Just to say that there is a bigger update to come soon!
Recent adventures include; My third Philippine Christmas, moving house, a trip back to the UK, negotiating Philippine and Singapore Immigration, freezing snowy weather in England, the last train out of London, too many hours sat on an airplane and the realities of living away from the bustle of Davao City…
Stay tuned, some of it is fun, some of it is frustrating, some of it you people simply wouldn’t believe!
Later alligator 😉
If you know me on Facebook then you’ll have picked up on the fact that I am in the midst of buying a house with my partner Jhune.
there has been a lot of paperwork, endless forms Jhune has had to sign, an uncomfortable morning being shuttled from one property to another by minivan, money exchanged, deeds drawn up, induction meetings attended and the inevitable visits to DIY and furniture stores… I’ve already bought a brand new fridge/freezer!
What we don’t have, as yet, is a date to move.
Currently we’re in an area of Davao City called Matina, GSIS to be exact, it’s about a 20 minute cab ride from the city centre, a nice, if noisy area, the apartment is actually 2 floors, two bedrooms and two bathrooms, way to big for just us although the extra space has been handy now and then for visitors. As with all things, you get what you pay for, I get a nice big apartment, I pay a bloody fortune for it, comparatively speaking.
For the amount I pay here for the monthly rent, 15,000 pesos (about £220) I could get a single small room in a shared house in the UK, I know that is true because it’s exactly what I was paying for a single small room in a shared house before I left the UK to come and live here in Davao!
That said, this property is rented, it’s not like I can paint and decorate, drill holes to mount my TV on the wall, convert a bedroom to a home office, change the furniture or anything like that, so Jhune and I determined to buy a house of our own, nothing big or fancy, just an affordable small house we could call ours as a place to start.
Keep in mind that as a foreigner I’m technically not allowed to own property here in the Philippines, everything has to be in Jhunes name!
The house we’re buying is about a 30 minute drive out of the heat, dust and noise of Davao proper, in an area called Mintal, north of the city, the development is all affordable housing so they are small, simple houses, the site does boast a residents pool, community centre, picnic areas, a wake-boarding lake and fishing pond, it’s cooler than Davao, so far, and I’m looking forward to moving.
Make no mistake, there is a lot to do, painting, decorating, putting in a kitchen and plumbing, furniture, getting the cable-TV, phone and Internet installed and working, we have big plans for improvements in the future as well but at the moment the most important thing is that it is ours, it belongs to Jhune and I and is a big step for our future together… I’m excited!
Here are a few pictures to be going on with… Look out for more updates!
Later alligator 😉
My last update was February? Just after my birthday? How did that happen?
Well I’m back now, sorry for the lack of updates but it’s been a pretty busy time here on Ceti-Alpha 5!..
Back in March I became aware that my visa wasn’t up to date. And not just by a little, by a lot, I’m not going into details on here but suffice to say it took a handful of e-mails, two trips to the central Bureau of Immigration offices in Manila, a visit to a notary, thousands of pesos in fees and charges and lots of standing in queues in order to get things sorted out.
But hey, my perseverance was rewarded with a new visa and a new ID card, and a promise on my part to make sure I renew my visa every two months like I’m supposed to do. It’s due again in about a weeks time!
While that was going on I got some very sad news from home, my elderly father had passed away, he was 85 and had been in poor health for over a year so his passing wasn’t really a shock to me, all the same being so far from home left me feeling oddly disconnected from the situation.
As my passport was in Manila and a plane-ticket back to the UK was beyond my budget at the time I was forced to do my grieving largely alone, helped by Jhunes support and kind wishes from many of my online friends all over the world.
I plan to return to the UK in late September or early October to pay my respects at the family plot at the cemetery.
Putting it bluntly I knew my father had been unhappy for more than 10 years since my mother passed away, he told me once that he had no quality of life after that, I take some comfort in knowing that if there is anything after we pass then at least they are together now.
I’m not a religious man, I don’t have a problem with people having a faith, but I tend to view organised religions and mass worship with scepticism, I’m not really the type to dwell on loss and grief, too practical I guess.
