Fickle Rosie

Rosie is not being very loyal to her special friends at the moment. She has transferred her attention from Wilbur, to Sam, to Petal and now to Bentley, who is the little mastin that we found. It is quite funny watching her. She still makes the incredibly annoying and unlikely high pitched yelping as she tries to get him to play. Meanwhile she pushes one of her sticks closer and closer and closer to him, until eventually he either has to move or pick the stick up. She then pinches the stick back and the process is repeated. It doesn't seem much of a game, but it gives her hours of amusement.

We've started feeding Bentley with the others. We thought it was important to socialize him - particularly as he was starving and then recieving special attention - he may have become protective over his food. It has been quite amazing watching him - he's a completely different dog now. Two weeks ago he was a cowering wreck, peeing every time something looked at him in a strange way and hiding behind the door. We let him in last week to be fed with the others and the first couple of days I had to hold him as he thought that all the food was his, however he now sits and waits for his food and waits till last to get it. He also plays nicely too. He is VERY much like Basil. He has endless appetite for shakey paw, and plonks a paw on our laps when he wants attention. Henry plays with him like he used to play with Basil too. We've not let him in with the two small pups for a couple of weeks now, as they are likely to be going to the pound, and we didn't want them to continue living as a family unit. While he's still a way to go before he's full weight and size, he is definitely a long way from the bag of bones who had been eating stones and snails that we found.

While we'll have to take the two small dogs to the pound next week we'll keep Bentley for as long as it takes to find him a home, and if we don't find him a home then it won't be too much of a trouble to keep him.

Hot Hot Hot

It feels as though the temperature has been cranked up again another few degrees this week. The house is full of floppy dogs and cats. We'd both noticed that it didn't feel so hot - and wondered if we were getting acclimatized, however I think it's more been the case of it being less hot so far.

Our veg garden is looking sad. We're doing OK for tomatoes, and we do have an okra plant producing okra. Admittedly, it only has two okra pods. We're not going to be worrying about an okra harvest. The cotton plants haven't started flowering yet either, and are much shorter than they were last year. So all in all, not a great start to our new kitchen garden. But, with a bit more work over the cooler months and perhaps we'll be off to a better start next year.

We're been working on a new version of FreeNeedle and Make For Baby. Both sites are doing really well at the moment so it is a bit nerve racking as we don't want to do something that might turn people away - however we can't stay still either. Make For Baby will be launched at the end of the week and we'll see how that goes before launching the new FreeNeedle - exciting times...!!

Puppy Love

Rosie has developed a crush on Sam. Quite literally, as this generally entails her squeezing in beside him. She has also developed a slightly annoying high pitched bark. She uses this bark to get Wilbur to play with her, however, she's started doing it to Sam now too. She sounds like a strangled seal. Perhaps in the puppy world this is a slightly coy and endearing noise, however to us it just sounds peculiar.

She acts to Sam like Petal and Tinkerbelle used to act towards Basil. However, little poodles and a big 11 stone Pyranean Mountain Dog was a relatively fair match, as they hung off his chin in the morning, or pulling at his neck. Tinkerbelle used to put her head inside Basil's mouth and lick his teeth, completely ignoring the fact that he could have eaten her up without any problem at all. Rosie now does this to Sam, which seems rather odd and a little one sided. She tries to lick his teeth and this does not seem like a fair match at all. Happily, Sam seems to take it in his stride.

This has reminded us that she hasn't come into season yet. This must be some time soon and is not something we are looking forward to. We will get her sterilized after, however the vet wants to wait until after her first season when everything will be fully grown.

My cry-baby class have stopped crying, and today were on the verge of being annoying, which is probably good news.

Tour de Higuera

One of the leading cyclists in our house.

Zillions of Children

I seem to have half the village coming for classes this summer. I have 13 hours of classes and I have at least one other child who is interested and I have an unspecified number coming this morning, which I may need to split into smaller groups.

Two of my original students have been recommended to go into a bilingual stream when they go to secondary school (this is regarded as very good), so I hope that this isn't setting high expectations amongst the parents. I think that these two were probably naturally good at languages anyway. The bilingual stream is actually multi lingual, as they learn Spanish, French and English concurrently. This follows how they learn in primary school, where they learn English and French from day one. Most of the youngsters say that they find French quite easy as there are lots of similarities with Spanish, however they find English quite difficult and they need to be of the same level in both French and English to pass their exams, which I think is where the interest is coming from. Of course, I say English, however it is of course, American. I have to remember that they are taught dates the wrong way round, and the past simple of 'to dream' is dreamed, not dreamt. However oddly they are taught coloUr and not color.

The youngest ones are five, and one started crying when she came into the 'classroom'. I think that the giant picture of Moulty, our sheep, glaring down at her might have compounded her nervousness. Hello Kitty is a quick remedy, however, and colouring Hello Kitty in different colours soon cheered her up. Just wish she'd followed the colours I was saying and not doing their own thing. I will hide the coloured pens next week as they spend too much time on the colouring. I'm also going to see if I can get one of my other students to help me with the young ones. I've had other very young ones, however they've had loads of confidence and haven't seemed to worry that they don't understand a word that I have been saying. These two just sit there on the verge of blubbing so they may need a little extra help.

No news on the puppy front so we are expecting to have to take the small ones to the pound. They broke into the chicken run, and worried the chickens. They weren't aggressive, just wanted to play, however their boisterous puppy play would have killed one of the chickens if Ian hadn't heard the commotion. Since then we've had to keep them in the barn, which isn't giving them a great quality of life. I'm glad that we didn't bring them into the house as we've been able to keep thinking of them as being temporary guests only. We'll continue looking for a home for the small mastin. He's not a problem and seems quite happy just mooching around the back yard.

Bob has been on antibiotics for a bladder infection. I noticed that he was weeing when he walked, which he'd been doing for a while, but had started leaving a trail in the house too. The vet said that he had a slight temperature and his bladder was swollen, and gave us antibiotics, which seem to have done the trick. Bob gets bladder problems when he's stressed, however I really don't think he has much to be stressed about at the moment!

Showers, James Bond and Salad Soup

We've been using our outdoor shower a lot recently. It is now so hot that it is a great way to freshen up. It is better sited now as it was in the middle of our eating area. Of course, we don't currently have an eating area on the courtyard as we are still outdoor furnitureless, however we'll try not to put this under the shower when we do get something to sit on. I'm glad that it took us a few years to get things sorted, as without a doubt the things we need for summer living are completely different to what we need during the winter. It would have been so easy to have made mistakes by planning things based on the extremes of just the winter or the summer.

The sun terrace is noticable cooler than the courtyard in the evening and we're really enjoying it. We don't spend the evening there, as we've been heading back to my workshop. This is because we don't have electricity on the sun terrace at the moment and I've got some audiobooks to review. One of them is the new James Bond by Jeffrey Deaver, narrated by Toby Stephens. We're enjoying it, but I couldn't say how true it is to the Ian Fleming Bond. It is very Deaver-esque. However I don't know if Jeffrey Deaver shares a writing style with Ian Fleming. I do know that he was asked by the Fleming estate to write the book, so they must have felt that his writing style is appropriate. It is full of twists and turns - I will have fun trying to write the review in 125 words!

I made some cold soup this week and Ian surprised me by tucking in without griping about soup not being a proper meal. We just liquidized tomatoes, onion, peppers and other salad stuff that was hanging around, looking on the verge of growing a fluffy coat. I don't think Ian ever truly recovered from when I made him a beetroot soup once. Admittedly, it was a startling shade of pink, and one that was not quickly forgotten.