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…I intend to finish the proofs. So far I only manage to do about 100 pp a day. Sigh.

Anyway, I am tuning out from the internet after this, until tonight.

So far today, I have had to deal with the termite man and the fact that in spite of parting with a lot of money, we still have termites in the flooring.

Next door, on the vacant lot, they are cutting the jungle that has grown up. (According to the agreement people in our street made when we bought these blocks of land, the owner was supposed to start building within 6 months. That was back in 1980. But this is Malaysia. Tak apa. Boleh-lah.)

It is exceptionally noisy, not just because they are cutting the tangle, but because they have turned up their radio to hear the music over the sound of the grass cutter thingy. I think I had better write a very stressful scene today…

Oh, and yesterday I had a Coppersmith Barbet on the fig tree, and a partial albino White-vented Myna who is one of the locals around here, as well as the hundreds of usual suspects. The albino fellow has a yellow beak, mostly white feathers, although a few are pale grey. I have not got close enough to see the colour of its eye, but it sticks out like a bandaged thumb in amongst its black brethren. It doesn’t seem to bother him/her, and it is partnered by a normal bird.

If you want to know what a Coppersmith looks like, see here. The name comes from their call, like a small hammer tapping on a sheet of copper.

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