Pics...?

Pics of the pups sunbathing Sat afternoon - they are all on here except Henry who is standing guard and Basil of course.
Pic below is the snow on the roof tops taken from one of the upstairs windows. One of the stork nests is bang in the centre of the page on top of what looks like a chimney but is in fact the bell tower of the convent.

...and more snow.

Woke up to ´proper´snow yesterday - and even more proper snow fell over night. About 3 or so inches, which has caused much hilarity today in the library with the librarians laying seige to all outside and thowing snow balls.

Using our new magic data stick thing, I am hoping to attach some pics, but as I am not sure what I am doing and the BLOG instructions are all now in Spanish you will have to bear with me....

Unusually, both Ian and I wrote a blog last week, although unfortunately in our excitement at having found a new internet facility, we both wrote about the same thing.

And completely forgot about our trip to Seville.

And our aborted trip to Cordoba.

Cordoba first - last Saturday (21st?) we decided to go to Cordoba. The reason was we wanted a flea market. Now some would wonder why we would embark on such a journey looking for fleas – well, I can assure you with so many dogs we are self sufficient when it comes to fleas, and instead we were looking for second hand things. Such as curtains, cupboards, bookcases, tables and out door furniture. We had read that there was a flea market in Cordoba, there is nothing vaguely flea like around here so we headed off.

We left here in sunshine, about 10 o’clock which on reflection was a little late given we had to drive about 100 miles and we know from experience that everything will shut at two not to reopen until 5ish if at all. I assume that flea markets will be no exception. Anyway, we got to Llerena with no problems although it was a little misty, but the other side we were driving through thick fog. After what seemed like miles, but transpired as only about 30 or so (two hours of driving however) we turned round as it was like driving in cotton wool. We turned round in a ‘village’ called Azugua, which we visited today and is in fact a large town. We visited it today because we had another aborted visit to Cordoba – more later. The fog was so thick that we could not see the other side of the road, I can’t remember the last time I saw anything like it. The nights had been cold, but the days warm (up to 30c at one point) and I am guessing that this was the cause of the fog. Anyway, we got home into sunshine and spent the afternoon around the house.

So Sunday – still on our quest for flea markets, we thought we would go to Seville which is home to the worlds oldest and largest flea market which attracted visitors by their million. Well perhaps not quite, but that was the general gist.

This time we decided to leave early and were away by 8, and in Seville at 10. We faced one of the issues which we found on the journey here, and that is there has been a lot of road building, and road numbers just do not correspond to what is on maps. Anyway, we had to guess which exit to take, and were pretty certain that we had come into Seville across one of the main bridges.

We parked with relative ease. Parking appears excellent in Seville with plenty of options, unfortunately most of these were underground options with a roof limit of 220cms, our van is 217cm. As neither of us knows the Spanish for ‘excuse me, our van is wedged tightly into your car park entrance’ we decided not to push our luck. There was plenty of on street parking though and we were surprised to note that it was free given our proximity to the city centre, but hey ho, no looking gift horses in mouths etc.

We headed off, knowing exactly where we were going, so it was with a little surprise that after quite a lot of walking we still hadn’t come across this world renowned flea market. However it was early in a Spring Sunday morning, the sun was out, birds were singing, Seville is a pretty town and who could complain. Well Ian could for a start. Particular when it transpired that the map had been left in the van. Unfortunately I could distinctly remember last having the map, and even worse I seem to remember saying, "I’ll put this in my bag" and it remains a mystery to me how the map therefore did not end up with us. Ian had the same recollection and immediately went into tight lipped, hard done by husband mode. Muttering in a quite unnecessary fashion, Ian then grappled with a nice couple he saw stood looking at a map…looking for the flea market it so happened. They were the first english speaking people we have heard since we’ve been here. They had arrived that morning. I didn’t throw myself at their feet and ask for an update of the Archers – but it was so close.

Anyway, they informed us that the market had been moved. So as I was about to transform my expression into the valedictory ‘ha I was right’ look which I felt the occasion justified, the nice english couple also pointed out that we were in a completely different part of Seville to that we had expected.

Ian’s tightlipped exterior was bubbling up into a bit of a Basil Fawlty. I know the signs. Admittedly this does seem to happen to us quite a bit, the last big Basil Fawlty episode was during the last leg of our journey down. We were in Salamander – nice place, pretty town, lots of interesting sights but not a lot of direction signs, when Ian asked ‘which way’. He did not respond well when I said ‘I don’t know’. Ian asked why I didn’t know, I was navigator and couldn’t I look at the ****** map, and at the point I had to admit that I had unfortunately lost the map, Ian appeared to lose his cool, saying some frankly quite awful things about navigators who lose the map. Luckily, we suddenly realised that we were on the right road after all and Ian’s temper was restored.

