Desk and Dog walks

Having told you that I had a desk I thought that I would include a photo, it stands in the corner of our new bedroom which, although already lovely, needs a few more minor finishing touches. I will of course post photos as soon as I can.

I am still organizing things here in my little writing corner but I am enjoying having this space. Steve has a beautiful new study of which I will also post photos soon. When his work gets back to normal in September he can hide himself away as much as he likes, either to work or to sit quietly with a book. We are slowly making progress here, a study and a bedroom will mean that we can begin to organize our belongings which, to me at least, will make a huge difference to our lives. We don´t have a huge amount of stuff and we do have a large house so actual space has never been a problem, it is organised storage that will make the difference.

One of the advantages of living in a sparsely populated rural place is the evidence which still exists of a past life. It will, I expect, change in time just as people like us are buying and renovating the old farmhouses, so too will the land be bought and made economically viable. The old tiny farms that once were the backbone of life here no longer work, for most people. They were never meant to generate money simply to sustain life. Life in the western world a least has changed and the old farming communities are a thing of the past. The mechanisms of that way of life still exist though, softened as nature takes them back, just as the memories have been softened by time. But if you close your eyes you can see the ghosts of a lifestyle that once existed

 This is the old camino or road between our village and the next, rarely used now. A change in field boundaries means  that it stops short of the next village it is beautiful non the less.
The biggest threat is logging the huge modern machines that make it economically viable destroy everything in their wake, dry stone walls, old paths and ancient woodland. While I understand the need for a buoyant economy and the jobs that come with it, a part of me aches for price we pay for that.


The pictures below are of an old reservoir build as part of an irrigation system and no longer used. I think that very little work would make it function once again so simple and elegant is the design.

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Fire and water.

I cannot believe that it has been so long since my last blog. I lost my desk in the last installment of house updates. I have it back now, though the updates are not quite finished.
As sit writing this I am listening to fire planes flying over head. Fires are everywhere in Galicia at the moment 50 new ones per day according to the local news and the tragedy is that many are started deliberately, some because the fires themselves create employment. Its all made worse because one of the cuts during the economic recession was of fire watchers. Meaning that by the time fires are spotted they are already out of control. Of course there would be fires anyway, we have had no rain for a couples of months and high temperatures (well for Galicia) the wet spring ensured that there was plenty of undergrowth to dry out and provide fuel.
I have tried to get a photo, though its not really that clear.

this is the view from my bedroom window. The haze is smoke.

On the upside we found a river beach that we never knew existed which is quiet, clean and even better only 15 minutes from home. We have been swimming 3 times already If only we had known sooner. Never done much river swimming before but I fear I'm addicted!