August began with the sad news that my best friend had passed away in Scotland, where she lived. I always imagined we might spend our dotage together raising hell and sitting on the porch sipping wine. It was yet another reminder not to wait to live your life. I raised a glass to her on her birthday, 6 days later. Not the best start to August.
I finally got all my paperwork in for my Belizean residency application and made the hour drive to Dangriga to hand it in and have my interview by the Immigration Department. The Immigration Officer was very pleasant and efficient and, for the first time dealing with various offices similar to this in 3 different countries, this was the most pleasant experience.
Business has slowed down for everybody. It’s known as the “slow” season due to the lack of visitors, and many restaurants and bars take this time to shut down and renovate or simply go on holiday. Cloud 9 Smoothies has remained open, but we’ve reduced our hours somewhat. We used this extra time to go to the beach
and experiment with Poptails (popsicles with alcohol in them). So far, I’ve made tequila sunrise and mojitos and they are delicious!
In the meantime, I was asked by an independent bartender if I would make 60 popsicles for a wedding he was hosting, which I did. They were a big hit and we hope to do more of these types of events. And I can’t wait to try them for myself!
Floatchella was by far the most fun thing we did in August. You can read my post about that here. Friends of ours provided the floatie which was big enough for 5 of us, and we had an amazing day floating around Placencia and stopping at various bars and restaurants along the way for refreshments (when I say refreshments, I mean Rum Punch!).
August continued to be very hot and muggy interspersed by rain, mostly at night, and some spectacular thunder storms with sheets of lightening that lit up the sky and caused power outages all over the place. The frogs that sound like ducks returned appearing out of seemingly nowhere, and everywhere I went they were hopping all over the place. Michael found one in our dish drying rack in the kitchen and there were a few in the washing machine also. Their cacophony could be heard for miles around.
The frogs were mild compared to the mosquitoes who descended upon us in their thousands. We found them buzzing around in the bathroom, in the laundry room and everything in between despite the mosquito screens on all our windows and front door. Sitting outside became almost impossible and we stocked up on bug spray and mosquito coils in an attempt to take back our patio for an evening drink (or two).
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