So in Seville we found ourselves in the wrong place looking for a market that had been moved and a map that had been left in the van. What could we do? Well turn around, retrace our steps to the van and then try and find this market. Finding van no problem at all, finding map – equally easy (phew), however trying to find new market spot impossible, so about 2.00 we gave up. On the positive side 4 hours walking round Seville gave us quite an insight into it, and we definitely liked it as a town, and will look forward to exploring further. I do think that fate dealt us an unnecessarily cruel blow, however, when driving out of Seville we saw this massive, well, market area, full of cars, coaches etc. An idea spot in which to have a work renowned Flea Market…. So as we passed it, we could only muse as to what it would have been like.

….Which brings us to today, Sat 28th and another trip to Cordoba planned. 8.00 start, map in hand, no fog – lovely sunny morning, cold (-3.5) but the sort of dry cold which doesn’t feel damp and miserable. Everything looking good. We headed off and truck passed us covered in what looked like snow, about 5 miles south of Llerena. We both laughed – snow. How funny, how mistaken we obviously were. Our journey continued, lovely clear day, so clear infact that the sun was difficult as we were driving into it. Then a little further on I noticed the ‘heavy frost’ around olive trees, and then ‘heavy frost’ got worse, until – yes, we found ourselves in full blown snow. So full blown that about 20 miles outside of Cordoba, the road was blocked and we found ourselves turning round to spend another sunny Saturday afternoon at home. However this time we did drive through Azugua in something other than a pea souper, and found it a very large town, with a language school. We are going to contact them about Spanish lessons. Wonder if they run them, however as I think we are the only non Spanish speakers for about a 50 km radius I am not holding out too much hope. But if they teach English to Spanish people how difficult can teaching Spanish to English be?

Not a lot else to report other than Basil excelled himself today on the disgusting dog front. I cannot bring myself to mention it, but surfice to say Ian and I spent a lot of our Saturday night hosing down Basils nether regions. Uuuugh.

Ian´s Update

We´re sat in a cyber cafe in Llerena this morning which we´ve only just discovered, despite having walked past a few times. As we´re still waiting on Telefonica to pull their fingers out and give us a phone line, we continue to be reliant on other services to keep us connected, the biggest drawback being that it´s awkward to transfer files. The library in Villagarcia only has 2 machines that you can copy to a floppy or cd with and these tend to be much in demand. There is a CD reader which allows you to upload files to the other 4 machines, but they have now way of writing. To get around this difficulty, we today invested in a 512mb USB data keyring so that we can trasnsfer stuff easily from any of the PCs as they all have at least one USB port. I´m keeping quite busy at the moment with work coming through from Four Square in Penrith, though I´ve had to work 8 hours gratis this week as a goodwill gesture to one client after a small cock-up on a print job, but there´s quite a bit of other work coming in. Once we get online at home, I´m hoping to put a new site online for our new house and will probably move this blog to there at that point. I´ll let you all know when that happens. Got to go. Work calls.

New CyberCafe

I am writing this from LLerena and not from the library. On another of our trips to the Post Office we popped into a computer shop to buy a data keyring thing. We´ve been wandering up to the library with a floppy disk (remember them) and then having to fight with hords of students for the one computer with a disk drive. All the trendy young things have these keyring things and it makes a lot of sense. Anyway, we also thought we´d have a go at asking where the nearest internet access was, fully expecting to get an answer which would only serve to confuse us further. To our amazement, the lady jumped up from her desk and took us out the back of the shop, not to be beaten up for asking such a question, but to their fully equipped cyber cafe (without the cafe bit) which has 20 or so machines - all with disc drives. Hoorah.

Ians feet - again

This is an indication of how bad they are - the last BLOG erased all trace of them... so here goes again.

Ian has been suffering from is feet. Not a pleasant thought I know, but the fact remains he is convinced that he has foot rot or some other unpleasantness.

This has been worrying me as after he manfully secured sinus spray for me, the very least I can do is try and help him with his feet – but I cannot face going back to the chemist of the ‘breast’ incident and start miming ‘festering toe’. As Susan so rightly said, I wish I had paid more attention to Give us a Clue – I am sure that Lionel and Una could have achieved what they wanted with ease.

