Raining on my own parade.....

The internet is painfully slow; the cable television is not working and the laptop has been freezing, otherwise things are petty damn fine.

I am not sure I really mean that. I am trying to see things in the best light when really what I probably need is a serious whinge. I think it is harder doing Third World on one's own. With Greg away, and no friends or family around, there is probably too much time alone.

The problem is I am hardly here long enough when I am here to get much of a social network organised. I don't mind being alone but the alone of being alone with Greg away is verging into the 'lonely' alone instead of just the 'not having friends' around alone. Grizzle, grizzle, whinge, whinge.

I am good at being alone. I know that. But it wears hard at times and grates along the edges of 'making the best of things.' Maybe it is the weather. It has been pouring with rain and the skies are mostly grey. It's a green world which is good but a grey one all the same. The brightest thing at present are my oil paints and yet the picture I am painting is brown and dull. I am pondering whether to attack it with dots of green, yellow and red... it's a landscape and can be anything I want really. My version of an Aboriginal dot painting. It will probably not be very good but its execution could be cathartic.

Birgitte has been busy for the past few days but I went over and asked her for coffee on Friday. She had just come back from the dentist and said she is busy playing golf. I think they only get leave once a year so life is more stable for the other residents although Pawadee is away and will get back about a week before I leave again. This is the way of it in expat world... 'ships' passing in the night.

Now to do Pollyanna and look on the bright side. It is a reminder I think that it is too easy to become 'attached' to work, the net and at night, because I never put it on during the day, the television.

But I should be grateful. Birgitte was telling this morning me that one day, while we were away, there was no water and no electricity for the entire day. Now that is inconvenience particularly since she was in the shower washing her hair when the water stopped.

I wonder where the days go and they go chasing people to get repairs done; waiting around for someone to arrive... either today or tomorrow or whenever and checking that a repair has actually taken place. Then again, they came to look at the internet today and they did get it up and running as it should, well, pretty much, but within two hours it was back to its old tricks. I don't know why I am bothering writing this. It probably won't save or publish. Venting I suppose is as good a reason as any.

Then again, I am enormously grateful that the DVD player works. There is a limit to the amount of reading one can be bothered doing and my 'store' of books is a bit slim.

And yet why the sense of feeling a 'bit lost?' I have also been cooking but there is a limit to the number of biscuits and cakes I can fit in the freezer. Maybe it is 'worse' because I am on my own and when we are alone we more instinctively crave distraction and habit.

I have done some painting but not much. The main reason is that I have not yet sourced mineral turps and cleaning up oil paints is virtually impossible without it. I have barely a quarter of a cup to use and so am dabbling discreetly until I can buy some more. It's the Virgo in me I think that I avoid doing something unless I am able to clean up easily and properly. Someone else would not care. They would leave the paint splashed around and the brushes soaking in soapy water. Maybe it is all an excuse.

Talking about cleaning up, I managed to splash dobs of paint onto my white linen shirt yesterday and thought that was the 'end of it.' I have never managed to get oil paint off clothes. I had planned to say to Limited that he would not be able to get the stains out but when I saw him this morning he mentioned it and said he had! I must admit, I was astonished but just said: 'Great. Well done.'

I cannot help but wonder if in his hands, the 'stain remover' which looks pretty ordinary to me and probably suffers from the Third World 'flaw' of being 'diluted' and therefore less effective than anything one might buy in Oz, takes on greater and seriously impressive 'power' because he believes it will work.... he has no concept that it is impossible to remove oil paint from fabric and so, with the power of belief, the impossible becomes the possible. I can in all honesty think of no other explanation and I have no intention of ever conveying negative belief about anything to either Limited or Andrew.

Not that it helped when Andrew went to look for work clothes for the two of them. We said we would get two shirts and two pairs of trousers each and he took K200  for the taxi ride and went into town to find the shop. But the shop has moved and so he has returned empty handed. I am sure there are places in Lilongwe where one can buy cotton shirts and trousers for men... it can't be that hard? Can it? I shall have to ask Cynthia at the office. Nothing is ever simple and everything takes longer than one expects. I mean, there are men here, they wear clothes - there must be shops which sell them. Then again, I am really not sure how well Andrew understands either English or my accent.

But the changeover seems to be going well. I really do think it suits the two of them better and it certainly suits me, which, at the end of the day makes everything work better for everyone. A variation on the theme of :'happy wife, happy life.'

I think one of the difficult aspects of wormhole life is that I am not anywhere for long enough to get anything much organised. By the time I leave again in a couple of weeks, I will have been back about six weeks; then about five weeks in Oz and then back here again for 5-6 weeks before heading to the US for our son's wedding. It takes a couple of weeks to get organised when I get back and then a week or so before we leave I am once again in wind-down mode. There's a 'treading water' aspect to life at times.

I am sure it is exactly what I need and I am sure the world will be a sunnier place tomorrow when Greg gets back. Although that is for all of five days before he leaves again for a week or more. Then back for a couple of days and then gone again.

Then again, no excuses for not getting into the next draft of my latest novel. I don't think I wanted to hear that! There you go, talking to myself. Time for coffee. It is probably too early for gin at 3.43p.m.