MY CIRCLE OF FRIENDS BROADENS AS DOES MY GRIN (EXPONENTIALLY).....
HANNAH OFFICIALLY OPENS THE NEWLY COMPLETED MAIN ENTRANCE TO THE RESPLENDENT TENIS CLUBE DE NASHER.....
THE PORCH ......HOW CHARMING ON A SUMMERS EVENING....COCKTAILS, CHAMPAGNE, SHITLOADS OF CHEAP LAGER.......
......AND THEN ONE CAN ADJOURN TO THE LOUNGE......RELAX ON THE SPLENDID DESIGNER SOFAS......AND THEN PERHAPS A GLIDE AROUND THE DANCEFLOOR WITH A LOVED ONE TO THE MELODIES OF SOME OLDSKOOL HARDCORE CLASSICS.....
......AND THEN LATER WHEN THE LAGER REALLY KICKS IN, ONE CAN RETIRE TO THE EN-SUITE BEDROOM WITH WALK-IN WARDROBE.......OK STILL NEEDS A LITTLE TOUCHING UP....
.......AND NOW WE DRIFT BACK IN TIME TO A HALCYON DAY OR TWO IN PARADISE.....
BUZIOS WITH BRIGITTE..... ( see further down for Buzios post which got lost and
now has mysteriously reinstated itself.....Blogger has gone weird since they "improved" it.....much like my life in fact......)
BUZIOS WITH BARBARA AND BEACH BUGGY.....
U
HANNAH'S WELCOME BACK AND BIRTHDAY DO....
.....ME WAS 'ERE......Kilroy wasn't
BOUGHT HOUSE....WORK STARTS....VISIT TO BUZIOS.....HANNAH RETURNS......XMAS.....NEW YEAR.....GOING OUT A LOT...... HAHAHA......SWIMMING.....GETTING BROWN......MASSAGES.....LEG IMPROVES.....RANGE INCREASES.....ATTRACTIVE YOUNG LADIES.....A BIT OF A QUICK UPDATE AND A SUMMARY ALL ROLLED UP TOGETHER......
ALL THIS AND MORE IN THE FIRST PROPER UPDATE SINCE MID NOVEMBER......OOOOOPS, SORRY I FORGOT (FOR NEARLY 2 MONTHS!!!!
SO.......first I'll stick in some email excerpts which will summarise things including the update and then I'll fill in a few gaps.....I'll also stick up a load of photos when I can soon......
This written to very special and long lost buddy Donna Doolallys now in New Zealand and sprouting small children like nobodies business....with husband Richard Doolallys I hasten to add!!!!
Well bless my trendy havaianas!!! 'Ello you big daft Scots chucklet of a wooman!!!!
That was a buzz! I thought you'd all but disappeared without a trace!
I found a Scots performance artist Donna Rutherford who told stories or something but she had someone elses head on, which was disturbing as I knew you wouldn't go that far! And I couldn't remembered yr married name.....well you know I have a block about marriage on all fronts!!
I'm writing this at 6.45 in the morning having been on the piss/having dinner what seems like only minutes ago, though it was last night.
Yes that's 6.45 in the morning Donna.....not so long ago I didn't believe there actually was one. Now I am up to arm my mercenaries as they go off to fight in the jungles of....well, actually my back garden, and ok it's three mahetas and a xingada (hammers and a mattock) and they're hired hands not soldiers......but it still feels very butch!
I decided I fancied this "house" a few days after I arrived in August, and have been fighting to get it ever since.....finally succeeded a couple of weeks ago, nearly had a punch up in the bank during the final exchange ( those hypos still coming in handy!) and now I own a non bedroomed bungalow with a loft sized living room....it was a private tennis club clubhouse, plus a couple of half courts....I'm sticking in a big pool and garden and converting kitchen into a bedroom and putting kitchen open plan into living room which is 170 sq. metres.....so mmmm bung.one bed en suite.pool.gdn.mezz. no water or electricity but will have soon. It's about 90 seconds from the ocean with 20 km of white sand beach and ten mins from the lagoons (surrounded by mountains) and my 2 favorite bars and 40 mins also on foot from the little town which I love, where I had a haircut the other day at my regular barbers with the entire local carnaval bloco samba band jammed into the tiny shop working out a new number complete with (some ) instruments....my barber is the leader of the band!! I even slipped some lyrics in! .....haircut was the worst yet mind you!