Ians feet might have something to do with the fact he has not taken his trainers off this year. They (trainers) were likely to have to be surgically removed, taken away, encased in concrete and left for 100 years to decontaminate. The main reason for Ians trainer addition is the fact that we can’t find his slippers. I must admit to being in a similar position, however I have one slipper (the other removed by Henry for safekeeping) and therefore have one warm foot, however I cunningly alternate my slipper so each foot is equally warm, just not at the same time.

We need slippers as the house is tiled throughout. We are going to welcome this in the summer, however for now, it doesn’t make for a warm and inviting floor surface. It also means that padding around in socks isn’t going to work either, as the danger is ending feet up, bottom down in an undignified position as the floors can be quite slippy.

Anyway, Ian eventually removed his trainers and exposed his feet to the fresh air. Well the air was fresh until that point. A little later when we had recovered, Ian could be found soaking his feet in warm water with a sprinkling of peppermint essential oil. It was unfortunate that he had to use one of our saucepans to do this, particularly as this will now be defined as a hazardous material, but quite frankly a small price to pay. There is now a faint smell of Polo that follows Ian around, and he is wearing socks and sandals (in the house only) and whilst this might suggest a bit of a fashion faux pas, his feet are already feeling the benefit. The danger of another chemist visit fades away.

Post Office

We have both commented in this Blog that the village has a lot of shops, bars and general ‘things’ (it has two convents too, but I don’t think these are used any more). For 1000 people it is very well served.

And it probably has more than we know, as many shops don’t have signs outside and just look just like normal houses. The bakery for instance is just like walking into someones front room – if Jesus had not pointed it out to us I don’t think we would have had the courage to go in and help ourselves to ‘pan’.

This means that evenings are the best time to try to find out exactly what is going on – the evenings get dark at 6.30ish and the shops have lights on. However, so unfortunately do most normal houses and to make matters worse, the open door policy I am sure exists to confuse everyone! Last night coming home from the phone box I saw a butchers shop or sausage mongers, which I had not seen before with rows and rows of sausages hung from the roof. But, it could well have been a house with someone just preparing a lot of sausages for the weekend.

We’ve not found the post office yet. There must be one. There are three banks. We have found the post box and we asked some of our new friends in the library where the Correos was (100% sure this is the right word). They directed us down to the church which is where the post box is. Now, the post box is on the wall of a house which keeps its front door open – could this be the post office? It would make sense, it is by the mayors office and he probably has a lot of post. The only way to find out is to go in, or keep watch on the place. If we go in we risk joining a nice family at rest, if we keep watch on the place we will look suspicious and risk the wrath of the gun toting policemen who probably have views on ‘foreigners’ who keep a watch on post offices.

So until we work out what our strategy is going to be for tracking down the Post Office we will continue going into Llarena, and strolling slowly past the potential post office / house in the vain hope that we will see someone go in with a stack of letters.

Ians feet

Gordon

We have found a gecko in one of the barns and have called him Gordon. Trouble is we´re not sure if he is hibernating or has died, but as he is up near the roof neither of us are that inclined to take a closer look. Although Ian assures me he has seen it move.

After the extreme wet at the weekend the weather is now warming up. It was 27 today in the sun, but it soon goes when the sun goes in and is down to + 1 or 2 at night.

We´ve been congratulating ourselves recently about the good meals we have cooked, only to suddenly realise last night that it is probably the quality of the ingredients. We have been eating a lot of aubergines (about 60 cents for 2) and huge peppers which are very sweet. We´ve also noticed that things are a little sweeter, which is probably down to the freshness of the veg.

So far we´ve not eaten any oranges. The trees in the village are full of oranges, but people don´t seem to pick them so we don´t. No point in incurring the wrath of the gun toting constabulary unless we really have to.

I have a germ of an idea at the moment. Katie the Crochet Fairy - teaching youngsters to crochet. Ian however, is less enthusiastic, even though he would be bringing her to life with his illustrations. This was largely to do with the fact that I thought it would be nice if she had her own Katie the Crochet Fairy song. He chose to disagree. He´s not been the same since his visit to the chemist....

A Rare Complaint

Just a brief blog to share my shame and embarrasment, suffered belatedly last night after a trip to the chemist to get Kate something to help relieve her blocked sinuses.

I´d taken a quick look in my Collins Gem to find the Spanish word for sinuses. Being a bit lazy I thought I could just use this word and a bit of mime to get my requirement across to the staff of the farmacia, rather than actually working out the complete sentance. In hindsight I´m unsure whether that was a good or a bad thing.

