A Bed of Dumpling

As Kate said, Dumpling looks like a mini version of Basil with other pets lying on top of her. Can't imagine Schnookums feels very light.

It is that time of year again!

The pile of dogs and cats gets bigger s the weather gets colder!

Ol'Smokey

Another indication of the time of year as the chimney brushes and the old Dyson are dusted off. I tried lighting the fire last night, but had to put it out after a minute as it started belching smoke into the room. The brushes have done the job though.

Following last Wednesday's dreadfully sad incident with Bentley, Alfie had another little shock tonight. He trotted inside without finishing his tea, so I followed to check he was ok. It looks like he was choking on a dog biscuit. He started to bring up some food and then his legs started kicking quite frantically as I think he was starting to panic. I don't know if my attempts at a canine heimlich manoeuvre helped at all or if he managed to clear it himself, but somehow he seemed to get himself straight. He seems unaffected by tonight's experience now.

It's Pickle Time

It's that time of year again when we take a break from the little silver skin pickled onions that are the only ones we can buy and prepare our own. I only took care of peeling and jarring. The creative vinegar duties fell to Kate. Watch this space for the pickled red cabbage.

It Must Be Getting Cold

We popped to Pepe's this lunchtime to discover the tables have their winter blankets over them and the charcoal brasseros have been lit. This is Kate's foot under our table. I think we were the only ones taking photos.

Sad News About Bentley

With great sorrow we had Bentley put to sleep. He was a lovely great friendly giant, 99.999% of the time. However very occasionally he would be aggressive to the others, and because of his size, he had the power to hurt them. He'd snapped at Alfie in the summer and had given him puncture wounds in his head, and he snapped again at him this week and Alfie had puncture wounds in his back and he probably had a lucky escape. He has in the past snapped at Sam and Bob.

Part of the problem was that there was no consistency with when he turned nasty. When he snapped at Alfie during the summer it was over food, yet vast majority of time he was absolutely fine around food and if some crumbs fell on the floor he'd quite happily let Pixie nip in and get them. He had no problems with 'his space' yet when he snapped at Alfie this week it appeared that Alfie was just in his space. He played wonderfully with Henry, and seemed to have no problem adjusting his play to small dogs, however he couldn't control his snapping accordingly. His problems seemed to be down to insecurity and he would occasionally and randomly feel threatened and this was probably due to his start in life.

We felt that it was a little like a ticking bomb. Bentley may have been fine for another few months, but at some time he would hurt one of the others again.

We could not with a clear conscience rehome him knowing that he had the potential to injure or damage another dog. And given that his problems were due to insecurity then we could not guarantee that he would not show more problems if he was different people. We also did not want him to go as a guard dog, as he would be chained and this would have been a terrible life for him and anyway, he would have been a rubbish guard dog. So we decided that the only course of action as loving owners was to have him put to sleep. He really didn't know anything about what was going on as the vet came to us and it was over quickly.

If his problems had been greater, it would have been easier. If they had been significantly greater we would never have kept him in the first place, if his problems had been consistent we could have addressed the issue that triggered them, however there was this tiny percentage of time when he was a danger to the others and we just wouldn't know what would trigger it, and we recognised that if we didn't do it now, we could be in the position where he killed one of the others and we then would have lost two pets.

We feel pretty terrible, however we know that we gave him a great three years - three years he would definitely not have had if we hadn't have helped him in the first place.

Time for bed

Pixie trying to join in the kitty bed time scrum!!

Apparently It's Teatime

I looked up from my laptop to discover that it was Teatime. They didn't look like they were interested in discussing the matter.

And The Winner Is...

After several weeks of intense competition, Dumpling has finally emerged as the chair champion. Alfie has not taken it well!

Pickle!

Here is our finished pickle.

Acorn Etiquette

We went picking acorn caps last week, however I'm really not sure of acorn etiquette. People eat acorns here - as well as giving them to pigs - so we decided to go further afield to get the caps so we weren't depriving people of any acorns. It is unfortunate that we were after only the caps as it means that we discard the acorns. So we went deep into a wood to find some acorn trees, which were sadly lacking acorns. However, after quite a lot of hunting around, we did manage to fill two boxes, so that was good - and we didn't get arrested by the countryside police. I did wonder if there were male and female oak trees, as some were completely devoid of acorns and others dripping with them.