So, you got the picture correctly in your letter pretty much.....closed shop end of March, left flat in July, stayed with mate in Batheaston for 6 weeks to sort out my affairs and got here late August .....moved into guest house of contacts, now good friends, Uli and Maria, in grounds of their big house with stunning gardens and big pool.....saw my tennis club a few days after arriving and knew it was for me....then found out owner had sold garden to someone else already, then made a deal for both bits, then broke my fucking leg! That got in the way a bit really, but mostly problem was that house guy said garden guy wanted more money after we shook on the deal but really it was house guy after more cash, then became impossible to get a deal sorted because garden guy refused to come to meetings but turns out it's because garden guy hates house guy because he knocked down roof of barbie area and now won't be in same room as him.....this, remember all going on in Portuguese and Brasilian Legalese and all while I'm incarcerated with broke leg, and mostly whilst Uli and Maria are out of country and I have no-one who speaks English and and and.....apart from that it was all pretty straightforward really. So eventually I told them all, in my best Portuguese, to take their (fucking) property and stick it up their (fucking) barbecue area.
And lo, did they not thenceforth come a-running and a-grovelling.....yeah, verily and it was so......and so it has been.
So the rules of the bazaar apply as ever....always walk away (at least twice)....(once was enough). So then things sped up a bit. But house guy still tried to pull a number in the bank actually whilst the money was being transferred to his account.....Hannah (daughter) is a kickboxer and I'm also quite handy at times....he doesn't know how close he came....I practically had to sit on Hannah!
Oh and broken leg.....2 weeks after getting here, slipped on slimy paving whilst negotiating waterlogged sand road whilst going to buy bread at local shops! (diabetic hazard number 432).....what fun!\n\nHannah daughter came out in October for 2 weeks and promptly returned a few weeks ago as she loves it here, as I do. Even though stuff here could drive you nuts.....but only if you let it.....we tend to wonder at it all really.....from time to time Hannah still mistakenly asks me.....
"when do you think...."
....and I say.......
" you're doing it again...."
......yes, she's asking for a specific, and they don't exist here.....a better question is.....
"d'you think eventually....."
....to which I can answer with an assertive......
"yes, for sure, eventually my dear, I can almost guarantee it......"
.....this applies to dinner dates, weekend trips, business meetings, anything.....
....nobody can say anything will happen any time with any certainty at all......
.....I'm surprised that anyone can ever co-ordinate with each other enough even to have sex......but amazingly they do, eventually.
I must go now to my estates and wipe the sweat from my workers brows....if I don't I might feel obliged to pay them and that as you know goes too much against the grain. As the sun sets behind the lagoons, picture me swaying to the strains of their old negro worksongs, as they relax after a long and arduous day's labouring on my estates.....I can (almost) smell the hickory smoke mingling with the aroma of frying bacon, sizzling tantalisingly over an open fire.....I casually ask first the wizened old electrician, and then in turn the young sun burnished stonemason, if the work in hand will be finished soon..... they look across at each other wistfully through the rising smoke, and then, looking back to me, they both say as one ....." eventually....."
As I walk back to my extortionately overpriced temporary accomodation, I can hear them laughing together in the distance, over a private joke perhaps, or some workaday tidbit of gossip. I smile to myself, contentedly.
This happy breed.
This happy land.
Eventually......
Sorry, I nodded off there......must go ...will write more soon....there's pix on blogsite....address in last email........lots of love from Nashface the Lagoonhead XXXXX
this written to funloving friend just back in UK from summering in Malta.........
Hello Baybeeeee! ......not only am I most definately still a drunk, but I am still ridiculously proud to be such a good one......
Hannah is here again too and we just had a conversation on that very subject and she is proud too......I am proud, of me, of her and of you too, and also of ***** of course......or is that Roger the cabin boy? or is that you?? Or is that me? Does it really fucking matter ? any of it ? bOLLOCKS IT DOES.....
......I last nite changed my name to Preb.....due to realising last nite (late on) that I didn't know my name any more......about the same time I commented on how odd it is that at times I don't know exactly where my face is.....Hannah was throwing crackers (savoury not fireworks) at my open mouth....haha what a fun weekend.
All is cool here...Hann returned on friday.....we has been having fun. Yesto locals had a party for her return/last months birthday/me/any excuse in a beautiful house with pool by lagoon that one of them caretakes....then went to bar (also by lagoon) with stunning samba band from Rio and got further fuctup.....then all of a sudden back at ours and more beer til 3.....today found out one of guys (that didn't make it to ours) got run over last nite.....I thought he was having trouble unlocking his bike haha......he's a bit of a mess but nothing broken.....
.....it's now 91 degrees...time for pool....
....sorry about this email....hanging somewhat.....
....no blog recently as have been having a life finally but go to ...... http://biginbrasil.blogspot.com/ for tales and pics of hell in the Atlantic upto November end ish...
.....also see attached pic of young lady for whom I have appalling plans, and that's my mum on the right......must hit the pool.....approaching 95 degrees......
