Letter from Manila - Santol - of course!

Wouldn't you get more meat off something heavier and more solidly built like a Mastiff?

So, another day of just not quite moving...

But first, I was lying on the bed reading last evening when it felt like someone had crept in a kicked it, hard. "What the f...?" Then things got a bit wobbly for a few seconds before calming down again and normality resumed. Aye, a seismic event or, in laymans terms, a bloody earthquake. According to the SMS I received, it was 5.4 with the epicentre a coupla hundred Kms north. Not the first, but probably the biggest jolt I've had so far.

Shouldn't complain too much though, According to Philvolcs, the gov't department that does this stuff, www.phivolcs.dost.gov.ph/html/update_SOEPD/EQLatest.html
there were 28 such "events" of varying magnitude around the country. And that was just yesterday!

Anyway, what did we do before the earth moved for me?

Well, whilst awaiting Madam to arrive, we went up the car-wash to swill away weeks of Tondo crud off the '38. Most of these places here are just dotted about on any old bit of wasteland but just around the corner is this...


a big purpose build joint with space for around ten vehicles at a guess. Three guys working on it, inside and out, first class job, three quid! It was 50pee for the rather excellent cup of coffee.

Looks a little better...


The one thing that won't photograph is the bonnet. It's a mess and now scratched to hell where the little angels wrote, gouged, slid and bounced balls off it. I'll try a cutting and then a colour match polish but I have a feeling it won't be enough. At least now she's safely locked away from further harm. Unless the building falls on it of course!

So then it was a takeaway burger from Zark's for me lunch. And still no Madam. Let's make a call.

"Ah, darling, we hire jeepney so can bring everything at once." Hmm, I'd suggested this the other day but the idea was pooh-poohed as unnecessary. Never mind.

I retired up the road for a cold one or two and returned home to await developments.

At nine p.m. the hateful Fortuner pulls up, some boxes are unloaded and that's that. "What about jeepney, Kuya?" I enquire. "Ah Sir, tomorrow Sir, Tondo full of armed police today" Of course it is.

Seems someone was brandishing a pistol around and this, in Mr Duterte's Philippines, along with living in Mindanao, is not considered conducive to long life. Anyway, guy dealt with, so maybe the actual move will be today? Who knows! I've asked them to bring Pup 1 over whatever else happens. I'm missing me little lad!

But in the meantime, the sofa has been joined by two friends...


Progress of sorts?

Oh, and a little bar report. Night before last i stepped out to have a brief look around the locale and see what's what. First up was Plato's (it's on the map) which was reasonably busy but not overly so. After twenty minutes, I gave up and came away, swearing never to darken the doors again. This was soon to be revised. I then went into the little bar that opens at "...five...or seven" for a look see. All beams, dark wood, long bar. Couldn't get a picture as the place is lit with green fairy lights which give a slight absence of dark rather than illumination, but okay. Did I ever mention that I hate videoke? I hate it with a passion. I hate it more than children who scratch my bonnet. I'd not been there for more than ten minutes, been offered three girls, "...to sit with you" when up sparks the dreaded KTV. Dear God, please no. He wasn't paying attention. I finished my beer and came home.

Still a few more to go at yet, but what I'm looking for is somewhere that opens earlier, a la Adriatico. I've always been a lunchtime or early doors type of guy and these places that don't open until late are just no good to me.

In the words of Jonnie, "Keep walking".

You've got all this spare time, clearly.
Time to start brewing your own.

Exciting times sir.
And it could have been worse.
What if they had a ready supply of boys to sit with you?
Or even the "I'm not quite sure what they are" to sit with you?
Also.
Thank deity of choice for pup 1. Company and beer finding par excellence

Beer is very easy to make, the hardest part of the whole process is working out how to store it. :-P

Wurt kits are the simplest,you just dump it in a fermenter with some yeast and leave it be for 4-5 days.

Bottle or keg it, and then you've got 20l of beer to help motivate you to make the next brew.

Kumusta George?

Mabuti ba kayo lahat dyan? Kumusta ang lagay nyo sa bago nyong sa bago nyong bahay? Maligaya ako na sa bago nyong bahay.

