Where, oh where, has my little dog gone??

Where, oh where, has my little dog gone?....I remember singing that as a child, and now I am singing it again but with a slight change....where, oh where, have my 2 enormous dogs gone?

Yes, this week was going too well! The dogs jumped the fence...yet AGAIN...and this time are no-where to be seen! Ollie and Kiara are very large labs, and Ollie has a plastic funnel, collar type thing round his neck (he had the snip)..surely you can't miss them?

I woke up yesterday and they weren't outside the door waiting for breakfast. Over the day I drove round and round this hill looking for them in the torrential rain (a good thing I have 4WD for some of these roads in the rain!). But nothing, I asked everyone I could see - people I knew - to random men looking after cows on the road! So I emailed Ken to say the dogs had gone and then sat and worried for a while about his response!

However, he called me to say it is not a problem. The dogs escape all the time anyway, and I've done everything I can, and it's just a hassle! So now I just wait to see if they come back on their own! A big thank you to Dave and Esther for helping me hunt. As it turns out now the camp's guard saw them escape in the middle of the night but could do nothing to stop them as they were so fast!

Obviously, the searching didn't all happen without a disaster of some kind...I went up to the camp to ask Jessie is she had seen the dogs..she hadn't...and in the torrential rain I managed to fall down the steep slippery steps! There was no elegance or gracefulness alongside this gymnastic display!! I ended up at the bottom and just burst into tears as I sat in the rain! However, I quickly pulled myself together and hobbled back to the car. I have some spectacular bruises from this fall, pulled muscles in my side, stomach and back and quite possibly whiplash as I can't actually move my neck very well!! Not bad eh?! All is getting better fast so is not a problem really.

So, as yet no dogs! The puppies are still adorable (though one had concussion this morning bless her, but that is another long story and she is perfectly fine now!).

All fun here you know! Dave and Esther move in tomorrow so they can pack up their own house before they move back to Canada - the same day i fly home too.

Maybe my life can be a bit more normal then?!!! - somehow I doubt it!!!

The Importance of friends

I just want to say how different this week is! I am now really enjoying my holidays - finally! Yes I still get stressed when the dogs escape by jumping over the fence and I have to drive and find them - but I am now far more relaxed and am enjoying myself.

This is all down to my friends. Simple as that. I am sooooo lucky and blessed by my friends here. They make the difference to my life in Sigua - it would be very different (and dull) without them. I can't express enough how much I appreciate them, love them and what they mean in my life. This week is the complete opposite to last week because I have been seeing people, chatting - normal things! It has just made such a difference and has made me really appreciate them all. Friends have been there when I've needed them and when I haven't (if you know what I mean?!) in so many different ways. This time last year I hadn't imagined I'd have made such good friends. So Thank You everyone - you know who you all are!!

Friendships mean a lot to me!

(I still appreciate and love all my friends in England too don't worry, thank you for all your support whilst I'm here. I'm looking forward to seeing you all in a few weeks)

Random Request....

OK, so to all of you who live in Worthing I have a random request to make (I'm saying Worthing purely to be practical!). My new favourite past time is watching Top Gear! I can download the episodes and watch them on my computer - and I'm loving it. It's amazing what you enjoy when you're not at home!! Anyway, sat here in my house I actually laugh out loud watching it - and appreciate a bit of England.
Now my point is this.....does anyone have any Top Gear magazines?! I have friends here who also enjoy TG and cars and we would all appreciate the magazines! So.....if you have any, please don't throw them out but keep them for me and I'll bring them back here in July. If you don't have any, but see them on special offer in Tesco's....... - well you never know!!!

Also, I've been asked to look out for House and Home magazines (I think thats right, but maybe Country Living I have to check!) as they often feature Spanish designs and European architecture...apparently! So if you have any, please hold onto them for me!!

Thanks!

p.s. things are looking up around here and my friends are around a bit more...so may be less boring than I thought! Hurray!

Puppies!

Well here are some pictures of my puppies, slightly nicer than the turtle pic. Took a while to get any good ones as they kept coming up to lick the camera! They are so cute. I am going to keep 2 of the black girls now as company (provided I find a house) and also for protection (everyone here has a dog for security). Ken and Sue are keeping the brown one. They really are adorable!

Peace & Quiet...a.k.a. Bored Stupid!!

