Blog Gone to the Dogs

WARNING

THIS BLOG MAY BORE THOSE WHO DON'T CARE FOR DOGS

Dog Days in Belize

Buddica

Those of you who read our blog regularly will know that Buddica is the newest addition to our family. We now have three dogs and so much of our life revolves around them that we felt that we should dedicate this blog to our dogs and some of the dogs we know.

Midas

Midas came with us from London. Her mother was a Staffordshire Bull Terrier and her father was a Hungarian Puli. For those of you unfamiliar with those breeds, here are a couple of pictures.

The dog on your left is a Staffordshire Bull Terrier. This one looks very like Midas's mum. The dog on your right is a Hungarian Puli, sometimes called a 'rasta dog'. Anyone who knows these breeds and knows Midas realise that she is much more Puli than Staffie.

Midas's pedigree was in the free advertising paper in London called LOOT. She was born on a council estate in Peckham, South London and she seemed so sweet when we collected her. She quickly became known as 'Feral Sheryl' and 'Prawn of Satan'.

Years later, we bundled her into a plane and flew her first to the USA, where she spent some time on St. Simons Island getting used to the heat and used to the sea. Then we brought her to Belize. She stayed with us at the remarkable Jungle Dome near Belmopan, where there happened to be a couple of dogs that also came from South London. They taught her the ropes and then we brought her to San Pedro.

Midas rests after a hard day

Midas is the spoiled one in the household. Her life revolves around hunting swimming, diving off of docks, finding dead disgusting things to roll in or eat and catching crabs and lizards.

She sleeps in our bed at night and generally gets what she wants. If she doesn't get it quickly enough, she whines and whines and whines until you start to understand why people shake their children to death.

Midas's favourite spot for catching ticks

Midas entertains tourists and locals alike by jumping off of the docks and into the Caribbean Sea. She is fearless and often swims alongside sting rays that are much larger than her. Sometimes we swim with her and she loves that. Midas is very friendly, sweet and obedient and extremely irritating. She often stinks and has to be hosed down every day. She is weirdly intelligent and often looks like she is trying to form words. That can be frightening.

We don't just want to bore you with just our spoiled dog's lives, so we want to tell you a bit about how other dogs live here. Most of our neighbours have dogs. In our small neighbourhood of about 12 houses, there are just as many dogs. Some of them are kept under control, but most roam the neighbourhood turning over rubbish bins, fighting with other dogs, getting run over, shitting everywhere and mating with anything that will stand still long enough.

Many, in our neighbourhood, are owned by foreigners (not Belizean), who seem to think that this is OK. Obviously, we have moved here from a country obsessed, anally retentive and ridiculous about its dogs to a country where people value other things. We have no doubt that most people here can't quite believe how we behave with our dogs. We pick up after them, keep them on a lead near the road, brush them and walk them regularly. But there is defintely a change we have observed about the way many people keep their dogs here and if the local grooming parlour is anything to go by (it is called Pampered Paws and it always very busy) then people are starting to change the way that they keep their dogs here. There certainly are a bunch of different breeds appearing here. We saw an adorable pair of French Bulldogs just the other day. We've seen Weimeraners, Pit bulls, Boxers, Sharpei, Chows, an Elkhound, Pugs, lots of Chihuhuas unsurprisingly, a Visla, Greyhounds, Italian Greyhounds, German Shepherds, Rottweilers, Dobermanns, Schnauzers, Yorkies, a Schipperke and a whole bunch of other dogs since we've lived here. The local cross breed is known as a "pot licker'.

There are two dogs that live at the Town Board lot, which is very near to us. They follow the garbage truck every day on its rounds. They must be two of the healthiest, handsomest dogs you'll see on the island. They run, eat and shag all day. No doubt they have fathered hundreds of puppies. It doesn't appear that anyone owns them, they sort of have a symbiotic relationship with the garbage men it seems. They guard the truck at night and get to follow the truck all day.

They may not have very long life spans as heart worm is virulent here. Dogs, in general, don't live long and not many people know about or can afford heartworm treamtent. In fact, Octavius, our first beach dog, had a bad heartworm problem when we took him in.