....how was Malta ....did you get the Victoria Cross, or did you get the Maltese cross......only when you were shittered haha a clever joke there......***** said she was worried you were going to fry your brain since your return.....I say BOLLOCKs.....nothing wrong with a good fry up.....send me tales of horror and debauchery and I will do likewise hahahahahahahah......Lots of love from Nashface the Lagoonhead XXXXXX
ps....also love from Hannah....she's in bog emptying out a hangover.
....written to buddy re weekend in Buzios, attached to which is pic of me sat on Brigitte Bardot's knee whilst drunk and behaving somewhat lewdly......me that is.....not the statue.....picture will be posted embarrassingly soon.....
Hello Blossomtoes.....
Have sent you a romantic pic of me and my new girlfriend at the weekend....oddly enough she looks like you......
....sorry to hear you're broke....still the living here is cheap as f****....last night best yet.....three 600ml bottles of beer, caipirinha with 6 (english size) shots of cachasa in it and a full meal which was wicked for 12.50 reais....thats £3.12p.....came home shitfaced, well pleasantly pissed and also replete.....
.....pic of me and BB is taken in Buzios....she discovered it in 60's same as St Tropez....it is an utter f****** wonderland.....you'd shit yourself with gleeeee. I said same to Hannah....can't wait to take her.....and you!
must dash....lots of love from Lagoonboy XXXXXX
ps very proudly showing off pics of my mate the magazine editor to people here!
....more to same buddy.....
Just a quickie to say ta for the mags.....the postie found me at a different address standing in the street which I thought quite impressive....I even asked if it was for me and it was!! In Bath I used to get mail addressed to Nasher, Bath and that was before I had the shop.....will put together some ideas as I said and send to you.....theres a Brasil bit in Homes but its crap! Looks like my massive house is on again...have to dash to see lawyer now......just shows what walking away can do!!"
....written to buddy in Germany.....
Hello baby!! How y'all doing? My german pal Uli here was amazed at my knowledge of German language construction....unlike my teachers at school who were completely unmazed. My mum lived in Hamburg at the end of the war and taught me words like " eine disselstoppemfloppen" which apparently means brassiere. Or does it?
Re. time wasted blogging....broken leg is indeed the clue....although the Gordon the Movie stuff I wrote for other purposes and decided to try it on the bog, sorry, blog. And the major amount has been excerpts from emails already sent. The blog outlet has encouraged me to take photos though, and with my at present limited range, it makes a shortish walk into a mission of some kind which is an improvement. Also I haven't used a camera other than for ebay and family for around 20 years.
And thank you for noting the depth of my philosophical delving....I feel I am breaking new ground on several fronts....what is stuff? how big is it? can I take it home with me? and when I get it home, how far can I get with it? ( that's quite enough-ED.)
Ok I know when I'm licked (all over) as Frank Z. would say.
Yeh, looks like finally may have the tennis club, although this time I'm not holding my breath, and still looking out for other property, which I do anyway out of interest. I also know of a beach bar for sale in the trendiest busiest bit of town ( thats neither very trendy nor very busy by the way!!) which with the busy (and trendy) season coming soon might be a good move.....but the season is short , maybe 2 months and then you're down to locals and some hot weekends...still, always did fancy a bar.....on a beach....hmmmm
How is Kaarst? Are you there or on the touring lark? I saw you were doing "Greasy" or something?
I'd better dash...Uli's waiting on me (3 days....I was drunk) to translate a big website thing from German to Nashlish.
Tchou Tchou! stay cool, Love from Nashface the Lagoon XXX
.....written to Hannah before her return....
Hi Spud.....Buzios is amazing but too expensive but only round the corner....100 reais in taxi with my mate Dylan from Buzios and less with return trip.....he had Matt Dillon in taxi and had to show him documents to prove he had same name .....his dad was big Dylan fan!!!
.....just back from Josinos little bar round corner.....3 big beers, gorgeous meal....6 plates of food inc salad and beans and sausagey stew and rice and farofa and stuff....plus monster caipirinha....12.60 Reais equals just over 3 quid....food was lovely!!! I hate it here!!!!love from slightly squiffy dada XXXX
OK ENOUGH OF THE EMAILS.....DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME NOW ......AM UP AT 6.30 WITH OR WITHOUT HANGOVER THIS WEEK ONWARDS AS BUILDING WORK STARTED THIS WEEK IN EARNEST.....
............getting quotes from outside contractors re building pool, have designed landscaped garden and left space for small guest houses as possible commercial venture at later date.....
