The bad weather is long behind us and all we suffered were dirty windows. Not so for many others up and down the coast who lost cars, houses, some even their lives, to raging floods and pounding seas. Our thoughts are with them.
Still at home, our little Malty is nearing the end of his life. He's been with us for fifteen happy years and we shall look after him as best we can for whatever he has left in dog years (months?) The vet put him on a daily prescription of VetACE and Frudix but he's gone off his food and is losing weight.
Speaking of which, Padma bought some vegetables for tonight's dinner, including a bunch of green asparagus which are labelled PRODUCE OF MEXICO. I suppose somewhere in Mexico City is a store that sells asparagus labelled PRODUCE OF AUSTRALIA. International trade or trade gone mad?
With an election coming up, the politicians are busy lying their way through the next few weeks in order to secure another three years in power during which to milk the public purse - see here. On 2nd July we're going to be asked what we want. And what do we want? We want it to be over with because whoever we vote for, the government always gets in.
In the U.K., too, people are being ask to choose between being flooded by 500 million Turks if the EU expands to the east or the economy collapsing and everyone rooting around in rubbish bins for food. I have it on good authority that Mary Poppins supports the EU whereas Basil Fawlty is backing Brexit.
There's been little activity in the local real estate market in recent months but just now Sproxton Lane's swankiest property at Number 27 sold for $1.7 million which is a lot of money for an albeit lovely house on just 1700 square metres (sorry, 1719.9 square metres; at that price every tenth of a square metre counts).
That just leaves this 'Renovator's Delight' (which is real estate speak for "the property is dilapidated and ready to fall down"), priced at $825,000 and, of course, the seven acres of 'Riverbend', priced at whatever it takes to get me back to the tropics.
It's been such a long time since anyone showed an interest in Riverbend that I've almost forgotten what I'd do if a buyer turned up. I guess I'll cross that rickety bridge when they push my wheelchair onto it.
And that's all there is for the moment, folks. Tomorrow the long Queen's Birthday weekend starts and the river will be in flood again, but this time with all sorts of life and low-life.