Octavius

Octavius looked like he was 10 years old when we first met him. He didn't move much and slept all curled up on the doorstep of one of the beach condos we were living in at the time. They seemed to leave food and water out for him. The tourists that had been living in that condo turned up on our doorstep on the day before they left and asked us if we could feed him. They pushed $50 in to our hands and we weren't about to say no.

Once we started to feed him, we began to realise what a mess he was. All four legs were red raw and sore from some sort of skin problem. His ears were being eaten by flies and he seemed generally unwell. We were living in a small one bedroom condo - for you brits who aren't familiar with condos, it is just really another name for a flat - with our dog Midas. We were not in the position to take on another dog. But we also knew that the local humane society, SAGA http://ambergriscaye.com/sagasociety/ , was under a great deal of strain. So we decided that we would pay to have him castrated, get his vaccinations and then put him back on his beach.

We'd done some research and discovered, much to our surprise, that he was only about 18 mths old. He had been brought to the condos as a puppy by one of the security guards. He and some of the maintenance staff sort of watched him and did everything they could to encourage him to be a guard dog. Much to their dismay, tourists started feeding him. In their eyes, this made him useless and he was pretty much abandoned to make his own way with the tourists.

Many dogs here are excellent beach ruffians. They know exactly where to go to be fed and which swimming pools are easiest to drink from. They know which security guards to avoid but most of all they know that all local men on bicycles must be driven off of their beach by any and all means possible. The cutest of these dogs get adopted by tourists and flown home to whatever country they are visiting from. Some less fortunate and perhaps less attractive dogs, such as Octavius, just don't have the energy anymore to be charming.

Cycling along the beach here can be a hazard. Colette has been bitten on her bike and we often have to deal with dogs chasing us. Belizean workers, who cycle every day back and forth to work, are at war with the stray and beach dogs. The dogs attack them and chase them and they in turn, either develop amazing cycling techniques to avoid being bitten, threaten violence or use violence. We watched one of our next door neighbours puppies grow from a newborn, timid, sweet little thing that wouldn't say boo to a goose into a certified, paid up, expert bicycle chaser. We often here the kerfuffle as she attacks passing cyclists, sometimes followed by yelping as the biker hits target with a kick or a stone. We hope she doesn't get chopped by a machete as this often happens to dogs here that chase bikes.

We discovered that Octavius, who used to be known as Blackie (but somehow we couldn't bring ourselves to walk around calling our dog Blackie), had also been a top cycle chaser in better days. He didn't seem to have the strength when we met him.

Octavius is a handsome beast

It took us several weeks of feeding him before we could get him into the house. We ruined the process slightly as we had to put drops onto his ears to stop the flies from eating them. Well, Colette managed to get the drops on once and he wouldn't come near her for days. We tried to get him onto a golf cart but he panicked and he screamed if we tried to put a leash on him.

So, the vet offered to come over and put him under at our place so that we could load him onto a cart and get him into the surgery. We'd put some weight on him and he was looking better, so he was ready for surgery. This was all planned with military precision. Oh well.

Octavius disappeared. A week went by and we were sad and giving up on him when he reappeared. He was thinner than he'd been before. He was covered in wounds, one in particular completely punturing his top lip, but he seemed strangely content. Clearly there had been a bitch in heat somewhere and he'd had a good week.

So, we set about getting him back in shape for surgery and the day finally came. He went to the vet with balls and came back with none. He spent the night in the condo and then he seemed to want to stay. He wasn't a very attractive dog at the time, with oozing sores, missing teeth, a wonky eye and very bad breath and we really didn't want another dog. So we told ourselves that he should go back to living on the beach and we'd keep an eye on him.

What we hadn't reckoned on was that now that he was strong and healthy, he was more than capable of taking on any cyclist or jogger that happened to pass. And the more time he spent with us, the more this territorial behaviour began to extend to any situation we found ourselves in. He followed us everywhere, for miles, waiting for us for hours outside shops and restaurants. He was quickly becoming our dog and he was a huge liability. Even if we didn't want him to be our dog, anyone who saw him with us who had a complaint about him reckoned that he was ours. After all, we fed him - that pretty much makes you a dog's owner in Belize.

