Tuesday 25th march 2014…..birthdays, friends back again and lots more!!!!!!

Hay Birthday to Sam, my niece, here we are in the cold waters of Loch Lomond!!!

Thanks Vicky for the new Senior’s hot tub!!!!

I think I am getting over my sore throat and this morning I did not have tennis and I went and checked on Carolyn and she is feeling a little better which is great news!!

I then went back to the Dermatologist she wanted to remove the stitches I had from last week and when I got there and went into her office I lifted my shirt and told her the stitches came out on their own a few days ago..she gave me my file which shows everything is OK!

The next stop was to go to the small RV ark outside of town as my wonderful friends Paula and Jerry are back in town with 3 other RV ing couples for 3 days….we had a visit and caught up a little and then I had to leave to go to the Immigration department to have my fingerprints taken.

I met the lady who is helping me with this and when my name was called I went to the window and saw the agent..his first comment was that he did not like my soccer shirt and I told him it was not my favorite I liked Chivas but I picked the wrong team because he did not like them either..so I did not get off to a good start but he was laughing.  He took a very official looking form and stamped it and then took my fingerprints and then asked me to sign the form which I did.

He then took my passort and looked at the signature on the passort and said they were not the same and he could not accept the form and I would have to come back tomorrow. Now I realize this is Mexico and things work differently here and also I know I need to be very patient…..so in my best Spanish I told him I was very sorry I had the wrong shirt on and also I was very sorry that my signatures were a little different but could he do another form and I would try to sign the same way…he just looked at me and told me to go and sit back down.  So I got out pen and paper and tried to replicate my passport signature do you know how hard that it is to do when you are trying really hard…anyway this is my signature from my passort

nothing to it right!!!

and this I think is how I signed the form

the top loop was too big….anyway after about 5 minutes he called me back and he had another form for me to sign…I pointed to the new signature I had practiced on a piece of paper and if that was Ok and he said yes..so I signed….and……and…all was well I was finished.

So now according to my facilitator I wait about 8 days and should have my new visa!!!!

What a performance…..

Came needed to recover from this so I did with a late lunch and watching a live soccer game from England.

Later in the afternoon I went to see Paola but again no one at home!!!!

I went and checked again on Carolyn and she is a lot better than this morning so hopefully a few more  days of rest and she will be back!!!!

On the way back home the heavens opened and it rained like crazy not fun driving the scooter.

So a bit of a day!!!

Yashi Kochi!!!

Test

This another nexus test

Monday 24th March 2014…a usual Monday!!!

This morning I went over to see how Carolyn was doing and she is still not well and promised me if she is no better tomorrow will call the Doctor…….Did some chores in town and then came home and got my lesson  ready for tonight and then went to get Paola for her appointment and class but again no one was home when I got there…this has me concerned as during the last few weeks I see a change in her in not a good way she seems distant and quite unhappy so I am going to talk to someone about her and see what can be done.

I still feel just a tad under the weather so I took it easy and drank lots of fluids and then went to my class tonight..it was again a great class and this time I told them all about our trip and printed out an article about the cave of the swallows..they seemed very interested.

Now home watching tennis and having tea.

I did take these photos this morning the colors of SMA!!!

 

 

 

Billie Jean King: Nobody ever asks us women to coach

Billie Jean King, who won 39 Grand Slam titles and was the driving force behind the formation of the WTA Tour, says modern players are making a "big mistake" by not employing more female coaches.

Other than Martina Hingis' informal relationship with Sabine Lisicki, no-one in the WTA Top 20 is currently coached by a woman. And Mikhail Kukushkin and Denis Istomin are incredibly rare on the ATP tour in being coached by their wife and mother respectively.

Billie Jean King

• Born: 22 November 1943
• Country: USA
• Turned pro: 1968
• Retired: 1983

Grand Slam singles victories

Australian Open: 1968

French Open: 1972

Wimbledon: 1966, 1967, 1968, 1972, 1973, 1975

US Open: 1967, 1971, 1972, 1974

"I've coached Tim Mayotte and a couple of others, but nobody ever asks us," King told me on a visit to this week's event in Indian Wells.

"It's a big mistake because we are a great resource, and they should ask. Nobody ever comes to me and says 'Will you help me with my game?' any more. The last one to ask me to help was Martina Navratilova when she was playing her last few years of singles."

So why does she think female players aren't asking other women to coach them?

"We've been taught that we're not as good at things. That's the way world culture works. I don't think it ever crosses their mind. And a lot of people don't like to be controversial - everything's branding today. I didn't worry about that so much.

