The Doors

One thing we wanted to complete before the winter rains came was the back or kitchen door, this not only needed stripping of paint, but also all the glass had to be taken out and refitted using new bits of wood that we had cut and prepared. So with all that done Helen began the tricky task of refitting all the glass, one slip and the glass could smash and we didn’t have any spare.

Also the panels at the lower half of the door were badly damaged so we used some flat panels of wood to cover them on the inside.

Also at this point a new lock and handle we fitted, so the door can be locked with a key instead of the bolts that it had before.

  On the outside of the door we fitted a strip to push the water off the step and rebuilt the hole and fitted a completely new cat flap.

Busy Day

Today was another one of those days when we go round and work on half a dozen jobs at once.

A few more blocks go on to the steps, we are almost at the point of putting on the top of the cupboard to hold the watering valves.

And a little bit of concrete to make the base of a manhole to take the cables to various places on the lower patio.

Then using the rest of the cement just set in the top of the walls. And in the top of the photos you can see the rows of spuds that we have been putting in over the last few mornings, after we paid for someone to bring there machine in a rotivate the terrace as we haven’t fixed our machine yet.

Oblique shot showing the rows of spuds which should be ready about Christmas time.

Cleared out a levelled the corner by the font of the house ready to concrete the lower patio.

The window sill under the other window has had a few offcuts of tile and cement put in to bring it up to the right level for the tiles, then the paint touched up, once the tiles are on you won’t even notice.

We aren't the only ones working, our new German neighbours are having a lot of building work done to their house too.

And Tabby keeps an eye open for what Meep is up to while she lies in the shade.

Living on the fat of the land

Well June is here and soon it will be the end of the school year and the start of the lean two months when we don’t have any income coming in, so to help with this we are growing a lot of our own veg. Here is a general view of the whole garden.

Carrots, onions and beetroot are all doing well. With another set about to go in, We have had some trouble with cut worms, a type of moth caterpillar which likes to live in the soil and then pop up and chew through your plant just at the point where the soil ends. Very annoying and hard to find and remove.

Here's a wider shot with the previous crops in the foreground and further back the peppers and then the tomatoes. The first lot of peppers we put in didn’t survive, but we think that it was due to the fact that after we brought the plants that we went to visit some friends and left them in the car and we think they got too hot.

The leeks continue to do well, but the lettuces suffered a bit from the damp weather we have had, and some pest problems (slugs and snails). Also the courgettes aren’t doing well due to the weather and the lack of male flowers, meaning they aren’t producing much at present.

Early days at present with the cucumbers, we haven't  got anything from them yet.

The tomatoes are taking over and going crazy.

Meep goes to investigate the strange clumps that have appeared at the bottom of the garden, those are the Calabazas Meep.

Best friends, well not quite

It maybe a rare sight, but it has got to the point where if they are careful not to get to close to each other that you can find the two cats in the same general location.

Meep and the Broom

Meep and the Broom

For some reason Meep has taken to attacking the broom. So every time that Helen tries to sweep the floor, from out of nowhere swoops Meep who then proceeds to try and eat the broom. We have also been running backwards and forwards to Santa Cruz to get both the cats vaccinated and checked out ready to go into the cattery while we go back to the UK at Christmas.

Meep is here to stay

Well it looks like Meep is going to be staying around, she has now started to come inside and make her self at home.  We have been running backwards and forwards to the vets with both cats to make sure that they are vaccinated ready for a stay in the cattery over Christmas while we are in the UK. The one problem is that because she is white and when she was little she was outside and not being cared for she has lost the fur on here ears due to sunburn, so every morning we have to catch her and apply the factor 50.

Tabby and Meep, Tabby tolerates Meep a little but only if she stays a set distance away.

Meep discovers how to climb up into the vines.

Once she has the hang of it there is no stopping her.

And doesn’t she look good against the clear blue sky.

OK here she thinks she is a parrot but oh well!

Meeeeep Meeeeep The arrival of Meep

We have noticed the last few weeks a new arrival in our neighbourhood. Living in our wood pile and eating the stale cat food that Tabby would refuse to eat is a tiny little white kitten. We think that she(We think its a she) has been abandoned by somebody and just happened to find the food the we would throw on the compost heap, she was very thing and wobbly when she first arrived but not she looks a little stronger. Over the weeks she would come closer and closer to us. So we started to put some food and water out for her and who knows maybe one day she will allow us to pick her up. We have named her meep after the noise she makes…..meeep.

"YEUCK" a Plague of almost Biblical Proportions.

Things have not gone that well this week. It started well on Monday with a fiesta in Los Sauces so Theresa was off for the day which meant we had a quite day. On Tuesday evening we came home as usual after teaching to find the kitchen window covered, on the inside, with large black flies... I think there must have been around two hundred of them..... Its hard to get flies out of a house when there are fly screens on most windows to stop them coming in! We ended up using the vacuum cleaner to suck them up!
The whole episode sickened my stomach, Once most of the flies were gone I just went to bed and stayed there barricaded into the bed room till almost 3 o'clock the next afternoon. Just coming out to swat any new flies that appeared.
Theresa was so worried about me that she came home lunch time to see how I was doing...
After about 3:00 I finally got up the courage to search for what was the source of the plague. Once I moved a light into what was the old water tank and will be the bathroom I found the SOURCE, the remains of a Rat! Double Yuck! Tabby must have brought it in after killing it and left it there.
We have spent most of the rest of the week cleaning the house, including washing all the crockery etc in the kitchen. The result is that we have a clean house (and the cave of a water tank / bathroom) but nothing else much done, and I have been feeling very off mentally.