This time four years ago...

This is the time of year when we think back to our journey here. So far we've been remembering sleeping in our van in temperatures of minus 5, getting lost in north Spain and feeling a little shell-shocked on arrival. I'd like to do the journey again one day, we weren't really able to fully enjoy the trip through France and Spain - as there were so many unanswered questions. Not least the fact that when we departed on Boxing Day we hadn't at that point signed anything on the house and were operating entirely on a verbal agreement.

We're now entering into our 5^th year. This is the first time since we've been here that we really have a plan. When we moved here, we really could be doing anything now. We could have been doing bed and breakfast, working in supermarkets, making and selling crafts, Ian doing design work on the coasts.... As it now transpires, a combination of our websites and writing will give us an income and we won't need to worry about doing bed and breakfast – although the option is there if we need to do something else in the future.

It will be nice to have a year of relative normality with a plan that we can work to. I think that part of the reason why our move here has been a success is because we didn't have a plan, this meant that we were able to take advantage of opportunities as they have arose. However, it is nice to know what we are working towards. All we need to do is to get a kitchen installed and we'll be close to leading a normal life . I bet four years ago we didn't think we'd have spent over a year having to go outside to peel potatoes or drain saucepans...

Christmas

Well, we had a very good Christmas – a wet one – but nice all the same. In fact it has rained solidly for about 2 weeks now. The funny thing is, it is actually warm. Today it is already 15 degrees outside – it is warmer outside than inside!

We had a lot of fun over Christmas, planning to cover the top of our bedside tables with polymer clay and listening to an audiobook. We went for a walk on Sunday which was the only nice day. We also did some jewelry making. I bought us a couple of jewelry source books for Christmas, one on rings, one on bracelets. I know that they contain some 'inspirational' pieces which are not the sort that would be worn to the supermarket. However they also contain lots of more wearable pieces. Sadly, instead of thinking small sparkly diamonds, Ian was motivated to look for a lump of Extremaduran quartz to set in a ring. Of course, the highlight of Christmas was in no doubt my ukulele. Strangely, Ian seemed to be less excited than me.

Coming back from our walk we saw a few people walking out of the village. We greeted them all with a cheery greeting. With a beaming smile we shouted out hello to the mayor, and various other village elders. More and more of them were coming towards us, which we did think was a little odd – we also commented that they didn't seem particularly pleased to see us and our novelty hats and gormless smiles and bellowing greetings. This, as we found out about two seconds later, was because we had managed to get ourselves caught up in a funeral procession. It was a little embarrassing and I just really wish that things like that wouldn't happen to us. We did take our novelty hats off, and I do remember when we were going to Dad's funeral, that that simple touch by strangers meant quite a lot.

We then went back to the house the long way round to avoid getting caught up in any more processions. We saw some storks circling the Church so it looks like they are coming back now.

The doors are nearly finished – in fact Antonio is just putting a sealer around the last frame as I type. What a big job! As I have said before, I am so glad that we changed our mind with the doors and got bigger frames. They certainly look imposing. Trouble is, we are now spending half of our time opening doors to let animals out and half of our time opening doors to let them back in again!

Odd

I think Antonio thinks we're a little odd. Several reasons, one being the fact that Ian emails me photos of the doors. Antonio assumed I was away, and was a little bemused to find that I was only in my workshop...

Talking of my workshop, we are going to have to make a decision what to do about the roof. It is still leaking, and after heavy rain there is standing water in my workshop. We've used our floor cleaner to suck up the water and this morning there was three buckets worth of water.

There was a big storm last night, first time we've had thunder and lightening for ages. Poor Sam was really scared. His knees knock when he's scared which makes him look like a cartoon dog.

Still really pleased with how the internal doors are looking although I have realized that I can get shut in the ensuite bathroom. Once we have the door handles fitted it will be fine, but until then I need to remember not to shut the door firmly behind me...

The Doors are Back

Antonio has just popped in to return the doors that he removed last week. However they're looking a bit different.

Kate hasn't seen them as she's in her workshop with the cats and the dogs so this post is as much for her to see the doors as anyone else.

I'm really pleased. I think they look better than I ever imagined. We've asked Antonio to price up two different designs for the glass panels, but we can also get our own designs produced if we wish, so I think we may have to have a think.

Kate already has a vision of doors topped with Tiffany sheep gamboling through a Tiffany field. I'm rather looking forward to her expressing her creative vision to Antonio.

I Survived!

We survived this morning's craft session with 4 eight year olds. They made chocolate things (they were supposed to be truffles but looked more like something a reindeer might have left behind), a Christmas monster, a clothes peg angel, Christmas card and a cone angel.

I have never seen so much glitter.

I think they enjoyed themselves. Ian was Mr Grumpy combined with Scrooge, hiding in the back room. Although he was dragged out of hiding to put the hairdryer on the glitter and glue soaked Christmas monsters to try to dry them out, which signaled a high level of giggling. I understand enough 8-year old level Spanish to know that they were amused by Ian having a hairdryer.

There was a lot of singing. One of the girls is a very good singer and the rest were enthusiastic. I played Christmas songs in English first, that I found on the Internet, but then played the rest in Spanish which gave them no end of opportunity for more singing.

The left us with boxes full of glue and glitter sodden angels and monsters. I went for a lie down in a darkened room and Ian was left muttering darkly about Christmas, children and glitter.

New Mirror At Last

I see Kate has mentioned that we finally found a mirror for the shower room. We've been looking everywhere that we've been for the past 6 months or so but hadn't seen anything that seemed suitable. It needed to fit in with the silver/grey colour scheme and not be too large as there's not a huge amount of space over the sink, with the light and power socket.

It was a bit of a surprise to find one a Chinese Hyper Bazaar - our new favourite shop. Kate is a big believer in fate and so perhaps it had a hand in us seeing Mike parking his car yesterday. She certainly believes that the blame for June 10 2000 lies squarely with fate. Not sure what happened that day - guess she had a bad day on the horses!

More Doors

We've had our fire going in the back room now for 4 days, and are wondering how we ever lived without it. We had our new doors in situ for about 2 hours and wondered how we ever lived without them. Shame the new doors were so briefly in place - we're back to being doorless.

The new doors have now gone away to be varnished. The picture above is the doors to the new kitchen, as you can see they are fitted but not varnished, he's obviously done all the planing etc before he can finish the doors. It has been such a big job, Antonio has worked on every one separately and they are looking great. Our new door handle locks won't fit, so we've had to sort out new ones (just the lock part, not the actual handles), but that wasn't too much of a problem. We're now thinking about what sort of glass we want in the panel above the doors.

Today we went to the bank to get our account put in joint names. This, actually, was nowhere near as traumatic as I was expecting - the main problem being that my sole account was linked to my passport and we need to link it to our NIE cards. Anyway, it is all sorted and we're both responsible for each other's debts. Oh hooray!

I also went to the optician. That, too, was nowhere near as bad as it could have been. No doubt due to the fact that they gave me the illiterate test - despite the fact I'd been practicing my Spanish alphabet. I am now the proud owner of reading glasses. I will be interested to see how they compare with the 1.99 magnifying glasses that I bought from the Woolworths-alike in Dorchester. It was all very quick, no messing around with glycoma tests or that sort of thing. Can you see - yes or no - here's your glasses - goodbye. Actually, it was not like that, at least the last bit wasn't. I was overwhelmed with frame options and came out with a pair of pink and grey glasses, with frames, including the test for 70 euros, which we didn't think was too bad.

