Happy Easter!

I made this graphic as part of a 'count the Easter Egg' activity, but I didn't have time to get it finished - next year perhaps! It's rainy again today. Shame, as the village decamps to the country for a picnic. I'm not sure what they do when it rains - they can't all fit under the kitchen table...

Photos March 2013

Here are some photos...

Here's Pirata enjoying laying in front of the fire! He's getting ready for summer when this is his favoured pose.

Here's a nicely in-focus photo of Larry's pinecone and a sadly fuzzy photo of Larry. He has learned now to duck, so when he taps the pinecone, instead of it coming back and hitting him on the head, he now ducks to miss it.

Bob and Herbie snuggling nicely.

Herbie who has learned to make himself flat so he can snuggle under the laptop.

Here's Pixie snuggling with Bob. Not sure why this pic is so big, you can click on it to see all of Bob!

Tinkerbelle used to sit on Basil and she has now perfected her Wilbur surfing technique. Wilbs isn't quite as wide as Basil, so Tinks has to hang on tight, but it is nice to see them together.  This picture has also come out big, so you can click on it to see the full pic.

Ian sent me this picture and said it looked like Pixie. Unfortunately it does rather...

Plague of Furry Things

What constitutes a plague? The reason why we were pondering this was when we went asparagus picking, one olive grove we went to was completely baron - and full of caterpillars. Full of very fat looking caterpillars. Those that weren't racing across the ground heading towards any remaining leaves were sat, gently digesting their feast on the small stalks that they had left. We had a generally good haul from everywhere else, however there was nothing to be found here. So, would that constitute a plague I wonder? Click on the pics to see them full size and then use the back button.

Funny

I've recently finished classes with a girl who is off to Ireland to au pair. She thanked me at the last class 'the most funny classes' she has had. I was slightly perplexed that apparently she a/ wasn't paying attention when we did superlatives, and b/ I'm not entirely sure I want to be known as the lady who gives funny English classes. However, on hindsight I realise that people have said this to me before and it is where they get fun and funny confused. Somehow there is a world of difference between funny classes and fun classes!

She had classes for three weeks and there was a significant improvement in her English - remarkably so. I don't think this is a reflection on me, however, more a reflection that she is obviously one of those people who can learn quickly. There are definitely two types of people - those who who pick something up after hearing it once - and everyone else. Ian and I represent both ends of the scale. We are polar opposites when it comes to learning. Ian is a very quick learner. This is reflected in the way he learns computer code, can drive around a town with complete confidence even though he only visited once before several years ago, etc. My brain is just wired completely differently, in fact, at times I am not certain it is wired at all. I was still getting lost coming back from the shops after living here for two years.  Ian hears a Spanish word and can use it straight away - and remember it, I however, can be told a word several times and still forget it a nano second later.

The rain has made our backgarden like a jungle. I don't think I've ever seen it so green, obviously all weeds. I noticed that the patch that we have designated our kitchen garden is still baron, so the soil there must be sterile - still the effects of where Manuel was mixing cement? The weeds are as tall as our fruit trees, so we are going to have to get out there and try to reclaim the garden! The combination of rain and warm weather has obviously been good. Basil's peach tree and the peach tree that Jim and Viv gave us a few years ago are both full of blossom. Hopefully the birds won't get at it like they did last year.

The rain has come at a good time. The water levels were very low last year, and they have changed the water charging method to try to reduce usage, so hopefully the resevoirs will be full enough so we don't have water rationing this summer.

....and this will be the 900th blog post - phew!

Semana Santa = Rain

Oh dear, another Semana Santa and another rainy week. The ancient statues of Mary and Jesus will be taken out, but most under cover. It was the same last year too, so someone has been very naughty.

Talking of which, I told some of the children that the Easter Bunny came to Spain but the Spanish hunters shot and ate him. I picked the age group well (not wanting to traumatize any more children than I have to), and the little boys found the story hilarious and went home to tell their parents. The boys were all from hunting families so fairly robust.

I have holiday from classes this week. Well, just two a day in the morning. I could have done more, however after a couple of weeks of 5 or 6 hours a day of teaching, I have a mountain of other things to get on with - including a trip to Pepe's which we haven't been able to do.

Classes in some form or another appear to be a national pastime. Ever since we've been here most adults we have met have been doing some course or another and most children who have classes with me have some other classes. One girl has 6 hours of classes a week and one boy has 9. Given that I am very low cost, I can't imagine that they pay any less than they pay me anywhere else - so quite a weekly investment in classes is made.

Both Ian and I have been poorly this week - me, just a continuation of the near enough permanent cold that I've had since January, and Ian finally succumbed to the lurgy and spent a lot of last week covered in blankets. It was unfortunate as he had to cycle into Llerena a couple of times to check on the car - which I don't suppose helped. He's feeling more lively now, however, and seems to have got over it.

We've both been working on Jigtate - our new game. It was called Twuzzle, however there is another game with that name so we decided on Jigtate - as it is part jigsaw and part rotating puzzle. It will be finished this week and we're going to try selling it to teachers to use in class. It looks pretty good - well, I think so anyway...

Herbie continues to be well, just with a persistent cough.

Ghosts in the Bathroom

Classes finished on a new low last week. One little girl wet herself. The word for wetting oneself appears to be the same as 'oak tree', which confused me as I couldn't work out why they were telling me about oak trees, until I saw the wet trousers. She had got over excited by the printer.

