pesky pigs

hello everyone

just to let you know we are alive and well in belize, where swine flu doesn't seem to have arrived yet. i'm just updating myself on all the news online, i have to admit i knew nothing about it until an email from casa pepinillo, as we are kind of out of touch with the news to say the least. it seems we are not to panic even though the WHO (the WHO?) are on code red. i am panicking. we are concocting a survival plan. bert said we'll go into liquidation. i didn't understand, so he clarified - we'll sell the truck. ok. then we'll come to england with disguises on and scrub out the bits in our passports that mention mexico and america. bert can get a job on a building site as he's strong and i just interviewed him and he said he's good with saws and hammers and all that kind of thing. i will help mum around the house as i'm good at sweeping and tidying. it will be like the war and we'll all pull together and everything will be ok. we won't eat any pork at all, not even bacon for breakfast.

in other news i found this online and had to post it here as it made me giggle

Fir Tree Found Growing Inside Man's Lung
Artyom Sidorkin, 28, from the Urals region of Russia, is believed to have inhaled a seed which then sprouted inside him. Doctors were convinced he had cancer after he came to them complaining of agonising chest pains and coughing up blood.
An X-ray showed what was believed to be a tumour, and he was rushed to the operating theatre.
"We were 100% sure," said surgeon Vladimir Kamashev from Izhevsk in the Urals.
"We did X-rays and found what looked exactly like a tumour. I had seen hundreds before, so we decided on surgery."
Before removing the major part of the man's lung, the surgeon investigated the tissue taken in a biopsy.
"I thought I was hallucinating," said Dr Kamashev.
"I asked my assistant to have a look: 'Come and see this - we've got a fir tree here'."
"He nodded in shock. I blinked three times as I was sure I was seeing things."
The 2in (5cm) spruce, which was said to be touching the man's capillaries and causing severe pain, was removed.
Mr Sidorkin, now recovering after the op, said: "To be honest I did not feel any foreign object inside me. But I'm just so relieved it's not cancer."

what a story, somebody should make that into a film. perhaps i have some fir trees growing in my toes.

we watched frida and catch-22 the other day, both very good. a great adaptation from a book i thought re catch-22, which is unusual. and i should stop moaning about my feet i thought after watching frida. selma hayek is very cool.

i made macaroni cheese the other day but it turned into a kind of concrete block. i think i didn't make enough sauce, plus the cheese over here is hardly what you would call good quality. i would call it bad quality. we ate it nonetheless as times are hard, but we treated ourselves to pecan pie and ice cream for pudding.

we found a praying mantis praying on our doorstep the other night and brought him inside. i didn't want to but bert said he was our friend. he changed colour when he got on the table to become table colour. it was amazing. he probably got eaten by one of the many geckos that inhabit our house with us. we watched the neighbouring farm workers and their families all bent over in the fields by our house, and wondered what could they be doing. i asked one of them when we were giving them a lift to church at the weekend (we'll get points for heaven that way), and she said recogiendo frijoles - they collect the leftover beans that didn't make it in the combine harvester and replant them when the next planting time comes along, in the wet season. which seems like it is still going on now, it is supposedly the dry season in march, april, may, but so far has been raining all through those months. must be those pesky pigs.

i will (b)log off now as i have another very long blog to post soon and you will all be very sick of me i'm sure.

cuidales y no come los puercos amigos! xx