But this wasn't all. We were really on a roll. We went to Zafra to the wood shop to look at door handles for the bathrooms, we then popped to Carrefour, however on the way we saw Mike's car outside a large Chinese warehouse which we never knew existed. We stopped to say hello - and found a tremendous bazaar. We bought essentials such as a pair of pink shoe laces and some glitter, and Ian and Mike wandered off and found a perfect mirror for the shower room. I obviously don't have a pic yet, however it is perfect. We knew eventually we'd find one, however didn't expect it to be in a Chinese warehouse on the outskirts of Zafra that we didn't know existed.

So, we're enjoying a bit of R&R before the carpenter comes back on Monday. I really know that we shouldn't moan - and I do try not to. However I am really happy when we don't have carpenters here at 8 in the morning through to 8 at night, except for a late breakfast and siesta. Hopefully by the end of next week we'll have our internal doors fitted, be able to keep the house warm and start planning for the new year....

Interesting Fact #1

Since we've stepped up our activity on FreeNeedle etc, we've been looking more closely at what makes things tick.

Guess what the second most popular thing is that people search for on FreeNeedle at the moment...?? It's 'owl'. So apparently owls must be this season's must-have item.

Shrivelled Olives

Last Sunday we went for a walk and commented on some olive trees that we saw with tiny olives. We were musing as to whether these were a special type of olive. However it transpires that they are normal olives but the lack of rain has stopped them growing properly.

While it has rained this autumn, it's really not done so very much. We had a downpour a couple of months ago when we were watching the roof of my work shop, but nothing really since. We had some red strawberries a couple of weeks ago from our strawberry plant, however I don't know if this is normal or a reflection of the odd weather.

Oh yes, broody hen is no longer broody. The drastic action of shutting her out of her nest seemed to work. She forgot almost straight away to be broody! In the spring we'll let them hatch chicks, but it really wouldn't be fair to let them have chicks now.

Vigilante

We've had the pleasure, over the last couple of nights, of children pushing our front door. Because we have no internal doors, not even the temporary ones to which we had grown most fond, it is very easy to get the dogs over-excited by a banging at the door. Which a little band of youngsters have been finding most amusing. We've tried ignoring it, and then Ian tried waiting inside and flinging the door open, which they have taken to be even more exciting. Unfortunately they started throwing stones, which damaged the front door. Although it's only a chip, we weren't very happy. Ian stood upstairs with his camera - however we both decided that him stood on the balcony in the darkness was getting decidedly weird - and the danger is it might get considered as being more of a game and we could end up with them thinking that we were joining in the fun. So yesterday Ian went down to the Town Hall to see Joe the policeman and have a word with him. The children are very young, maybe 7 or 8 and we don't think that they even know that they damaged the door and they had just worked themselves into a frenzy.

Anyway, Ian went down and stressed that we were generally tolerant and happy-go-lucky (ha) however we wanted to stop this from escalating from being a harmless game to being vandalism. Ian originally planned taking the approach where he was going to say how understood how fun this can be for children and that he too, played the game when he was younger (I blame the parents), however it was beginning to sound way too much like a confession and I am not certain that 'Knock Out Ginger' is an internationally known game. It sounded as though he was turning himself in for knocking out Ginger. We have learned now that keeping things simple is always best.

I am sure that it will soon die down and when we can actually stop the dogs from charging up and down things will be easier. We did have a temporary 'barrier' across last year, however I've often wondered if Billy got caught between that and the wall, so we've not put anything in this time. Hey ho - the joys of village life.

Next Saturday I am having a Christmas craft session with my English class. I'm not quite sure how it happened! I just need to think of something to do with them now. Yet again, I had to clarify that the craft session was starting at 10.30 in the morning and not the 10.30 in the evening!

Did I mention that I now have a fourth in my class? They must feel that they are getting something from the classes! I find it alarming at how hilarious they find some things. In fact, sometimes they laugh so much that I have to go out of the room and make sure that I haven't suddenly grown another head. They love drawing monsters and I believe that if they had an exam in monster drawing they'd all be set to get top marks. But all I have to do is say 'draw a monster with 3 eyes wearing sunglasses and they are almost on the floor with laughter. Strange.

Antonio is here working on the doors now. As I mentioned, he works the strange Spanish day of breaking in the afternoon and then coming back in the evening. He says that he will be finished in a couple of weeks. It is such a big job as with every door frame being slightly different, he is making each one bespoke. He's been doing the planing of the doors today and he says he'll be hanging them on Monday. They are not treated at the moment, though, so not sure when or how he'll be doing that. Really looking forward to the doors being finished. We can really then start getting organized....

More Door Frames

I told you we were fixated with our door frames. Here's a picture with Ian giving a sense of proportion to the door frame. Look at Tib's eyes in the background - you can see why cat's eyes used to mark roads got their name!

Goodbye Mr Chipboard Doors

As Kate has mentioned, Antonio has been fitting the frames for our internal doors. It's reassuring to see that he seems to be attempting to finish the job with an urgency that he never applied to starting the job.

Anyway here's a picture.

It doesn't really get across the sense of scale which is the aspect of them that we are finding most striking - they really do look huge.

If I spoke Chicken

...then I think my ears would be burning. Needless to say that our broody hen took great exception to being taken out of her nest and locked out of the barn. While I don't speak Chicken, the gist of what she was saying was blatantly clear. She'll be locked out later today too, so it will be interesting to see if she is still so grumpy.

The carpenter is fitting our internal doors now - we are delighted so far. I keep finding Ian stood looking at door frames. How that takes me back, it is several months now since we've found ourselves gazing at awe at new developments in the house. I am glad that we changed our thoughts about the doors and 'traded up'. We'll take some pics later.

The carpenter works different hours to Manuel. Manuel used to start at 8.30 and work through to 4ish. The carpenter works more traditional hours and is starting at 8.30, breaking for siesta at 2 and starting again at 5 and working through to 8/8.30 ish. It shouldn't take him long to finish the work.

Broody Hen - Drastic Action

We're going to have to take drastic action with our broody hen. She has been broody for several weeks now, and it looks like she just thinks she is hatching invisible elephant eggs. From what I've read we need to stop her from feeling comfy and not give her the chance to find a nice warm dark corner to nest. We'll try locking her out of the chicken shed during the day and see what happens.

Spot's eggs are coming less frequently now, however it is quite surprising that she's laying at all this time of year.

Hi honey, I'm home!

After my flying visit to the UK, I got back home safely Sunday afternoon after another smooth journey. Once more my thanks to Jim for getting up at 4.45am to get me to the airport.

On the flight over to Malaga I was sat beside Geoff the homeopathic sheep farmer from Devon. He said he found it near impossible to sleep on a plane, but after 20 minutes of stimulating conversation with me, he gave it a bloody good go!

At Malaga the route through to the station doesn't seem to have changed too much since last December, but unlike last year, when I ended up as part of a group of about a dozen wandering around in circles, I found my way through easily the first time. As ever there was the obligatory group of inept looking brits stood around the ticket machine pressing random buttons - I was obviously in my element.

