Woken up by a container being unloaded from a truck, it sounded like it was right outside of the house but think it was across the canal at the end of our street.

Sound really carries well over the water, on Sunday felt briefly like a disco here when a boat went by blaring out high energy party music.

Oh dear think my pleasure at the day being cooler is short lived as the temperature creeps up again.

This morning there was a brief few minutes when the sun was shining and immediately the rain came down in an absolute deluge.

Really a huge downpour and it went on for ages made me think that perhaps our summer was over as this often happens here.

It is usually hot here for two weeks tops then the weather breaks and never recovers and that is then usually the end of summer.

In 2000 it happened the day The Netherlands lost the European Cup to the French, not only the football was lost but what had been a gorgeous summer came to a total stop.

The city was very depressed and the worse of it was that I worked for Euronet, an Internet company, and there were quite a lot of French people working there.

They were still celebrating the next day; I was offered croissants and champagne when I got to work.

The Dutch half of the office were on bread and water that day, well that is how it felt anyway.

In recent years the trend for summer to come to an abrupt halt has occurred nearly every year since 2000.

Since 2004 we have never had a good June until this year and summers have been very wet usually leading to an early autumn in August.

One of the consequences of the wet summers has been en explosion in the moth population especially the brown tailed moth, one the covers trees in sticky tents and cause horrible allergic reactions in people.

Seems like this summer has made a comeback, going to ask Richie as soon as he finishes what he is doing to turn the fan on for me.

Marianne will be here in a wee while for our Tuesday visit, she is getting very excited about her trip to South Africa on the 21 July.

She is very much looking forward to it; she will be going on a bus journey around South Africa for 17 days.

On the one hand I think it is also exciting to go so far and see another country but on the other really hate this notion of holidays at the expense of others.

The idea of going to other places and seeing how other people live smacks abit of some sort of colonialism to me.

Countries often do not profit at all from tourists instead the money is made by a multi nationals who own the hotel and holiday companies.

The local people are used as servants and nothing of the money trickles down into the local economy.

That is why Eric Williams decided after Trinidad became independent from England 1962 to develop other industries than the Tourist Industry.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinidad_and_Tobago


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Williams

http://www.asawright.org/">http://www.asawright.org/">http://www.asawright.org/


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuisine_of_Trinidad_and_Tobago



http://www.trinigourmet.com/index.php/trinidadian-food-through-other-cultures-eyes/


He did not want the young people of Trinidad growing up to become servants of holiday makers.

And big international companies like the Hilton could only lease the land for short periods and not own the land outright.

They were very fortunate to have found oil and gas in the waters around the island and in that way could build up other industries and did not have to rely on tourism.

http://www.conway.com/trinidad/9907/index.htm


Seems to have paid off as the island seemed to be doing very well when I visited in 1997.

Something very funny is happening right here, Spike has a favourite toy it is called a Kong, supposed to be indestructible and at 8 Euros we hoped it might be, it has been Spikes darling since he got it a few weeks ago.

Seeing as the pet shop near us was closing on Saturday Richie called in to stock up on dog treats and another Kong for Marleen.

Well Spike was happily playing with his Kong until Marleen got her Kong which was idsentical to his toy and right away his was no longer nice, no longer his favourite.

This was done sensitively by giving them both a toy Spike got his old toy but he discarded it immediately and would not be persuaded otherwise, in fact he started to cry so we gave him the new toy and he was happy.

Just now he accidentally was playing with the older toy and Marleen with the new one until he realised and again he started pushing for the new toy.

Went on and on and he even cried again until he managed to get it off Marleen and then he was very happy to be reunited with his favourite toy.

If I had not seen this for myself I would not have believed it, both toys are identical but it is the new one that Spike has to have.

Weird!

Well summer has not departed but it is cooler so much nicer for me, have been more relaxed today.

Had a great visit from Marianne this afternoon really good we talked about all sorts and find we have a lot in common.

It has been very nice getting to know her since she first came as a volunteer, she heard about being a volunteer and putting something back into the community on local TV and went straight to their website and found me.

That was obviously my lucky day as that was in October 2007 and we have become good friends since then.

Off to the bathroom and then leg exercises with the Motomed and a delicious dinner which I am really looking forward to.

Hope everyone has a good evening.