Into the swing

Despite having failed dismally so far, I have decided to get back  "into the swing" of blogging that is. I have a new computer, my beloved mac have passed away peacefully in its sleep a week or so ago. Alas the new machine is a PC and I have entered the ghostly world of windows 8 persuaded by a 700 euro difference in the price of  the relative machines and am already certain that if I had the said 700€ I would willingly have handed it over. But then I like Astin Martins but rarely loose sleep over my lack of one.

The house.

Our official project at the moment is Steve`s study which is making slow progress and will get a boost over Christmas when Steve has a bit more time.
I am always a bit irritated by the fact that we never quite finish a job. As soon as a room is usable we stop and move onto the next project and with this in mind I had a bit of a brainstorm during an unscheduled visit to Ikea. I take my hat off to  the Ikea shop designers, on entry to the shop your mind is infected by no-,end uninvited and expensive thoughts ,(enough to end a marriage if some of the overheard comments are  taken seriously) I decided that we would finish the cloakroom. I bought towels, pictures and a candle holder with that in mind. Considering the size of the room which is barely big enough for a toilet and sink I thought that a weekend would do the trick, how long can it take to hang a picture and change a towel. How wrong I was, I should have known that nothing is that simple.
The walls, or at least two of them, are stone as  they dry out tend to leak dust, sand like and in quite large quantities. We had heard that it is possible to seal them with a dilute solution of p.v.a glue and set about to give them a quick clean before applying said glue. We also had a vague recollection that you had to brush the glue mixture onto damp walls. We obviously  h.adn`t  made a great job of cleaning the stone before we pointed it in the first place. We ended up with neatly sealed in streaks which were so obvious that could have been going for a zebra theme. I have to say that PVA does an amazing job of sealing stone because it has taken the best part of two weeks to get rid of the streaks.
The worst thing is that we haven`t finished even now we have a window to fit and shelf to put under the sink. Both jobs were left undone because we hadn`t a clue how to tackle them in the first place, the door does now have a working lock though so that's something at least.

The animals

 

Let me introduce you to our new head of rodent control. He followed me home last week and since he followed me for a good 3 kilometres I hadn´t the heart to turn him away at the door. At the moment he dosn´t seem to know the difference between mice and socks so we have a good number of dead socks. I am however hopeful for the future. His name is Franky we have put the word out that we have him as someone might be missing a kitten. He unlike, the normal barn cats who live around here is used to people and likes attention. I hope he gets to stay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trials of motherhood

Ok so far I haven't done too well at keeping this blog up to date, I have had no shortage of ideas simply a shortage of time. A spell of sunny weather provided a chance to get some planting done  in the garden
and our helper Jane has been looking to buy a house here so we have spent some time helping her with that, and of course because nothing happens quickly here so it is an ongoing process. I have no complaints though, poking around old houses is great fun, it is only Spanish bureaucracy that can be a little tedious.

We have also had a bit of a disaster with our duck breeding plans. We had our first brood of baby ducks last summer and the mother was very good at keeping tabs on the babies and protecting them from all comers, all we had to do was provide her with somewhere separate to sleep at night so that the ducklings  didn't get trampled by the bigger ducks.

Muscovy eggs take about 35 days to hatch so when this duck had been sitting for 35 days I was quite excited by the time she had been there for 40 days I had decided that the eggs hadn't been fertile and was waiting for a chance to throw them away, we were pretty busy and I didn't get real get the chance till three days later we came home and found random ducklings all over the garden but no mother. I raced over to try and find the mother and round up the ducklings in itself a fairly impossible task. It turned out that the mother was back in the nest but for some reason hadn't waited for the babies. I managed to rescue 7 and got them back to her, not easy as she attacked me every time I appeared with another one. I was too late for the remaining 3  sadly. It quickly became apparent that she panicked and ran off every time there was a threat leaving the poor duckings trailing behind.  The other ducks started grabbing the scattered duckings and running off with them.  Chasing a duck round the garden with a ducking in its beak is exhausting if amusing for the onlooker. Amazingly the duckings survived the raids but didn't survive being left in the cold and wet when mum disappeared.

The world through bars

 When we got down to four duckings we decided to put her in the spare rabbit cage where she and the babies were safe. Not a permanent solution nor ideal as she needs to show the babies how to get on in the big wide world. Haven't decided on the next step yet. Its all a bit traumatic for for me and has caused more than one duck related nightmare.

Tapas

Better news with the rabbits though, I initially thought that mummy rabbit had only two surviving babies  when we found a dead one in the cage. Its impossible to check properly as rabbits cannot be disturbed when there is a new litter or they kill and eat the babies. When they emerged into the sunshine yesterday there were six fat and healthy babies. Six is still a small litter but it is way better than two.

At times like this I begin to wonder why we describe our lifestyle as simple, surely a quick trip to Sainsburys for a shrink wrapped pack of chicken breasts fits the description better.