For once I did make a positive contribution and the first pair of tickets were dispensed to a couple also heading for Córdoba as the train arrived. Fortunately the next few tickets were quickly dispensed and myself and a couple off on a walking holiday just managed to get on before the train departed. It wouldn't have affected my journey had I missed it, but it did mean that I didn't need to spend the next 30 minutes exposed to the elements. The rain in Bristol appeared to have followed me all the way to Malaga.

By coincidence, the ticket I bought for the trip to Córdoba placed me next to the couple I met at the ticket machine at the airport. They were a teacher and teaching assistant from Swindon on their way to make arrangements for an exchange trip for their school. Last year I spent the trip to Córdoba chatting to Jonny, who I'm convinced was a Harry Enfield character bought to life - I've still got his phone number in case I should ever be passing, but haven't had the need to call yet.

I had a stroke of luck at Córdoba, just managing to catch the 1pm bus, rather than the 3.30pm departure I had been expecting. We had torrential rain after coming over the hills outside Córdoba, but fortunately the typically Spanish bus driver adjusted his driving style to cope with the dangerous conditions - he accelerated to about to twice the normal speed to get out of the rain as quickly as possible. He must have been quite an inspiration to those other drivers as he appeared from nowhere in their rear view mirrors.

All told I was home a couple of hours earlier than expected.

Floods

Well, when we were listening to the news about the flooding in Cumbria, I thought I'd take a look at our blogs from when Carlisle flooded - http://mineralhouse.blogspot.com/2005_01_09_archive.html

We went to Carrefour yesterday to buy a new monitor for my mac. I got a 21 inch Acer for 120 euros, which is pretty good. The prices are getting much closer to what we'd expect to pay in the UK for electrical goods now. And what a difference it makes!! My old monitor, as I have mentioned, was in poor condition. Ian bought it for 20 pounds because the colour wasn't great, and he passed it onto me when it became too bad for him. So, I've been used to working with everything in light pastel shades! But the big difference is the size - the new monitor takes up a tiny fraction of the space of the old one. We've bought it into my winter office (Ian's old office), and rather than taking up half the room, it is sat neatly in the corner.

Surprisingly we managed to get lost coming back from Zafra. We thought we'd take the back road and have a picnic, and we were a little surprised that the back road had got so grassy and overgrown since the last time we'd taken it. When it came to an end in the middle of a field it was apparent we'd taken a wrong turn. I think that the shepherd walking his sheep was also a little surprised!

Nearly a two years since we found Sam - and must be nearly a year since his last fit. We're not sure how much he can see, however, and I'm pretty certain that his sight is getting steadily worse. He currently gets frightened by the cats - which he has never done before. If one is sat in the doorway, he won't pass them. He'll happily snuggle up to the cats, like he has always done, it seems that he doesn't like it when they catch him unawares.

Oh yes, we've put an answering machine on our telephone, so if you ring and a nice Spanish person answers - just leave a message and we'll call back.

Shiny Things

Last night we sat and marveled at our shiny cutlery, glasses and saucepans. Unfortunately, as our plates are plastic, we were unable to wash them in our new dishwasher, but we'll look to get some new terracotta plates over the weekend.

We've been exactly a year now without washing up facilities, and the novelty has started to wear off slightly. Well, to be frank, it started to wear off about 11 months ago! So our new dishwasher has pride of place next to Ian's computer. Hopefully we'll get the kitchen sorted in the new year and that will be a major step forward!

The house is feeling decidedly not cold. I am not sure whether this is because the weather is unseasonably warm, or because we have windows that shut. What we have noticed is that it has been unseasonably dry. We went for a walk last weekend and where there used to be a stream crossing the road there is now just a dry patch. We used to have to jump across the stream in a couple of leaps. But thinking about it, I don't think that the rain really arrived until after Christmas last year, when it appeared to rain constantly for two months when the builders were here.

We're currently on the hunt for wood. It would be nice to use our stoves when it gets cold, however we don't have any wood so can't even try them. Most people use wood from their olive groves to burn in their under table braseras as they cut their trees back this time of year, so as most people are self-sufficient when it comes to wood for burning, there isn't a ready supply of logs. We did think about going out scrumping wood from olive groves, but decided that this was probably very bad form. Ian also pointed out that the fallen tree that I suggested we bring home would not fit in the car and, in the absence of a chain saw, would be remaining where it is. We'll probably end up buying a load and getting it delivered.

Look, no hands!

Another step to modernising our household has been taken with the arrival of a new dishwasher.

I originally thought that the power button had quaintly been labelled as the 'Silence' button for the Spanish market, but on consideration I think that's probably the model name just coincidentally placed above the power button.

The exciting all action pic to the left shows it during it's first use - I'm currently sat beside it quite transfixed. In fairness, the shock of seeing Kate doing the washing up has the same effect on me.

I've a horrible feeling if Kate can find something to do the dusting, I may become surplus to requirements.

MakeForBusiness

Make for Business has been launched. It might be a bit rough round the edges still, so it's still in beta really, but here it is anyway - MakeForBusiness - let us know if there are any oddities!

In case you wonder, Ian is vdlatorre who posted the picture below. It hasn't escaped my attention that I post the pictures of a chicken in a bucket and Ian posts the artistic ones.

Choza Lights

choza_lights
Originally uploaded by vdltorre

The shepherd's hut by the cement works.

Nesting Box

The chickens, well our one laying one as the other is still broody, still refuse to use their lovely nesting box. Here is Spot's preferred laying place.

Doors

Did I mention that we bought some Indian doors, from Ebay France, which came from a man in Germany? Well, they finally arrived! We weren't too sure what to expect, however they arrived and they're great (they are upside down in the pic)! They are going to go at the back of the hallway in a similar position to the gates at the front. This will mean that we can keep the animals out of the front of the house, which, if we do ever do bed and breakfast, will be important.

What we didn't appreciate - although we were told - was how heavy the doors are. It took Ian and two others to get the doors from outside the garage into the garage. Getting them into the house will be fun! Manuel will fit them, we're not sure how as we need to see them in situ to see what they will look like. The will go by the pillars, so there might be a little jiggery-pokery to get them fitted. We'll also need to put something above them. Some metal work, like railings or something, perhaps. Anyway, we'll let Manuel work his magic.

We've also got the ball rolling with regards to getting the back yard sorted. We're waiting for someone with a tractor to dig it over.

Had another request to join my English class, which will give me three 8 year olds. The older one asked for an extra lesson yesterday, and they played up the whole time - sigh...

Slow Cooking & Halloween

Well, the slow cooker arrived on Saturday, which was jolly good. Unfortunately we realized we didn't have any slow-cook food, so had to go shopping. Which was bad. The first and second of of November are big family holidays, so the supermarket was full of people buying legs of jamon and more legs of jamon just in case. We stopped for a picnic on the way back (at Berlanga - the place where Mum, S, Ian and I had a picnic in a not-yet-opened toilet). When we got home, although we'd not been gone very long, I realized that we didn't have enough time for slow cooking our slow cook food, so we ended up with fast cook food again. Happily, we've had a couple of meals now using the slow cooker and I am surprised that we didn't think of this before.

