5799 miles later

hi. i am now in belize. i managed not to die on either of the flights, thanks to the wonders of valium, and whisky. a man sitting next to me showed me some photos he'd taken as we flew over greenland, then iceland - we were both pretty surprised as we figured to get to texas you'd just go straight over the ocean from heathrow. robert says it's because of the way the earth is, and if you look at it on a globe it makes sense. it didn't really matter as we could have been flying over the moon for all i cared, so long as we didn't drop out of the sky at any point. amazingly we didn't. i can't wait for the day they'll build a bridge over the atlantic. i was pretty impressed with continental airlines, and i think i can save up airmiles with them and maybe when i use my return flight i can get one of those big chairs at the front where you get free whisky and space to put your feet up.

for now we are living in a house in belize city, where the island owner (chris) will stay whenever he comes here. i have discovered that he made his money by being a geologist and telling some miners where to drill a mine and it struck gold so to speak - i imagine it's oil actually. the workers have been busy installing air conditioning and painting walls and putting up blinds and drilling things. they'll paint the outside later too.

it is hot here like it was before, it rained and lightninged in the night, i woke around 5am and we watched it. we are right on the water here and robert says he's been watching a crocodile some days, and some manatees. doug said they are currently building up the island's sea wall, and extending it by a few acres - so already my blog title needs amending as it will now be about 7 or more acres! we spoke about getting a vegetable patch out there, but there are issues as to wind/sun/salt/type of soil for what kind of things would successfully grow out there. i asked doug if we can put a velodrome around the island. perhaps my vision of the island won't quite match up to the reality.

last night i played my guitar a bit and we drank a rum with lemonade and then i fell asleep on the sofa downstairs as they were drilling the air conditioning unit into our room. it's quite weird to be back in belize, but it's nice to see robert again. we won't be on the island for a while due to the construction work going on out there, they anticipate it being up and running by december. i changed some money today, terrible exchange rate, and 15% commission fee - you betta belize it..........

wondering how the last election debate went today, heard about gordon's bigot comment in rochdale. i have sorted out my voting, mum will be my by-proxy person - i trust her more than dad to put the cross in the box i tell her to, dad might have had a strange 'memory lapse' and who knows who might become prime minister then - our vote in calder valley constituency is quite important, it counts for 0.7 of a vote apparently so i had to make sure i chose the right by-proxy parent.

going for some mexican food down the road now. missing england and everyone, hope all is well. xx