A lively week!

Last Sunday we spent a happy hour in our revised pool. So glad to have it back, and I still know how to swim after all!  It looks really beautiful, and very designer-like as Steve promised. Been in there every day since and started our pool exercises once more:

Thank you PARADISE CONSTRUCTION!

A great start to an interesting week as it turned out.  Tuesday was a busy day with collating our tax materials and sending these to Canada to our accountant. We reduced the asking price on this house at the Agent's, and came home to find Fredi had somehow transported four adorable and evidently identical tawny coloured kittens to our cat B&B!  They were frolicking under the first palm by the pool, as happy as kittens can be.  Fredi sat amidst them contented and relaxed. Oh, boy - four more to try to neuter! How will we ever catch this lot? As she did with her previous three litters, they are esconced in the drainage pipe that runs around the pool to drain patio overrun, and dart back in there at the slightest hint of nerves. These are absolutely lovely little guys and gals, three being so identical we can barely tell them apart and one having slightly more noticeable ginger stripes. They are very lively and have been a source of much laughter from our bedroom window which is how I film them.

Fredi is keeping all the other cats at bay, and hardly leaves the area. Over time, she will relax and no doubt the whole lot will be playing with each other soon.  I would dearly love to find homes for all of them and be sure they are all spayed/neutered. Lucky is one of the most loving cats I've known and would make a great pet.

Fredi in the background; the stripy one is mostly hidden

As any regualr reader of this blog will understand, I have spent much of  the week monitoring all these little guys and refilling food and water dishes! I am slowly but surely becoming the cat lady I predicted, and this is truly Casa de Gatos!

We are well into Santa Semana (Holy Week) so the development is so quiet you could hear a pin drop. We all avoid town on these holidays and stock up on groceries ahead.  Easter is more of a festive  time in Canada, with most of us holding special dinners. Not so here - it is a religious festival. At one time in my life, I dressed myself and the three kids in new outfits to attend the church services at Easter and we always went for a pancake breakfast afterwards. Memories! None of my children or their families attend church regularly despite all those years of Sunday School and the junior choir, and to my chagrin, none of my grand-children are baptized. This being a mostly Roman Catholic country, the church is central to village life and our little church on the square is filled each Sunday.

Our local church before the Royal Palms were cut and new ones planted

RAIN! Mud, giant slabs, kittens - quite the mix

All Saints Day - the day my older daughter was baptized many years back. It was a beautiful day then and is again today!  Presently, there are about a half dozen workers in our back garden.  They are sloshing around in mud, working on the casita roof,and completing laying a slate path that resembles the Giant's Causeway in Ireland!  It is time to get this project finished. Yesterday, it rained so hard that we had a river flowing down the road and another flowing out of our back!  The patio was partly flooded, and it looked as though our whole back garden would be under water any minute.  A scene from Noak's Ark!

It will become a walkway!

The "river" flowing past the front of the house

A smaller river joins the big one (from next door)

Water from us and from lot 35

Does it ever rain in Panama you ask?  Oh, yes....and 20 minutes later it is bright sunshine and the puddles are fast disappearing. Only in Panama.

A week ago, just when we were about to give up on Fredi and her kittens, she suddenly placed them in one of our AC housings.  Three small furry bodies, well hidden.  Then last weekend, she carried/dragged the wee things to the back patio and to our delight put them in the comfy cat carrier we have out there. Two dark, one light ginger, and now we can see the dark ones are actually one brindled and one tabby.  I suspect a black cat who has arrived lately must be the dad. Our gingers chase him away so we have no idea where he came from or where he now hangs out.  The kittens were born around October 1st so are now about 4 weeks old.

With luck and ingenuity, we will befriend them, get them to a vet for a start, then get them adopted somehow.  Hopefully, Dr Diaz can assist us!  The bigger task is to make sure these are Fredi's LAST litter. She's fairly trusting now, but picking her up will be a challenge. With our care and feeding of their mother, at least these babes look healthy.  Spaz and Lucky are curious but Fredi warns them off if they get close.

I completed editing my manuscript of the novella. Then took a leap of faith and e-mailed query letters and the first chapter (five pages) to four agents. One replied within 24 hours with "interesting, but not for me right now". Courteous! I have the next book planned out and will complete an outline this coming week, then get down to work again.  Despite the agony and doubt, writing is now my forte!  Chris was off to the endodontist on Friday, having one of his root canals finished.  He missed wearing waders to get back home.  I swear that water would have been over his hubcaps!

One of our older workers, left us a big bag of lemons earlier in the week.  Using a little gadget I bought at a Fiesta here, we squeezed two jars full of lemonade.  Boy, is it sour!  Like concentrate.  So now I can have my morning glass of warm lemon before breakfast. I haven't found the lemon concentrate I used in Canada.  Still lots left to squeeze...

This is actually a long, long weekend for Panamanians.  Day of the Dead is tomorrow, Separation from Columbia is November 3rd and the 4th is flag day here.  Later in the month Santa Catalina is celebrated, closely followed by Independence from Spain.  A month full of celebrations - even more than Christmas.  No double time for any workers, and most businesses seem to simply close down. Fill your larder, and get your beer now! Last chance....