Scribbles of my design for how pool and garden work....house in foreground, space for 3 small guest houses on right/back beyond drawing.....landscaping necessary as water table here is very high and pool must be built half above ground which looks appalling if not disguised.....
.......light soft stone terrace around the pool,..... grass slopes down from pool in front and right and then to de-emphasise the need for raised pool height, the wooden deck on the left will be even higher......like Clapton said, if you fuck it up, keep repeating it so it sounds like you meant it.....
....space for 2 or 3 cars at back left hidden by trees, ( gate is at far back left corner obviously ) bamboo screens along back edge of pool, and pool zizag shape allows steps in centre to look part of the picture......the side of the house nearest the pool will have a varanda running along the length of it.....
........so from open plan kitchen and living/dining area out through big door and windows to varanda seating and dining out to decks and pool and bla.....quick route from gate to service end of house to left, scenic route round behind pool to right and to main porch of house..... also wooden decking hides large tanks for water supply.....
........no mains water here mate, and no sewers neither.....you keep all the poo in the house 'til it's full and then you sell the house.....
.....so house pool garden are integrated visually as well functionally......and the scribbles are mine too......
All I have to do do is turn this into that.....doddle......or doodle
House is on right, pool will be on left-ish.....far end is where wall is being built and in leftish front of that will be guest houses.....for friends but also for commercial purposes......and it's all mine.....
Even the wheelbarrow is mine. And the half of this barby table and benches that we've demolished.....guess what.....they're mine too. The other half belongs to ass-hole next door.....the dividing wall we wrangled over cuts right through the middle of the piccy-niccy table and I don't want any bits of ass-hole sticking out of my wall thankyou....after all, it's mine.....
A steel and concrete post going in for the dividing wall.....about 10 feet deep.....steel goes all the way to the bottom and water comes nearly all the way to the top......which means high water table which means hydrostatic pressure which means your pool can pop out of the ground or at least rupture itself particularly when empty which is why the pool has to be built partly above the ground.... talking of which the ground on the left of the picture is mine......
....that's Lao with the barrow (mine) and Anizio with the inxada.....back hoe? matock?? My ingerlish has gone away.....guess who's inxada it is?
On the right is the monster barbie, which we call "Auschwitz", soon to be demolished.
I like to call this photograph "Bricks". They're mine too. Well half of them.
Actually, technically, half of each one of them.
The newly installed electric post. Connection due any day now. This is mine too.
So is the muck in the corner.
I like to call this photo "A Study in Steel". No-one else seems to like to though.
As a point of interest, although we've already stablished the ownership of the wheelbarrow, I'd like to say here and now that the reinforcing steel is not mine. Only half of it actually belongs to me. But that half of it is definately mine. I ordered it, I paid for it, and it was delivered to my address.....actually I didn't have one officially at that juncture. But I have now. The address is mine. And it's the whole of it.
However much later that night, after neo-Italian dinner and live samba in the street courtesy of the local bloco band who rehearsed their new number while I was having my haircut and I put lyrics into the song, or so I thought. But I ddn't hear my lyrics used last night, which is a pity. Imagine hearing your own lyrics played by a Brasilian samba band and thinking "they're mine".
Well, even later on that night here we all are, the whole krew....Hannah on camera, my right hand bro' Daniel on my right, Per my Norwegian buddy watching my back......all is peace, all is harmony........but it's such a fine line.....such a fine line........
........what you don't realise is that a split second later, as a result of my being momentarily blinded by the flashgun, I involuntarily jab an undercut into Daniel's throat......
.....as a result, Per, a veteran of many a Stavanger street fight, responds to this without a second thought by ramming his fiery cigarette end into my left eye, and in my ensuing flush of agony I sideswipe the cooler and full bottle of Antarctica off the table sending it flying off to my left, unintentionally laying waste to a tablefull of drinks freshly purchased by a now enraged bunch of Brasilian hardcases and their molls fresh in town for the weekend from Rio.
Hannah of course senses immediately that all hell is about to break loose and pre-emptively brings to bear all of her freshly re-trained muscular prowess to bodily uproot and hurl our table of full drinks at this rapidly uncoiling nest of snakes, and then throws herself as well headlong into the melee, and in a flurry of combined Caipoeira and Kickboxing proceeds to lay waste to all about her.
Meantime, the deadly Daniel has unsheathed his awesome Bowie knife, eleven inches of perfectly honed Brazilian steel, and is cutting through the enemy in swathes, anxious to hack a way through to fight alongside the now near swamped but undeterred Orange Belt Hannah.
Meanwhile the giant Norseman, Per, never one to hang around, has limbered into action and is now picking off stragglers from around the perimeter by employing his phenomenal knowledge of a little known Norwegian martial art.
By this time the whole place has erupted.
The entire bar is in total uproar.....
And then as if to add insult to injury, a small Indonesian, screaming with the agony of a fatal chest wound, is sent hurtling skyward, only to pierce the canvas roof with his razor sharp machete, and the unforgiving heavens proceed to empty themselves through the ensuing gap onto the melange below.
We are now completely deluged by a ferocious electric tropical rainstorm. Flashes of deadly lightening illuminate the debacle below.
Water, water is everywhere.
Great gouts of it.
Blood and storm driven rain are driven together to form a bloodied torrent, a lurid crimson tidal wave of death and destruction.
Thundercracks deafen the remaining drenched and bloodied combatants, drowning out the cries of the wounded.
Chaos is heaped upon chaos.
Blood, booze, broken glass and body parts thrash and mingle as far as the eye can see.
I meantime have defined the quest of quests, and determine that someone must be the one to risk it all.
Someone must be the one to dodge blows, barrels, bludgeons and bullets to fulfill their destiny, to fight their way through to the grail.
Whatever the danger....
....whatever the hardship....
....someone must reach and save the holy of holies....
....forgotten amidst the mayhem....
....cast asunder.....
....knocked askance in the first onslaught.....
And so it is I.
I shall be the one.
I shall be the one to lean over and pick up the camera off the floor.
After all, it is mine.
