1st december

I wake up at 5am – I was actually quite cold. When the sky is clear during the night, the heat escapes. And the roof of the house has a gap of a few inches for the same reason so all of a sudden it’s like sleeping outdoors. The thin bed sheets are designed for the average temperature, which is about twenty-two Celsius, and so are no good when the temperature drops. I get out of bed half an hour later and go downstairs to get a coffee. I glance out the window and see a bank of clouds approaching on a steady roll from behind Over’s house. The day is about to begin rainy and miserable. At least the tap water is clear again.
There’s definitely something going on with the time factor here. I know my body clock is out of sync but my perception of time elapsing is really messed up. I’ve always been good at guessing the current time and guessing at how much time has passed even when I am asleep. Last night, I woke up and went to the toilet thinking it was about 3am – it was 10pm and I’d been asleep about 1 hour. It isn’t the first time – it happens when I’m awake too. Maybe it’s because I’m at the equator and I’m spinning faster. Maybe it’s because the water is spinning down the plughole in a different direction. Maybe it’s because of the Olympics…
I think the reason for the wet weather and the cold night is that the wind has changed ninety degrees. It’s a strange thing because there is a prevailing wind here from the Caribbean and it’s the first time I have noticed it change direction. It isn’t supposed to be cold here.
The sun burns through some of the gaps in the clouds and the patches of blue grow until the clouds are in the minority, shrinking with shame at their inability to stand up to a silly yellow disc. I trek down one of the trails and get lost even though that part of the forest has the road on two sides, a loggers trail on the far side and the creek bounding it on the fourth side. I should have been able to orientate from there.
Late morning - Dave Sr. and Blair turn up. Dave and I went to overlook the vanilla via the back way rather than going part way down the road, which entails driving back down the road, past the school, and down a lane and using a locked gate at the back of the plantation. We drive in and Over meets us there, unloading a couple of sacks from the back of the wide, white jeep. He’s trying phosphates or something to get the vanilla to flower and it seems to be working. He can see some buds forming. He had Over telling him which lines had been treated and which hadn’t.
He had picked up Blair on the way back - he had come along to get the rest of his FGGM books and whatever other stuff was left that belonged to them. It was very much a flying visit. Dave finished quickly and took Blair and I back into Puerto Viejo.
On the way back into town, Dave looks at one of the houses about three kilometres from the farm which had a chestnut horse tethered outside it.
“Oh that’s a surprise,” he declares. “I thought he’d skip town,”
“Who?” I ask.
“The guy who lives there used to work for me. I had to sack him. Then I had some stuff taken from the farm, lawnmowers and things. He was seen by Over. The police are involved and the case comes up in March and Over is the main witness. I expected him to skip town. It’s a good thing that you’re at the house Dave, because it lets people know that Over is not alone and that the farm is manned even when over is not around. Probably makes Over feel safer too.”
He slows at another point on a rise where the foliage by the side of the road thins enough to allow us to see the horizon.
“Where?”
“Just there. All of it. The horizon. That’s Nicaragua. About forty kilometres.”
I look across where he is pointing. Through the gap, the ground levels off alarmingly at the bottom of the slope and all the way to the horizon is a carpet of forest.
He drops Blair off at the house he rents with Harmony, and I alight on the main road and walk to the Internet café. Dave goes home. I check my emails then walk back to the main parade of shops by the football pitch, getting a sumptuous burger for six hundred colones - around seventy pence, dodging the begging woman as I did so. I sit on a bench outside the burger shop, pitch side, extolling to myself the finer points of my unexpected - but highly welcome - culinary revelation. A couple of teams appear from somewhere and start stretching and doing warm-up exercises. Being a connoisseur of the art of football, and congratulating myself on my timing, I thought I would watch.
It takes me back to my days as a player in the Sunday leagues and all those astonishing examples of fat, thin, old, young, knock-kneed, wheezing, leggy, colicky, short-sighted, beer bellied, bow-legged, post hangover’d hackers and general ‘escape acts from the wife’ that comprised the weekly miracle that is known as Sunday league football. That is to say, the coming together of thousands and thousands of men up and down the country to play through the most inhospitable of weathers on quagmires on a Sunday morning in the name of their love for the beautiful game, or I suppose, the aforementioned escape from the wife.