Eventually after complaints from neighbours and our own common sense kicking in, we realised we had to make a decision. Either he was our dog or he wasn't. Now that he was known as a cycle chaser, we knew they'd have problems finding a home for him at SAGA, so we resigned ourselves to keeping him.

Putting him on a leash and keeping him in the condo exacerbated his aggression towards certain types of people and his territorial behaviour, but we decided that managed properly, it would be very good security for us. His reputation was well established and he could be frightening and formidable.

A not very scary, sneezing Octavius

It has taken some time, but he is now an absolute babe. Other than the white hair everywhere, he is a perfect house dog. He is a very frightening watch dog and we know he will bite. Now he doesn't have to be put away when our friends come round. The new house and big garden have relaxed him and given him confidence. Either way, having a good guard dog is not a bad thing. Dealing with the heartworms was unpleasant and worrying, but after coughing up blood and worms for a few months, he shows no symptoms anymore. The bad breath is about the only thing we have to suffer.

Octavius - From Homeless to Housepet

So we're just settling in to our new home and Colette arrives with another dog. This one, covered in ticks, scrawny and hyperactive, seems to be the dog that she fell in love with. It is easy to work out why.

Buddica shows off her 'flat' command

Buddica has now been spayed and has all of her vaccinations. She is learning how to walk on the leash, but she is so strong that we are using a great tool called the Halti Harness. She is learning the basics but has shown a great propensity and enjoyment for trick training. She is extremely smart and takes great pleasure in working out how to do the things she is being taught not to do. For one, she isn't allowed in the bedroom. So she slowly works her body past the boundary to see how far she can get.

One paw in the bedroom

She is not supposed to get on the furniture.

Does this count as furniture?

The other dogs are supposed to be acting as role models.

Were you trying to relax?

But her new tricks are so cute, that she is hard to resist. (and for those interested, Colette is using a clicker for the tricks)

Buddica attempts tap dancing. Tightrope walking is next.

Buddica demonstrates enthusiastically how to do two tricks at once

Praying and waving

For those of you who haven't seen a dog pray before, here is another chance

For those of you who prefer waving, here is another chance to see that

People often ask us if the dogs get along. Having a puppy in the house has been great for all of them. They all play for hours in the garden and wear eachother out. It is hilarious to watch and gives us endless entertainment and laughs. Buddica does steal the toilet paper and she rearranges the garden every night, but the pleasure that we and the other dogs get out of her balances it all out.

Midas and Buddica putting the world to rights

Three dogs and eleven coconuts

But we must remind you that our dogs are loved, beyond reason and cared for. Not all dogs in Belize are so fortunate. Below is a picture of a little dog saved by the SAGA Society in San Pedro. Unbelievably, the people from whom she was rescued wanted her back. Obviously that never happened. So, if you are ever feeling like helping, get in touch and we'll tell you how you can help dogs in Belize.

It's a Jungle Out There

"The cockroach and the bird were both here long before we were. Both could get along very well without us, although it is perhaps significant that of the two the cockroach would miss us more." -- Joseph Wood Krutch, (1893 - 1970) US naturalist, conservationist, writer

We now have a yard; land that we own outright. It feels different. It feels good. It's a bloody jungle out there. But before we get to that, we'd like to introduce you to Buddica, our new family member.

Colette was on the beach walking our other two dogs, Midas and Octavius. This pup came running over. Octavius can be an old grump at times, particularly as this beach used to 'belong' to him. Colette asked some tourists to hold the pup until she passed but then had second thoughts. Colette is one that believes in love at first sight with dogs and it seems this is what happened here.

Buddica a brave warrior princess

Not long before we left the UK, Squidge, the doggy love of Colette's life died of a rare brain disease. He was a handsome chap. She has missed him greatly and it looks like this new pup may fill the void.

Squidge - Gone but never forgotten

Buddica had clearly been neglected and was infested with literally hundreds of ticks. We've never seen anything like it. Honestly, it was like a horror movie. She laid down on the tile floor and they started evacuating her body. Hundreds of them. Before we knew it they were climbing the walls, small black specks all over the walls and rapidly moving upwards. You couldn't walk without hearing a noise like bubble wrap as they popped under your feet, leaving blood stains behind.