"We grew up seeing the world through men's eyes. You can say it's good or bad - it doesn't matter - but the point is we have. That's the way we perceive the world because men wrote the stories and decided what would be on television."

The 70-year-old was in typically feisty form when we met in the BBC commentary box at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. Her eyes sparkled with excitement, through purple-rimmed glasses, when we talked about the emergence of Romania's Simona Halep and her recent trip to Sochi as part of the US presidential delegation for the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics.

“Jennifer Lawrence's performance in The Hunger Games would make her an ideal candidate to play a 29-year-old Billie Jean King in a movie”

Despite recently expressing concern at the treatment of the lesbian and gay community in Russia, she told me that it was a fabulous trip: the food was great, the sky was perfect, and they even played Tchaikovsky.

And after the success of last year's documentary about King's 1973 'Battle of the Sexes' match with Bobby Riggs, she is delighted there has been interest in a film version from producers like Danny Boyle. Jennifer Lawrence's performance in The Hunger Games would make her an ideal candidate to capture a 29-year-old Billie Jean King.

Maria Sharapova's suggestion in a recent BBC interview that men should play best of three set matches at Grand Slams had also reached King's ears.

"Somebody said to me earlier today you must have gotten to her with [your views on] the two out of three sets, but I said I haven't actually talked to her. Maybe she's read stuff because I've been saying it for ever.

"And I'll tell you why. I don't want the top men to quit tennis so early. It's so physically difficult the way they have to play today."

Bille Jean believes the likes of Sampras, Borg and even John McEnroe retired too soon.

"Every time one of them leaves I just want to cry because I love watching them. I think part of the reason they leave early is that they are just worn out. I remember Sampras telling me that he had to get through the last year to be ranked (year end) number one in the world six times.

"He was getting injections in his shin just to get through the last year, and he said I was just worn out. I want quality over quantity and I want them to last longer."

King's suggestion is that men should experiment with best-of-three-set matches for a five-year period. She is convinced it would be more exciting, and she has a history of being very persuasive.

There's no appetite for a change on the men's tour just now, but don't ever underestimate Billie Jean King.

Yashi Kochi!!!

Sunday 23rd March 2014…an easy day!!!

I did not seem to have much energy this morning so I did not go on the Sunday morning hike instead I had breakfast and watched a live soccer game from England..it was a good game but not as entertaining as the one yesterday.

I have received news that my good friend Stella, Ashley’s Grandmother, is coming to SMA and she will stay in my casita from Aril 4th for a month….the timing is great hopefully I will have my visa and be able to show Stella around for a couple of days before I take off.

So this morning after the game I did laundry and then started to get my casita ready..tidied some drawers, sorted some clothes and then tackled the kitchen cupboards.

I went over to Carolyn's this afternoon we had tickets for a charity function put on by the animal shelter organization but she is too sick to go….I know I gave her my sore throat virus and her immune system is a bit low and she feels not great so she stayed home and I went out on the scooter it was about 23 km out of town and a lovely old Hacienda.

A very beautiful setting and the function was well attended.

I am still not back to “normal” so spending a quiet night at home…

Yashi Kochi!!!!

Saturday 22nd March 2014…sports, then sports then culture and finish with sports!!!

Up at 6.30am and still have a little sore throat but watched a wonderful entertaining soccer game from England and here is some of the excitement… 

Referee Andre Marriner apology for Kieran Gibbs red card error

Referee Andre Marriner has apologised for sending off Arsenal defender Kieran Gibbs by mistake during the Gunners' 6-0 defeat by league leaders Chelsea.

A penalty was awarded after Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain tipped Eden Hazard's shot around a post with his hand but Gibbs was shown the red card.

Oxlade-Chamberlain seemed to tell Marriner that he was the culprit but the original decision stood.

A statement read that Marriner was "disappointed" to have made the error.

Referees' body the Professional Game Match Officials Limited said in the statement: "Incidents of mistaken identity are very rare and are often the result of a number of different technical factors.

"Whilst this was a difficult decision Andre is disappointed that he failed to identify the correct player.

"He expressed his disappointment to Arsenal when he was made aware of the issue."

 

 

 

Left-back Gibbs seemed confused at receiving the red card, protesting his innocence, along with his team-mates, before leaving the field.

Hazard's shot was heading inches wide of goal before Oxlade-Chamberlain dived to his left to divert the ball with his fingertips.

Following his side's 6-0 loss, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said the referee had not seen the incident.

