An Update

Well My blood pressure seems a little better, but since last Friday I seem to have developed a pain in my chest. It seems to be best to do little things like walk around the garden, do a little bit of weeding ect. but not much. staying in bed does not help much ether it seems to make things worse.

The doctor is sending me to see a NEFROLOGIA which I think is a kidney specialist. we will see how long it will be before we get an appointment and then how long it is before we actually see anyone.

Its still not very good….But better than it was.

One slightly amusing thing though, the last time I was at the doctors the nurse started to take my blood pressure and as she was inflating the cuff there was a loud bang from my arm. The bladder had busted, my pressure was not that high, it did result in all of us laughing including the Doctor… The last two times I had had my pressure taken I had said that it was high enough to break the meter, this time it did!

A Bad Week

I awoke at 1 am on Monday morning with my a pain in my chest like very bad muscle strain. I had to go to the loo and when I got back to bed I was not felling very good but thought that all I had done was strained something the day before with all the work we had done. But then I started to feel something like very energetic muscle twitches in my chest.

It is hard to explain what it felt like, I don’t know if you have felt those small movements that coincide with your heart beat, as if you can feel the blood pulsing through your veins (some times in your ear or on your leg). well this was like that but magnified 1000 times. Also it was not regular, there would be one beat and then a gap of a second or so and another two and then another gap. I just rolled over on to my front and tried to go back to sleep but the beats were so energetic that I felt as if I was being bounced out of bed each time.

I think I did sleep for a bit but after half an hour I had to get up and go to the loo again, and my chest still hurt… Finally I woke Theresa up, she just mumbled that I should go back to sleep, until I got her to listen to my heart and then she was up and awake and helping me up and to the local emergency centre about 20 km away.

We arrived an the staff got me in on the bed and took my blood pressure, it was something like 220/180 which is very bad after a few pills the pain in my chest started to dissolve.

About an hour later, an ecg and more pills, they said I could go home. The doctor did not think there was any problem with my heart but that I should go to my Doctor in the morning. So we went home.

Next morning we went to the Doctors my blood pressure was up again so I ended up with some pills and told to take it easy and go back on Thursday.

Well Thursday came around and our friend Sheila came over to accompany me to the doctors, I was feeling ok, and had been taking it easy. But when the nurse took my pressure she was not happy, so she tried the other arm. and then asked the doctor to take the pressure, it was back up it the very high level again something like 240/160. so it was more pills and then I was told to go straight to the hospital, we arrived at A&E about 1pm.

I think it was the shortest wait in A&E I have ever had, about 1 minute. I was taken in and plugged into a ECG and after off to a cubical where I was attached to several monitors, oxygen supply and a very large syringe of stuff… And there I staid for around 7 hours.

I think Theresa and Sheila expected them to keep me in over night but I was let out and told to get some meds from the pharmacy in Los Sauces in the morning.

Here is a chart of my blood pressure The last but one was after I had been in hospital for several hours

Well its Friday evening and things seem to be going ok, though the meds they gave me were not on the usual prescription so we had to pay full whack for them, around 50€ for a months supply I just hope that the Doc will put the next lot on a cheaper prescription!!!

Not a Nice Morning Call!

This morning we had a visit from Francisco (The neighbour that we are doing the potatoes with). He informed us that some of the other neighbours (those that have the land next to use and use the track in front of the house) had said that we were not giving them enough room for there LARGE rotovator to get past.

OK I had assumed that 1 meter would be enough room to get any thing past, But no real problem. The big problem. to my mind was that Francisco said that these unnamed persons had said that they would phone the Police about it (without talking to us first) on Monday, but Francisco had said that he would talk to us first.

The thought of the hassle really upset me, but we got right down to looking what we could do to give more room, (They had requested 1.5 meters). After some work with tape measure and string we came up with what we thought was a good solution to the problem.

We would start the ramp down to the current track level from the side of the house, which would result in the whole area in fount of the house being level but we would lose the standing area for a water tank.

That done we had lunch and then started moving the rocks of the walls so that they reflected the new layout. I was still worried about the threat of the Police as we were not sure who these other persons were and whether what we were doing would solve there complaint. Luckily two of the locals came to the other land later that day and we were able to explain what we were doing and get there approval. The most annoying thing is that we know them both and they could have talked to us about the problem.