We were frantic, killing them individually, spraying them, sweeping them into piles for mass slaughter. As Midas has already had one bout of Tick Fever here (also known as Erlichosis), we were particularly concerned. For those of you who have pets and are thinking of bringing them here, Tick Fever is something you need to educate yourself about. We know of several dogs that have been brought from abroad and have succumbed to this disease because their owner didn't catch the symptoms early enough. You can get some basic info here http://www.familyvet.com/ehrlic.htm

Anyway, the horror continued as we discovered that her tick infestation was heaviest in her ears. Maya bravely tackled the ear ticks but there were so many that it was soul destroying, so we decided to take the pup to the local grooming parlour, Pampered Paws. This is run by a lovely woman, Kathy, who has become a friend. We'd also like to thank Sharon (aka Shazza) for lending us her golf cart for emergency puppy issues. They cleaned her up beautifully and she came home with no ticks, but covered in scabs left behind. She perked up amazingly.

Of course we made sure that the grooming parlour/petshop and the local vet/humane society had a picture of her in case anyone had lost her, but so far - no one has claimed her. She's now had her first set of vaccinations and will go in to be 'fixed' as they say around here in a week or so more. More pictures will come in future blogs.

You can never expect the expected in Belize. At least that is what we've discovered. Buddica slept through her second night here and I woke up to find a very happy, proud puppy next to the carcass of a beautiful green iguana that had been living in our trees. Here was the most recent picture of him.

RIP Mr Iguana

Colette was very sad but wanted to dispose of the carcass before Maya woke up. She got a shovel, put it out of the gate and then broke the news to Maya. We were all sad, but Maya went to get on with gardening, arriving back into the house 10 minutes later explaining how she had found the iguana's stomach. Colette had thought the puppy must have eaten the stomach so didn't look for it when she disposed of the rest of the carcass, but poor Maya found it.

Then about two hours later, Colette hears Maya scream from the garden 'GET THE DOGS INSIDE'. Not knowing what was going on, Colette gathered the dogs inside and went back out. Maya says 'There is a huge snake out here'. Colette thinks 'Maya is scared of snakes and exaggerating'. So she wanders down in her bare feet and dressing gown to find this:

Oh dear, this snake is rather large

No exaggeration. This was a big snake. Colette has worked with invertebrates in the past and has handled snakes and lizards and wasn't very frightened. So she pulled the planks off the snake and he suddenly looked even bigger.

What on earth are we going to do with this?

The thick piece of wood next to him is a 4x4 to give you some idea of his thickness. Anyway, Colette has a look at the snake closely and it doesn't look too well. Probably in slough - about to lose its skin. During this period, snakes are vulnerable and blind during part of the process.

Closed eyes and dry skin

We were pretty sure that he wouldn't survive our dogs and anyway we were worried that the area is getting pretty built up. Many Belizeans are understandably scared of snakes. Given that Belize is the home to one of the most deadly snakes, called the Fer de Lance, locally known as the Tommygoff it is hardly surprising. Apparently there are none on Ambergris Caye, but the fear runs deep amongst Belizeans and rather than wait to discover whether a snake is deadly or not, they tend to just 'chop' them all. Machetes being the weapon of choice. We also have a group of horrible little kids (these being exceptions as most children we know in Belize are wonderful) who chase down wildlife in the neighbourhood, torment and kill it. Bored little boy behaviour. So, we thought it was better for the snake if we rescued and relocated him. We're not sure what the snake thought, but by this time, he was getting seriously pissed off and started hissing.

It is amazing how hissing has such a strong primeval effect. It makes your hair stand on end and gets your adrenalin going. Maya is genuinely scared of snakes, so this was going to be very interesting. The first thing Colette did was get a big dog kennel.

Welcome to your temporary home

Then, in true Crocodile Dundee style, she wrangled the snake with a long piece of wood, head first into the crate.

Arrghh he's coming back out again

He was a big snake, he was an angry snake and it was no easy task. Finally Colette managed to get the rest of his body in. Colette did all of this in her dressing gown.
Gratuitous picture showing Colette's lovely Gap dressing gown (thanks to Smiley and Kate for the gift)

We then carried the crate into the office. Maya was nearly having a heart attack. So, Mr. Snake went to live in our office for the next few days for observation and Colette got some advice from people in the know.