"The ball went out and I think it's Chamberlain who touched the ball," said Wenger. "I don't know who gave indication to the referee that it was handball but he has certainly not seen it."

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho, added: "It is the kind of situation where if you have a TV, the fourth official could see it was not Gibbs. Unfortunately the wrong boy came off."

Marriner appeared to consult one of his assistants before awarding the penalty.

The Football Association tweeted clubs "can appeal mistaken identity, although the FA can pro-actively review also".

 

As a former referee I have some sympathy for Mr. Marriner when oh when will this sport use the video replay that every other major sports use!!!!

Off to tennis at 9am Carolyn and I played the couple we played last week..Carolyn is not fully energized but she did really well and we had a great two hours of tennis!!!!

Then went to see Paola and took her out to buy some groceries she seemed a little sad but I hope to see lots of her this week.

Home for lunch and watched another live soccer game and this also was a good game.

At 5.30pm Carolyn and I had tickets for an unusual concert but she called me to tell me that she was not feeling good enough to come and enjoy the concert so she stayed home and I hope you feel better tomorrow.

The concert was in the canyon floor behind my casita so I packed up some food and drink took a couple of pillows and off I went a hiking into the canyon.  I found a really good place to view the event and here are the shots…

It was a wonderful concert and the performers kept moving around amongst the crowd and the setting and the sounds were great…

I took this on the way home

Just as I pressed the shutter a large flash of lightening illuminated the skies it was an awesome sight and one I wished I had been able to capture with my camera.

So now 9pm and I am having tea and NO cookies still honoring my Lent promise and watching a one sided hockey game!!!

Yashi Kochi!!

Friday 21st March 2014……a slow day!!!

Well yesterday was a long drive through the mountains and when I went to bed last night around 11pm I was quite tired but could not get to sleep and was up again at midnight and puttered around till 3am when I finally fell asleep and up at 7.15am as I had an 8am tennis date with Carolyn and the nice friends, Erika and Colin from Victoria…we had 4 good sets and the weather was great…E & C are very good players and we gave them a good game but as yet not able to take a set off them and today I was below par  and Carolyn played great but I did enjoy the game and the friendship.

We decided to treat ourselves for breakfast at a really nice restaurant on the main street into town I was ravenous and had the best French toast, eggs and bacon….I then went and had Carolyn's car washed and then home by 1pm…I decided to take it easy I do have just the touch of a sore throat so I did some watering of my plants and cleaning up and read for the afternoon.

I had tickets for a series of small plays at the local theatre tonight and Carolyn decided she also was not feeling 100% so she would stay home so I managed to sell the other ticket and went to the show which was very different and entertaining.

Was home fairly early and having tea and reflecting on the last week it was a wonderful trip we took and those waterfalls were quite magnificent and I shall not forget those swallows dive bombing into that huge cave and of to  have seen the surreal  gardens of Edward James was such a treat.  Carolyn and I both talked about how lucky we are to live where we do with so much diversity only a day’s drive away.

A busy weekend coming along so stay tuned!!!

Remember all those sugar canes truck we told you we ased Carolyn sent me the following!!!!

 

 

How Cane Sugar is Made - the Basic Story

Growing the Cane
Sugar cane is a sub-tropical and tropical crop that prefers lots of sun and lots of water - provided that its roots are not waterlogged. It typically takes about 12 months to reach maturity although the time varies widely around the world from as short as six months in Louisiana to 24 months in some places. Where it differs from many crops is that it re-grows from the roots so the plant lasts many cycles [or 'ratoons', a word derived from the Spanish to sprout] before it is worn out.

 

Harvesting
Sugar cane is harvested by chopping down the stems but leaving the roots so that it re-grows in time for the next crop. Harvest times tend to be during the dry season and the length of the harvest ranges from as little as 2 ½ months up to 11 months. The cane is taken to the factory: often by truck or rail wagon but sometimes on a cart pulled by a bullock or a donkey!

 

Extraction
The first stage of processing is the extraction of the cane juice. In many factories the cane is crushed in a series of large roller mills: similar to a mangle [wringer] which was used to squeeze the water out of clean washing a century ago. The sweet juice comes gushing out and the cane fibre is carried away for use in the boilers. In other factories a diffuser is used as is described for beet sugar manufacture. Either way the juice is pretty dirty: the soil from the fields, some small fibres and the green extracts from the plant are all mixed in with the sugar.

