At last we have moved into the new kitchen, two months later than we had hoped but we're in at last.
After having lived and cooked in one room for the last twenty months it's great to have so much space, there is however one problem, having so much cupboard and drawer space! with twenty three drawers and eleven cupboards we count ourselves lucky to find whatever we're looking for in the first twelve spaces, and to think that in the old kitchen we had just three drawer and no cupboards.
The C/H is also up and running so we have managed to keep warm during what the papers say is the worst winter for thirty years.
We still have not completed the new sitting room which is being used to store a lot of stuff, but as the kitchen is so big it's not a big problem.
The weather is now very spring like and at last I have managed to get into the garden and have started planting, so far just the broad beans and mangetout peas, and Joe our current helper has planted the garlic for us.
Joe is a young American , full of energy, and a great worker, he is doing a grand job on digging and lining a drainage trench for us.
We also now have a young billy kid who hopefully will sire some offspring for us, we had hoped to find a stud goat but failed, so thought it best to keep our own.
We are also hopeful that Lucy the rabbit is pregnant, so that should give us rabbit for the table later on in the year.

Happy New Year

1 st January. Happy New Year to all our past helpers, and to all our future ones.

My New years resolution is simple, Forget any Deadlines, we had hoped to be in our new kitchen by Xmas [which one I ask] then we thought that just maybe by New Years Eve, well it didn't happen, Simon has spent a couple of days trying to connect up the main water pipes to the new, but kept getting leaks, well more like mini lakes really, but this is outside, so no damage has been done, at last he now has a tight seal ,so just one more pipe to be connected to the hot water tank, and fingers crossed, we might have the C/H up and running.

I have now done the tiling on the work top, so I have to grout it and then get the edging trim on, there is still the new electric ring main to connect up, then maybe we will once again have a large kitchen, and I can finally finish unpacking.
We have now been renovating for twenty months, and it is not something we would ever do again, our last house took us just ten months to build, and that was from scratch, it also cost us half of this renovation job. Still, we are getting there slowly, and then we will have to concentrate on the outside jobs, hopefully we might get good helpers this year as well, last year all barring one were great, so many thanks to you all, and we hope to see some of you again for a holiday.

A Wild Goose Chase

On the 27Th of December we lost our gander, he was only ten months old and appeared fit and healthy , needless to say the geese were very upset as was Simon, not so much me, as Gandhi and I had a love hate relationship, I should say more of a hate relationship as he took every opportunity to attack me! However, as we had five geese we needed a gander, so the next day we went out on the proverbial wild goose chase, we had seen about four farms with geese, so we went to them all to see if we could get a replacement.
As is the way in Spain, if someone cant help you, they might know someone who can, but in this case we drew a blank.
We then traveled to the last farm that we had seen geese, but once again they could not help, so our helper,[also a Simon] asked if they knew anywhere that we might get a 'ganso', dictionary definition of a male goose, the female being an 'oca' and the plural of goose is 'ocas', this however proves not to be the case.
Simon our helper speaks fluent Spanish, so he asked did they just keep the 'ocas' for eggs, no came the reply, we breed them! By now we were all thoroughly confused, but if you have two ocas how do you breed them asked Simon, the reply amidst laughter was simple, one is a 'oca hembra' [female] the other one is a 'oca macho' [male] simple isn't it? so just ignore the dictionary, it doesn't allow for country folk.
The next day was spent trying to phone any breeders listed in the yellow pages, but being Xmas we failed to make contact with any of them, Xmas here continues till the 7th of Jan. However, on the Sunday we made the break through by phoning the shop where we had bought the geese from, and hey presto, they had two ocas macho's, so a mad drive to Padron which is a 100 k away, and we are now the proud owners of two ganders.

We had decided that we needed to try to find out what was the cause of Gandhi's early demise, with the possibility of eating him , it was very obvious on inspection of the internal organs that he had had a heart attack, and I found a large blood clot in his right ventricle, so we had roast goose for dinner, after all, this is why we have geese, to eat, although it should have been his offspring. This also marked our first 100% home produced meal, which is what we are aiming for.

R.I.P Gandhi

One week on from the big snowfall and things are now returning to normal, last Monday we attempted to get into our local village but found the road was blocked by fallen trees, so Simon went out with the chain saw and removed four big trees that were across the road, we then tried again to get to the village to find a 50ft tree across the road and on the electricty cable, which accounted for us still having no mains electricty two days on, so back home again. Then a police car came down the lane, they must have been contacted by one of the locals, and power was restored about four hours later.

What we have learnt by this is that although we no longer live on campo, if you live in a very rural area you do need a generator, a chain saw and a four wheel drive, also a deep freeze is a very good idea.

Although snow might look very romantic on cards, it can do an incredible amount of damage, this last fall has devastated half the forest just up the road, no wonder wood for log burners is cheap, we have been assured that this weather is not normal, so we will put it down to climate change, not global warming!

The first week of Dec has been rather a waste of time, first being without power and the snow, then having a helper that was not able to help as he was disabled, although he failed to mentiion this when he contacted us. So a day was spent in getting his room ready, and having to drive yet again into lugo to pick him up, a day explaining what an axe was and how to use it, which he couldn't, Then another trip to Lugo for a hospital appointment, and again , the next day to Lugo to drop our helper off, so the C/H instillacion is now a week behind and it is looking less likely that we will be moved into the new kitchen by Xmas.

The end of Nov and the start of winter?

November was quite a good month although we had a fair amount of rain, it was mild with some lovely warm sunny days. However this all changed on the 28th, when we arrived home from lugo to find a snow plough parked up at our turn off from the motor way.Spain is very good at being prepared for snow, so we guessed that we had it on the way, later that night the lights went out, and all we had was a few old candle stubs, so we did the practical thing and went to bed. the next day we awoke to six inches of snow, and still no power. We had talked about getting a generator, but this had been put on the long finger. We attempted to drive up to the moterway, which we knew would be clear but had to abandon that idea, come the afternoon the snow stopped and it did start to thaw so we thought the we might be able to get out if we went down to our village, the onto the motorway, this we managed and got ourselfs to Lugo, bought a generator, and home we went. The power was off for the best part of two days, but now we have a generator we will not be caught out again, although none of the locals seem to mind having no electricty, we like our creature comforts.