I think it’s been a while since I have written something; Gnome’s Mum is probably wondering what we are up to! Anyway, the weather has been very erratic; the beginning of the week looked like we were heading straight into dry season and now it’s grey and cold again. It seems unpredictable right now so we have to take each day as it comes. This week, we have been cleaning the area around the house. There were far too many trees encroaching upon us and blocking our view so Gnome chainsawed whilst I stacked the wood. After this, we will probably do a big mow around the cleared areas. There are a few more trees left to plant before it starts getting dry so we are actually hoping for some gloomy wet weather over the next few days! Ha-Ha…you would never think that I would say that…

Anyway, today we went into town (Punta Gorda) and I noticed that there seemed to be a lot of tourists. I mentioned this to someone and they said that it was PG Day. I have been here for 15 years and I did not know what PG day represented so I asked the local Belizean: “What is PG Day?” They shrugged their shoulders as if they were baffled too and said:”…well, it’s the party after Christmas and the one before Valentines Day!”

Yes, there is always celebrating going on around here! Anyway, it is nearly the end of the month already and I haven’t shared all my pictures from the last party season so I will finish off with some left-over pictures…

The goosies took over the hill at Christmas time despite Gnome taking a chunk out of it. We will re-claim the hill…the power struggle continues…

During the festive period, Gnome dug a cooking pit into the side of the sand. We spent two weeks baking a succession of au-gratin dishes:

Potato au gratin…we had this one many times. It is a hearty meal for cool weather:

This was a bread and Twix gratin with sweet bechamel sauce. Gratin is basically any dish topped with a browned crust usually with breadcrumbs. Also, bechamel sauce is the most popular type of sauce in these dishes. Basically, this gives you a lot of room for creativity:

Okay, I’ve caught up with my pictures so I’ll be taking some new photos tomorrow…

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