Wag kalimutan uminom ng malamig na redhorse

Only thing that would ferment in 35C is saison, but would end up pretty funky. For nice lawnmower type beverages, you'd want to keep it at around 14C if using a lager yeast.

You'd need a fridge with a temp controller and probe on it. I picked up a pre-wired one for about $50 and a chest freezer for about the same. I can ferment 3x25L batches at once. Considering I've made a couple of stronger belgian batches, (ie Leffe Bruhn and Chimay Red) for around $20 for the pair, it's pretty good economy. But may not workout the same if you're buying litre bottles of San Mig for next to nothing.

Well, we’re in. At last.

Unfortunately, what should have been a cause for celebration has been tinged with a bit of sadness.

I spoke to Madam on the phone on Sunday morning and she said she had something to tell me but wouldn’t elaborate any further, insisting it should be face-to-face.

Sunday afternoon, a fruit and veg lorry pulled up outside and I found it had been pressed into service as a removal truck. Anyway we started to unload and I turned to Madam and asked where Jey-Ann (the eldest Bottle Opener) was. She asked me to sit down and, whilst a team of guys shuttled back and forth, she told me what had happened.

Seems that since I’d been at the new house, our J-A had got a bit giddy with her new-found freedom and decided that she’d fallen in love with one of Tondo’s bigger halfwits who I’d warned her to stay away from. She’d started sneaking out when Madam was asleep, leaving the front door unlocked (a very large no-no in Tondo – especially with recent events) and spending the night hanging around with tosser and his mates. Madam, naturally, objected.

Now, you may remember that J-A isn’t ours, in that she’s Madam’s daughter Tania’s elder cousin, so we have no rights or hold on her. We’ve just given her a home, love and education for the last five years, but she’s suddenly decided that her father, who she hasn’t spoken to for a donkey’s age, is a wonderful person and she wants to go back home. I feel it has more to do with the fact that he’s’ too drunk all the time to care less that she’s about to jump into bed with our hero, whereas I was just a little anti. So she’s got a free rein now.

The wibblepoo in question is 16, never been to school, can’t read or write, built like a stick, spends all night playing computer games and all day in bed. Not only that, he’s a coward who likes to start trouble but then depends on his mates to finish it for him. He tried to cause mither outside the house on Tania’s birthday but the guy he picked on turned out to be a bit handy and provided a good hiding, after which our hero sobbed his way home. Little loser.

So that’s that. She’s packed and gone. No more school - so much for being a doctor, back living in a slum, a penniless unemployable drunk to look after her, with just some work on her mother’s market stall two days a week and a “relationship” with a complete no-hoper. What a waste.

Unfortunately, in order to make out she’s the injured party, half the true tale seems to have disappeared and J-A is Snow White whilst Madam is being portrayed as the Wicked Witch of the East to the rest of the cockroach family who are, of course, lapping it up and have all become Facebook keyboard warriors, with some real vitriol flying around. Unfortunately this is the family’s way, to run from problems, to cheat, to steal, to stab in the back, to sneak around, to lie, anything rather than face up honestly to things or people, so I shouldn’t be surprised. Well, she’s in good company now.

Anyway, they say love is blind and she obviously can’t bear the thought of coming back to Malate and leaving him, so we’ll probably be able to watch her command performance on PinayPornDaddy, or some such, as he films her so he can prove to his mates he’s done it. That’s about his style.

On the bright side, it only means one lot of school fees to pay, but on the down, it means I’ve lost a fully trained brake bleeder and will have to start again with Tania!

So yeah, good and bad.

She won’t be coming back. What’s she going to do? Walk out whenever she doesn’t get her own way and cause another shitstorm of trouble every time? Sorry, I’m too old for this teenage angst curse word.

Had she been honest and just said, "Daddy George won't let me bonk this a-hole but my Papa won't care" then fine, but no, let's stir up a load of grief as well.

A few weeks ago, we had a long talk about choices and decisions, about how they have impacts and effects on other people, both good and bad. Well now she’s doing the practical.

And no, I don’t even gain a room. The girls always shared, so unless I can ship Tania off...