You would think that was simply enough excitement for one day. So did we. But at about 9 at night we heard the puppy yelling in the garden as if she had been hurt. She was also barking like crazy. So out we go, at this time of night in our underwear and bare feet. Out into the dark.

Puppy has cornered one of our Giant Blue Land Crabs. These buggers are big and very aggressive. They are also rather comical. When we moved onto this land, we were aware that there were 20 - 30 large crabs living here. They dig big, deep burrows, which are a nuisance. Otherwise, they aren't much trouble. We had been talking to people and gathering advice for dealing with them. Our Belizean friends told us that they were good to eat. Some told us to wait up at night and shoot them with a pellet gun. Others recommended digging them out. And yet other advice said to fill their holes with water forcing them out. Maya had taken on the rather passive aggressive method of filling their holes every day to make their lives difficult.

So now it is night time, we have three over excited dogs who all want to earn their bravery awards by taking on a crab. Eventually we decide to use a shovel. So between Maya and Colette screaming at the dogs to back off, giggling hysterically, shrieking ocassionally it must have been quite a sight to behold. Colette finally got the crab onto the shovel and then flung him over the fence. Upon doing so, both Colette and Maya covered their heads as Colette has notorious bad aim and we both expected the crab to land on us. Fortunately the technique worked. It was only afterwards that we wondered if we had thrown the crab into our neighbour's truck. Whoops.

Actually, they are interesting creatures and here is a good story about them http://www.nieworld.com/special/endangered/story07.htm. They are eaten commonly here but unfortunately we are two scared of them to try to get one into the pot.

Well over the past week, with the new pup developing her killer crab hunting skills, we have evicted another four crabs. Last night we scored two. One of them was the biggest crab in the universe. We are sure of it. He was so big that the shovel method wouldn't work as he was too big to sit in the scoop. So Colette had to get him to grab the shovel and then quickly fling him into the mop bucket. Unfortunately, the mop bucket was not big enough to allow us to get hold of the handle without being attacked by the vicious land crab - who we had been alerted to by the puppy's pained shrieks as she bravely fought him. So we had to use the shovel to get the bucket out of the gate. Here is a picture of a crab caught earlier this week in the daytime, to give you an idea.

The poor puppy now looks like we enter her in dog fights. She's got little pincer wounds all over her face. She seems ever so proud of her new vocation though and we have committed to going down whenever we hear her bark as she is very reliable. Once we got rid of the gigantic monsterous crab, the dogs discovered a gigantic monsterous toad. Toads can be toxic here and dogs can die if they eat them. So we had to escort Mr. Toad off the premises. Trying the shovel method proved pointless as the toad just jumped off, clearly higher on the evolutionary scale than a land crab. So we employed gentle toad herding methods that seemed to work. For those of you reading this and worrying, we won't mention that we haven't evicted our resident tarantula as he seems to be able to stay so still when the dogs are around that he is virtually invisible. If they discover him and start bothering him, he'll have to go too.

In between all of this, we monitored the snake, who seemed to improve although he never shed his skin. We decided that since he seemed stronger, we would relocate him. Our lovely neighbour, Wade, used his truck to assist in the project. Yes, this is the same truck we thought we had landed our crab in earlier in the week. Wade confirmed that no crab had been discovered. So we're safe. Although we're sure we hit our other neighbour's house with one last night as it was flung over the fence.

So, we covered the cage, loaded it, hissing loudly into the truck and then drove to a heavily wooded area near the dump. We thought that a dump would be a place teeming with rats and that this would make our serpenty guest very happy.

Colette says soothing words to Mr. Snake

We tipped him out of the box and then stood and watched as he slithered into the woods looking back and hissing at us for effect. Just for those who don't know, Boas can and do bite when threatened. They are not venomous, but can cause a nasty bite with fangs at the back of their mouth, designed for holding prey in place.

Bye bye Mr. Snake. Have a great life.

So, special thanks to Mother Nature for keeping us busy and entertained.

Belize, our new home.