The countryside is just full of people at the moment, olive pickers, wild mushroom seekers and hunters abound - plus farmers illegally burning stubble. In fact, I am often surprised that noone gets shot given the very crowded wild open spaces. I have a high visibility vest that I put on over a sweatshirt if I go out on a Sunday, which is the busiest day, just to ensure that noone mistakes me for a rabbit, although Ian says I just give them something to aim at.

One of my students was telling me that hunting is very important for the village because as well as eating the birds and rabbits themselves, the hunters give the birds and rabbits to the poor people, and any that are left over they give to the village day centre, who cook them for the day residents.

We're making pickle today with left over fruit from when Mum and Susan were here, we noticed some fruit flies hovering yesterday, and guessed that this was a message that it was time to do something with the left over apples. It is our own recipe - so it will be interesting to see how it turns out!

Where is Ian?

Ian hidden under a pile of dogs and cat.

So, What Did The Fox Say...??

Well, although I promised myself that I wouldn't, I have taken on four new students over the last week. Two are twins in year 4, one other is their younger sibling in year 1 and the other is a young lad, called Miguel Angel, and who is in the first year of secondary school. The two twins were a delight, they turned up with notepads and pens and their English - for 8 year olds - was excellent. Long may it remain. The young sibling, came with my other young student and this was a less pleasant experience, I hope they will settle down. I now have 19 hours of classes booked over 6 days, which is less than last year because I am not doing classes in the morning.

I've been using the video 'What Does The Fox Say' in class. Susan introduced me to this when she came to stay. I have been asking students to write a list of the animals they hear mentioned - and the noises they make. They studiously write away, and try desperately hard to keep up, and I eventually put them out of their misery when they start arguing over how to spell tchoff thchoff...

Acorn caps

We've been collecting acorn caps!

No, you can't buy it...

I took some samples of my jewelry into the craft shop in Llerena yesterday and was in a slightly odd situation of having to wrestle one of my sample rings away from a lady who was insistent on buying it. I couldn't sell it as it was made as a sample and I had used glue to hold the stone into place and I'd also used silver colored wire not silver wire. So it was more of a proto-type than a finished piece. It was a tad embarrassing, but I did the right thing. She gave me her contact details to email her, so hopefully I'll have made my first sale without even trying!

She was part of a coach party that turned up when we were in the store, this is quite normal, so the lady who I was talking to said, as the craft stores are all set in historic buildings throughout Extremadura, so they are part of the tourist trail and often have coach parties turn up. The six stores are in Llerena, Badajoz, Caceres, Trujillo, Merida and Villanueva and I think that to start my work would just go into one, I guess the Llerena one, but if I have more stuff and success then it would go into more stores. This is the association's website - http://www.extremadurartesana.com/

She liked my jewelry and I now have to apply. It looks like we can get around the paperwork side of things by doing this in Ian's name and we'll use a non-specific trade name. If it is successful I can register as a business later. We can do this legitimately as long as Ian contributes to the business in some way, which he can do by being the designer.

They liked both my stone jewelry and the felt jewelry which I took in. I noticed that a lot of the things that they sold when the tourists party came in had a local theme and the sales lady made a big thing about local techniques and themes, so I think that acorns might be my first products made specifically for sale there. As the idea is a felt ball with a real acorn cap on it, which will need to be drilled, Ian can drill the holes in the top so we will genuinely have collaborated. My stone jewelry is at the high end of what they sell in the jewelry line, so I think something lower cost, like felt acorns would be great.

So, I'm off now to pick acorn caps...

Curtains!

Poor Dumpling is finding the curtains hanging over the door a tad confusing. Not helped by the fact that Anubis hides behind the curtains tapping her on the nose. Given the almost nonexistent nature of Dumpling's nose, this is quite a feat.

The curtains went up because they did such a good job last year of keeping the house warmish and save us from forever having to get up let a dog or cat out from which ever door they find themselves on the wrong side of.

This box of glittering goodies is a range of my jewellery to take to show a lady in Llerena with a view to selling it in a craft store. There's a few hurdles to jump first, however I'm going to find out more as it could be a good opportunity.