..............pool design is cool, stole from Uli's......see pix of his house early in blog......my front gate is hole in wall.....electric in house has been tested, we had to nick electricity from next door to test it.....now have leccy box on post outside wall, should have mains connected in 3 or 4 days.....
...........had to pick a house number first.....you have to wander around looking at completely unrelated numbers and pick one that may not be already used up.....Uli's house has same number as another one up the road....they just swap mail now and again!!!! I chose 1717 as there seemed to be a gap......next door one way is 1708 and the other side is 3889 !!!! Quite a gap really. I did fancy 3711 as it had a jingle to go with it....well nearly, that's 4711 ( the perfume ). So my address is (probably mine and few other peoples too).......
Rua Maximino Fidelis 1717, Boqueirao, Saquarema, Rio de Janeiro......not bad huh!!!!
We decided the roadname in English is probably a bit pervy....maximum fiddling or something.....not sure of what it's significance is in Portuguese....maybe worse....
So I now have piles of gravel, sand, cement, bricks, reinforcing steel and I own a wheelbarrow, shovels, hammers, eclectic drill ( I think thats what they said) and a tile cutter.....4 buckets, a 2 metre and a 20 metre rule, and I have graph paper and set squares and pencils and all kinds of shit.....
...........i need a file next and a brief case ....and a mobile phone......the great thing is i own them all in a foreign language.....i own mahetas and a xingada as i mentioned above.....how far out is that.....first big job is the dividing wall to separate my property off from shithead I bought it froms house, which we are splitting the cost on......though only after he tried to get me to pay it all and i had to explain that I sunbathe naked and have sex outdoors a lot (naked ) and not always with my own species (naked).....he responded well to that as did his wife......the wife is so nice that Hannah changed seats so that her back was towards her.....
so......next job is to turn kitchen into an en suite and change bogs into 2 bathrooms, and build open plan kitchen in the 170 square metre living room.....also have to get some furniture made up to my own designs whooopeee wot fun......also quite fancy buying the cockpit of a light aircraft to suspend from the roof as viewing seats for movies....or am I being ostentatious?? Hannah thinks it's a good plan.......
.........so it will be a one bedroomed bungalow with MMMassive living room and swimming pool.......a bit odd but there's the mezzanine for spare bedroom and room for one hundred and fourteen crashers in the lounge hahaha.....plus guest houses at a later date.....
......my next problem is my visa runs out in 4 weeks and that means I have to leave and can't come back for 6 months, leaving my house in construction and my daughter here alone hahahaha and me in another country for 6 months with no house and almost no income....isn't life funny....so will come back to Uk for shortest possible time in Feb (anyone got a bed/sofa/hook spare ????) and try to set up retirement visa with the Brasilian embassy.....with my history, that should be a lot of fun hahahahahaaha.......in fact I'm hoping it won't be too difficult and am off later today to see my pal here who pulled off the same juggling trick successfully a couple of months ago.......
........so my leg is getting better but still pain at times.....my walking range is still limited but improving, and I can usually walk again after a rest......have been having massages and swimming a lot......as a result also getting a little muscle back here and there which all disappeared when I started disgusting NHS medicines 6 years ago......
.....am building up to starting at the gymn nearby which Hannah goes to nearly every day.....people there are brilliant....they owners went out and bought phrase books so they could talk with Hannah and they have language sessions with her as well as training!!!
The last week or two, since having our own place, we've started to build a more visible network of local friends and contacts....even though we haven't moved in yet.....we have friendly Italian restaurant on beach round corner....fresh italian bread every morning......gym just around the corner, our local bar operator works days just nearby, we've also met some of the immediate neighbours and a classical guitarist lives next door.....all these people will become closer and closer friends I feel, particularly when I get the sound sytem and the drum'n'bass and my electric guitar and amp installed, and the local samba band ( led by my mate the barber) start playing at parties in my living room.....oh yes, the future is bright ( tho' probably a little loud!!!!!)
.......talking of the local bar owner, he showed me round a house for sale the other day.....lovely with pool and two houses and 900 m2 and lo and behold.....a recording studio!!! complete with gold discs on the wall! the owner is a sound engineer who's worked with all the Brasilian greats....there was a pic on the wall of him with Chico Buarque, one of the greatest. Anyone want a beautiful house ( well 2 actually, house plus big 2 storey guest house with varandas) with a studio just outside Rio ......beaches, lagoons, mountains, me for a neighbour....what more could you want???????? Yours for £32,000 or near offer. I'll post pics when I go back for another looksee.
I must now dash off.....will post lots of pics asap.
My email btw is now nasher53@gmail.com or you can still get me on nasher@cyclesmaximus.com I think but sometimes it's a bit odd and I feel like theres a stash of unreceived emails piled up somewhere......
