Roland Has a Black Eye

Roland had given himself a black eye. That was bad enough, but yesterday after lunch we found him with blood running down his face. It came from his missing eye, which is closed. Luckily it looked worse than it was, and he appeared to have knocked himself in the same place twice. We've now Roland-proofed the workshop as he has a very different approach to blindness than Pirata. Roland is inclined to leap first and work out if it was a good idea after, whereas Pirata is very controlled and will reach up first, and will climb a couple of times before he gets confidence to jump. There's a chair in my workshop which had a couple of staples loose at the top, and I think Roland might have caught himself on of that when he was launching himself from the table. I think his scratching himself yesterday knocked him back a little - well that and us washing his face which he didn't like. He was a little subdued yesterday afternoon. He's not too bad today though, and hopefully he's continue to settle in more over coming days and weeks.

Our New Breakfasting Table

mar_28, a photo by ian_pullen on Flickr.

We popped into Zafra this morning for some shopping in Carrefour and Lidl to get things that we can't pick up locally and also had our eyes open for outdoor furniture.

There are a few things that we want to buy, but a little table to have breakfast in the sun as the weather picks up was a priority. Even at the height of summer, breakfast in the sun is very pleasant. We'd seen these chairs before, but they hadn't made much of an impression and we really bought them and this table as a bit of a compromise. However having got them home, we're both really pleased with them.

Wilbur's less happy as we have rather thoughtlessly placed them rather close to the kitchen door and it was a bit of a surprise for him to walk outside and bang his head into a table. He's a fast learner though, as proved by the fact he learned to not trip over the back step a lot faster than we did, and he's already got used to them.

Anti Social Networking

We're paying someone to do some social networking for us over the next three months. This is a big step for us, but given we are much better at being antisocial then social, it made sense to outsource this part of our business. It's obviously important to have a social media presence, but not something either of us enjoy doing and therefore are not good at it. The lady we are working with lives in Canada and she's using the pen name 'Jane'. She started yesterday so it will be interesting to see how it all works out.

Asparagus and bikes

This is how I carry any asparagus I find when out on my bike - good job it's not a good year for asparagus as I can't fit much in my cycle bag anyway!

Meet Roland

mar_24, a photo by ian_pullen on Flickr.

This is Roland. It's the first shot I've got of him as he's been a bit nervous. Thankfully he's susceptible to bribery, which comes in the form of fresh chicken breast, and has started to get a bit more friendly and relaxed.

Family Game

My family game is finished and online. It isn't perfect, and I plan to redo the animations, however I wanted to get some feedback from my class before Easter as I plan to make some more games during the Easter hols. http://www.marchena35.com/family-game/

800!

This is the 800th post! Phewey - wonder when we'll get to the 1000th. Roland continues to settle in well. He no longer skuttles under a unit when I come into my workshop. In fact, he is sat on the back of the settee next to me cleaning himself, which is a good sign. He looks more like a pirate than pirata, as he has one eye so you could imagine he is wearing a patch. His other eye has been removed and sewn shut. His remaining eye is cloudy, however I am not entirely convinced that he is completely blind. I believe he can see a little peripheral vision. It can't be very much though, as if he had much vision he would hold his head at an angle, which he doesn't do. I came back from my cycle ride yesterday grasping a few strands of asparagus. I found a few by the side of the road - so this has given us high hopes for asparagus this weekend. Our freezer is empty - we normally have it full this time of year - well fullish - with asparagus!

Connected

We've connected the sun terrace to our network so we can get a wifi signal up there now - here's proof. This is a screenshot of Ian talking to me as he tested the connection.

Roland is settling in, however he is quite nervous and it will take a bit of time before he feels like this is home. He is very nice natured, however, and just goes floppy when he is unsettled, which makes it easy to pick him up. He is inclined to get into little spaces, so I spend quite a lot of time looking for him. He has all the signs of being a very nice little cat. Chico unfortunately had to be put to sleep, so we didn't get a chance to meet him after all.