I think it takes them back to the hunter-gathering days of the youth of the species. (Most of what a man does has its roots in the caveman days, long lamented.) My theory is that the DNA in us all has memorised the hunter-gathering days and every now and then throws them back in our faces making us go ‘ug ug’ and ‘get primeval. After all, when does man ever get a chance to use his genetically enhanced frame for the good of all humanity now? Never, that’s when. The second half of the twentieth century emasculated man when he closed his eyes and invented a world that had very little use for him. He invented machines and processes to do his job for him, and then found himself at a loss for anything to do and nowhere did he remain useful. He has put himself out of a job. So, he symbolically chases his prey through all conditions on a Sunday morning regardless of personal pain or fitness, showing masterly endurance and fortitude to keep his family fed just to prove he still can.
Football is not a hobby. It is more than a sport. It is a ritual. Rites are involved here. It serves a primeval purpose. It should be considered ceremonial. Sunday league keeps the men of Britain happy and emotionally balanced. Sunday league keeps the families of Britain in one piece. Sunday league rocks!
After an interminable age, during which I think they were waiting for the referee, they eventually kick off. The pitch has standing water on it, the goalmouths are atrocious, and lord knows when they last saw grass – the Triassic period probably. The goalposts at this end are leaning backwards and one team only has ten players. Yep, just like Sunday league.
I am quickly developing a problem here. I just can’t decide either way and it is really bothering me. I look there and look back from one to the other but it doesn’t help. Nope, I just can’t do it! I go through all possible dimensions; up down through across and nope, I can’t discern an appreciable difference. I can’t for the life of me work out who was fatter – the referee or the goalkeeper at this end. Yep, just like Sunday league and I half expect the referee will light up a cigarette and stand in the centre circle for the next five minutes. If he starts to run, surely he will explode.
I sit and watch the game for about ten minutes and unfortunately have to get up and leave. I am watching the soccer equivalent of the worlds most annoying ring tone and I can’t stay any longer. I do some shopping at Pali and get a taxi back. I had told Dave that the next time he comes I would go back with him, spend some time with the Frisius and do some stuff etc. It means I’ll be here for another week but I’m chilled. I even told him that if he brings me some paint, I’d paint the house. He told me that it was only painted about eight months ago, which I can’t believe. It looks like it hasn’t been touched for twenty years but then, maybe that’s what the weather does – ages things quickly. Will I age quickly, I wonder briefly.
There is also the section of hillside across the road from the house that is constantly suffering from landslides so I offered to plant bamboo all over it if Over can cut me some from the big tree along the roadside. Dave hasn’t heard from Jim yet – nobody seems to know where he is. I don’t have his money yet, but I do have his laptop, brand new digital camera, shotgun and trunk full of goodies and his personal stuff so I’m sure he’ll come through. Anyway, if he doesn’t, I will shoot him with his gun, take a photo of his dead body with his camera send it to his wife in an email with his laptop.
Also, if I were going to be here for a while, it would make sense to set up a vegetable patch or garden or something to see what would grow. Have to think about that …
Half a dozen floppy eared cows are just trotting past unaccompanied by human attention…
I bought some bread today so I’ll light the stove and try to do some toast on an old grill plate thingy that I found – should be interesting. Bring on the snacks…
… hey, what about spraying insect repellent on an ant – wouldn’t that make him unpopular back at his house…
Toast was excellent although the bread isn’t terrific – the slices are quite small and they aren’t too soft. So what! I’ve just had marmite on toast in the rainforest.
I killed some big mach two-fishing rod bugs tonight that were hiding in and under the table. It was them or me, honest. I have to have a purge of these babies but I bet they’re everywhere. I got out all the crockery and cooking pans, cutlery, everything and threw it all out onto the table, emptying all the milk pails too. I took everything from the tops of the windowsill and gave the sills a scrub, then washed the articles and replaced them I took the stuff that was hanging on the wall and washed them before replacing them, having dislodged and non-rent paying spiders I found. I washed, scrubbed, and dusted everything I could find and then replaced everything minus bugs and stuff.
Then I took the table apart and found these things. It really was the perfect place for them to park themselves – not far to a meal, after all. When I dismantled the table into its constituent parts, a couple of the mach two’s fell to the floor and vanished and another couple scuttled their ghastly selves around the table at mach two to hide within the frame. I just put the table back together, crushing them. I don’t like killing anything but they move so fast they’re impossible to trap and throw out the door and I know they’re finding ways into my food – its them or me! Anyway, insects should not be allowed to be that big – they’re too ugly!