the weatherman

the other day at the market at maya beach we bought some dvds, one of them was the weatherman with nicolas cage. we haven't watched it yet, but for the last 12 hours i've been obsessing about satellite pictures on the belize weather bureau website, and the tv is staying on the weather channel all night long. there is a tropical storm/depression 270 miles away, south east, heading north west. robert says a tropical storm is really nothing to worry about, it's not even a category 1 hurricane. robert was in a category 5 hurricane in north carolina once, and was fine. but robert is like that he has all these stories like his life is one big action movie, starring tom selleck. i'm just not used to this extreme weather nonsense. i prefer category 5 drizzle or fog or just plain old grey skies then sunny a bit then rainy again then who knows what it's english weather ooo isn't it weird and unpredictable, but at least it doesn't keep you awake at night worrying about your roof flying off or a tsunami going through your kitchen.

anyway isn't that ironic nicolas cage. and did you know that nicolas cage is the nephew of francis ford coppola, who owns some swanky resorts out here. apparently coppola first came to belize to try to persuade belize to become a high tech communications hub. i don't know what that really means, i imagine lots of phone boxes everywhere and phone lines. i read it in my new moon handbook to belize, which incidentally is a pretty good guide book, full of interesting facts. 

we're in belize city today as we came up to collect robert's son timothy. i have met him before in new mexico where he lives - last year when we drove monty the motorhome through the states - and he had swine flu so we couldn't hang out with him. he is quite like robert, he's the same size and shape. we went to watch his plane land at the airport and then tried to spot him getting off it. i don't normally watch planes land because i don't like them, but it's actually quite good fun and a bit weird as they are so large and just appear out of the clouds and plop down onto the ground without the world ending. it does amaze me quite a lot. i think if i watch enough of them landing it'll act like a vaccination against being scared of them.

so anyway we are watching the weather channel as i mentioned. it's showing some parts of the states where there are always tornadoes - tornado alley i think they call it. why would you live there, knowing that tornadoes go there all the time? why? why? it must be really cheap rent is all we could think of. our tropical storm is apparently going to affect honduras, nicaragua, cuba, jamaica, and the cayman islands. so i think we'll be fine.it's headed towards the yucatan peninsula in mexico, to check out some of the mayan ruins probably. i wrote a hurricane survival kit list today, we need to get lots of water and tins of beans and a tin opener, and some blankets. i said we should get wellies and socks too, but they laughed at that. we would go west to chaa creek near the guatemala border and we'd be fine there. they're predicting a really active hurricane season this year but they always say things like that don't they.

in other news i am now reading a book called i, rigoberta menchu, which is a book about a guatemalan lady who survived the genocide there in the 70s/80s, and is kind of a political activist about it all now. it's making me want to go back to guatemala and do something useful, in a kind of i want to save the world type way. i am still also reading the italo calvino book, and that vietnam book.

in work related news, the workers have finished fixing the dock in placencia. we got the shopping list from the cook out on the island and we sent him the vegetables already, which he complained about, he said they were there too early. jeez there is no pleasing some people. so we ordered the chickens for monday, but they arrived today, so i guess he'll complain about that too.

i cycled yesterday morning, and knocked a good few minutes off my previous time. last night i dreamt about scorpions scurrying around all night, not sure what that means. i had eaten some cheese with my dinner which probably didn't help.

ok well that's all my updates for today. will be watching england lose to germany on sunday. adios x