I have a sneaky feeling that I may also have had a part to play in this unfortunate incident, as it is possible that I may have said that there was a ghost living in our bathroom. For years, I've told the children that there is a ghost upstairs and it's always a joke. I moved the ghost downstairs into the bathroom as, going to the toilet and roaming around the house, has turned into a new fun thing to do for some of the younger ones, and I wanted to stop this. Naturally it backfired in two ways - firstly they all now want to go to see the ghost - and those that don't are so scared to go to the toilet that they wet themselves. 

As mum will no doubt be eager to point out, I should certainly know better, having spent my first years believing that there was a monster in the toilets at infant school - a belief that resulted in many an unfortunate puddle.

This, however, was not the new low point. That came later. I know that they are very keen on their music here and they learn the fluta at school. Two students bought their fluta to class and, as I believed they were learning to play the flute, I said they could play a tune. Imagine my horror when out of their bags they produced recorders. I was subjected to a duo playing a tune called paper aeroplanes full of enthusiasm and without any worry about getting the right note at the right time. They eagerly raced each other to the finish. I am now banning recorders from the house!!

Larry is making us laugh at the moment. We put a fir cone into his cage a while back which he got upset by so we took it out and hung it by his cage so he could see it, and get used to it before we moved it in. When we moved it in again he ignored it for two weeks but has suddenly started to play with it. Unfortunately, this appears at the moment to involve him pecking at it and the cone swinging away and coming back and hitting him on the head. He also managed to dislodge his perch, so it bounced at one end, and he looked like he was trampolining. 

Truly Terrifying

A couple of weeks ago, one of my teeth broke. I guess about half of it broke a way and while it doesn't hurt, the tooth looks quite unsightly as it now appears black. I thought I'd ask around my students for a recommendation for a dentist.

One of my students, Jesus, said his Dad took out teeth. I asked where his dentist practice was and he said he wasn't an official dentist. He is the village unofficial dentist. He takes out teeth with pliers.

When I came round from my near faint, it was to find the Jesus showing me how his dad had taken his milk teeth out. Apparently his dad is very good and it hardly hurts at all as he is so quick - he quickly hits the tooth and then whips it out with pliers. There are many toothless smiles amongst the village elders, I wonder if the unofficial village dentist has had a role to play in these gummy grins.

I declined nicely, deciding that while having my tooth removed by Jesus's father would have made me smile, the prospect of someone coming and hitting my tooth and then whipping it out with pliers is too truly terrifying to contemplate.

This is a relatively new Jesus who has started classes and he is a cousin of a few others. It used to be that Manuel, our builder's, nieces and nephews used to form a large proportion of my students, however over the last year or two, another family has been gradually adding cousins and assorted relatives. This week I was pleased to note that another recent student in fact joins the two families as she is a cousin of Manuel's nieces and nephews as well as a cousin of Jesus and his cousins. It is like doing a village join-the-dots puzzle!

One thing I have noticed is that many of the children in the class come from huge families. One child's dad is one of eight siblings and his mum one of 7. This is by no means unusual (and explains the high volume of cousins). However, the children themselves have much less in the way of siblings. I can think of families with two or three children, and perhaps one with four, however certainly not the large families that were in existence a generation a go. So, is this a sign of the loosening of the church's grip on family life, better education or a mixture of factors?

The weather has been wet and windy this week - however it has been another one of those strange phenomenon that we experience when the wind is actually very warm - much warmer than the ambient temperature. It was like standing in a hair dryer!

No change in Herbie's health. We still would not know that there is anything wrong with him other than his cough. He has recently decided that I am his favourite person and seeks me out when I am sat down. Today, when I went to class today he did his little Herbie jog after me. I took him into the class, however unlike the little girls who just want to hug him and carry him around - these two little boys wanted me to put him on the floor so they could watch him bump into things!

Larry's Gymnastical Adventure

Larry was entertaining us yesterday by wandering round the outside of his cage and dangling off it at improbable angles. It was very entertaining and he seemed to be enjoying himself as he dangled upside down attacking the bottom of his cage. He also seemed to know what he was doing - an illusion that ended as, with a bit of a fluttery plop, Larry dropped onto the floor. Larry made no attempt to fly - so we don't know if he can. However everyone was a little startled - including Rosie who couldn't quite believe her eyes. Given that she can spend many a happy hour pointing and barking at the building next door, a real live bird falling in front of her was likely to be too much excitement for her to control. Luckily I was able to divert her with a tomato while Ian was trying to pick up Larry. None of the others paid much attention - fortunately. I don't think I would have trusted her if we hadn't been there, however, as I think her natural instincts as a hunting dog would have taken over without a tomato waved in front of her. The only cat that shows any interest is Babbity Bumble, who, being a very small cat, appeared to decide that she would confine her interest to staring at Larry hungrily when he was in his cage.

Ian had to try to pick up Larry who was a little bemused. We don't have a Larry-picking-up-off-the-floor routine, as we had imagined that the danger we would need to watch for would be Larry flying off rather than plopping to the ground. So Ian caught Larry and then put a towel over him to keep him contained. With retrospect, while Ian was nursing his parrot bites, covering Larry first before picking him up might be the favoured future approach.  Larry's bite's weren't too bad, however. He broke the skin on one finger and with Larry's hooked beak, the bite could have been a lot worse.

The car goes into be repaired next week. The bill is double what we expected, so our run of misfortune still seems to be with us....

More Snow

While not much settled in the ground - as you can see from the snow on the table, a lot fell yesterday. Most has gone today though.

Here are some photos that were sent to the newspaper. Judging by the places that are featured, the snow seemed to be pretty much centralised around Llerena - http://www.hoy.es/multimedia/fotos/ultimos/115976-nieve-deja-bonitas-estampas-extremadura-0.html