Family Healing

I am a big believer in the power of family, the strength you draw from each other and the bond that you have.  I am very lucky to have one of the closest families I have ever known (as one would have seen over the years on this blog) and at the time of loss we pull together even tighter.  I am so happy to be here with them, remembering, sharing and laughing over the million stories we each have about Uncle Tono.  Everyone wants to share their story and express how special he was to them, and of course this extends to his millions of other close friends around the world.  Every night the house is full of people, the phone rings from morning to night, the fridge is stocked with food and flowers, the tributes are pouring in.  It is truly amazing and a testament to a great man.

 These are almost all the first cousins.  I am so happy that Nicola was able to come from the UK.  It will be a proper send off to Uncle Tono on Friday with all of us there.

I also know that family comes in all shapes and forms and does not necessarily mean you are blood related.  There are many people here that I consider in my family and love just the same.  The week before Uncle Tono died another great man passed away way before his time, Bunny Manning.  Bunny Manning, was one of the kindest, friendliest, funniest man I have ever met and he also produced one of the most special and kindest friends I have, Nadia Manning-Thomas.  I was shocked to hear of his passing and saddened that I could not be here with her, just to hug here when she needed and tell her in person how much I love her.  And then a week later we are hugging and having that talk.  Of course, we are both here under terrible circumstances and would much rather be at our respective homes (hers France, mine Quito) and meeting at my wedding next month instead, but I am still glad I got to give her that hug and meet her precious (huge) son, Zemi.

Uncle Tono

In some ways this is the hardest post I have had to write and other ways the easiest.  Hardest because a great man is lost to us today, an Uncle that I have adored and been so proud to call my Uncle my whole life.  But the easiest as I have so many wonderful memories that I could write and when I think of all of them they make me smile. This whole week I have been remembering such wonderful times.  I remember, probably 8 or 9 years ago being in my local pub in Bruton with Uncle Tono commentating a cricket match in the back ground on Sky.  We had all had a glass of wine or two and the other regulars bet me I could not get him to send us a greeting on air.  Well I got his cell number and called him in Jamaica, of course he told me not to be ridiculous.  But then went right on air and said a shout out to his niece and her friends in The Sun Inn Bruton, which besides just being fabulous earned me free drinks all day.  I was not surprised at all as I knew that that is what Uncle Tono is like.  
I cannot even count how many friends I have had come to stay at One Acre over the years and how much all of them adored his stories and humour.  The out pouring of love from them and so many others today and around the world has been tremendous.  
He was a legend,  and not just because of cricket because of the man and Uncle he was.  He will be greatly missed by me and all.

These were taken at his 75th birthday/50th wedding anniversary last summer, what a day to remember, among many.  I just hope Uncle Tono where your journey has taken you now that they have a lot of ice cream and maybe a few rums.

Alter Egos

A few months ago, after a long night on my patio a group were discussing alter egos and realised that many of us had been nicknamed by loved ones when we are being slightly over the top.  For instance, Luis always calls me Leslie when I am up for a big night out and Roman told us he called Betsy, Becky when this occurs.  So last week a few of ladies planned an 'alter ego' night, just an excuse to go out and have a great night together.  The ladies:

 Becky 

 Sasha

 Leslie

Jackie.O.

Well we certainly did our alter egos proud, so proud in fact I think we will not see them again for many many months if not years!

Posh Ecua Food Urko

Last night I was treated by the fabulous Cody Rook to a posh Ecuadorian meal. Urko is a restaurant that takes traditional Ecua dishes and poshes them up.  They use all local ingredients and spend a lot of time explaining each dish.  I have heard people rave about it before and will have to admit it is blinking tasty.  Luis always says how he is going to miss all the food here, and I must say I do not really agree, especially as very meat and rice orientated.  However, if it was always cooked like this I would definitely miss it.  

 These were properly amazing, not really sure what they were but know they were veggie

 Am I really that boring...

And we shared this desert, it reminded me a bit of JELLO pudding  but it was still yummy.

 A lovely night, great food and company.  I am not sure how me and Rook are going to solve all the world problems when we live across the world from each other, but we will find away.

Crufts 2017

We are back in total training, Crufts 2017 we will be there.  Lola is back to her fantastic agility course self, okay the sea saw is still a problem  but we got time.  Luis even had a go doing the running with her, he didn't do too badly I must say.

 Then the neighbours arrived for Lola's first big show.  She was nervous and a little tired due to all the practising, but she did an amazing job.

She did so well, that River got inspired and decided to try the course himself.  He did a pretty good job :)

My Two Sense

A bit of a rant here.  A lot of people here complain about the increase in crime and also the current President.  Now I am no expert on the President, I think he started off trying very hard to bridge the huge inequality gap in Ecuador and in the beginning was largely popular with all classes.  Now that has changed, and there is a much bigger resentment towards him from the middle and upper classes. There are a lot of new policies and laws that are very unpopular and it does seem like he is grasping at straws in many cases.  Either way, it does annoy me when the answer to crime is to build bigger walls and blame loads of people without examining root causes.  On our walk on Sunday, we walked across the river from two different neighbouring houses estates, seen below:

 These are three homes worth at least a couple million, they are huge, with all the trimmings.  Pools, gazebos, hot tubs, expensive cars the works.  Each probably houses 4 or 5 people at max.

Directly next door, separated by a small fence is a housing estate that has very few windows, largely falling down, and probably houses a few hundred people. It was just an amazing example of the huge inequalities in this country (and I know not just this country).  And what I do not understand is why more people living in the places above do not put together that maybe some people in the neighbouring community who have very little chance of upward mobility might be a tiny bit frustrated with the 3 BMW's next door and be a bit peeved about it. Anyways, just my two sense.

(as a side note I have no idea who lives in any of these homes, and they all may live in total harmony and all try and help each other.  It was just a perfect example of what I see all the time here).

Addicted to Rebuilding

It is safe to say I was pretty upset with the loss of the pictures of about 800 of my 1064 posts.  A lot of work went into those and I love looking back on past entries and hope when I am much older, that I look back on the blog as my diary.  So this loss has been fairly distressing and I have spent more hours than I am willing to admit trying to piece it back (and will spend countless more).  I will never have it all back and already know there will be huge gaps but I am making progress.
And the big silver lining is I am going to get to do loads of great things over again.  I am determined to rebuild the bits I cannot find any photos of by going back to the spot and recreating the pictures.  I know it seems slightly over the top but I hate doing things by halves and I want it back to the way it was, or as close as possible.  The good thing is it meant me and Luis had a fabulous day in Cumbaya so that I could take some photos over.  But of course we then stayed and had a lovely sunny warm day.

It was such a beautiful day, we ended up having a lovely lunch and also a lovely walk that I have never done before.  I definitely should have lived in a valley, small towns are definitely the way forward for me not to mention the four degree weather increase.  Oh and just so I seem even more crazy, I took different outfits to re create the blogs (ones I remember wearing).