In the Dog House

Rosie and Bentley were  in the dog house this weekend. We'd left half a dish of mousaka on top of the work surface and they cleaned it up over night. I am inclined to think it was Bentley, because, despite of his size he is quite gentle and although the inside of the cooking dish was licked clean, nothing else had been disturbed. Rosie, on the other hand is more lumoxy and would quite likely have knocked everything else off the work surface.

Sam has had a couple of really bad fits this weekend. His fits generally are quite light and he comes round really quickly, often getting to the fridge and sitting waiting for his after-seizure sausage before we do. However these were very different, they were quite violent and he was woozy afterwards for a few minutes and banging into things. It's odd how the pattern of his fits changes.

The weather has been warm and everything now it turning green. Autumn is known as the second spring, and it is really apparent why, as everything starts growing again after the summer. So grass is coming through and things are flowering. I even found some asparagus last week!

We went to the shop last week to get some curtain poles. I was grumbling as we arrived on the day when they were starting to put out their Christmas stuff - although it seems early, I guess that the end of October isn't that unreasonable.

Here's this week's joke - what is a vampire's favourite dance...

Ice Scream

Here is this week's joke - http://www.marchena35.com/joke-of-the-week-4-broma-de-la-semana-4-halloween/ . I realised that I hadn't resized the little boy's hair - however as the image took nearly three hours to render, I thought I'd leave it as it is - it makes him look like his hair is standing on end. Perhaps.

I explained that this joke is a play on words, as people unfamiliar with English may just think it's a bit odd.

More importantly, however, we launched the new Freeneedle over night - Ian has been working non-stop on this over the last couple of weeks and we hope it will get us back in Google's good books again. This is now a nerve wracking time as we wait to see if visitors like the new site or not. We are currently reliant on our regular visitors, so we don't want to upset them!

Bye Bye Astra

We said goodbye to the Astra last week. On Thursday the scrap people came and took it away. Cars have to be officially scrapped, so there is a free service where the scrapyard comes and takes the car away and does all the paperwork. Hopefully the Mercedes will give us as good service (well, without the breakdowns).

Here is Pirata and Roland snuggled. The split their time between snuggling and having  a rough-and-tumble. Both being blind, their fights are sometimes a little random.

 Here is Herbie modeling his new sweater. I don't think he is particularly fragile, however we have noticed that the cough he came to us with has not improved, so I want to ensure that he keeps warm in the winter. Now he has become Super-Herbie, and almost running around, he was particularly difficult to photograph.

See what I mean!

He happily mooches around, ricocheting off any other dogs he bumps into.

Herbie's little sweater needs to take into account his slightly unusual leg angle. However it seems comfy enough and he is quite happy wearing it.

We have made Herbie a little nest under a table so he is safely out of the way. He happily snuggles up here, and instantly assumed it as his palace.

Poor Pixie!

I decided that it was time to teach Pixie that all walks don't end with tapas at Pepes, so yesterday she got treated to her first 'proper' walk. We did the ghost house walk, which is a round walk and a nice one for little puppy feet as it is quite clear. Unfortunately, it started to rain mid-walk - and blow a gale - and both Pixie and I were totally unprepared for it. She appeared very startled - we have had such little rain that she would probably have wondered what was going on. Eventually, when I was soaked through and my Crocs were slipping in the mud and Pixie was shivering uncontrollably, I gave in and rang Ian. What a good job I have a super-rugged waterproof phone as the rain was just coming down in buckets! Of course when Ian arrived, the sun then came out and had I not been weighed down with soaked clothes, I could have continued in glorious sunshine.

Pixie didn't appear to traumatized, however, although I believe that she would have much preferred a paseo to Pepes rather than a hike in a storm!

Water Ladrones

I forgot to say that when we went to the reservoir the other day, someone had written 'ladrones' which means thieves across the signs, and crossed out Llerena and written Berlanga on the name of the reservoir. Berlanga is the next village down on along the river and we wondered if they felt that the reservoir was pinching their water supply. With it being such a dry summer, it could be that they are noticing a poor water supply and wonder why Llerena nabbed it all further up the river!

Another week, another joke...