"A little Madness in the Spring is wholesome even for the King."

- Emily Dickinson

Our house is finished, except for some finishing and repairs. We've moved in and it is glorious. We still might be a bit mad many seem to think. Two and a half years ago we had two properties and successful careers in London.

Now we have one house in Belize. Right now, we are spending all of our time and energy on the house, meanwhile trying not to spend too much money. It is amazing how quickly a project like this can swallow cash.

We have some pictures of the inside, without our furniture, before we moved in. I know that many of you have asked us to put up pics of the inside with furniture, but blogging is an interesting thing in terms of your home and privacy, so all you'll get here are pics before we moved in. If you want to see it now, you'll have to drop in, or email and ask nicely for some private pics.

Entrance and Kitchen

Doors to back porch and dining area

Bedroom

Shower tiling

Super cool Jetsons style lighting

We have to be honest and warn everyone that we don't have a guest room. The house has one bedroom and a bathroom upstairs. We have an office and bathroom downstairs, but we didn't finish work on the bathroom so that we could spend money elsewhere in the house. We do not have a sofa bed.

So, if you want to come and visit and stay with us you'll have to bring an air bed or a tent. Camping on the roof might be quite fun. In fact, our roof can be seen from this aerial picture, taken by Colette when she went to Belize City to collect our shipment from England. All of our worldly possessions.

A free Belikin to the first one to spot our roof

Colette had to go over to meet our trusty customs broker George. He really is wonderful and did a brilliant job. Message us if you need a good customs broker in Belize. Once we have cleared customs, our items are shipped by boat to San Pedro. Our shipment arrived in two big crates and they had to send a little Bobcat forklift truck to help get them off the truck. We had been moving house and emptying boxes all day. When this arrived at 5:30pm when we were just about to relax, we nearly died. But we piled in and emptied the crates by 10:00pm.

All our worldly goods

May is Mothers' Day time. In San Pedro, the Mothers are treated like queens for a day with a huge Mother's Day Extravaganza held in Central Park. Food, drinks and entertainment were laid on by San Pedro Town Council for nearly 800 mothers. Colette was honoured to have been asked to assist. She worked as a server along with other volunteers. She managed to drag along her friend's son, Junior as he was visiting San Pedro from his home in Ladyville on the mainland. Most of the volunteers were highschool kids from San Pedro High and Colette was supposed to organise the serving of food and drinks to a table seating 70 women. Colette had Junior and two lovely helpers from the Highschool. Colette has not served a table for over 20 years so she spent a lot of time apologising and offering to get napkins for various ladies.

Delightful Miss San Pedro welcomes Mothers

'I love you Mom' Gifts for all Mothers

Preparing for a whole lot of Mothers

On the other hand, the kids from the High School were on the ball. Junior and the two girls (yes Colette's team of servers consisted of four) were amazing and it was apparent that all of the Mothers had a wonderful evening. When the Mothers arrived they were greeted by Miss San Pedro (we apologise for the deterioration of photo quality but Colette's little digital has nearly died) and given a gift. They were then seated by a local dignitary. Meanwhile, the servers went crazy taking orders and bringing drinks. After over 750 were seated, with extra tables and chairs having to be found because so many attended, a turkey dinner was served. Then the tables had to be cleared in preparation for dessert. Meanwhile, there were various prizes and competitions involving Mothers jumping up and running around a lot. Hilarious, absolute chaos but organised and everything went smoothly.

The High School Boys give the Mothers a treat

But just for a moment, think about organising a meal for over 750 women, with unlimited alcohol available to them, using only teenage volunteers and it all going off without a hitch. Unbelievable. We do love our little island and what it can accomplish.

How many Mothers?

On that note, we've been observing our local elementary school develop. They are called Ambergris Caye Elementary School and we think they are great. We know a lot of the kids and their parents. The school is adorable, run incredibly well, the kids are very well behaved and happy and they have just installed this fantastic adventure playground for the kids.

School is not available for free to children here. Many churches run schools, which subsidise the costs heavily to make an education available to most. There are also a number of other private schools on the island, Ambergris Caye Elementary being one of them. Just because it is private does not mean the children have wealthy parents. Many parents work two and three jobs to keep their kids in school and have high aspirations for their children. Things are changing and the quality of the schools are improving. Also, many children are supported by wealthier members of the community, local charities and the schools themselves through scholarship programmes.