One good thing is that we now know who owns that land next to ours, when we moved in it was owned by an old guy that lived in Santa Cruz, but it now seems to belong to the guy up the road.

A Bit Late But Still Getting There

Last year we started work on sorting out the area in front of the house, preparing to level the ground and provide a ramp to access the terrace. But due to other things we only got the main retaining walls done. The design called for two sets of smaller retaining walls closer to the house. These were required to allow the ramp to the rest of the track to not be too steep and to still allow us to have at least a meter of level ground next to the house to support ladders etc for access to the house for painting etc.

As we want to get the house painted this summer then this area needs to be finished, so this week I finally got out and measured out the location of the inner retaining walls. and there height etc.

I have also cleaned out the ground in preparation for the foundation of the walls. Lets hope that it will not be another year until it is finished.

Meep having fun in the foundations

Marking out looking from the other direction.

Time for Salads

The lettuce seedlings have finally got big enough to be planted out so its time to get the new bed ready. The idea is to try some underground watering later when it is needed in a month or so time, so that needs to go in first. As seen below the under ground watering consists of a set a pipes some of which allow the water to seep out slowly.

The lettuce watering ready to be burred.

With the watering in, its time to plant the lettuce out.

This is not a pretty site!!! 

Well that's that done. notice the second seed cover with carrots, onions and beetroot.

After a trip to the famers market we have added tomatoes, peppers and calabacíns (courgettes).  Also notice the potatoes are coming a long well in the background.

The veg patch is starting to look good.

More veg

Marmalade.

Spring is the time for oranges here on la Palma, and this year one of our own small orange trees has produced enough oranges to make all this years marmalade. Each 1kg of oranges should make 6 jars and I plan to do 3 batches this year.

The first batch is done but seems to have only produced 4.5 jars.

First of this years marmalade.

Having read a bit I think I found the problem, As I used the smaller of the two large saucepans to make the marmalade I had to keep stirring to mixture to stop it boiling over, and this cooled the mixture down allowing more of the water to evaporate before the set point was reached.

For the second batch I used the larger saucepan, and also decided to try a new recipe from The book Preserves by Pam Corbin (This one of the River Cottage Handbooks) The recipe is a little simpler and seemed to work quite well. But we will have to wait a while to taste the result.

Second batch of Marmalade.

Onions, Leeks and sweet potatoes.

As I said yesterday we have been preparing the veg beds. Well after a trip to the local farmers market we now have 100 onions and 20 leeks planted.

At the same time we harvested two boxes of bonitos (a type of sweet potato) and planted two small rows of potatoes (the ones leftover from planting the terrace behind ours with one of our neighbours.

The onion bed

The leeks.

Now all we have to do is hope they all survive so we can eat them.

Grow Your Own Dinner

The start of the year is always busy in the garden. February is the time to try to get the vines trimmed, even if we don’t seem to get much from them. This year I have decided it is time to do something better with the ground that the vines use. So the top terrace (well the top relatively flat terrace that is. There is one above it but that has a 45 deg slope), has been designated the main veg patch. This one has house water so we can water the veg during the summer, that is as long as we don’t use too much water.

Growing plants from seed has met with mixed results in the past. Due to ether the cat digging them up or the lizards eating the new plants the moment they decide to poke their luscious green heads above the soil. To provide some protection to the seedlings I have build a wooden frame with a fly mesh attached to the top . This goes over the seedlings and not only provides protection from the cat’s but also seems to provide a slightly damper micro climate for them. See images below:

Prototype seed protector, with lettuce and carrot seedlings.

Another view of the prototype

I am in the progress of digging the ground to provide 3 veg beds on one side of the terrace and some small beds on the other. See below. Note that the area at the rear belongs to a neighbour and we have gone halves on a crop of potatoes (we supplied the seed potatoes and fertilizer and he provided the land and man power to plant them and then we will go halves on the crop).

The veg terrace.

We are still going to use some of the lower terrace for larger crops and to plant 100 onion sets. in the bed that has been provided. The far bed is bonito that needs harvesting (a bit late I think but we should still get some).

The start of the onion plot.

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.

