Beez Neez now Chy Whella

Spuddles x 3

Big Bear and Pepe Millard

Sat 7 Dec 2013 23:57

Spuddles in Baby Beez x 3

An egg event is always a good way to start the day, Bear came up trumps, yet again, with this mornings offering. Next, into Baby Beez for the mile and a half spuddle across the bay to town. Sadly, Big Mama Yacht Club has had no internet connection since we arrived, so it’s a spuddle, a bimble and free wi-fi as soon as we are near the shops. Apparently Mama has a fixed amount of bytes and when they are used up she has to wait until the following calendar month to top up. Many yachts were in during the early part of November, all eagerly getting the weather, this to form an opinion of when is a good time to head out to sea. We are no different, so each day we have gone in to town to download GRIB files (weather stuff). All looks good for a Monday departure. Fingers crossed.

We park Baby Beez behind a very smart plaque, set into a large rock, in our own corner of the locals small fishing boat dock.

Sadly, the rubbish collects in our corner, but, the skipper is all smiles as he dodges a friendly oil drum and wiggles past the carrier bags.

The rubbish doesn’t stop the locals having fun in the water, and, to be fair, we see it nowhere else.

We have become locals, sitting on a wall, in the deep shade of a massive tree and in a very smart coffee shop, opposite the market.

The market is both huge and impressive, the biggest in all Tonga. A pile of tomatoes for a pound, lettuce for thirty pence, eighteen eggs for four pounds and a pile of juicy, fat cucumbers for eighty pence. The stalls of fruit and veg are set out in piles, as above, each around three pa’anga (a pound in old money). Everyone is so friendly and there is a happy feel about shopping here.

We are completely OK about men in skirts and the Baby Mormons look stunning in their crisp white shirts, official name badges, smart black skirts and happy, eager faces. Ladies wearing what looks like floor matting, we are still ‘jury out’. Though, in big groups, it does look quite something.

Today, after the internet, a quick once round the supermarket and a quicker nip round the market and bakery. Bear suggested having luncheon in the Billfish. He thought it just opposite where we park Baby Beez, not remembering it opposite Immigration much further along the road. Tired and hungry, we were turned away, “we don’t open till four but if you like Korean, they are open next door.” Do they sell alcohol was all I cared about. I must have took a curb wrong as my right Achilles heel was giving a thorough attention seek in my flip-flops. In we went, up the stairs, a little concerning that there were no other customers, but a large vodka put me right for our first soirée into new food. Attacked under the table by mossies, I asked if the good lady had any spray. She appeared with a large can of room deterrent and was apoplectic when I squirted it all over my legs, needs must when the devil sings methought. We ordered a beef and a chicken – sounded like biology - and very good it was too. We were quite impressive with the chop sticks and in the end had a very nice date. We had our picture taken and food, two beers, my medicinal dose and diet coke, all came to just over ten pounds – bargain – marvelous.

I was happy to hobble back down the road to Baby Beez, it meant I could have a furtle through the clothing market, some second hand, some with a great flavour of all things from Chinese container ships. Everyone takes Sunday as a serious day of rest and Saturday as a serious shopping day. What a good natured crowd we found ourselves in. AND we found a stall with RED 2 and two other films on the disc for thirty pence a pop. Tonight is clearly movie night.

A wild afternoon for one stallholder.

Back outside, we marveled at a ‘one carefully owned’ trailer, now serving as a rotisserie.

A first for us, secondhand paint...... The banana lady was having Zzzzzz’s when we had a surprise.........

......................Star, Bear had met on Ha’afeva stopped us for a chat. She gave us her contact details and made us promise to visit her next year.

Time for an ice cream and back home it is. I won at backgammon, weather looks good, job list for Sunday written and all is well with the world. RED 2 was a high quality business, wish we had bought many more. Experience said, try one, as before we have had dodgy subtitles across the middle of the picture, person sneezing and several saying ‘bless you’, the sound of rummaging in popcorn, so grainy as to not know what we are looking at and the person who forgot to put the sound track on.............. Tonight though, Very Happy Bears and Christmas is coming judging by the decorations in the ice cream shop.