinking about where we might go for a few days. A nice Dutch guy who lives up the road and has just been made Finance Director for one of the big jungle lodges has invited us to stay at the lodge sometime, so at the moment this looks like the favourite. Otherwise we’ll probably head up to Barcelos at some stage.
Speaking of the Dutch, I have to say they are amongst the nicest guests we receive here. Our very first guest was Ducthman Leen Deurloo in February 2008, who stayed with us for quite a while in between travelling up and down the Negro and the Amazon, and we still miss him! Since then we’ve had a fairly steady stream from “The Underlands”, as Holland is called in Portuguese. And today I took a nice Dutch couple out for a trip to the meeting of the waters, and we had a great time. Everything went perfectly, and as if on cue, while we were bobbing about on the dividing line between the rivers, a pink dolphin surfaced not 2m from the boat. You don’t get that sort of service with any old boat operator you know.
Next week, we’re going to chase up the adoption papers, which should be ready by now, and I need to organise my next GPS Course intake for next Friday/Saturday. We also have a couple coming from the UK (hooray!) on Wednesday, and Naice has her end of term exams. I’m also putting the finishing touches to my Christmas Pub Quiz, which is now set for 13th December at Chopp Fun in downtown Manaus. It could be a total disaster, but it has to be worth a try. And I’ve an old friend coming down from Boa Vista to give me a hand with this. I’ll let you know how it goes.
So generally life is fine for us, as we hope it is with all of you (sorry – getting sentimental in my old age). Au revoir.
Posts
All Comments