Saturday was Halloween, so we hid in my workshop. It is relatively low key, although there is a lot of throwing rice around, which I am a little unclear about. But we did have visitors at about midnight (we had gone to bed so they gave up when we didn't answer).

The big holidays are Sunday and Monday and we went for a walk on Sunday and saw lots of people going to the cemetery with flowers. I think that the Day of the Dead celebration is a nice one, it is not as carnival like as the Mexican celebrations, but likewise it is not a sad day - and being a national holiday the whole day is spent in family groups.

October was what the Americans call 'my Super Bowl'. Everything has been busy. I guess it will carry on until Christmas, well the new year, now. However it was like all of a sudden a load of people said 'we must get crafting'. I haven't got my Christmas project written up yet, but I've set aside Weds and Thursday to do this. I have been getting MakeForBusiness fleshed out though, and have spent two days working on it. I feel quite positive about it, but we'll see....

Brain training going well. I have discovered that I am not a morning person, nor indeed am I an evening person. However there is about 20 minutes just before lunch when I perform well. So I do my brain training then and I showed an improvement this week. Just a tad disappointed that I am at the peak of my mental prowess for such a short space of time, and that this tiny window coincides with me making beans on toast. Hey ho...

Broody Hen

Our little white hen has gone broody. Happily, she seems quite content to be broody without sitting on any eggs, although we do have to pick her up occasionally to make sure that she's not snuck a couple of eggs under when we're not looking. While we're not anti more chickens (particularly given we only have two hens), this would be the wrong time of year for chicks. We'd also need to rehome at least one of the boys.

We're waiting for some parcels. I bought a slow cooker this week and a bread maker. The slow cooker was from Amazon as they don't exist here (loads of pressure cookers, but no slow cookers). I can't think that we'll be in a position to think about the kitchen for a while yet, so it seemed a good compromise for the winter. While our gas cooker is OK, it is really only like a glorified camping stove with two heat settings - on and off, so a slow cooker will allow us to cook stews and things without having to watch them for burning. The bread maker may seem a strange purchase, however we eat a lot of bread (not having a kitchen and having an outdoor sink means that we steer clear of meals with a lot of food prep) hence bread and cheese is often a favoured option (or bread and meatballs for Ian, who could quite happily live on meatballs it appears). So we thought that making our own bread would give us a bit more variation.

It appears that my monitor has dried out without any problems so I don't need a new one yet, so instead I'm thinking about getting a dishwasher. We'd budgeted for one in the new kitchen, however getting it now might be useful and certainly more convenient than standing outside to do the washing up!

I've been taking part in the BBC Brain Train experiment. So far my results have gone down rather than up, which wasn't the result I was hoping for - however early days....

Rain

Well, we had a day of storms. Windy and wet.

....and sadly my workshop roof leaked, which was disappointing. I guess, however that we'll just have to live with this level of leaks. It is better than it has been and I think that the strong wind probably blew the rain under the tiles which would have made it worse. But what did happen, was the water dripped onto my computer monitor and obviously something happened in side, because the top is melted. We can use it, but I think I'll use it as an excuse to get a modern flat screen monitor. Mine is a cast off from Ian, who couldn't use it as the colours are dodgey, which - of course - is bad for his print work.

Today it is sunny again though, and the weather is much warmer again now. It is getting colder at night, though. So much so that I dyed a blanket for the bedroom. Thinking about it, trying to dry a wet wool blanket is probably what signified the start of the rain.

Been finishing off my Halloween projects for About.com, including these cone witches that Mum helped me with when she was here :



The project is here - Cone Witch People and a round up of my Halloween projects is here - Halloween. I'll next be turning my attention to Christmas projects. I've a few done and ready to write up.

FreeNeedle still doing well and MakeForBaby and MakeForChristmas have been relaunched. I'll be working on MakeForBusiness this week with a view to getting that launched mid-November.

I'm ready for my close up meow!

I just got back from the pilar and filling up our water container to find Tibs making her presence known from the roof of the barn. I had my camera with me as I always take it with me when filling up with water in case the pilar should be looking particularly photogenic. Today it looked particularly green.

I saved Tibs her blushes and haven't posted the three pictures that immediately followed this one as she slid cartoon cat style down the door in an only slightly controlled descent.

I'm starting to think that Kate's purchase of the camera was an attempt to get me posting on the blog more. I do believe this makes two this year.

She's also bought me a pro account on Flickr this week which she said I could use to add images to the blog. I haven't set it up yet, but don't be surprised if you see another blog post from me this side of Christmas.

MakeForBaby

When I said that we've been disappointed with the performance of MakeForBaby, perhaps I was expecting some form of miracle, as we noticed that we didn't have advertising on many pages - hence the fact it didn't generate much (any) revenue. So this has been relaunched too, with the new page layout and more prominent ads.

Initial figs from FreeNeedle have been excellent. We don't seem to have lost any visitors because of the more blatant advertising and the advertising revenue has increased significantly. I'm going to leave it a week to do any proper analysis, however so far so good.

New MakeForBaby is here - http://www.makeforbaby.com/

New FreeNeedle

The new FreeNeedle site has been relaunched - FreeNeedle. It's doing really well at the moment, and after two approaches recently from people wanting to buy it, we've decided that if we're not going to sell it, which we're not, then it is worth putting some effort in to it.

You will notice that the adverts are more prominent, which we thought long and hard about. However it is supposed to be a commercial site and advertising is an accepted way of funding websites, hence the change.

We've also decided on the next FreeNeedle-alike. It's going to be CraftBusinessInformation and it's going to be a directory of information for people selling crafts. This is a huge area and one that is growing, so a good directory of information should have a wide audience. The search facility and the database that Ian has built means that we can include information pertinent to specific countries as well as generic information (for instance include links to information on UK tax for small businesses as well as US, Canada, Australia etc in addition to generic tax information...). People can then refine their search based on their country.

Hopefully it won't take us long to get it off the ground as we will just reuse the FreeNeedle model. This is the beauty of the concept, we can just copy it as many times as we have ideas for. However, we've been disappointed with the performance of MakeForBaby so the model isn't necessarily a sure fire success.

At the moment we are having creative differences over the design of the new site. I think that a sock monkey would be an excellent logo. Ian, needless to say, doesn't.

I fear I am fighting a losing battle.

Ian and Fibs

Noone can say that we don't have fun. Or perhaps, noone can say that we don't give the cats a never ending supply of amusement. Today we were trying to take pics of a paper chandelier, which is a project I am just winding up. Fibs was unimpressed (so was Ian by the look on his face). Hopefully neither Ian nor Fibs will end up in the final version.

Clever

I use the British Council website sometimes in my English classes. There is a wide range of games that are educational. However, today I came across this - http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-games-magic-monkey.htm.

Try it and then think how to explain to an amazed 14 year old how it works. BECAUSE IT DOES didn't seem to answer his questions and he seemed not to believe that the computer could read his mind. On the plus side, it did render him speechless.

Gosh, is it that time of year already?

Thought perhaps I should confirm my existence by posting on the blog once again. Fortunately, following my birthday I've not been spending time with sheep or a knitting machine, but have been learning more about the camera that Kate bought me. It was a surprise to say the least, but I'm having some fun with it.

