Rain rain go away......

We are half way through the rainy season, and it seems to have stepped up a notch. Officially the rainy season lasts from June until November.

Last year the weather was really wet before we arrived, and we got more of the same. Washed clothes stayed damp for days and began to smell, meaning they had to be washed again - it seemed like an endless cycle of washing. We had washing hanging on a line where the hammock should have been, hanging from the stairs, trying to catch the sun from the curtain pole!

This year it didn't seem as bad. We have been here over the summer, and the rain seemed to come mainly at night.I almost began to think that I had remembered last year as being a lot worse than it was. Last week we received an email offering a tumble drier (secadora) for sale (see below, the machine on the right). We considered it, and very nearly decided against it, due to the high cost of electricity here, but we decided it could be $75 well spent!

We very nearly didn't get to view it: it was a typical Salvadoran addresses that was not where Google maps said it was. I refused to give up, like a beagle on the scent, I went once more around the block, in the shadow of the Trade Centre, took a random left turn, found house number 6, rang the bell and asked for the Senora.......and to my utter amazement  the muchacha (maid) who answered the door said "Si!"

The secadora is now a member of the family. Sunday it rained all day, I did my washing, and in half an hour it was dry. No more smelly wet washing. Result!

1st week at school

We have just completed our 1st week back at school.......this is our 3rd year of teaching in the tropics, but it still feels wrong to be going back to school in August! it doesn't matter that our holidays started in June.....for English people, August is about holidays!!!!

It was very tiring getting up at 5am again.......Monday to Wednesday wasn't as bad, as we didn't have to be at school until 730am, but the children were back on Thursday.....and we were at school for 6:20am!!!!! Luckily for me I only had one day, because Friday is my day off.....but I was still awake at 5:00!!!!

We have had a few nights of really bad storms this week. Tropical Storm Greg is heading away into the Pacific, but blowing across from the Caribbean is Tropical Storm Harvey. The Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras and Belize will get the full force of it, but we are still experiencing some amazing thunderstorms. I cannot recreate the noise on here, but the thunder is so loud it sounds like a bomb exploding, and it sets of car alarms.......not entertaining when it happens in the middle of the night!!

I am sitting on the verandah as I write this and it feels positively chilly, despite the thermometer telling me that it is 26 degrees! The sky is getting dark, there is the distant rumble of thunder and the air definitely feels like something is blowing in!!

We have had a bat living in a fruit bowl outside our front door. The maid was hysterical the other afternoon, and she managed to explain to us that when she had been dusting the shoe cupboard that is in the passage opposite our front door (the passage would have been outside originally, but when they built a garage on the front of the house, it got covered over) a bat flew out of the fir cone filled fruit bowl that sits on the top of it! She was very disturbed, as was I, and I was trying to get her to tell me which direction the bat had flown in......towards the garage, where it could escape to freedom, or into the house!!! She pointed towards the garage, so I am keeping my fingers crossed! She told us that placing a garlic clove in the fruit bowl would keep the bat away! Old wives tale???? We put a garlic clove there anyway, a couple of days later there was bat-poo on top of the cupboard......but since then the garlic smell has been more pungent and we haven't seen any more traces of bat life! The joys of living in the tropics!

Talking of animal life......we seem to have got the kitchen ants under control, with continual spraying of nasty chemicals, but the bedroom ants appear to be a lot hardier. I don't like it when I wake up and can feel and see super fast little ants running across me! Andy pulled the bed away from the wall and sprayed the wall, floor and bed legs a few days ago, and still they were back this morning! I have taken the bedding off and we have sprayed the mattress and the room again. We will not be beaten!!

I didn't think that El Salvador got much in the way of wildlife, especially in the cities, but in the past couple of weeks one friend has had two coral snakes in her garden and another friend has had a coati  in his garden. I am just hoping to attract some humming birds to the garden. Apparently they are attracted to red flowers, and we have quite a few read and orange flowers......I'll let you know if we get any.

The picture above is a coati......also known as a Brazilian Ardvaak.

Here comes the rain......it is strange that as the sky lightened it has started raining.....you would expect the opposite!! It is coming down like stair rods....!!!!

This is a very short video I just took with my phone.....I will try and take some better videos if we get a storm later!!

Ok, I need to relocate indoors as the rain has started to blow into the verandah........

Adios amigos........hasta luego xx

new plants for our garden

Yesterday I went shopping with Janet, a new biology teacher from school - I have been assigned as her mentor during her first few weeks in El Salvador.

After we had done the weekly shop in Walmart and had a welcome skinny latte at Coffee Cup we stopped to look at the plants that were for sale on a little market stall in the middle of the mall. I often stop and browse the plants...... hortensias (hydrangeas), orchids...... but Andy always protests and I have never bought anything.........until today! I picked a very nice Peace Lily ($12 - £7.32) and a hanging basket with a strawberry plant ($4 - £2.44) .... and a few juicy looking strawberries. The Peace Lily did not come in a pot, just a black plastic growing bag, which was ok, as it gave me chance to look for a nice pot.

Today, after lunch Andy and I went shopping to Freund, which is like a smaller version of B+Q - it sells almost anything you could ever want for DIY, household and garden......but has far less choice than you would get in the UK. I headed straight for the garden centre, if you can call it that, a room at one end where all the plants are. I bought two plain terracotta pots and saucers, one of which was for the Peace Lily, and I bought a shrub with orangey-reddish flowers for the other one. Andy chose chives, mint, dill, parsley and rosemary, and while he wasn't looking I sneaked two terracotta tortoises into the trolley, and pink dianthus' to put in them.

In total we bought:

• 2 terracotta pots
• 2 terracotta saucers
• 2 terracotta tortoises
• 5 plastic pots for the herbs
• 1 small bag of compost
• 1 flowering shrub
• 2 dianthus
• 5 herb plants

and the grand total came to $31, which translates as £18.90!!! What would £19 get you in a UK garden centre? Not much!!

Watch this space for updates on whether they thrive or die in our garden!!

Update:We have ripe tomatoes on our plants. Can't wait to eat them with a yummy salad!!

A new home for our blogging....

I initially tried very hard to post regularly on our old blog, but it was very difficult to notify people when there was a new post, and I eventually gave up trying.

It seems a shame not to have somewhere where we can share the exciting things that happen in our lives, and the things that are not so exciting to us, but may be of interest to you.

We will try to keep this blog updated regularly (or at least more often than the last one).

Hasta luego mis amigos.