House Guests

Well, garage guests. This young dog and her puppies are currently living in our garage. They were stray and living by the pilar and the puppies were chasing cars, so weren't likely to last long. We bought them back here to find them homes, but the mother is in quite a bad state so she might not recover. She went downhill really quickly after we bought her here, almost as though she knew that the puppies were safe and just gave up the fight. I don't think we'll have a problem rehoming the pups as they are very friendly and playful.

The fields are red with poppies

Well, this one was...

One Photo from La Arbuela

I picked this one as I like the mix of reenactment uniforms (center stage) and modern military (behind). It sums up the strange mix between fancy dress and commemoration.

First Signs of Cotton

The cotton seeds are just beginning to show through. Rain is forecast for later so I have made them little hats so they don't get battered. It is a 'yellow' weather warning, so I am taking no chances!

The tomato plants that the chickens nibbled were not all completely decimated and we have some strange looking ones left that are about 3 inches tall but with lots of branches. So perhaps we'll have our own tomatoes this year after all.

The village has settled back down again after the excitement of the election. On further reflection I decided that I was glad we weren't able to vote, as we would likely have been the only ones to vote having made a decision on politics rather than family connections! With a nearly 94% turnout I did wonder at what stage the alarm bells start ringing about vote rigging. Ian said when the turnout is more than 100%! I don't suppose that there is any vote rigging, but I guess that there is a lot of cajoling going on to make sure that everyone in the family casts their vote.

Bob has been in the dog house this week for eating a whole bag of tomatoes. It had no ill effect on him, other than the fact that he has been banished to the puppy cage at night to stop him ransacking the kitchen looking for a midnight feast.

Fireworks

Fireworks started at about 11 last night. Wilbur sensibly headed into the middle of the house, where he feels safe. Sam had to be shut in a bedroom and Rosie headed behind the settee and ended up on my lap quaking, and Pirata headed outside to see what was going on.

The fireworks were to mark the election results. I think everyone was letting off fireworks and beeping horns either to celebrate or commiserate, depending on their view. There was a lot of partying going on for most of the night. The results were basically the same as last time with the current mayor's party, IU (United Left), getting 434, the PSOE (Socialist) getting 312 and the Popular Party (PP) getting 50. An amazing 93% voted. This was pretty much the same as last time, but doesn't reflect the national results at all, but it did mean that the IU could celebrate winning, the PSOE could celebrate not losing any proportion of their vote as they had elsewhere and the PP, even though they got just 50 votes here, could celebrate a national win. Judging by the beeping that I can hear currently, I think the celebrations are rolling over into today too!

Broody

Not only have all our hens gone broody, but Limpy, the cockerel, seems to have gone broody too. Either that or he decided that he can't be bothered to get up if they can't. We are having to deploy operation go-outside-and-play as they all seem to be spending their time snuggled up rather than doing chickeney things, this will entail putting them outside and shutting the barn door. We keep checking that they are not sat on eggs, so there won't be the pitter patter of tiny chick feet. Needless to say they will repay our kindness by eating the tops of my cotton plants that have started to emerge.

I don't think we can vote in the elections. We need to register on a voters register, which we haven't done. So we will have four years to get ready for next time. In 2003 there was only one vote in it, so our votes could have been important! Less so in the last election when the current council was reelected with a significant lead. I was researching the process of elections and looking at previous results and was amazed at the high percentage of votes. Nearly 80% of the village vote in the local elections. I guess that there are many reasons for this, however one of the main ones has to be that we vote for a council 'team', plus reserves. So instead of voting for individuals, we would vote for a complete council, including a reserve set of people who will stand in if necessary. That way the electorate won't get nasty surprises if they vote for one set of people and then find them all replaced after the election. But of course, what that means is that there are 20 or so people for each of the three parties, and given that everyone is related to everyone else, I can imagine that everyone is related to someone who is standing. Hence the high turn out rate. Well, part of the reason.

The current council represents an Extremduran breakaway from one of the other parties (the 'People's Front of Judia vs the Judian People's Front' in Life of Brian keeps springing to mind). I think they have only been in existence since 2003, however appear to be strong throughout the region. This probably reflects the fact that the issues faced in a rural region with strong agricultral industries like this are going to be very different to those faced in other parts of Spain. So, while we won't be voting we will be watching the village elections with interest.

New Light

may_19, originally uploaded by ian_pullen.

Our new light arrived this week. Not only is it great not just to have one feeble working bulb in a fly debris encrusted lamp, but it also looks great! It is actually plastic, but looks really good and was excellent value for money. The only danger is that the colours may fade, however we'll save up for a glass one for some time in the future.

Basil

mar_30, a photo by ian_pullen on Flickr.

The last photo I got of him, in the patio after Manuel had finished tiling the floor. He specifically requested this angle as he felt it furnished him with the sufficient gravitas.

Fusion

Ian and I were enjoying what might in other circumstances be known as fusion food, however in this particular set of circumstances was known as left overs from the last few days, while plotting world domination. It's the local elections this Sunday and we realized that we don't know how to vote. This led on to a discussion about how to stand for election, which naturally developed into how to stand for other elections and ending in how to rule the world. Given that the only thing we could think that we would do on the receipt of such powers is to change sale-by dates to the date of manufacture (so that people can make up their own minds about when to eat something by), I don't think that we could be accused of abusing power. Ian would get to wear some nice braids and hats though, which he has quite fancied after seeing the ceremony on Monday.

Our garden furniture is decomposing at a startling rate of knots. Our wicker topped chairs, which we thought led some authenticity to our patio, instead have provided a little outdoor scratching post for the cats, and the bottom fell out of another, leaving me to think that perhaps we ought to get moving with our plans for building some new chairs, which will be wicker free.

The vet is coming to see Basil later. Basil's taken quite a step backwards in the last 24 hours and we'd originally thought we'd ask the vet to come out to simply get his advice for caring for Basil, however we're now thinking that if the vet suggests that Basil is put to sleep then we'll follow his advice.

Cupboard Doors

Our new kitchen doors arrived today:



This is the pantry - we don't normally keep quite so much stuff on the work surface, however we had to move things from the cupboards when the doors were being fitted. We're both delighted, and really pleased that we had the pantry done at the same time. So now we need to move things into our new cupboards and we can take the cupboards on the right out and put them in the outdoor kitchen.


...and this is one of the alarming flock of birds that were circling over me the other day:

Painting

It's a big job!