Whilst sitting in the health centre this morning I was able to read about flash compensation and so avoid eye contact and any prospect of conversation though obviously it doesn't work like that here. I spent a few minutes looking blankly at a couple of ladies who were talking at me and was relieved that my turn came up. I can only imagine the conversation I left behind.

Lady #1 "I've no idea how he's going to explain what he wants to the doctor."

Lady #2 "Oh don't worry about that. We saw him in the supermarket once miming a courgette. He's really rather good."

Lady #1 "Oh yes, I remember now. He wanted a couple of large onions too I recall."

As mentioned below, the van has gone, but I did get to use it one last time on Friday. I took the picture below while sat on the top of the van to get a view over our back wall.

What's Missing?

The van was taken for scrap. The scrap man kept saying he would 'make it disappear'. We kept assuring him that it was legal (we scrapped it in the UK a couple of years ago), but he seemed to prefer the thought that he was going to do a disappearing act with it. It was sad to see it go!

The car passed its ITV (MOT) today too. Ian just came back with a big grin. First time it passed first time...

The Weather is Getting Cooler

We know it is getting cooler as Tinks starts to search out Basil to lie on!

Early Morning Photo Session

Last Sunday we got up early to watch the sun rise and take pictures. Here's mine.

Buying a Paper - Sheet by Sheet

Noticed that the local paper can be purchased online, sheet by sheet. 10centimos per page. Not that cheap, really. http://descargas.hoy.es/edicion_pdf.asp

Well, things could have been worse...

We've been without water this afternoon because a main is broken. If it was this time last week, with a house of nine pending, we might have been a tad concerned - however they have till Monday to get it sorted. And we have our well....

More About Snakes

The builder is here looking at my workshop roof (it has rained - hence the added urgency to get the repairs done). He found a wasp nest and a snake skin. Wonder if our snake had been living on the roof - eeeugh.

Ian's Birthday

Ian's birthday is on Thursday.

I was torn between buying him sheep, a knitting machine or a camera. I had also considered a metal detector, however that got relegated when the ancient Roman gold bangle that I found, that was clearly indicating a site of Roman remains in our back yard, turned out to be a wardrobe handle.

So, what should it be....?

I can read through his 'under no circumstances' and know that he'd really love a sheep or two.

I can just imagine the pleasure he would get from his knitting machine

Or a camera

No Rain

Well isn't that just typical! Having raved about the weather forecasts we find that today was another hot sunny day and no sign of rain. It was this weekend just passed two years ago when we flooded. Ah, happy memories.

Yet again we forgot that today is the Day of Extremadura and therefore we have been treated to random playing of the anthem from the church. The shops are shut, but luckily our new superdooper freezer means that we always have something on hand. Even if it is just bags of frozen peas.

The chickens are steadfastly ignoring their new bed. I took their old box out, so they all crammed into a bucket. So I took that out and found them yesterday all squeezed behind Jesus's father's headstone that is in the barn (Jesus who we bought the house from - not the other one). Tonight we might try grabbing them when they are asleep and putting them in their new bed. Still no sign of eggs - I must look to see if they are likely to start now, or whether we'll have to wait until the days get longer next spring. If that is the case, I can see why point of lay chickens are so expensive compared with chics as we will have fed ours for a year before getting an egg. And seeing we only have two girls and one is the smallest chicken we've ever seen AN egg is all we are likely to get!!

Edited to add: It has just clouded over....

Hot

It's still hot, although rain is showing on the weather forecast for tomorrow. The weather forecasts are unnervingly accurate here, so we'll make sure that the drains are clear as this will be the first proper rain this year.

E&E returned home on Friday. This was their first trip without any rain. Hopefully they enjoyed their stay. They made a lot of use of the swimming pool - we've never been in the swimming pool so it was good to hear positive reports.

We're going to see the sheet man today and see what he has. We went on Friday, but he wasn't at home so hopefully he'll be there today.

We've moved the cooker from outside to inside. Ed helped Ian do this when they were here. This seems a little odd as we were very used to the cooker outside. However it will be more practical inside during the winter. Ian has some plans for the new kitchen, which won't involve our current cooker - so it will arrive back outside again at some point!

Blackie

Blackie crowed today - so that means three boys and two girls.

Despite what it looks like, we took the news well and I wasn't trying to strangle him.

Looking for Bedding

We went to the market yesterday to look for bedding and towels. We know the chap with the market stall and he said that now was the time for beach towels and not duvet covers etc, however if we went to his house we could sort it all out. He lives up by the castle, so that will be easy. We'll probably go up one afternoon (Spanish afternoon, that is - the time after siesta and before the sun goes down). He also sells chair covers - not nice ones - just the nylon-y stretch ones, but they'll be fine for the short term. He's going to come round and see what we need. A sofa cover will only be about 15 euros, so even if we replace them after a couple of months, it won't be a waste of money.

Sam has still not had any fits - over 8 months now, I believe. He had started again this time last year, so we are keeping a close eye on him, incase there should be any pattern.

Had to take Henry to the vet because of an ear infection. Similar to what he's had before. We got told off for not keeping the hair inside his ears trimmed. I thought the reason why they had hair there was to keep things out - but the vet said that having hair there kept things in! We've trimmed his hair and he's got ear drops now - but keeping his ears clean is something to watch for the future.

Still hot - and unusually, with guests coming, no sign of the weather breaking yet!

Recipe Update

Well, we spent quite a while looking through our new recipe book yesterday. I had to double check a couple of times to make sure we hadn't picked up a spell book. There are recipes for lizard stew, that read like something from MacBeth.

The book is quite interesting, it includes local variations on dishes, so the Llerena recipe for a dish will be different to one further north. Also interesting that there are only half a dozen rice or paella dishes - obviously not a local favorite.

Just deciding what we will have for tea tonight (sin lizard, por supuesto).

What a Good Day!

We have had a good day today. Nothing to do with the 7 pairs of cotton trousers that I bought for 2 euros each - which amazingly ALL fit me - and nothing to do with the half price croc-alikes that Ian bought in El Corte Ingles, but more down to the pink kaftan (which no one should be without) and the cookery book that we found. The cookery book is a book about traditional Extremaduran cookery. It was quite expensive, but I bought it with my English coaching money - which sort of helped to make it worth while!

We took the day off and went to Badajoz. We'd been promising that we'd do this during the summer - while it is quiet. We left at 9 ish and went straight to El Corte Ingles. We were looking for housey type things (and kaftans, trousers, crock-alikes...). The housey things were a little disappointing. Lots of nice orange bed clothes - that or linen white. Orange wouldn't fit in with our color scheme and linen white would be impractical. What we wanted was a sludge colored set of bed clothes. They sadly didn't have much in the way of bargains in the kitchen appliance department.

I'm looking forward to reading the cookery book - it will be largely meat based, I am sure. However meat is often used as a flavouring and is a minor ingredient in many dishes, so I am sure we'll find them easy to adapt.

El Corte Ingles had an excellent selection of local books. Books are quite expensive here, and local ones more so, however I would be interested to buy some to help improve my Spanish. There was one about the Civil War in this area of Spain and another about famous Extremaduran witches - which must be worth a look!

We also bought a small paddling pool for when Hattie is here next week, however I will be interested to see if the dogs use it to cool down. Petal used to not mind the water, so we'll see....

