Varon’s birthday, so went out gift shopping with Lulu to find a present or two. My job was pretty simple, as I’d decided that a “man-bag” would be useful and stylish. Lulu was aiming for a t-shirt, but ended up with a cigarette lighter inside a small leather boot. Sunday, the main square gets closed to traffic and people set up little stalls selling food and Mayan dolls. Imagination is not a strong point here, the stalls all fall into three or four categories, then all sell the same thing at the same prices, if I didn’t know better I’d say this had been organized.  You get many stalls selling chips and sausage. This seems to be exactly the same as I had for instance when I visited the bull ring last year. The chips are pretty awful and dry ( so you must buy a drink, usually Coca-Cola ), and the “sausages” really seem to be made out of some foam rubber type substance, and no, I am not joking. Still, the same people are there every Sunday with the same food, so, someone is buying it. Other stalls sell cakes, some sell traditional Yúcatecan dresses, and other sell dolls, cigarette lighters, beads, and rugs. The bead and rug brigade come from Chiapas, and without exception are dark skinned skinny women each with a one year old child on their hip. Again, cynical old me I suspect there’s a creche where you can go rent one of these sorry looking doe-eyed kids for a few pesos per day. The locals are pretty dismissive of these immigrants, and often say “have you ever seen a man from Chiapas”, well the answer to be honest is “not as far as I know”. “Ahah! They’re at home drinking beer and watching TV”. Well, it is Sunday after all.

Merida Sunday, complete with pale skinned Gringo couple from central casting.

In front of City Hall, there is always something for the kids. It’s a street show, and it’s very good of its kind. A sort of Tiswas with the rude bits taken out.  Somewhat like a traditional British pantomime, but outdoors in 25 degrees of heat ( and no Sally James I’m afraid ).

Old dog

Sally James

On the way back to my house to wrap up the gifts we had to pass a dead dog, that had lain in the street on the corner since yesterday. Buses come around the corner with the assumption that nothing can ever be there that they didn’t expect. Well, this poor beast didn’t expect the bus it seems.

The flies were beginning to dine on his eyeballs, but thankfully the next day someone ( maybe that little guy who sweeps the streets round here ) had taken away the stinking body.

So, Sunday night a large party at Varon’s house? Well, just the Gang of Four, as usual. The dog was very pleased with the leftover food. It’s an ill wind eh?.

Gratuitous photo of  Sally James for those of a certain age.

After all to much ado, we now have posession of the premise in the center of town to open a chip shop. It’s been fun planning the menu and trying out the batter mixes. I’m pretty close to a perfct chip shop batter. Together with the potatos, and the fish the shop will live or die by the quality of the batter. My Méxican friends have been very kind in tasting for me, and the only thing not to go down well was mushy peas. Real mushy peas cannot be had, so I mashed up a tin of processed. The rest tho seems to be liked as Lulu asked me yesterday when the frier was next coming out of the cupboard.

I mentioned the deep fried Mars Bar concept to them and it was like a drop of blood in a shark tank. Marsh mallows, deep fried cheese etc. I told them about “scraps”, if you remember those. We used to beg fo them when we were kids, but Varon say we should make them on purpose and sell them as they would be a real winner with lime and chillie.

While preserving the traditional fish and chip shop values, it is appropriate to update the concept I think with some modern marketing. As part of a broad base multi media aproach and a demographically targeted campaign I am currently trying get a robot parrot made up. Seems we have a man for the job, and i will meet up with him on Sunday to discuss how the beast can be engineered. I am very excited, as you can imagine.

Best news of all, an icecream machine has been identified. It has a high production rate of several liters an hour and is of the “Mr Whippy” ilk.

“99″ anyone?

Varon and Lulu need some extra cash for christmas, and so they decide to make up some gift baskets and sell them for profit. Seems like a jolly wheeze and I´m joining in.

It’s not as easy as you may think. You have to do a lot of footwork, and know where to go, and speak Spanish, and not look like a Gringo. This is fine for Lulu, Varon has a problem since everyone will speak to him in English, charge him double, and eventually ask him where he is from. I hear the same conversation every day, and when he tells them he is from Mérida they alwasy say “¿En serio?”, i.e.” you got to be kidding!”. Poor guy has “Gringo” written all over him. Anyway, Lulu is a star and comes back with lists of goods at wholesale prices and photographs, so we are chosing what goes into the various baskets. There will be 4 or 5 standard offerings. We needed sweets and so we bought some sample typical Mexican candies from the market. Here’s a photo.

The Dentist´s friends.

My favourite is the swirley one, I have my name on it, but I’ve been told I cannot eat the merchandise as it would be a bad habbit to get into. Besides not to compromise my skinnyness.

So far, here in Mexico, life continues to be sweet.

Weather update. It’s been dank and miserable for a few days. Still t-shirt weather, and in a way a relief from the heat. Mexicans are putting on their thick wooly coats and scarves. “¿Que mal tiempo eh?” one of the workmen now remarks each morning. I agree with him, but not really. Stay good!

Xmas is coming.

Yes, no kidding, it will soon be here, unfortunatly the workmen show little sign of NOT being here. They are becomiing like family to me, that is to say at times very annoying for no reason other than their existance. One of them has a really silly annoying giggle, wonder if anyone ever told him, and several have developed a tuneless whistle that is a song with only two bars of music it seems. My dear old father had a similar thing, but we all knew it was from Oklahoma! It really annoyed Mum.

I set my mobile to wake me in the morning, but some damned bird has figured this out and can imitate the alarm sound to a tee, and takes delight in waking me up half an hour early ( at 6:00 ). At 6:30 sharp they troop in, annoying whistle and giggle and all, and one of them always says something garbled in Spanish with the word “cafe” in it ( coffee ). I always say “OK”, and off they troop to the patio to boil beans and plan their busy day digging holes and covering the inside of the house in chalk dust.

This is like house arrest, but now and then I sneak out to do some work on my little fledgling business. I always get back at quitting time to the smell of more beans and they troop out whistling and giggling.

“Mañana!” they shout. “Si mañana”, I say, and look forward to Sunday, my day of rest… except for that bastard bird, that never seems to take a rest.