I was so excited about coming to live up here - but am thoroughly bored and fed up already! I hadn't counted on not being able to get around so easily. I am trying to be good and not walk much or drive much. For once I am listening to instructions!! But I feel like I am living in the back of beyond...here I am up a mountain and my friends are all in town! So I generally don't see anyone day to day and I am totally and utterly bored stupid, not to mention lonely!! There is nothing to do up here, yesterday the power went off for 8 hours, so was silent up here too with no music etc to listen to. I read my book and played cards, fed all the animals....then started all that again!!

It is all bad timing with the foot thing, as none of my friends are around for company! All the gringos have pretty much gone now and my good Honduran friends have friends and family down and so understanderably don't have the time to visit and spend with me - bad timing for me again eh?

The good news it is not for long, Dave and Esther move in at the weekend as they pack up their own house preparing to leave. I will have company then... so not long to survive!!

The puppies are very cute though! I will take photos this afternoon of them and put them up here - counter-balance the turtle I put on here last time!!!

Please leave messages or email me, right now it would be good to hear from people!

All change!

I'm so sorry it's been so long without updating this - I haven't had time for anything recently! So, what has been going on? I'll give you a very brief update (save you the painful,long details!)

• School finished on 6th June, which was at the end of a manic exam week. At the end of that week we also had a pool party for both Grades 1 and 2. That was also chaotic - but organised by the parents so I just had to be there!
  


• The following week was re-enforcement lessons and recuperation exams for those that failed. I only had 2 children who didn't pass so didn't have to do many extra lessons. I did have to clear up our house though and pack everything away. Nothing is allowed left out because the cleaners over the summer help themselves to whatever is around!


• The same goes for my classroom so I had to pack up all my reading books, displays etc and move it out so it doesn't go missing!
  
• I have also moved up to Sue's house as she and her family are now in Canada for 3 months. That is where the fun has begun...

This is a gorgeous house, truly lovely. But huge and full of animals! 2 dogs, 5 puppies and 5 turtles. Therein lies the first trauma....there are now 4 turtles as Kiara the dog got bored and hungry and went fishing in the turtle pond. It was disgusting - the insides moved to the outside of the turtle! Grim. Worse still...we had to put the suffering turtle out of its misery! It had it's insides on the outside, it's back legs were both hanging off and was bleeding away on a Thursday night. Now, how do you put a turtle out of it's misery? You can't drown it, you can't hit it??! So we called Enoc...he was our resident turtle expert - in fact he helps us out of everything! We had 3 options.....

1. Chop it's head off........not a chance
2. Put it in boiling water.......not a chance
3. Run it over with my car........am still traumatised! I'll spare you the details.

Enoc has since come up with nicer ways of doing this, but alas too late!

Looking after the puppies should be a full time job...we've taught them to lap milk, clean them out twice a day, etc etc. It just goes on. The traumas have just gone on too! Problems too numerous to mention! Most sorted now though. They are v cute!!

All this...with a cast on my foot up to my knee. My last blog told you about my trip to the foot dr specialist. Well, since then it has got worse and I can't walk very far at all without immense pain. So, the doctor emailed me and told me I had to get a Cam-walker foot brace straight away or get to the hospital to have a cast put on. I have managed to find the foot brace here- it is simply a removable cast that I can still walk with. It immobilises my foot. I have to wear it for 4 weeks - it's heavy and incredibly hot! But, I can still walk with it and I am still driving with it. Life just has become a lot harder and more frustrating in order to get around.

Oh what a lovely cast! The other good news is that, the dr also said that if this cast doesn't work and the foot doesn't get better, then he would pay for me to have the operation in Georgia and he would operate. Isn't that amazing?!

Today Amanda left for Canada for 2 months and so I am in this enormous house with the animals by myself. It's going to take some getting used to, but luckily I have lots of wonderful friends here - who quite frankly I couldn't survive here without! You know who you are - THANK YOU!

That is a very brief update of lots of things that are going on.

Plane Crash in Tegus

Just a quick note to all that have emailed about the crash in Tegus...

A plane missed the runway in Tegus and landed on the road. The runway there is so small - when we flew to Costa Rica we couldn't watch take off - was too scary! It is one of the most difficult as it is short and surrounded by mountains. Anyway, because it's so rainy right now the plane had trouble landing. Apparently the weather is in a Tropical Depression? Not sure.

By all accounts the crash looks fairly horrific. It even made it to the BBC!

All this to say - I don't live anywhere near there and so am fine!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7429351.stm