A playground worth screaming about and do they scream

Now that we have our precious belongings, we've been able to go through our old photo albums. We thought you'd enjoy seeing these old pictures of us. Can you guess which one is Maya and which one is Colette?

A few other things before we sign off. We'd like to thank our friends for their amazing patience with us during this house building project. We have been no - shows at so many parties that we're sure we are now on the Z list. We love our friends here on San Pedro and abroad and really appreciate your support.

We'd like to thank the lovely Capt Jeff yet again for allowing us to fill our freezer with fish. He is a great fisherman, friend and we love him.

Finally, we'd like to thank The Tudors for being the sexiest, most beautiful and dramatic show on TV for a long time. If you haven't watched it - do!

The tawdry and terrific Tudors

February Retox and March Madness

Home is Where the Heart is

This amazing series from the Lunar Eclipse on the 20th of Feb 2008 was taken by Maya

Life has been a whirlwind recently. Colette had to take off to London for two weeks in February and that threw us all out of sorts. Both of us were dreading it. Colette, because traveling always makes her ill and the weather was freezing in the UK and Maya because she was going to have to deal with the house project all on her own.

We both had our adventures in those two weeks. Maya of course, fished. Big thanks to the wonderful men in our life, Bill and Capt Jeff, for making the these fishing days possible. The deep sea fish with Dilzon was an absolute adventure with swells of six - ten feet. Maya says the boat literally kept going straight up at a 90 degree angle and then WHAM, it would hit the water again. Colette was pleased she wasn't around to experience this particular day out.

This is Maya holding Bill's Wahoo (does that sound rude?)

This is Maya holding the Jack that she caught.

This is what Jack steaks look like.

Meanwhile Colette arrived in London and stayed with her great friends Anna, Pete and Vanessa. It was very hectic and full of entertaining social events. Just after Colette arrived, Anna had a brilliant success with her PR campaign for Litter Kwitter. Oh yes, we must share with you about this interesting product. It assists you in teaching your pussy to poop on the pot. If you really want to see this amazing device, check out http://www.litterkwitter.com/en/index.php . She actually somehow got Ricky Gervais to plug it on the Richard and Judy Show. Hilarious.

Anna watches a cat using the Litter Kwitter on TV

Within two days, Anna had roped Colette into appearing on an daytime TV show - for those Brits reading this it was the Alan Titchmarsh Show. Colette was helping her to plug another amazing animal invention called the Paw Plunger, http://www.pawplunger.co.uk/ . The world is full of these amazing things that you just can' t live without.

Some of Colette's mates organised a surprise drink in town. That was the beginning of the end for her liver. Almost every day, friends organised drinks. Tons of them. Mostly red wine. Colette sends her love and thanks to all of her wonderful friends for helping to keep her drunk throughout her stay. Petey, Anna, Vanessa, Smiley, Sam, Carolyn & Caroline, Roger (the lingerie idea is a winner), Chamois, Ingrid, Hilary and everyone else who will probably now be offended that they weren't mentioned. You guys are true British heroes. Well except for Ingrid, who is a Spanish hero.

Colette reports that London is still cold, grey and dirty although traffic seems to have definitely improved. The weirdest thing was that no one spoke English. A huge influx of Eastern Europeans and people from other countries has made London feel like a foreign country. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be quite difficult when you asking for directions to the Post Office and no one can help you.

While Colette was away, the house continued under the careful supervision of Maya. It will be weeks before we move in. We can finally unpack. Both of us have come a long way. We can't wait.

Stucco day at Mermaid Manor

The living room looking towards the kitchen.

The bedroom.
The screened porch.

Back of the house

The Magnificent Mermaid Manor.

Maya finished another one of her paintings. This one is of the fish god.

Fish God

Colette arrived back from London and went straight into the Belize International Airport restaurant. She ordered Stew Chicken and smothered her rice and beans with Marie Sharps, so much so that the waitress warned her to go easy. Home truly is where the heart is and our hearts are in Belize.