19th november

I woke up at 5:40am. Ha! Take that Over! I’m ready for you this time.
Maybe I’ll get dressed quickly and go and see if he is up yet. I head downstairs to the kitchen where there is a layer of white ash everywhere - I clean up. It’s funny how while you’re sitting there, entranced and allured by the glow of a real fire, you don’t notice yourself slowly getting covered in the stuff but judging by the state of everything else in the kitchen, I had received the same topping. I suppose it was all that poking around and the leaking flue.
I slept OK, and the pillow worked after a fashion. Maybe I’ll try trousers instead of a T-shirt tonight. I put the kettle on while I’m sweeping up and when it boils I pick it up by the handle forgetting to use the oven glove and burn my hand. It was red-hot and it leaves a nice pattern.
With no Over, I decide to re-landscape Costa Rica. I couldn’t believe how warm it is for 6.30 in the morning. I haven’t really seen 6.30am in the rainforest with sun – I’ve either stayed in bed or it has been raining. Man, it’s sweltering! Whassitallabout?
I survey the small creek that feeds into the swamp - it is longer than I thought - perhaps two hundred feet. It comes in at the corner slightly up the hill from the swamp and the house, flows into the swamp and through it, draining somewhere into the creek on the other side, I suppose. I always thought that a swamp was a place of decay, stagnant water etc., but this doesn’t really fit that bill. The water is fresh and the swamp is teaming with life and nothing about it seemed rotten except some decaying branches or tree trunks that have toppled over. Wading birds were happy to come and do their thing. I swanned around pondering (swan, pond... get it). Less talk, more action (stork … stay with me). I guess the idea is that if I can control the flow of water a little, areas that are currently sodden would dry out and could be used for other things.
Negra sits restively on the bridge as I’m mulling things over. I can see that she is hungry - no sign of Over yet. Typical! I get up early for the first time and he won’t even give me the satisfaction of sneering at him in my best capitalist, look-down-my-nose expression. I feed Negra myself from the big bag of dried dog food in the tool shed.
The swamp
While I was in there, I get a spade and a thingy-type-of-spade with an angled blade from the tool shed (I’m sure it has a meaningful name.) I pick up my wellies and empty them, but only have a spider this time (and it seems as though the bat has gone). Maybe my novelty value is wearing off. Wellies on, I trudge sexily outside and into the early morning sunshine, clomping down the slope to the footbridge. I leave the tools on the bridge and, for some reason I have yet to ascertain, I head off into the marsh to see if there is any more dry land. I really don’t know why I’m doing this. However, the water only looks to be a few inches deep but I tramp about six feet in and I’m already up to my knees in water because the swamp bed is so insubstantial! I sank big time! One of my boots fills with water once again. Sod that!
I’ll do my creek after all, thank you! There are some fallen tree-trunks and logs in various stages of decay, and some areas of thick vegetation where the clumps provide natural breaks so I decide to use them as the gully sides to save some work. There is a shiny blue luminescence in some areas - and it looks like a film of oil upon closer inspection, perhaps a spill further up the mountain that has worked his way down.
Local superstitions abound about such a phenomenon. They say that high in the mountains, there still exists the long-thought-to-be-extinct ‘Castrol plant’. It grows on the sides of the creek and its seedpods are full of lubricant, which is how it carries its seeds. The lubricant droplet, enveloping the seed, is deposited into the creek and flows downstream, depositing its seeds along the way. The remaining lubricant eventually flows into the river and then the sea where it finally thickens and sinks and that’s where Shell and BP eventually find it.
There’s a weird crackling sound coming from somewhere…
It occurs to me to work upstream instead of downstream so that the water I’m working in is clearer.
Here is a perfect example of how I could not have been a caveman for long! I would have transcended caveman-ism very quickly! Or if I was a caveman, I would have had my own creek! And I would have been the first one to work upstream rather than downstream. I would be a trend-setting caveman where creek diggers are concerned. A creek-digging trend-setting caveman.
8 am - Frosties time! Haven't seen Over yet but I can hear a chainsaw/ strimmer in the distance. I will go over to Over's at lunch if I haven't seen him by then. Inside, I make my Frosties in the tin mug but put way too much milk in - I eat the Frosties but leave some milk in the bottom of the mug and used it for my cup of tea. I‘m really on a roll …
I have a poo - the tendrils seemed closer somehow. Do they know I’m here? Are tendrils sentient? Would they miss me if I went? If I sat here for too long, maybe a week, would they wrap themselves around my legs and claim me? There is no paper basket within reach so I have to waddle across the kitchen floor with my trousers around my ankles again. I notice that my one wet foot is leaving a footprint everywhere like a guy on a sponsored hop.