Still Hot

The vet came round today to give the dogs their rabies shots. This was interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly, we hadn't realized that we are supposed to carry their passports when ever we are out with them. This is so if they bite someone we can prove that they won't get rabies! Extremadura doesn't have rabies, so they only need vacinations every two years. However if we take them to say, Andalucia, they would need a vaccination every two years.

Sam's not due for his until January, we thought about getting him done now so he was on the same cycle as the others, but then we also wondered about whether this injection was something that might trigger his fits. He has not had a seisure now for 7 or so months, and if he follows the same pattern as last year, they may start again in September. So if we don't inject him now and his fits start, we'll know that it was nothing to do with them, however if he fits don't start now but they do after his vaccination then perhaps there is a connecting factor here.

I was horrified to find out that I had odd shoes on. One bright orange croc and one purple croc. I think that the vet put it down to wacky english style!

The vet was really happy when he saw Henry's eye. 'estupendo', he said, in fact!

I got an email from another English couple we know here, asking about our air conditioner and how we get on with it. We bought it a couple of years ago and while it is a little like sitting in a room with a train in it, it does work! Anyway she commented that people find it hard to believe that instead of enjoying the 'lovely sun' we all spend our time hidden away in the gloom, only to reappear at night - how very true!

Our house looks like there's been some terrible accident, as the animals all lie on their backs with their legs in the air. Even the cats. More than once I've gone to poke a cat to see if it's ok!

We've got some temporary doors on the bedrooms and bathroom. The door workshops are shut for August so the carpenter has put some temporary ones on for when Ed and Emma are here. The proper ones should arrive first week in Sept, which - depending on how they define first week in Sept ie first full week or week with the first in it - will be when E&E are here. So that will be fun!

Another Snake

It was with rising hysteria that I found another snake on the floor of the bedroom. Admittedly this new one was substantially smaller - however I did not necessarily take this as a good sign as it obviously meant that the other snake had left a nest somewhere under the bed.

Ian came like superhero, ready to change into leather gauntlets and running shoes - only to point out that it was, in fact, a shoe lace.

Well, this presents another mystery as we only wear crocs, so goodness know who's been creeping round the house throwing shoelaces around. Our pups are very bad at many things, but one thing they are good at is not chewing shoes. Poor Billy was the only chewer. Although I wouldn't put it past them and I certainly wouldn't tempt them with a brand new shoe on the floor, Henry is much too keen to guard a shoe than to let anyone chew it. All in all, however, I think I'd rather have the mystery of the shoelace, then the story of the snake nest.

W did see the smallest ever gecko this week. He was so cute - had big feet and looked just like a cartoon. He was probably about an inch long.

Oh yes, we also had an ant raid. The ants who live by the wall raided the nest by the house. That was very brutal. They emptied the nest and we saw them carrying eggs, dead ants and all sorts across the patio.

No sign of any eggs yet. Our chickens are amazingly lazy. When we go to let them out in the morning there is generally a bit of shoving while the chicken nearest to the door gets pushed out out. He then pops his head out, has a quick look round and immediately goes back to bed again. Our chickens at Mineral House bowled us over when the came flying out of their shed and spent the day roaming miles. Ours haven't roamed through a quarter of the back yard yet - generally making it to the door for food and then sitting under the van. This lack of energy would appear just to be our chickens as we've seen other chickens out roaming through fields early in the morning. Ours just sit there waiting for their food. I still wonder if this is where they haven't had an adult chicken roll model - I do wonder what would happen now if we introduced them to a chicken who knew how to roam! I can understand them siesta-ing in the heat, but they do seem to have an all day siesta, followed by an early night!

Hot

Phewey, it is so hot at the moment. It's difficult to know what to do. Last week I was getting up at 5 in the morning to work, as during the afternoon it is really too hot to do anything. However, where it is so hot it's difficult to sleep in the night, the coolest time is about 5! So I ended up getting up and falling asleep in my chair!

There don't really seem to be any rules about when people work during August. Many companies close for the month, which is why the villages fill up with families that have moved away and come back to visit during the month. Builders seem to start around 6.30 and finish at 2 ish. The banks open in the morning, but not after siesta. On the other hand, the dustbins get emptied at 1 (at night), we've seen the butchers shop open at midnight and I am pretty certain that some of the farmers work through the night.

Our house is relatively cool though, and we can see why they are built the way they are. My workshop gets hot, but there is no insulation against heat or cold.

The streets will be full of people sat out enjoying the night's activities. I've not been out this year, but last year we saw two families who'd taken their sofa outside - one on each side of the road. And the village is deathly quiet during siesta which can go on to 7 ish during August.

The pillar is drying up, there is a trickle of water, but it takes a long time to fill the water bottle. Thankfully Ian is not using his sock to filter the water as this slows the process down even more.

It rained last week for the first time in months. Although it did spot with rain the other week when we were out for a walk, this was the first time it rained enough to get the ground wet. It also reminded us that we need to remind Manuel that he needs to come back and repair the roof. We are very lax at making arrangements with the builders about things - I don't know why. You'd think that given the potential for mis-communication we'd check and double check everything. If we write things down then at least they know what we think we've understood and it is a reference document. In fact, that is a good idea and I am going to buy a notebook for that very purpose. Our written Spanish isn't 'that' bad and is certainly good enough to write down the basics of what we've agreed. I think we've been sat here waiting for the doors to arrive, whereas we were supposed to be telling the carpenter when the decorators had finished. We heard 'they'll come after the painters have finished' and they probably said something along the lines of 'tell us when the painters have finished'. If we'd written it down then hopefully we'd have picked this up.

Right, I'm off to buy a note book!

Tomato Clarification

In the cause of journalistic clarity, I must clarify that the tomatoes that I referred to in an earlier post were not ours - Ian got them from Mike. Our harvest so far consists of one tomato, one festering pepper and a peach (we've been left with about half a dozen that are too high for Basil to get and Tinks can't climb that high).

Dye Another Day

I forget to say that I am writing some 'how to dye' articles for a man who's branching out his grout and cement dye business to include fabric and yarn dyes. He wanted permission to reprint some articles I already have written, but I couldn't grant permission as he wanted to put it on his website and the other website where they are published has online exclusivity for two years. So I said I'd rewrite them in return for some dyes. It just so happened that I needed some more dye, so it was a nice little barter. So far he has sent me a few pots of primary colors - with a load of samples of 'synthetic micronized iron oxide dye'. I have no idea what this is, but I do know it is used in make-up so it can't be too harmful! Next week he is sending me some kits.

I did say I wouldn't do any more bartering work after the crochet stuff I did last year where the hooks I was writing instructions for weren't the sort of product I wanted my name against - but the dyes are hopefully more straightforward - and I won't be putting my name to them, only writing his instructions.

Emigre Week

This is 'emigre' week, when traditionally, a series of events have been put on for people who return to the village for August (perhaps it is felt that people who have moved to Barcelona, Madrid etc, need an exhibition of cha-cha-cha dancing so as not to feel too bored). The activities are geared to all ages, with many being for children (those starting and 8 or 9 in the evening, for instance!). You will notice that on Sunday there is a mass for the emigrants (9 in the evening) following by the Aquelarre, which is the raising of the devil, which is at the convent at 11. Tonight there is a exhibition of dancing, which we might go to and tomorrow afternoon there is a 'ruta de la tapa', which is a sort of tapas trail around the bars. A tapas crawl. We've not been to this yet, these activities are quite family orientated and, with many family and friends returning to the village for the first time since last year, it is quite busy. We may, however go to the 'baile' tomorrow evening.