Anyway, Collins Gem said that sinus translates into Spanish as seno. That was good enough for me and I quite happily parked up in Llerena and walked to the nearest farmacia. The assistant was talking to two other customers but broke off to serve me.

"Here goes", I thought, and, holding the bridge of my nose, said "¿Tierne algo para seno?" or something mumbled to that effect.

She looked confused. I repeated "seno" whilst stressing the bridge of my nose with my fingers.

She looked more confused. She called another assistant.

I tried again. "Seno" I said making my nose very apparent.

"¿Nacelles?" or something like that said the second assistant.

"¡Si, seno!" I replied.

She passed me something. I started to try to translate the packaging, but then noticed the Vicks logo. That was as much as I needed to know. "Si" I said and completed the purchase.

As I left the two assistants and customers looked bemused. Well what of it, I had what I´d come for.

Later I found myself looking though Collins Gem, trying to recall what Spanish for "speed bumps" is. There is a perfectly good reason, but I won´t go into that now.

Whilst doing this I made a discovery that suggests that there may be a typo in the English half of the dictionary. In the Spanish half, "seno" isn´t sinus, it´s a woman´s breast.

Now reconsider my exchange with the nice assistants in the farmacia.

I walked in, motioned to my nose and apparently asked the nice ladies if they had any treatment for my case of "Titnose". No wonder they looked confused. I don´t imagine I helped the situation either by continuing to repeatedly ask for some treatment for my "Titnose".

They must have been hugely relieved to discover that Vicks is a suitable treatment and at least there´ll be one farmacia in Spain that will always know how to help a mad ranting Englishman with such a rare complaint.

I go now to hang my head in shame.

Follow the band

Ian popped out to see Jesus last night to ask for his telephone details for Telefonica and returned two and a half hours later, with the information we needed. He had shared a glass or two of wine from Zafra and some tapas. He returned at about 10.30 as they were about to start getting their tea, keeping the Spanish hours is going to be quite a challenge. But then if you have snoozed for a few hours in the afternoon, perhaps you don´t feel like eating until later.

When I went to get the bread yesterday it came as a bit of a shock to be behind two gun slinging pòlicemen. There are two types of police around, the local bobbies of whom Joe would be one (I cannot imagine him toting a gun on his moped) and the national force who seemed to be heavily armed even to go into the bread shop for a nice warm crusty roll for their breakfast. I don´t know why, but I immediately felt guilty and I tried hard not to through myself at their feet, pleading for mercy.

On Friday night we were in the courtyard and could hear the band playing. Friday night must be practice night - so as a marching drum band of around 30 is not likely to be hidden anywhere particulary out of the way, we thought we´d go and watch. We had a bit of a bad start as Ian was certain it was by the castle, and I was certain it was by the school - both at opposite ends of the village. So we headed off and found that either they were marching very quickly or the acoustics were throwing us of the scent. They were by neither the castle or the school, or indeed the church or square, we found them at last by the bus stop. We had Basil with us and sat on a wall listening and watching whilst 30 or so children were put through their paces. Now I know how the queen feels, it was just like a march past with 30 or so heads turning to look at Basil. We thought they were very good and the village is obvioulsy proud of its band. We thought that when we are settled we might donate my drum (the Border Guard one I got at auction) to them. We obvoulsy can´t do that yet incase it gets horribly confusing and we find that we are part of the band and Ian is trailing behind them with our drum.

We don´t often take Basil out at night. We´ve noticed that when Ian is out with Basil old ladies scream, and they are also unsure about Basil. We try to take Basil along the bigger roads so he doesn´t peer into people windows as he passes.

We may be a step nearer getting the phone fitted now we have the information they require. They couldn´t find us on the database as the old line was given the address of no 37, when in fact it is no 35.

Had proper rain this weekend, and it has not been cold but very miserable. Today the sun is out and we might get the washing finally dry which we hung out at the first sign of rain. Of course.

Well well well

We have had a good day today. We used the well for the first time, unfortunately to wash down the patio after Henry had been sick on it several times after eating something unmentionable. Well anyway, we thought this would be a good opportunity to see what our well water is like. So after sinking the bucket about 20 feet we waited as we pulled it up, wondering whether we would recieve horrible muck or sparkling clean water - and suprise suprise, up came sparkly clear water. So much so that we were about to dip into it and taste it, when we realised that although the water may have been clean, the thought suddenly hit us that the bucket certainly wasn´t as it has been used as a lampost substitute.