 

Evaporation
The factory can clean up the juice quite easily with slaked lime (a relative of chalk) which settles out a lot of the dirt so that it can be sent back to the fields. Once this is done, the juice is thickened up into a syrup by boiling off the water using steam in a process called evaporation. Sometimes the syrup is cleaned up again but more often it just goes on to the crystal-making step without any more cleaning. The evaporation is undertaken in order to improve the energy efficiency of the factory.

 

Boiling
The syrup is placed into a very large pan for boiling, the last stage. In the pan even more water is boiled off until conditions are right for sugar crystals to grow. You may have done something like this at school but probably not with sugar because it is difficult to get the crystals to grow well. In the factory the workers usually have to throw in some sugar dust to initiate crystal formation. Once the crystals have grown the resulting mixture of crystals and mother liquor is spun in centrifuges to separate the two, rather like washing is spin dried. The crystals are then given a final dry with hot air before being stored ready for despatch.

 

Storage
The final raw sugar forms a sticky brown mountain in the store and looks rather like the soft brown sugar found in domestic kitchens. It could be used like that but usually it gets dirty in storage and has a distinctive taste which most people don't want. That is why it is refined when it gets to the country where it will be used. Additionally, because one cannot get all the sugar out of the juice, there is a sweet by-product made: molasses. This is usually turned into a cattle food or is sent to a distillery where alcohol is made.

Power
So what happened to all that fibre from crushing the sugar cane? It is called "bagasse" in the industry. The factory needs electricity and steam to run, both of which are generated using this fibre.
The bagasse is burnt in large furnaces where a lot of heat is given out which can be used in turn to boil water and make high pressure steam. The steam is then used to drive a turbine in order to make electricity and create low pressure steam for the sugar making process. This is the same process that makes most of our electricity but there are several important differences.

When a large power station produces electricity it burns a fossil fuel [once used, a fuel that cannot be replaced] which contaminates the atmosphere and the station has to dump a lot of low grade heat. All this contributes to global warming. In the cane sugar factory the bagasse fuel is renewable and the gases it produces, essentially CO₂, are more than used up by the new cane growing. Add to that the factory use of low grade heat [a system called co-generation] and one can see that a well run cane sugar estate is environmentally friendly.

Yashi Kochi!!!

Thursday 20th March 2014…Day 4!!

Bit of a shock woke up this morning to rain!!!!

This was our last day and one stop to make before we headed for home so we set out in rain and with these kinds of views

We arrived at our destination around 9.30am

You really have to Google him…this place was something I have never ever seen before surreal all these unfinished buildings his mind must have been on high alert everyday coming up with these ideas….it rained the whole time we were there but we were in the jungle and it did not bother us we started out on our own but quickly realized we needed a guide so went back to reception and hired Carlos…he was brilliant and a font of information….enjoy!!!!

The stairway leading to no where I climbed to the top very unsafe but great views here is Carolyn’s car.

 

Carlos our great guide!!!

Can you stand another waterfall…

 

Everywhere you turned there was another sculpture or a building it was so amazing and to have everything explained made it much more fascinating…the tour was about 90 minutes and was something I shall never forget.

We then had breakfast at the on site restaurant before getting on the road at 12.15pm.

The journey home took almost 7 hours on what can only be described as very windy and slow going roads but wonderful and ever-changing scenery…

Started out like this and finished up like this

At some point there was road construction and laying new pavement and there was a sign about loose  gravel..after we had passed by maybe 10 minutes we had just gone through a small town and heading back into the mountains when we both heard an awful noise coming from under the car…I immediately pulled off and looked underneath but you know me the handy and mechanical man that I am……well we could not see anything but there was for sure a problem.  I turned around and slowly went back the half mile into the town and we stopped at a gas station and they told us there was a mechanic 100 yards down the road so we went there and Carolyn is so good with this language and explained to the mechanic what had happened and he had me drive over the pit

and within two minutes he pulled a very small  piece of gravel from in between the wheel rim and said that was causing the problem…sure enough I drove back and forward and issue solved..it took altogether 10 minutes and 70 pesos..50 for the work and 20 for a tip and we were back on the road..again I praise Carolyn as the perfect travelling companion very easy to be with and she does not panic and very considerate….so I guess I cannot complain while I navigate these twisting roads whilst she……

We arrived back in SMA in time for sunset

The gorgeous Jacaranda tree in Carolyn’s driveway or should that be the gorgeous me and the Jacaranda tree in Carolyn’s driveway!!!

It was a wonderful mini vacation and we both so enjoyed the diversified State of San Luis Potosí and we shall not forget the sights, the friendly people and the amazing  vistas…thanks Carolyn!!

Yashi Kochi!!!