I've started English coaching again. Which I truly, truly hate. This year I have three, two youngsters twice a week and one other twice a week. The two little ones just sit there and stare at me and I have to stop myself from poking them to see if they are alive. I've found that the best thing to do with them is to ask them to say something in Spanish before they say it in English - this way I know that a/ they are alive and b/ the understand. So, I point at a dog, for instance, and they say 'perro' and then 'dog'. I'm not supposed to do it this way as young children aren't supposed to translate, their English vocabulary is incremental. So they are supposed to think 'dog' and not think 'perro translates to dog'. The translating thing is what we adults do, which slows everything down and makes it more difficult, which is why children are supposed to pick up languages well. They are learning new words all the time, so foreign words are no different. Well, that's the principle, anyway.

One of the youngsters is actually quite good, so in the last session I asked Ian if he could spend 10 minutes with him while I spent some time with the other, who probably knows the words in her head, but won't or can't say them. Anyway, believe it or not, Ian actually spent 30 minutes and had taught the youngster to count into his thousands and had done telling the time revision. I, however, was doing counting to 10 and days of the week. 'W's are a great problem for them .- there are no 'w's in Spanish. Oh, yes, interesting W= "double u" in English, in Spanish it translates as "double V".

Tomatoes

No, not ours. Ian got given a bucket full. We're making them into tomato puree.

Headless Chicken

Nearly.

We were sat in my workshop and heard a loud clucking. Went to investigate and found that one of the cockerals had got its head stuck in the garage door. Luckily we managed to get it out and only his pride was hurt. Chickens just go limp, so he wasn't struggling, which would have made things really difficult.

We're still uncertain about Blackie, he/she looks boy-ish, but I'm not 100% convinced. we've definitely two boys and two girls, so we're just waiting on Blackie. They ought to start laying eggs soon, but I am not sure if they will start laying now in late summer in their first year.

If you think the snake was bad

It now transpires that Ian uses one of his old socks to filter our water when we fill our water container from the pillar.

I cannot think how bad the threat of things getting into the water must be to warrant the water being filtered through one of Ian's socks(which really belong in the natural history museum).

I'm also a bit bemused as to what nasties we are expecting to catch in a sock - I think it is something that it is best not to contemplate....

Floors and Things

I'm not sure which disturbed me the most, the house falling down or waking to find a Spanish man in the bedroom. As it so happened, neither was true, but a disturbing way to wake up. It transpires that the house next door but one is being re-roofed and the builders are starting early. What woke me was the builder's cheery morning banter as they dropped tiles from the roof to the floor. As our bedroom is now at the back of the house, it has the added benefit of allowing us to hear the builders in the morning - hence the fact that I woke thinking there was at least one in the room, and/or the house was falling down. They start early and finish at 2, but at this time of year they don't bother covering the roof - it must be funny living there and looking to the sky!

Ian is finishing the cleaning of the floors. It has been a long and arduous task, but because he only works on them at the weekend it just feels that it has been going on for months. The biggest job was the hallway - not unsurprisingly. The smooth tiles in the other rooms are cleaning up really quickly.

We're going to turn one of the small room-things up stairs into a proper storage cupboard. This will be useful - particularly during the summer, when we live in shorts and t'shirts. We can store our winter clothes properly.

No sign of any fires around here - the main problem seems to be further south.

We're also in the middle of a dog trimming session. The pack of our clippers says that dogs enjoy the special one-to-one time with their owners. So why do we have to wrestle them to the ground and clip them while they're held in an armlock? Obviously our dogs haven't read how much they are supposed to enjoy it.

16 Euro Tomato

I did something that you should never do yesterday. I worked out how much our one tomato had cost us, and it came to 16 euros. That includes compost and fertilizer for all of our plants - but I am averaging it over the produce, so when (or if) we get another tomato, then this will bring the price per tomato down to the bargain price of 8 euros each. Happily we do have some peppers ripening, and Basil has left us with 6 peaches, so all in all we may be looking at a euro per item of fruit or veg come the end of harvest.

What made it worse was that I had to pick our one tomato early as the chickens were showing much too much attention to it.

And to make things doubly worse, we can buy a kilo of tomatoes in the shop for about 60 centimos - and we can't say 'ah, but ours are home grown, not like these nasty shop ones', because we know that the man in the supermarket sells his own produce.

Next year it won't cost so much as we have our own compost which is rotting nicely in the back yard - and of course chicken manure is also good for gardens. We'll also use water from our well and we're going to put an irrigation system in.

We're thinking about getting the back yard sorted later this year. We'll try and borrow a rotivator and dig it over. We'll then plant some trees - we're thinking that we'll have two each of olive, fig, peach, almond, pear and grapefruit.

Sam has started yodeling, which is quite funny during the day, but immensely annoying at night. I hope that they others don't start to get ideas...

Snake Under the Bed

Saturday a snake appeared from under the bed.

Aaaaaagh

We think that it has been outside for a while, as Schnookems (who is not the brightest button) has been staring at the wall outside the new bedroom for - it must be about 5 weeks. Seeing that she is quite capable to stare for days at where she once saw a fly we didn't think much of it. However we're now wondering if she was, in fact, trying to alert us to the fact that there was a snake in the yard. I think it must have slithered in through the window. Ugh. No idea how long it had been in the bedroom - double-ugh.

To make matters worse, Schnookems has been staring at the little boiler housing on the side of the house. We're too scared to look inside in case she's found something else...


(Ian was delighted that I spent time finding the camera to record this horrendous event rather than helping him catch the snake!).

Everything in the Garden is....

.... Green! Now there's a surprise. I think it is normally this time of year when we bemoan how everything is brown and shriveled. I believe that this show of green loveliness is down to it not being so hot this year and that we have moved the plants from the back wall of the house to the wall in the middle. It gets sun at mid day, but not in the afternoon, which is when things roast.

Oh, that and the fact that most of the plants are prickly pears or figs - on the assumption that if they grow in the wild they can grow in our patio!

Arrived home on Monday after a four hour delay - meant we didn't get back to the house till 3.30, which was disappointing.

Henry has been to the vets who is really happy with his eye. Poor Henry isn't so happy though. No more eye drops = no more sausages. Oh dear!

Chicks

Aren't quite as cute as they used to be....

Henry's Eye

Henry's stitches didn't fully dissolve, so the poor little chap needed to be sedated again so the vet could take them out. Henry's eye is very swollen, but now all the stitches are out it is looking better.

We've taken his lampshade off and he seems very happy. Sam is happy too, as he was scared of Henry's lampshade. I wonder if this is another sign of Sam's eyesight being poor - he was unable to work out why a lampshade kept wanting to play with him.

Our peach tree is dripping with baby peaches. So far, although the dogs have scrumped a few, there are still plenty left. I just hope that the dogs aren't waiting until they are ripe before they tuck in. The chickens are also showing too much attention to our tomatoes.