Chico

This is Chico, and he will be coming to live with us soon. He has a sad story. He is about six months old, and was found in a bin, paralyzed from the neck down. He was obviously terrified.  He has been cared for at the vet in Badajoz, and has been checked, and it appears he has a spinal cord injury, as there are no broken bones or other reasons for his immobility. He was found on Monday, totally paralyzed, however he is getting movement back, and they say he has movement in his front third, but of course, noone knows how much he will eventually regain. They describe him as being a super-friendly cat, and they want to give him a chance, so they got in touch with us to see if we could help. Because we know the vet, we are confident that they wouldn't be giving him a chance if they believed that he was a totally lost cause, so we are going to give it a go. He can live in my workshop for the time being and we'll see what happens as time goes on and we see how mobile he gets.

It's funny how this worked out, as we had really wanted two 'special needs' cats. We heard about Rolland and we were going to take another blind cat to come with him, but the other one we were going to take sadly died, so we were just taking the one. So now it looks like we are have two as we'd originally planned. Not sure how Pirata will take the news of another new friend!!

Raining Oranges

There is a large divide when it comes to intelligence in our household. At one end of the scale we have Pirata, who is highly intelligent and has us well trained to bid to his every whim. At the other end of the scale we have the chickens - and then Bentley.

We discovered recently that Rosie can catch oranges. If we throw her an orange she'll catch it nicely in her mouth. We tried the same with Bentley who just looked on in confusion as oranges rained down on him. He made no attempt to catch them or to move out the way. After the sixth or so had landed on his nose we decided that perhaps Bentley won't be joining Rosie in the orange catching game.

We're currently thinking again about garden furniture. We have a couple of stools that we sit on to eat lunch outside, but they are not that comfortable. We need to get a table and chair set sorted so we've been having a good look at what's available. IKEA have some nice things, but we've had a couple of car problems which means we don't fancy going too far afield. IKEA do offer a delivery service to Extremadura, however this is rather expensive, so we're weighing up hiring a van, getting things delivered or looking at alternatives. It will be nice to have something sorted as we've had our patio done for nearly a year now and don't make as much use of it as we could because we have nothing, except our old wooden chairs, to sit on!

Sneak Preview

This is what I am working on at the moment. It is an interactive game where children have to label the little girl's pictures with the correct family member. It's quite a big project for quite a simple game as I am having to learn a lot of new things, however it's looking good so far! I made the little characters in some software that Ian gave me for Christmas. Well, when I say made, I have the base figure and then I add different accessories and things to change their look.  I am also learning to use some gamemaking software which is quite challenging, but luckily for me (and unluckily for him), Ian can help when I get stuck.

The weather is still fine - in fact they have started watering the roads again because of dust. And still no asparagus....

Hello New Fridge

mar_07, a photo by ian_pullen on Flickr.

After a mere six years and two months, more or less, we've finally replaced the old fridge that Jesus and Celina left behind. To get an idea of the contempt they must have had for it, they removed an old basic water heater because we weren't prepared to pay them for it. To gift us the fridge must indicate that they considered junk.

However, apart from the pump making regular loud bangs, it's been fine, which is probably why we've taken so long to replace it. The new one is nothing special, though it should be rather more efficient. The delivery certainly was as we ordered it Sunday afternoon and it arrived before lunch Tuesday.

The Amazing Strawberry Yogurt Dog

Wilbur has an exceptionally good sense of smell. He can smell a pot of strawberry yogurt if he is outside on the patio and we are in the kitchen. Apparently he likes strawberry yogurt as he makes his way in, sniffing around. We've let the chickens roam free while we decide what to do about the rats. I think we'll have to do something as we don't want to become infested, but if the chickens roam free and their food is not in one place, perhaps the rats will disperse. Of course, this means that Rosie is going to spend the foreseeable future 'pointing' through the gate to them!