Holiday Entertainment (Part 3)

These are cocos palms. They were very trendy here in the 70's. Everybody thought they'd get rich quick by planting these suckers tiny and selling them for a bomb when they were big. Then people got wise to the fact they were dirty, messy and actually a danger to the protected bats around here. The bats are attracted to the sweet fruit and flap about, gorging themselves and damaging their delicate wings on the sharp palm spikes. We know one family that got stuck with a whole plantation of the plants then had to pay for their removal and disposal.

Ironically another industry has sprung up dedicated to the fallen-from-grace cocos palm. Door to door tree loppers appear periodically at the door of palm owners to tempt them with palm removal at considerable expense.

Why blow the budget in tranquil overseas idylls that provide 'children's clubs' and poolside mohitos with massage?

Nay, my people! Instead, for a few dollars less, you too can enjoy the invigorating scream of a chainsaw carving up the morning mist,

and the wiry antics of the aerial lopper as he swings about mid-air wielding that chainsaw like a crazed serial killer spider monkey!

Your offspring will stand poised at the window above Cirque de Cocos, dreamily conjuring ideas of carving up the shrubbery with the Furi knife Dad got for Christmas.

It is perhaps worth noting that this entertainment was provided by the mother in law who played her little old Scottish granny pensioner widow card with the prowess of a River boat hustler on the muddy Mississippi to get an enormous discount.

Now our horizon is more open, the fruit bats have gone further afield to further tear up their wings and the wee-uns have more fodder for their 'What I Did On the Holidays' reports next week. Entertainment and scenery- what more could one ask? ( Perhaps a new knife?)