All the same, I spent a lot of time with Dad before I left the UK to come to the Philippines, we talked a lot, he was pleased and excited that I had decided to take this adventure, I shall miss him, his cheeky attitude and his occasionally grumpy moods, I wonder where I get them from? RIP Dad.
With that sadness a little behind me I’ve tried to concentrate on Jhune, and on growing my business, happier and more exciting things to fill my time and stop me becoming too engrossed with the subject of mortality.
As I write this Jhunes birthday is a few days away, he’ll be an ancient 24! I can’t even remember being 24! A point I mention to him every time he starts getting maudlin about his age 😉
Friends are coming to celebrate with us at the weekend, he’ll be cooking seafood and lashings of rice, not sure if I have to cook at all, I guess he’ll tell me when the time comes!
Aside from those ups and downs life on Ceti-Alpha 5 has trundled along.
Hot, sweaty days… Hot, sweaty nights with thunderstorms, I think I’ve got used to the weather now, or at least I don’t notice it which is much the same thing, when I return to England in a couple of months I expect the approaching winter will snap me back to the reality that not everywhere is a tropical paradise!
I’ll do my best to update the blog again soon but don’t hold your breath…
Later alligator 😉
So, February then, and another birthday under my belt, it was on Valentines Day actually, February 14th! There is an unfortunate coincidence! Or at least it used to be…
My birthdays used to be pretty subdued, most of my pals were out with their wives or partners and I’d find it nearly impossible to book a table at a restaurant or get into a pub on the actual day so I took to having a days leave before or after the nearest weekend and hammering down plenty of Guinness and Jim Beam by way of celebration! The extra days leave usually gave me enough time to recover from my hangover…
Of course as I got older the urge for beer lessened, the pain of a hangover grew and I just sort of lost interest in partying hard like I did in my younger days… In other words I got to be a bit of an old fart on my birthday!
Jhune has taken it on himself it seems to ensure my birthdays are no longer quiet periods of introspection and navel-gazing!
This year a week of celebration kicked off on my birthday night with a splendid meal at a very up-market French restaurant right here in Davao City!
He took me too the Café de Floré on F. Torres St where we received a friendly greeting, quickly seated and provided with a very nice glass of red wine while we waited a short while for our starters to arrive, a fresh shrimp salad for Jhune, and a delicious rich tomato soup for me with cream and croutons…
Neither lasted long before we were ready for our main course. Mmmmm, Asparagus wrapped in bacon with a selection of grilled vegetables, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, shallots and a rich sauce liberally applied all over, it was truly delicious, personally such a meal would have been the last thing I would have chosen for myself, I can be a bit traditional at a restaurant and would normally go for a good steak, but Jhune had ordered the food in advance and his selection was simply marvellous!
Dessert consisted of a rich fruit topped chocolate mousse for Jhune and I tucked into a cherry sponge confection served up with lashings of chocolate sauce and fresh cream.
While we ate the owner of the establishment, an elderly Englishman, came and asked us how we liked the food and if we were enjoying our visit. His attention, the friendly atmosphere, attentive staff and the great food made it a night to remember though I’m afraid Jhune has made a bit of a rod for his own back, I can hardly wait to see what he’s going to feed me for my next birthday!
Of course, this being the Philippines and my partner being the man he is my birthday celebrations didn’t end on Valentines night, oh no, all through the week Jhune made me feel special culminating in a small Friday night get together with some of our friends…
But that can wait until next time!
Later alligator 😉
Over two months since my last update, wow! My only excuse is that my work has kept me very busy with new development and design work for my clients and a big update to the company website that I rebuilt only a few months ago! These things tend to be cyclic, normally not quite so often but this time I needed to act on some of my users feedback.
When I rebuilt the site I made use of new tools and standards but I let things slip a little when it came to making it all work on a mobile device, a smartphone or tablet. This is what’s known as “responsive design”, you cut one set of pages and if you get it right, i.e. start with a mobile-friendly version first, then what you end up with is a site that works across all sorts of devices from Android smartphones to Apple iPads to Windows PCs and laptops.
