-unpacking and settling in to my new abode. I have put some photos in: the half of a villa is just lovely and perfect for me.
It's basically open air - the only walls that actually create a room are in the bedroom. The bi-fold doors that separate the bedroom and the living and kitchen area are wire mesh to let the air through, not glass.And most importantly there are three big fans to keep me cool. No AC but that's not a problem with this many fans!
Its close to town and easy walking distance to lots of restaurants or warungs with delicious (and very cheap ) food. The produce market is walking distance too, as is the supermarket. Most importantly it is about 500 metres from the coconut ice cream shop - worth the steps to get there I can tell you! We've already clocked up a large number of steps on our fit-bits so that's good.
The view of the garden from our lounge- meeting Cat Wheeler, who is my landlord. She has written a couple of books about retiring to Bali and has been very kind in helping us settle in. She knows lots of people and is already lining me up for a few activities. Choir is on the list but I'm not sure my Mah Jong skills are up to a Mah Jong group ( I should have taken lessons with Graz!!). Her garden is lush and gorgeous, and she just popped her head around the kitchen corner to deliver some passionfruit and avocados!
- drinking cocktails and eating great food at Mingle with Alison and an assortment of locals and expats. I have to report that the espresso martinis were just as good as I remembered them although the Moscow mules were a bit of a hit last night!
- we have been out and about swimming in glamourous pools and pretending to be the idle rich, at Komune and a new place called the Padma Resort which has an 89 metre curved infinity pool overlooking a huge deep jungle gorge. Stunning! On both days however we seemed to have a rather disastrous effect on the weather: the clouds gathered and we had to dash to escape the heavy downpours.
- We are now living with a menagerie that includes:
- Two dogs- Hamish and Tikka - who are very well-behaved and seem to have resigned themselves to the fact that they aren't allowed in!
- a turtle who has yet to make an appearance
- a very bald cockatoo that lost all of his feathers from a virus and looks very odd, although screeches just like a cockatoo and apparently talks as well!
- an assortment of geckos, tokays and other noisy lizards who crawl the walls.They make clicking sounds which can be quite tuneful.
- lots of frogs: outside the gate the other night their appeared to be a frog brothel as there was a lot of copulation going on so we were careful not to stand on any mating pairs!
- plenty of bird life - at 6.00am Erin threatened to get up and shoot a specific bird with a very persistent call that woke her up.
However the saddest story so far is that of a tiny 'batlet' that Erin murdered....or was it a case of batslaughter not manslaughter as Alison suggests?! Erin was opening the bi-fold doors and saw what she thought was a leaf until it started making squealing noises and she worked out that it was a tiny baby bat, barely big enough to cover the palm of your hand. Fortunately Cat does a lot of animal rescue so she went into action giving the bat some Reiki, and feeding it milk and honey. She used some of the narrow tubing and a syringe that I use for my insulin pump and it worked perfectly. Unfortunately it died this morning: apparently cows milk is not good for bats. So Kat buried it in a beautiful yellow flower. I just have to make sure that Erin doesn't continue to eradicate the wild life !
So that's some of the fun we've had so far: we're off to have dinner at a place called Warung Schnitzel (which is a complete clash of cultures let's face it).
Tomorrow we head off with Alison for a few days on a couple of islands before we farewell Erin back to Melbourne (and all of those small children!) next Wednesday.
Your hot but settled in correspondent
Dianne
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