Monday, December 23
Kovalem Junction, 14:10
This morning I got up early with my laptop for the second day in a row. Yesterday, I checked that everything worked and then realised that I had forgotten everything about Liquid Story Binder. I taught myself again.
Today I realised that this had been worth it. The first draft I had constructed in LSB had not taken advantage of a number of its strong points. In particular it had left me with no clear overview. Like many manuals the (somewhat sketchy) LSB manual is much easier to read if you already understand how the program works. Today I read it again, and this time I was able to understand how I could use it to get exactly the effect I needed.
By the time everyone was up wanting breakfast I had got a working system sorted out. I had also fed one of the cats.
When we arrived we had noticed a leaflet in the house advertising the tenth anniversary of the local Zero Waste Centre. After breakfast we got two tuktuks to the celebrations, which take place today. Auo was confident that these would amount to one table with two badly painted papier mache egg cups, and I was not confident that she was wrong.
It turned out to be much more interesting, and both Irma and I were very glad we had gone. I arranged to go back on January 8th for another talk and to collect leaflets to take back to Helsinki. I was particularly interested in the Bag Tree project, which gave me a number of ideas.
Now, having bought some presents and juices from the Zero Waste Centre, we are 100 metres up the road at Kovalam Junction where we are hoping to get a taxi to a garden centre that Irma wants to visit. I am watching the traffic pass while she negotiates with various drivers.
We will get two tuktuks to the garden centre, buy some plants, and then ride home. Minutes later we will walk down to Lighthouse Beach.
We will sit at Leo while the girls play frisbee on the beach. Irma and I will walk to the south end to buy postcards, and then we will all eat at Leo. I will have fish masala.
We will be persuaded to return tomorrow for the Christmas Special, which involves a traditional meal turkey. Indeed, we will be invited to come and look at the turkey tomorrow afternoon while it is still alive. All notions of a traditional Christmas dinner will disappear when we are asked if we want the turkey hot, medium or mild.
Auo and I will guess that the tandoori oven will be involved in this meal at some point.