I have some more blisters forming so I use my plasters for the first time…
Feeling replete through the nutritional and convalescent value of said Frosties, I go back outside. It’s difficult to work when the sun comes out because you cannot avoid sweating and you have nothing to wipe it dry with - the gloves go wet very quickly too, you lose your grip and your hands then slip down the handle of the spade. I try using the other implement thing and it’s much quicker because the blade is at an angle of 90º to the handle. Had I been a caveman and had it not already been invented, I would indubitably have invented said implement.
I’ve just realised that I haven’t seen the schoolboy today. What's going on? No bat, no lizard, no Over, no schoolboy!
It starts to rain so I go back inside, taking off my rubber boots for about the third time today. I can’t be bothered to put them back on again so if I go back out again after the rain, I thought to bang in the nails on the bridge instead and then I could wear sandals.
I work for half an hour and then run out of energy. Those nails are long and that wood very hard indeed and bang, bang, banging – boy, it gets to your muscles and tendons. I’m in danger of getting repetitive strain industry! And more blisters!
I do myself hotdog and eggs…
Over is alive and kicking and strimming around the house now. He does really well to maintain concentration with the lovely aroma that I am producing. I watch him manoeuvring around in his Hilfiger jeans and breathing mask. That’s fine, I think to myself but I have no glass windows and I can see the plane of dust coming through the netting. I give Negra a little bit of hotdog.
My stuff is now spread all over the house - my trousers are on the kitchen table. The have a layer of ash overlaid by a layer of dust. .
My handwriting is getting better. It no longer resembles the cardiograph trace of a fibrillating wombat…
I potter about in the afternoon, wandering around taking a few photos, bit more work on the swamp and chop some logs.
I found a weird looking frog/toad. It’s quite small but it’s sort of luminous green with black blotches all over it. Or I guess it could be black with luminous green blotches. I take its picture. I must ask Dave what it is.
I get a bit tired so I go for a cold shower. The way to do this is to wait until you were really, really hot, turn it on full, put your head in first, splash a little over all the bits and then submerge legs. Eventually you were all in and then you were away. I guess someone ‘dead ‘ard’ would just jump straight in, but I’m not that ‘dead ‘ard!’
I have worked out that the crackling sound comes from the dragonflies.
The howler monkeys are bellowing and calling all the time. They sound not unlike wolves at times. I don’t know where they were for the first couple of days but they are certainly within earshot now. Maybe they were just in a distant part of the forest out of earshot or maybe I just didn’t notice them.
I light the fire and then retire to the balcony to chill where I ‘TCP’ everything I can see – my bites, my scratches, a spider. It occurred to me that the bite on my knuckle could be from a bat, maybe even a vampire bat. Oo-er. There are two puncture marks one centimetre apart and they are both raised. Apparently the bats prefer feet but who knows...
4.30 - My favourite place at this time of day is on the bridge (with Spock) where I can see the full length of the swamp. It’s peaceful and I have the distinct impression that every living thing has done whatever it was that it got out of bed to do and is now chilling. The flies have buzzed, the fish have swum upstream a bit, the birds have flown around and made a lot of noise, and perhaps embellished a nest somewhere, and everything has eaten enough to last for the rest of the day and the night. They are all chilling now and the forest is at peace waiting for evening to arrive. Even the flies seem to have bitten everything they were due to bite for the day and leave me alone at this time of day. Soon, the sun will drop below the hill behind the house and the cicada chorus will start, the diurnal birds shouting their goodnights to their mates across the swamp. At the same time, the nocturnal ones will wake up and screech and hoot.
Some birds are cawing like crows - others are more musical. A big buzzy fly drones noisily head first into the upright wooden beam and staggers off looking a little bemused.
Everything is still and tranquil until Negra starts barking. A man on a horse, a man walking and another dog went past. Negra has a slanging match with the dog. I have a cigarette …
A lizard dashes across the top of the water in the swamp…
I chill along with the forest creatures, and saunter contentedly back inside…
I can hear the shower dripping …
I make myself some coffee and take it onto the balcony …
There is a bat hissing round…
At 5.30, the orchestra changes shifts. It sounds like the frogs have started with their croaking harmonies. There is a bird with a monotone beep that sounds like it is conveying some trivial Morse code message. There is another one that makes me want to answer my mobile phone. It occurs to me that these fireflies make light to attract each other and that, following the thread, I could put my torch on and get shagged by every Firefly for a half-mile radius.
