Here's to a Bloomin' Great - 2008

There will be no fancy fireworks here in Rabaul tonight to welcome in the New Year, so I decided that I would shower you with flowers from Debbie’s garden in Kerevat instead.

I wish you and yours the very best of health and happiness for 2008.

I hope you get everything you want!!

I adore "quotes", so here are some pertaining to this time of the year that caught my eye:

"I'm a little bit older, a little bit wiser, a little bit rounder, but still none the wiser."

- Robert Paul

"New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions."

-Mark Twain

and my favourite -

"Youth is when you're allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve. Middle age is when you're forced to."

-Bill Vaughn

Breadfruit Bliss

After the cricket match on Boxing Day, we went to friends who live at Kerevat. Debbie is a great cook and she makes something everyone needs to taste before they die – breadfruit chips!!

The breadfruit is picked before it is ripe, sliced up and deep-fried in coconut oil. Bliss!!

Breadfruit comes from a tall tree which grows in tropical areas; fast growing, it can get to a height of 28 metres. Click here to find out how breadfruit caused the Mutiny on the Bounty!!!

Boxing Day Cricket under the Kapoks

Boxing Day in Australia is synonymous with two long-standing sporting events – The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race and the start of the Test Cricket. This year India and Australia faced each other on the hallowed grounds of the MCG.

In East New Britain, Boxing Day is synonymous with the Kokopo versus Kerevat Cricket Match, played at the stunning Kerevat Country Club. In the match yesterday Papuan New Guineans, Indians and Australians banded together in a fabulous multi-cultural match that saw the Kokopuddlians come out on top.

The spectators sit in the shade of the massive kings of the rainforest, the Kapok trees.

The cotton-like Kapok fibre can be seen all over the ground from the seed pods high up in the trees.

Christmas Greetings

Warm tropical greetings for the Festive Season

to

all my blogger friends around the world.

Thanks for all your support and your friendship

Jules

See you all on the 27th

BTW - My Vietnam Blog has a happy occassion as a Christmas Special.

Christmas Decorations – Bah, Humbug!!

This post is dedicated to Dive, who just LOVES Christmas decorations!!

I give up – I’ve been overwhelmed on my visits to everyone’s blogs by their Christmas Decorations, - so here it is, My Christmas Decoration's Post. There will be only one because there just isn’t much around these parts - at work there was a single Christmas lantern, (still wrapped in plastic) hanging over the reception desk!!

At home we have Christmas decorations with a PNG Theme…..

….but the tree is traditional with decorations we have collected on all our travels.

Dive, my Singing Crocodile would just eat your Singing Reindeer………….. you wish!!!

PS You're not going to believe this but as I type I can hear another little piggy being delivered to the resort next door. I need to move house!

Porky Palpitations

Pigs at this time of the year are very twitchy in PNG!! This is the Christmas Party Season, and any party worth its salt has the ubiquitous pig on a spit or mumu (cooked in the ground on a bed of hot stones).

Pigs are very smart. They immediately know that someone walking towards them with a large bush knife and a bottle of pork marinade, is not coming to wish them Merry Christmas. So it is a good idea not to sneak up on a pig at this time of the year; they are inclined to startle easily, which may cause them to jump up, grab their wee little chests, roll their eyes and faint dead away!!!

I am writing this post at the moment with ear-plugs in, as a poor little pig is being slaughtered next door at the resort, as I type. Pigs know they are about to die and the screaming that they emit is enough to chill you to the bone, curl your hair and turn you into a sobbing mess.

The only escape is to go to work for a few hours.

Post script – After I put this in drafts, I removed my earplugs and went to work. I was there for less than 10 minutes when I heard a pig screaming – I thought I was hallucinating, or the pig from the resort had escaped and rushed down the beach! But no, out of the back of the Principal’s ute comes this trussed up pig for the staff break-up tomorrow. The pig will remain tied to a stake, like the one in this photo, until dawn when he will meet his maker. I’m thinking of becoming a vegetarian.!

Some Leaves from the Book of Beach Trees

At Tovarua Plantation Beach there are some wonderful trees lining the water's edge.

Who needs an adventure park when you have a tree like this and 28 degree water to play in?

This old Talus tree died back awhile ago but is now sprouting new leaves.

All you need is a shady secluded spot, a beach chair, a glass of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc………….. and someone to share it with.

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I am sorry I haven't been able to visit many of you this week but we had a massive electrical storm here on Sunday night that blew out phone systems, computers, fax machines, power etc. Luckily we missed the worst of it here at Takubar but the phone lines out of here have been horrendous. Hopefully I can visit you all today or tomorrow.