I know I have been a little lax in my blogging of late, largely being down to the lack of major themes to cover in depth - but then I thought maybe I should just pull together a bunch of short unrelated notes (and let off some steam).
Best thing at present is the weather / worst thing at the moment is the weather. Bright and sunny is great, but boy do we need some rain. Today was worst of all worlds with dull, cloudy and cold - but without any rain. The mountain goats are coming down to near the road a bit too much as they seek food. Rain would help them too.
The garden has been (further) improved by G putting in some new "baby" shrubs in the main bed. We seem to have had a few of the old ones come to the end of their natural cycle at the same time, so we made a major trip to Guzmans in Al-Haurin-the-far-one and bought a boot-full.Oh, and we have actually run out of pots for all her potted stuff, so there is colour-a-plenty.
Recent highlight was my lawyer and architect coming to look at something required to get some sort of licence (don´t ask) and he got to the bottom of the back steps and looked at the new courtyard and arbour and immediately said "que bonito" - (how beautiful) - very pleasing as an unprompted complement about our changes.
The whole garden is a playground for black-redstarts at the moment. I almost had G convinced there was only one, but he appeared in so many spot it became fairly obvious that there are quite a few.
I caught this pic on a security camera and it shows the male wing-flashes and russet rump.
They are also friendly (as befits their being part of the robin family) and often come to the rejas or on a wall near where we might be working (ok, sitting) and bob up and down as if trying to attract attention.
I have already taken delivery of the first load of firewood, so we are ready for the winter cold (which reminds me we are not quite ready as the bloke owes me a sack of astillas or kindling).
Lower neighbour is in the final couple of weeks before he naffs off and we get some new Danish neighbours. Funnily enough, the lawyer told me he has bought, and noisily renovated, the apartment over her office. She obviously thinks as much of him as we do as she said he speaks as much to anyone as he has done to us. Saturday saw a partial "flitting"(G not quite sure what I meant), but the possessions on an open lorry would normally be accompanied by the family - hence my grandmother sometimes saying to me, "you look like you have fallen off a flitting").
Other neighbours are rarely seen, but managed to get the council to come and remove one of their palms, which obviously had the dreaded "red-palm-weevil". I guess there are some (actually too bloody many) perks for working at the ayuntamiento.
Covid is getting gradually worse in Spain, but no obvious cause as we still have mandatory masks and spacing through to spring. The most likely cause is the return of the (bloody) tourists who are here in droves again. Noted an article in the Telegraph today wherein they said that masks, space and sanitiser were a major help in fighting the spread of covid - unlike some previous reports which suggested masks were almost useless! You even see (other) people wiping down shopping trolleys and chair arms now!
I managed to make a couple of coordinated booking for next few weeks. Qashqai service scheduled for Dec 1st, then, after many unsuccessful online attempts, managed to get ITV / MOT scheduled for the Friday 3rd. All very tricky as December is a multiple-holiday month - apart from the fact it is party-time December as well! Other meets are my coordinating my (I think scheduled) pneumonia jab with an appointment with my doctor - as I need to appraise the Doc of everything that has gone on in the last two years since my last visit with previous doctor (and get whoever to renew all my pills). I thought my new doctor was going to be ok, as speaks English I believe, but now learn she has (in turn) moved on, so I may be bleating to a locum (and maybe in spanish too).
I may have mentioned we made forays into Malaga for both of our birthdays - and both trips failed to please us as much as Malaga used to. Maybe we will just have to stick with the Niño (where I am a weekend regular now, with my 4 and 3 diet of Mon to Fri eating little and drinking nothing, followed by a three day weekend of unbridled excess - well, coffee, anis and biscuits anyway).
More anon....
Comments