Taxes

Just got back from our trip to the UK to discover that we had just missed a registered letter.  When we tracked it down (It had been given to a Dutch couple who know us.) we found out that it was a demand  for unpaid taxes on the house, now when we brought the house we paid taxes, as is required, but it seems that the government thinks that we didn’t pay  enough, so they have done a valuation and are basing the tax on their valuation. Their valuation says that we have underpaid the taxes  buy about €1600. It’s going to be difficult to pay this and still have enough money for the summer and savings. What really makes it worse is that it has taken four years to work this out and they have a cheek to charge us interest on the tax outstanding….

A bite out of the moon

This morning was a lunar eclipse, unfortunately it was just as the sun was rising and the moon was setting below the ridge to the west of the house. But we got a few quick snaps which show the shadow of the earth on the face of the moon.

The weather was also a little misty so it wasn’t possible to get a good clean shot.

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.

Now that Does Look Good

With all the roofs clean its time to paint them with waterproof paint. Not much to to say a bout doing it. But I do have one observation:  Once you have painted the roof you need to keep a good eye on it, as if any small holes appear then they need to be patched quickly as water can collect under the paint and WILL soak  through the roof.

But it does look nice when it is done, and the walls have been painted!

Kitchen end of roof, and entrance way

Main roof all red

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!

Adding a bit of colour

OK now that Helen has finished off the rendering of the hiding the brickwork it’s time for me to splash a bit of paint over the top.

Now it may look like it’s easy with the roller on the long poll, but I can tell you it’s murder on the arms. Also on closer examination the roller doesn’t seem to get the paint into all the little pits that these walls are full of. So it may need another coat at some time.

There starting to look good, though in this picture the colour is a little washed out.

There a different angle shows the colour a bit better.

So that is the back wall of the house painted, only 3 more to go.

There´s a Hole in my Roof… Somewhere

When it rains hard the old kitchen roof leeks. But I am not sure where the hole or crack is, so it is time to do some remedial work on it.

The first job was to clean off all the old paint, there was not much of it, and any lose cement etc. Once that was done I put down some new mortar to fill in the holes.

Patching and cleaning done. Back of kitchen roof.

And the other side.

Once this is dry I will wash it over with a cement and water mix to seal all the small cracks. Then after a week or so it can be painted.

Getting away…

Some time as much as we love La Palma it’s nice to get a change of scenery from time to time, and we are very fortunate to have a friend who lives in a large house on El Hierro. But I hear you cry; “why just go to another island, there all the same aren’t they?”. Well you’d be surprised all the 7 islands are amazingly different from each other and all have there own special places.

So at the end of a busy summer we took a weeks break in El Hierro. Partly it was a week because the ferry runs direct between La Palma and El Hierro once a week making a week break easier, and this time we decided to take our car as well, so that our friend could get on with her music recording while we went out exploring.

View of Frontera and El Golfo looking East.

View of Frontera and El Golfo looking West.

Me at the viewpoint from where the photo above was taken.

The statue which sits in the small shrine just by the view point, if you look closely you can see all the money on the floor which is thrown into the chapel.

There are some places on El Hierro which look almost like parts of the north of England, with dry stone walls dividing up the plains.

This lighthouse stands at what was at one time the limit of the know world..

Hiding the Brickwork.

With the doorway bricked up its time to render to hole to make it all neat. I am not that good at rendering, I never seem to get it level or smooth but this time it seems to have gone well.

I used two coats, the first the standard sand and cement mortar (I would like to point out at this time, that the standard building sand on the canaries is black and made from crushed volcanic rock. So it is not very fine). The top coat was Morsec (premixed dry morter, tha comes in 25 kg bags. it comes in two types, that I know of, normal and white top coat. I like using the white one). This works very well in thin coats. The result on the door opening is shown below.

Now the wall can be painted.

I think the final result was quit good.

With the last of the Morsec, I finished off the roofs of the solar power huts. That is all the structural work done on the huts now finally the walls can be painted.

Back of the huts, showing added white Morsec.

Front of huts.

P.p.p.p.Pick a Pepper.

We don’t always have a lot of luck with our produce, this year the cucumbers haven’t done very well and the tomatoes are OK but we could do with more and the lettuces we either have to many at once and they go to seed or we don’t have anything but tiny titchy ones which are no good to eat. But as usual the pepper plants have been outstanding.

Here is one load that are about to be processed ready  for the freezer where they will keep for use in curries and stir fry's all winter long.