At last we have moved into the new sitting room, we had to get a move on as we had a friend arriving, nothing like having visitors to focus the mind, we have had some lovely days out. and at last have made it to the coast which is quite dramatic and has wonderful flora.

Things have been a little slow for the last few weeks, although we have had some good weather, by and large it has been colder and wetter than usual, so planting has either been delayed or what has been planted is very slow. Although the potatoes are looking good, and we have been picking strawberries for the last couple of weeks we have also made a start on planting the maize.

Cervantes also has a very unusual Church Tower.

Re- created Celtic Houses

Cervantes have a re-created Celtic village, the outline of the original village can be seen, but to get to it is a 12k hike. The views from here were breathtaking, although the drive was horrendous.

Springtime and nesting

Spring is now
here with the return of the storks who are nesting and even have young, the swallows and swifts have arrived and the first cuckoo past through a couple of days ago.
There seems to be more primroses this year, maybe due to the hard winter and there are masses of wild daffodils , we have yet to find out which type they are.
Most of our early plantings have been done which is just as well as I will be out of action for a few weeks due to a hernia operation, so it was a mad rush to get things into seed trays, and veg planted
Our next helper is due in a couple of days time and we are hoping she is as good as our last one, we have been very lucky with our helpers and have only had two in the last year that were of no use at all.
We still manage to get the odd day out to find more interesting places and a couple of weeks ago found a recreated Celtic village and, although the drive was hair raising, it was worth the effort. This is in a place called Cervantes near the Navia valley.
We have a mass of blossom on the peach trees this year so if we dont have any hard frosts or snow ,as we did last year, we should get quite a good crop, however we dont expect to get much in the way of apples due to bad pruning, we aren't even sure if the trees will survive, however the pears and plums and the newly planted cherries are looking good.

At last the winter seems to have gone although we still are having light frosts, but the days are sunny and warm, Joe our helper had planted garlic for us which is now well up, and we had our first picking of rhubarb yesterday, the broad beans are at last planted, although not showing yet, but the mangetout are growing well in the tunnel.
The youngest member of the family a kitten called Zara has discovered that water is fun to play with, although she likes to remove things from the water, such as brussel sprouts or the washing up sponge which she treats as though it's something she has caught, she runs around with it, growling!
The weeds are now taking over, but Joe is hard at work weeding the old maize patch before it can be rotovated.
We still manage to have the odd day out, last weekend we had a trip to Pontevedra, with a great meal out with a friend and a little scenic de tour where we found some lovely mountain streams.

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.