With a jigsaw to play too - http://www.marchena35.com/online-games/online-jigsaw-rompecabezas-halloween-ghost-boogie/

Green Tomato Chutney

We had some green tomatoes, and a few mangy red ones, so I made some green tomato chutney yesterday. It's pretty good. Just need to work out what we are going to do with a mountain of melons I misguidedly bought!

Doctor

I went to the Doctor yesterday with a bad shoulder. I've had it for about a year - in fact, since I fell off my bike last year - but it has got progressively worse and is affecting my movement. I went armed with a fully charged Kindle expecting a wait -and walked almost straight in.  It got a tad confusing, as some changes in July and September have resulted in requirements for new registration numbers that we don't have. We went through the whole rigmarole again of trying to find our names on their system. This is always a problem as we have one surname, yet Spanish people have two. So they often put one of our first names down as a surname. However we never know in what order they have put them, so we can be entered on the system with any combination of our names as our surnames.

I have anti inflammatory for my shoulder and have to go back in a couple of weeks if it hasn't got better.

I also asked for a revision meeting for my ankle, however the doctor said that current thinking was to leave plates and screws in. He said that the risk of taking the screws and plates out could be greater than the risk of osteoporosis. All this was fine for me and I am happy that I asked the question!

Ian has spent the last week working on an update for FreeNeedle. We are taking advantage of our out-of-favour status with Google to revamp the site. Something we're quite nervous to do when it is performing well - so now's the time to do it. It looks pretty good and Ian is working really hard on getting it ready for next week.

Resevoir

A couple of weeks ago, we had a picnic at the resevoir outside Llerena. In the past, we have sat on the edge, by the fence, with our feet in the water. We'd have needed pretty long legs to dangle our toes in the water now.

What did the monster say to the ghost...

Here's this week's joke for Marchena35. I think it should have been the other way round - what did the ghost say to the monster - however it didn't look right with the way I had posed the ghost.

Google Dump / Panda Slap

We've been, in Internet terms, Google Dumped and Panda Slapped. This is where Google change their search algorithms and sites that were performing well in search results, are downgraded so that other sites appear above them. This has a significant detrimental effect on page views - and on revenue.

These google changes have been going on for a couple of years and we've not been affected before - although we know lots of businesses that have. So it was a nasty shock when we looked at our figures last Monday morning and found that we had a fraction of the revenue we would normally expect. It was an even nastier shock the next day when we realised that this wasn't a one off and we had been panda slapped. Panda is the name of the google algorithm change, so sites which are affected are deemed to have been panda slapped. Google dumped is another term, as google has dumped a site from the first page of the search results.

So, we now face a major uphill struggle to get back into google's good books again. We have to tidy up our sites, make sure they perform well and that are up to date with current Internet good practices and then wait for another google algorithm change and hope our downgrade gets reversed.

It just goes to show that we shouldn't have all our eggs in one Internet basket.

Pasties and Flying Ants

We went for our first pasty ride of the season yesterday. Popped a couple of pasties in a backpack and did a round trip towards Usagre and back. The recent rain made the tracks dust-free which was nice for a change. Yesterday was also flying ant day. The yard was full of flying ants. It was impossible to step through the patio without standing on them, it was like a patchy carpet. Admittedly, a cycle ride on flying ant day was perhaps not the best combination. The kept getting in behind my sunglasses and when we got home there were about half a dozen inside my t-shirt. Eeew.

This is about flying ant day from Wikipedia -

"Flying ant day" is an informal term for the day on which queen ants emerge from the nest to begin their nuptial flight.^[6] In most species, the male ants also fly alongside them, although they are smaller and less noticeable. The queens fly around—some very long distances, and others going only a few meters—then mate, and drop to the ground where they lose their wings, and attempt to start a new ant colony ^[7] The mass of flying insects often attracts the attention of predators such as birds, and it is common to see flocks of feeding birds gorging on the readily available food.
This phenomenon occurs in many colonies simultaneously when the local weather conditions are appropriate, to reduce the effectiveness of predation and to ensure that the queens and males from different colonies stand a chance of meeting and interbreeding. It therefore has the appearance of being a 'timed' event or that the ants somehow communicate. However neither of these is likely to be the case - it is simply a common response to temperature, humidity and windspeed and time of year.

Classes start today. I have 17 hours a week and 6 new students.