I cannot remember if it was Mike or Keith who said "Now you have handed in your notice the days will fly by, enjoy!". Well they were right and part of the fun has been writing these countdown blogs and sourcing photos for the Countdown posters.
I started off with the 14 km long white sandy beach at St Vicente, for 90 days. This is one of the sites I will be looking at next year to buy land and build my dream home. By day 80 I had reserved a Camella Home, Bancao-Bancao, Puerto Prinsesa, through Daniw ( a friend of Beth at LVF where I stayed in January). She sent me some photos and I fell in love with the place so decided to use that as the background for the poster. I added a dog as we are not allowed to have dogs here in Awali. I had a beautiful Labrador called Trixie in the UK.So in my countdown to my new life I had asked Daniw if I could have a dog in my rental home. She said yes, sure, and she would help me find one.
If you have never been to Puerto Princessa do come and visit. Here is a short video I first saw two years ago to show you around the city, with some great music:
For day 70 I decided to head south to Brooke's point where a friend teaches indigenous children at a school in the hills ( 6 hr trek from the nearest road) and he kindly sent me a photo to use.
Around that time I got in touch with Jhoanna's boyfriend , Jullymar, and found out he was working as a houseboy for friends of his family on an Island off Palawan called Dumaran. " It is officially the Municipality of Dumaran and is a 3rd class municipality in the province of Palawan, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 23,734 people. The municipality covers the southern part of the namesake Dumaran Island, as well as a portion on Palawan Island ." ( Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumaran )
I set Mar a challenge , go take some photos to use as the background for the day 60 poster, and in spite of a passing storm I think he did a great job.I wanted to see how Matalino ( smart) he really was. He keeps telling me he is not as Matalino as Aimae and Jhoanna but I do not believe him, I think he just lacks confidence! I also asked him to take a few of himself so you can all see how gwapo my new houseboy is! I have agreed to employ and sponsor him so he can complete his course in Criminology at WPU next year. I think he might also feature in the British Kabayan 2022 Calendar!
He sent me the photos and I forwarded them to my Graphic Designer whizz kid, Mr Chester Delos- Santos, in Manila, and between hosting Halloween parties and doing modules ( with the kids he is home schooling- not his!) he came up with this.
Life's a beach? So make memories with the sand and let the waves wash them away!!!
I love his visualization of me enjoying my retirement on the beach at Dumaran with Jullytot , and you will notice after all my Lakad Lakad and swimming I am going really brown like Corleen! I am not sure why he had put a cane under my arm! Is it to help my walking or in case Mar is Makulit?. Chester- for 50 days can you choose a slimmer sexier body to photo shop my head onto?
Chester also made a countdown for my new Vlog which will launch in Feb 2021 once I am settled in my new house in Palawan .... you can check it out my clicking on the link below
Countdown to Palawan- the vlog!
And as the best Vloggers say, do not forget to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE
So what else have I been up to in the last 10 days apart from chatting to Mar and Chester? At work more Security Courses, and I finally caught up with my marking. Corleen arranged a video conference with Mr Bernard Cagasan, Director for AXA Philippines , and he talked me through my house contents, vacation insurance and medical cover which I have been trying to organise for months. Unfortunately both my contacts at Sun Life sent me Life assurance cover which I already have. I also transferred the deposit to Daniw in Puerto for my house rental and she confirmed I will get the keys on 1st Feb 2021.
Talking of finances my eldest brother, who has done a great job handling my finances handed all my investments back to me to control , and I had to send my change of address to the relevant pension companies etc as all my correspondence was going to him. I also took the opportunity to update my will and change my internet banking password! Shortly I will be changing my email address as we approach the new year and my new life. I continued to pack and sort, this time my CD collection. I now have 5 boxes of CD's to go to the Philippines in December and one box to stay here until I fly ( I cannot do without my music). The removal guy came around on 10.11.2020 and prepared the inventory of what I will be shipping to the Philippines in December.
I sold more plants, compost, and , more importantly people bought round the money for the plants I had sold recently. In over 64,000 peso of plant sales only one person took two plants and did not pay! However it showed what a good judge of character I am and is a good example of life in Awali where I have lived for the last 11 years. We had an Indian gardener called Morgan , who worked for my namesake, Neil, and who mysteriously knew when every new person moving to Awali would be arriving . He would then doorstop them at 7 am after a long flight and little sleep and say "Hi, I am Morgan , and I will be your gardener". I immediately disliked the man and his whisky breath and told him to go away and went back to sleep. A few weeks later I was mopping my kitchen floor and Morgan appeared and said "I have maids too" and again I told him where to go.
I am the only house in our street not to have employed Morgan's services , and to have my own Pinoy Houseboys to look after me. I also recruited , 11 years ago, wonderful Shji to be my gardener. I later found out Morgan just organised ( like a gang master), collected money from the Awali residents and gave about half to the poor maids and gardeners who actually did the hard work. The rest went on whisky, and when that was insufficient he would stay in peoples houses while they were on vacation and drink their expensive Whisky. In his last week here in Bahrain he came to buy two of my plants for one of his customers, and knocked me down from 20 bd to 10 bd. He then had his people carry them to the house down the road. He then told me that the man was asleep and he would pay me later. He then left Awali and went back to India to get his liver fixed up after ruining it with 30 years here drinking whisky! Nasty man. I am guessing he told his customer that he had done a special deal with me and got him two lovely Bougainvillea for just 40 bd and spent it on Whisky!
Last week at work I did more marking, ran more security courses and some ILM on line sessions . At home , as well as more packing and financial things to sort out, I had several friends to come and stay, cook, eat and enjoy our time together.
I will leave you with a final picture of one of the places I will be visiting when I get to Palawan. Thanks to Jullymar who will be my guide for taking the pictures of Dumaran! I also started two new cookery books this last week which you can read about in my other blogs and trained up another new chef, this time from Bangladesh, called Tariq. He spent his Saturday off at my house and we made a Prawn Curry and some amazing Raita. Corleen and I visited two food festivals ( Zallaq and Riffa) two weeks running and Ariel failed to turn up yet again! I also started Planning a quick vacation in Dubai on December to say farewell to Jeyboy, Erickson and Thang.
All that remains is for me to say Mahal Kita, Ingat Palagi and Kita Kits ( 60 days!)
 |  |
Hello, I am The British Kabayan! Feel free to read my stories.
No comments:
Post a Comment