Souvenir Photo Studio, by Al Bourassa: Friday May 7, 2021 Roof

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Friday May 7, 2021

Happy Birthday Cristina. She doesn't want me to alert anyone,.. an annual ritual.

Walked this morning, no Pinto today.. Maybe that was just a one-day stopover. Have been walking 4 dogs the last couple of days as Rocas has decided to join Turi, Buddy and Princesa. She causes problems but I am glad that she comes along. I went to the Gym later and a large black dog kept following me and wanted to play a bit so I obliged him. He followed me in and actually stayed with me throughout the exercises and then followed me home. Gosh, it could be so easy to have 100 dogs in this house but 12 is enough, especially with our 2 small males continuously after Turi who is in heat, even though she has been spayed. She is our only female with this problem.

Leonel came to cut our long grass this morning, arriving at 7:25am and finishing at 10am. Gosh the yard looks so much more spacious.

We had no water again this morning until 9am. Late showers are becoming the norm.

The two men who looked at our house the other day said they would come from Tulua around 10am if they could get through, but of course they couldn't. Boy, I dread the thought of moving but Roldanillo could be a lot more interesting with a larger expat population and visiting foreign paragliders. Roldanillo's population is around 32,000 compared to our 18,000.

As Leonel was leaving, Nina2 jumped our dividing wall and escaped out the door and would not return, even with the enticement of weiners. I let her wander for a bit, within sight, and then I was finally able to pick her up and bring her back.

A street vendor was going by with mirrors, pillows, bedding and more so I stopped him. Being Cristina's birthday, I wanted her to have a look, We ended up getting a pillow, new drapes for the living room and a large mirror. I set those up later.

While I was outside I saw the neighbour lady with another vendor and I asked her for a favor, and she said yes. I went back to get my camera and then went up to their newly built second floor (lovely construction but he complained it was hot) with their son who speaks some English. I needed photos of our roof because, honestly, I had little idea of what was up there and wanted to see any signs of obvious damage. There is a little, easily repairable it seems, so we will see what we will do. Claudia has offered to go up and re-arrange the upper tiles on the large patio roof. That will be a start. Our leakage problems are only when we get an enormous rainfall that probably just overwhelms the tile structure. We can't enclose the whole roof in plastic or we would probably have a different problem with sweating and mold..?? I don't pretend to be a tile roof expert.

I did a quick calculation of just the front small portion of our main roof. There are roughly 19 rows of 19 tiles, upper and lower, totalling a staggering 722 tiles!! That threw me for sure!

Cristina wanted to go to the cemetery so we did a stop there on this gorgeous day, very warm. Then I took her to a restaurant a block from home where we ordered full meals, she had beef, and I had pork cutlet. We weren't sure if they would be in short supply of meat, etc, when nothing is being delivered into here. Birthday meal bill was a staggering 18,000 pesos, or $4.75 USD... We really should eat out more often.

I had a little nap then got up to work on the photos. I got some really nice bird shots today and had to use the Merlin app to positively identify a couple of the big ones which I thought was a big eagle. But they were 2 separate species, a turkey buzzard (unusually white version) and a Yellow-headed Caracara which I had never seen before.

Cristina went out for a few staples with Claudia and reported that 2 other major stores had closed, no stock... Please let this madness end.

Aram messaged me to check the road situation if he got tickets to fly Bogota to Armenia tomorrow. I did check but knew the answer, which is the same as the day he left... Roads blocked everywhere, no traffic, no deliveries, .. and likely to stay the same until President Duque resigns in favor of the leftist guy, whoever he is...

I hope you enjoy the pictures. Order is all screwed up, again. That was the day’s excitement.

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