We went into Llerena this morning which is our nearest ´big´town, and are increasingly liking it as a town, it is smaller than Zafra, but equally charming - however our stay was for shortened after we found that our PIN number wasn´t being recognised at the bank. Quick panic back home and then we realised that I had written it down in code (don´t write down your PIN we are always being told...) and had forgotten the code. Ian suprisingly didn´t huff and make his normal pained expression, I think instead that he was just pleased that nothing horrible had happened with the bank.

We went back in later to get some gas, and on the way went past some roman remains of a amphitheatre and hill fort. Unfortnatly the track that we went up seemed like it had not been maintained since roman times, but saying that we saw a field full of storks. Well I think they are storks - what are the difference between storks and cranes? They are funny creatures with limbs that seem to bend in all directions - why did I think of nephew Joe? There were maybe not hundreds but certainly more than I have ever seen before. There are at least 5 pairs of storks / cranes nesting in the village and if we had a bedroom upstairs, instead of looking at owls people could watch these storks across the roof tops.

The village has about everything we could want, and we very rarely use the van to go anywhere. We´ve been very pleasently suprised with the number of small shops, the only thing wevé not been able to find is a washing up bowl, but managed to track one down today in Llerena. Obviously washing up must be done straight in the sink, but if you saw the teeny tiny plug hole you would wonder about this as it gets blocked with a rice grain. We had to go into an all sorts shop today and see if we could get a tin opener. We did - and could have got an amazing selection of other ´stuff´. Jewellery, matches, rainwear, mirrors etc all apparently from someones front room. Generally if a shop doesn´t sell it then a delivery van brings it round.

We´ve also cracked the rubbish etiquette. There are no individual rubbish bins and instead people put their rubbish into communal bins. We weren´t sure about that and it is just by watching people that we know what to do. However we now have a mountain of rubbish and will fill up one of these bins, so will have to sneak round the village spreading it around the bins. The best time to do this will be before 8 in the morning or at Siesta time which is between 2 and 5 when the village is asleep.

Had a bit of a strange experience. I attempted to ask Salina ´what is this´when showing her a knitting needle, anyway, I am now the proud owner of what I thought were here old knitting needles, however yesterday in the road another lady came up to me and started gesticulating what I only hope was knitting, and it seems I have some of hers too. It was quite a long conversation but sadly one sided, she persevered though and wasn´t put off by my gormless smile. I must admit I made a tactical error when I tried to introduce ´spinning´into things. My attempts at miming spinning seemed to startle her, and I am not sure whether my telling her that I made wool was correct or if it instead sounded as though I was a sheep.

We´ve not seen our friend Joe the policeman this week. But we are getting some waves, and a man that gave us sweets last week (at the 3 kings thing - not trying to lure us away) beeps his horn. I think in a friendly way. We still get stared at, which is a bit alarming. Well for me anyway - Ian is used to it.

Telefonica are having problems finding the house on their database, so one job this weekend is to have a word with Jesus and ask him what his phone number was when they were living there so hopefully they can track it down that way. So we are getting closer to getting a phone line - sort of....

I´m Here Too!

In line with my promise to Kate, I shall be taking afull part in the development of this blog. Kate seems to think that I didn´t write very much on the last blog, but quite frankly I think that the statistics speak for themself. You only have to glance through to see my many entries; however don´t feel that you have to cofirm this.

We´re getting quite well settled in now and haven´t got much left to unpack now. We just need to finish sorting out the office/hovel and the future chill-out room, and install a few more lights. Everything´s looking great in place in our new home and some things that looked quite ordinary before look really quite special here.

I´ve got both the Mac and PC set up now and talking to eachother and I restarted work for my employers back in Penrith, Four Square, last week and thankfully there seems to be quite a flow of work coming through.

I´ll be further developing my own business plans for a web application business in the near future and hope to be launching by the end of April at the latest.

I´ve been keeping an eye on a few message boards for freelance designers so may find some work that way also.

The village is full of surprises and we´re now learning that we can get almost everything we want here without having to travel anywhere, though Llarena is just 4 miles away and has an impressive range of shops.

The language is, as expected, the hardest thing, though we´re communicating and everyone seems very friendly. I´ve managed to buy all the bits I needed to install a gas water heater and even managed to have some form of discussion about installation legislation, so I feel if I can do that, I can probably communicate most things.

