Pickled Onions Picnic

The weather turned good this weekend so we decided to go for a walk and picnic lunch. We're still working our way through all the pickled onions we prepared last year and so took some with us, along with cheddar and a baguette.

We were planning a circular walk through the Romaria ground and stop by the stream at the new picnic area. However we kept seeing what looked like they might be processionary caterpillars, so walked to the picnic area on the other side of the stream as we knew there'd be less chance of caterpillars there.

That turned into a fruitful route as the photo shows. Down by a small finca with a few poly tunnels, they'd pulled out a load of last year's plants, we assume to plant new, and dumped them by the road. As we very rarely see fresh Chillis anywhere, we took advantage and harvested a few that still looked in good shape. They'll be in the salsa tonight. The hat won't though. We found that a few hundred metres further on and a quick wash should see that as good as new.

As he recreated his body using an ancient spell to get away from the devil worshippers...

"tweet tweet"

"tweet tweet tweet"

"tweet"

...and so it went on.

Trying to listen to a supernatural thriller mystery as it reached it's odd and gripping conclusion is ruined slightly by the lovebirds who decided to have an argument right at the crunch time. Actually, they argue most nights before bed. I think it's because they nibbled away their bed so only one can sleep in it, the other has to sleep on the perch outside (even though I have put in more tubes for them to sleep in), and they appear to 'discuss' this. It is made worse by the fact that the one in the tube is sort of amplified - that and the fact that both have to have the last word, so they carry on their tweeting narrative until they fall asleep. Unlike Larry, they have quite a sweet little tweet (well, sweet unless you are listening to the end of an audiobook) and it was really quite incongruous with what we were listening to, perhaps better if we were watching a Disney film).

This may seem like a completely unlikely audiobook for me to be listening to, however one of the benefits of doing audiobook reviews is that we quite often review books which we wouldn't normally listen to. A few years ago I reviewed a book by Stephen Leather which was a sort of supernatural mystery - the sort of thing I would normally run a mile from - and found that we both enjoyed it, so we followed the series through to it's conclusion. It helps that the narrator is excellent - although apparently the lovebirds felt it was lacking a bit of high pitched tweeting towards the end.

The weather has turned warm again. Unseasonably warm. Ian lit the fire last night and we both promptly headed off to find t-shirts and moaned about the heat!

Odd Animals

Without a doubt, our oddest animals (and there's quite a number of contenders) are Queenie and Primrose. Both have very limited sight - they can see shadows and Primrose appears to have some vision right at the bottom of her eyes, but this entails here putting her head right back, Queenie is also deaf.

Primrose waves her head around in quite an alarming way. I realize now it's when she's trying to look at something.

I was watching poor Queenie whose role in life is to be a sheepdog, following one of the cats into a room with no light but not completely dark, and to her the cat just disappeared - even though she was sat on the floor in front of her. Queenie kept going out, coming back in again and doing the dog equivalent of scratching her head.

I can't help thinking that these two have the worst of it. The blind animals don't see anything so their world is constant, however these two, seeing shadows and shapes, must have a very confusing life. Queenie also gets confused if Ian wears a hat or carries something under her arm as it changes his shape.

Alfie is on the mend. He is wearing a little fleecey jacket to keep his back warm and that seems to be helping. The biggest problem now is stopping him from jumping onto things. But it's nice to see him nearly back to normal again.

Poor Alfie

has been through the wars. Last week he choked and it was very serious. He was unable to breath and his lips and tongue had gone blue. Ian gave him what he thought was the dog equivalent of the Heimlich maneuver and he managed to clear the blockage - however Alfie was then in a lot of pain so we went to the vet to have him checked. He was probably bruised where Ian had squeezed him. Then Alfie over enthusiastically jumped off the bed and hurt his back and he's been in a lot of pain with that. It's been very harrowing as he's been unable to get comfortable - with a bruised stomach and bad back -  and has been yelping in pain and we have to be careful picking him up or reassuring him as his back is so painful. However, it seems to be getting a little better for him and we're keeping him warm and hopefully he'll be recovered soon. The vet didn't seem too worried, and Alfie goes back on Friday.

The weather has broken and we've had rain for the last few days. That's made the house get cold, and we've had a strong wind too, and I think that hasn't helped Alfie as he is so low to the floor and prone to drafts. This also means we're starting to see our animals all cuddling up together again and looking for warm things to lie on.

Ian has dusted off one of our under table heaters and is making a little warm tent under a table for Alfie - no doubt when the others catch on, that is going to be the most popular spot in the house. We haven't used our under table heaters for years now, since we got the fire going in the living room, so I think it is only Tinkerbelle who will remember the joy of snuggling up under a table!