Lets just say that when I got stuck into coding my new site I let my priorities slip a little and while it all worked on multiple devices, it wasn’t always that nice to look at, extra work was needed, which meant extra research and learning more new tools!
After a few extra days of effort I’m happy to say the site is now “responsive” and the techniques and tricks I’ve learned are now a part of my toolkit for other design and development work, a result all round!
Take a look and see what you think; http://www.comdotty.com
With that work and my new client sending me plenty of e-mails with tasks to complete I’ve been pretty wrapped up in the whole rat-race to earn a living once again, I’ve tried to put it behind me a couple of times now but I just can’t leave well enough alone, my UK contacts keep putting little jobs my way and as long as people are will to pay for my time then I might as well make the most of the opportunities!
August has the makings of being a more relaxing month though, despite having plenty to do. For one thing it’s my partners birthday, after asking what was wanted in the way of a birthday present it seems that a bathroom with a tub and hot water was highest on the list!
So, that means we’ll be away at the beginning of the month for a long weekend in a nice hotel, here in Davao but a nice hotel anyway, big bed, hot and cold running water and a big comfortable tub for some long relaxing soaks…
Later in August we’ll be upgrading our broadband service, I say upgrading, the idea is to reduce our costs, although the current subscription is for the fastest service PLDT offer after a year of use it’s pretty obvious that despite my work and the occasional streaming movie I’m paying way over the odds for what I’m using. Ergo, as the contract is up for renewal its out with the big expensive service and in with a much more modest provision for a cost of 1/3rd of what I’ve been paying up to now!
Of course it means PLDT need to come change out the Wi-Fi router, change the landline number and then I will have to spend a happy afternoon changing passwords and IP leases on my computers, printer, tablet and smartphones but you can’t win them all I suppose!
More on the upgrade once we have a date from PLDT.
Later alligator 😉
As I mentioned in a previous post I arrived here in Davao City in May 2015, I spent a week at the Radisson Park Inn, sitting around in air-conditioned luxury with a pool-bar and free daily breakfast and a fancy new mall connected to the hotel by a Sky-bridge… Or bridge to you and me!
My pinoy companion Jess and I had a pleasant few days in the hotel and enjoying Starbucks coffee in the mall before we ventured out into the city for the first time to view the apartment we wanted to rent.
I’d short-listed 4 or 5 potential properties to look at long before I ever left England and Jess did all the leg-work by checking them out before I arrived, 2 were no longer available and of the remaining 3, well one seemed to be afflicted by a neighbour from hell who had some sort of bug up his ass about rental terms before I’d even got off the plane, after a variety of empty and increasingly paranoid threats about legal action, storage, lease terms and the like I decided I didn’t really want to be living next to this nut-job… C’est la vie!
The next place turned out to be much smaller than it looked (and was far more expensive!) but the third, well as Goldilocks said*, the third one was just right!
I say just right but that is only because the laid-back pinoy philosophy is starting to force out my more usual grumpy English curmudgeon!
The place was actually filthy, there were a variety of strange smells, fittings that didn’t work, a leaking cistern and a cockroach infestation in the dirty-kitchen and refrigerator, in fact I wouldn’t have been surprised if the place had been used to house a troop of chimpanzees who made meth-amphetamine in their spare time, every room was littered with long thick black hairs and there were suspicious looking dark marks and stains up most of the walls!
It took us two days to clean from top to bottom and about 2 weeks to eliminate the roaches, which as it turned out was a bit sad, one of them was so big I’d named him Cocky and I was hoping he’d survive the harsh chemicals I used to dispatch his brethren as it would have saved me having to buy a cat, alas it was not to be and poor old Cocky went the same way as his pals…
Being a firm believer in the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words, here are a few pics of my home and neighbourhood…
Later alligator 😉
* Goldilocks is also reported to have said “f@ck me this place stinks of Bear shit” but that never made it into the final manuscript!
At home in Davao City 