Somebody once told me a trivial statistic - that we all swallow eight spiders in our lives because when we are asleep they crawl across us and into our mouths and we swallow as a reflex reaction. The thought never bothered me before but you should see some of these bloody spiders! And the beetles! Some of them are about an inch and a half long with antennae like fishing rods, and they move at mach two! You can see scorch marks on the faded wooden timbers where they have rocketed across the room from one side to the other.
The radio stations are definitely not doing it for me so I get my CD player out. I flick through my CD collection but some of it doesn’t really fit this type of environment. I have only brought five so there isn’t a great deal of choice. 'Once upon a time in the west' goes down well whenever you're on your own, as does ' Va pensiero'. Strangely, 'That's Entertainment' by the Jam also seems appropriate. Maybe I will rewrite the lyrics - ‘A police car and a screaming siren’ doesn’t really apply in the outlands of Costa Rican rainforest.
The last of the ice melted today…
Ok, listen up! Have you ever experienced the following strange situation when you are asleep and dreaming? Your dream starts to go a bit weird and you know something is not quite right. Something from inside your head is telling you to wake up because of this something and when you do awake you find that reality has entered your dream.
It happens to me every now and then. The weirdest example of this happening to me was an occasion when I was living in Israel where I was woken up to find that I was having a conversation in my sleep with a Danish girl who strangely enough, was also still asleep. That was weird.
The nicest was when a dream said ‘awake now’ and I woke up to find a girl playing with my … well that was nice.
I’d never had an un-nice one until now. When the reality that enters your dream is an earthquake, it sends you!!
I slept really well until it hit at about 2.10am. It entered my dream and became part of it and it was difficult to wake up. Something in my head told me I needed to be awake and as usual, it didn’t surface straight away so my dream went surreal. Eventually, the need pierced my consciousness and the two mingled, reality and fantasy. I was lying on my back and found my legs kicking furiously like I was a swimmer and my arms banging on the bed. It was completely dark so I couldn’t see anything but I could hear a rattling noise, which I worked out was probably the door latch rattling in its frame or a giant rattling his loose change. At some point during the series of events, my brain recognised more reality than dream, but I can’t say exactly when it happened because I didn’t have time to get a frame of reference on reality.
I decided the door latch was the origin of the rattling sound. ‘Oh, god! The latch is rattling. Someone’s trying to break into my room!’
Then I noticed that the room was moving. ‘And they’re shaking the whole room!’ I thought to myself. ‘They’re really keen!’
I realised that if the room was moving, so was the whole house. ‘At least they’re still outside. Hell, they’re strong! They’re shaking the whole damn house! Hang on. An intruder wouldn’t be able to shake the whole house. Shit! It’s an earthquake!’
I was more or less awake by now but I still hadn’t seen, heard or been able to understand my new existence since I awoke. I had emerged from fantasy into a world I had never seen before and my senses were not sending back any data I recognised. I had no frame of reference – I might as well still have been dreaming. Perhaps, by definition, I was since I couldn’t view events as real. Eventually, I figured out what was happening and had to make the decision as to how to proceed in this weird new world which would only last moments longer. I had to work out if I was better staying in bed on this soft mattress or making a run for it.
I couldn’t make the decision. The building was breezeblock on the lower floor and the second floor made of wood. Those things sprang to mind. I think the defining point in the decision-making process was that I sleep in the nude and I did not fancy running around a rain forest in the nude (or being found dead in the rain forest in the nude!) and so making a dash for it was out of the question. Also, if the building collapsed, at least I could grab my pillow on the way through the floor and take out some clothes to wear (a hitherto unforeseen advantage of my invention!) Then I could change quickly on the way down and be at least partly dressed by the time I hit the floor!
It made total sense to me!
The quake lasted about a minute. I didn’t move. There was an aftershock a few minutes later that lasted about ten minutes, or maybe ten seconds, and was very gentle and almost nice like an all over foot massage, or sitting in one of those trembling chairs. The forest went very quiet during and immediately after the quake, and then when the tremors ceased the howler monkeys bellowed their defiance, the frogs, birds, and crickets all seemed to join in and everything seemed normal again. Everything was normal except me who was lying in the dark, eyes wide, wondering if it safe to go back to sleep.

Friends thingy-type-of-spade Cicada chorus
enemies earthquake Castrol plant
undecided tendrils in the toilet