We´re hoping to be online at home soon so will then be able to keep this blog updated more regularly and also speak to the UK cheaply, particularly with those who have broadband as we´ll be installing Skype, meaning free calls to other Skype users in Europe and beyond. I´ll also be launching an alternative blog at that point, but more about that later.

Better go now. I´ve got a list of things to do for Four Square and also want to pop into Llarena before tea.

Still no phone

but they did contact us yesterday saying there was a problem with the order, suggesting we are in the system somewhere or other.

So far still so good, we still have hot water, and if we get the tap turned on in the right way the water is really hot and not tepid, which is how it comes out if the tap is on full.

All the animals seem to be settling down, although Tinkerbelle is becoming increasingly naughty, spending most of her waking hours either trying to get in the bin, or enjoying a little lie down in
the bin and she is now a grimey coffee grained incrusted horror.

The rest of the animals are getting on well. Davy is finding his way around, and is leaping over the wall to next door with ease. Trouble is, with his current hefty proportions, it is a little like an earth quake when he arrives back on our side again.

Not much else to report on the village front, as we´ve been both working hard over the last day or so. Jusus said it had been ´noticed´that we keep the front door closed - so today in a pathetic attempt to blend in we had the front door open. Luckily it was a warmish day! It also meant that we could get people sticking their heads round the door and shouting things at us. So OK, I think this is the veg delivery man and the gas delivery man - but even with our frenzied gesticulating (and their ever increasinly panicked look) we still don´t really know who they were or what they were selling. Worrying thing is what might turn up tomorrow that we didn´t know we´d ordered!

We´ve been trying to blend in by smiling and saying óla´to people we meet. Unfortnately I think that this makes us look more like the village idiots, as we then smile blankly if anyone says anything more ambitious than óla´back.

We have found the bakery. We are number 35 and the bakery is number 14, which means warm bread for breakfast. Just like baking it yourself, but without the work!

So far we´ve not been lucky finding any english speaking radio either, although I did find Vatican FM. This is only on air for about an hour a day and no suprisingly does not have anything worthy of news. And certainly hasn´t helped me find out what is going on in the Archers. Oh for the internet at home....

We´ve been impressed so far by the fact we can buy ´proper´tomatoes even at this time of year. We are simple people with simple needs and are obvioulsy easily impressed!

Hurrar

... insomuch as we have found the library and it is open 5 days a week with at least 7 internet points. First found it last night. However it appeared to be full of a gaggle of youngsters who had seen us the day before with Basil and we appear to hold no end of fascination for them. Whenever we see them they are inclined to follow us round shouting ´hello´ at Basil. They enjoyed gesticulating and asking where ´horse´was (I think) until one got taken by the ear and removed from the library. We felt a bit bad about this!

Tonight has been a bit strange though, as the 3 kings from the orient through sweets at us whilst being towed by tractors round the ´pueblo´ (and no, we´ve not been drinking) and then a policeman whose name might or might not be Joe, refused us access to the library and appeared to be accusing Ian of being south american. It later transpired that he was saying that we had to watch the celebrations - we think. The 3 wise men have now disappeared to the ´plaza´and when we have finished here we are going to see what it is all about, whilst ducking the sweet throwing.

Well, tomorrow is a big holiday, when we asked today if the shops were open tomorrow the electrician to whom we posed the question nearly fainted. I guess it is a bit like asking if Christmas Day is a normal working day.

I wonder what will happen.

Anyway - we are off to brave the 3 wise men.

Quick update

...whilst we are in an internet cafe in Zafra. We are still trying to sort out a phone line, the english speaking help line at Telefonica remains unanswered so we´ve emailed a request. Apparently the response time is 20 days - I hope that we get a phone line before that. However there is a library in Villagarcia which hopefully will have internet access. All we need to do is find it and work out the opening hours.

Yesterday we bought two heaters, it is a little colder than we expected. -3 in the morning! Although it soon warms up when the sun is out and we´ve eaten lunch outside every day.

We are going to buy a washing machine later, but still have no hot water to wash ourselves. Hopefully this will be sorted before too much longer. I had a strange dream that Susan and Andy were making mineral suplements from Ians underwear. I´ve been having a lot of strange dreams and think I ought to lay off the cheese before bed!

We ventured out into VG last night after ´siesta time´which lasts from around 2.00 to 5.00. The village comes alive with lots of shops and bars which we did not know existed, and Ian felt that the people in the supermarket were friendly as they smiled at him a lot. I hope this was nothing to do with the fact he was wearing one of the felt hats I made him.

Time nearly up so hope next update will be on our own computer or at the very least at the VG library (biblioteca).