I woke up to find two mosquetoes inside the mosqueto net over the bed. I am sure that this is not how it should work!

Heat Wave

Listening to the news this morning, I heard about the 'heat wave' in south east England. They were giving out tips for coping with the hot weather. They were - stay indoors during the hight of the heat (11 - 3), keep curtains drawn during the day, open windows at night, don't sit in the sun and wear a hat if you go out.

This is how they cope with the heat here. While the 'shut down' time is different, here the peak of the heat 2 and 6, you will not find a sole around during these hours. All houses have blinds or shutters that come down when the sun comes out and of course, the reason why all houses have bars on the windows is because soon as the sun goes down, the windows open and are left open all night. This blows cool air through the house. Of course, more people are getting air conditioning, this will be less of an issue. As for the hats - Ian has a collection of straw hats that people have given him when they've seen him out without one. Umbrellas are popular too - for shade, not rain.

The big difference, of course, is everything shuts down at siesta and opens later. We've seen the butcher shop open at midnight - as people won't be eating their evening meal until this sort of time, that makes sense given the heat. And builders start work at 6 in the morning - so I am glad that we are builder free now!

Oh yes, one of the chickens crowed in front of me this morning, it was one of the white ones that we thoughts was turning into a cockerel - so we could be right with 2 boys and three girls (albeit one midget hen).

Moving Bag

I wondered why an IKEA bag that was hanging on the wall kept moving. So I called Ian and we were convinced it was some kind of monster. Therefore it was with a certain degree of nervousness that we went to investigate...

Who Just Crowed?

Someone crowed this morning - when I say 'someone', I of course mean a chicken. We currently think we have two boys, two girls and one unknown. Blackie is unknown. She has a definite pompom on her head, but also has the beginnings of what looks like long tail feathers. Spot is the smallest and we are certain she is a girl. She is the smallest chicken we've had, unless she has a growth spurt over the next couple of months, we'll be finding quail sized eggs I think!

The crower kept doing it when my back was turned - so I don't know who it was.

We've now had to take the food bowl from them to try and get them to forage more. They are amazingly lazy chickens. They have the whole of the back yard to free range in, however they prefer to stand by the garage door waiting for food!

Sausages, Cuddles and the Devil

The vet gave us very detailed instructions for looking after Henry. But he missed off the cuddles and sausages that are proving an essential part of his recuperation. He sits there looking all sad until he gets a cuddle and is gets a sausage after he has had his eye drops.

If the op had been anywhere else than his eye then Henry's recovery would have been almost instant. But being his eyelid, we are having to be very careful about infections and also that he doesn't pull his stitches. So he is wearing a super-big lampshade collar which means that he keeps bumping into things. We've cut it down a bit, and will cut it down a bit more when Henry stops trying to scratch it.

When we took Henry to the vet on Thursday, the vet thought that a stitch had come loose so he put another in. Unsurprisingly, Henry took exception to the vet coming at his eye with a needle, so the poor little chap had to be sedated again.

This weekend was the fiesta of San Juan. It started with the raising of the devil on Friday and ended at 5 this morning. We went to the first part of the devil raising, which is in the village square. The second part - which is with the singing, dancing and jumping through fires to raise the devil (at the convent) started at midnight and would go on to the not-so-early hours, so we nipped off home when they broke for their tea and we were tucked up in bed way before the devil made his appearance.

Saturday and Sunday there was a band and fairground by the large place where the sardine festival is held. This kicked off at midnight on Saturday, and we went along for a bit, but came home at about the time most people were going out! The band started with some rock songs, which seemed to throw everyone into confusion, however they soon settled down to wailing and pasa-doble-ing which they managed to keep up for several hours. I know, as it came drifting in through our new bedroom window!

You'd think that this would have quelled normal village life, however the streets were full of people (ladies) in the morning, sweeping the pavements and removing any sign of late night activities. It is quite remarkable, the fiesta spills over into the streets and one street in particular is full of people - packed full of people - drinking and eating. Yet the next morning it is swept clean and the only signs of fiesta-ing are the huge black bags that are propped up along side the street bins.

Ian is cleaning the floor in the new kitchen. This is a HUGE task, he's been working on it for three days already. The hall will be nasty as well, but hopefully the other rooms will be relatively straightforward!

The Princess and the Tuna

We've hung a long white mosquito net over the bed. It looks lovely and it is like lying in a lacy tent!

I said it is like being a princess.

Ian said it is like being a tuna caught in a net.

Sigh.........

Furniture

We've been storing some furniture for some friends and they came to get some of it yesterday. The furniture was from his sister who lives in Portugal and it is lovely,so I was a little worried about how it would have fared as its been in the barn for almost a year - with Manuel working around it! It had stored very well.

They swapped some of their old furniture for the new pieces. So they have given us their two old settees (one is a bed settee which was high on our list of things to buy) and the other is a large and comfortable settee which is in my workshop. This has got a huge thumbs up from me! We've also got a large sideboard which is also in my workshop and another cabinet that will go in the house.

What we weren't expecting, however, was a marvelous stone table-sort-of-thing. This photo just does not do it justice. I think it is marble and granite and was so heavy that Ian could only move it - in pieces - in to the house in small stages. It is in the shower room where it looks great.

Pudsey Henry

Poor Henry had an operation on his eyelid and is currently looking like Pudsey Bear. The eye wart that he had last year has come back and this time the vet wanted to cut it out rather than freeze it. It was quite a big operation as the vet cut part of his eye lid away. He did a good job, however, and rather than cutting a little triangle which would have shortened Henry's eye lid which might have made his eye sore, he made a bigger operation of it to cut the inside away.

We opted not to stay with Henry during the op - so the vet took photos for us!

I have said before about how strange it first appeared to stay with your pet during an operation. However I now wouldn't go back to it being any other way. Although we didn't stay during Henry's op, we were with him when he was being given the anesthetic and back with him when he was coming round, and he was home to recover. I am sure that this is much nicer for the animals as it must be pretty scary to wake up from an op, probably in a cage in unfamiliar surroundings. In fact, I was talking to someone about this and she also said that she preferred this way of doing things - it comes as a shock the first few times, but once you are prepared for the role of vet nurse, it does make a lot of sense.

Henry's eye is bandaged now and he is peeking through a tiny gap. Later we are going to get the bandage taken off - which I am glad about as the vet 'tacked' the bandage to the top of his head with a couple of stitches, which is a little gruesome. The stitches will remain for a week or so.

Somebody's watching ewe.

Here are some pics of my birthday present from Ian, which is in our new bedroom - our first finished room (with the exception of doors) - yippee. Also, another picture of the mushrooms, which, admittedly, might not be as interesting to you as it is to us. Plus a pic of the finished workshop and a pic of the new bedroom when it was work in progress.







i

What a Load of Balls!

Yes, this is Ian rolling around on the floor. In case you are wondering whether the picture was taken after a night on the town, I will assure that it was taken this morning! So, what is he doing...?

Ian is making a lampshade from a load of old balls! The plastic balls are being hung to form what will be a large structure. I won't try to explain! He is rolling round on the floor trying to get a good feel for what it will look like when it is finished. The dogs, of course, think that it is a game.

We found the balls when we were tidying my workshop - it is now very organized, which you can also see from the picture!