The last two months have flown by. We should have been going to the UK for a week in April,and had spent two weeks or more making sure the garden was OK to leave for a week and to arrange all the animals so they would be easy to look after but, due to a volcano erupting our flight was canceled, our animal/ house sitter was already here, having come four days before our departure to learn about all the animals, who has what, when and so forth, so we took a few days off to show her the area. Fortunately she was willing to return to us a month later, and this time we did get away although the flight was delayed.

This was not a holiday trip, but a trip to clear out my mother in laws cottage which has to be sold to pay for her continuing care in a care home, she is now ninety eight and a grand old lady, but is no longer able to care for herself, it just seems so wrong to me that someone who has worked all their life, and in her case until she was ninety, to own their own home should have to sell their property to pay for care in their final years, whereas someone who has been housed by the state and subsidised by the state, get their care free.

When we arrived on the Monday evening we thought it would be a good idea to go to the cottage to take stock of the task ahead, it was daunting! and even I, the optimist had my doubts as to whether we could really clear out sixty four years of accumulated memorabilia and furniture, I had already contacted various charities and we managed to recycle most things, we thought we were going to have a problem with the piano and chaise lounge fortunately, the postmasters son has just started learning the piano so was thrilled to have it, and his wife loved the chaise longue so these items are still in the village where they have been for over sixty years.

A few items have been put into store, again with help from the village, for us to pick up when we can.

This was my first real trip to the UK in over twenty years, when we escaped Thatcher's Britain and I was agreeably surprised. The people were helpful and polite, everything was so clean and well kept and the food in pubs was first class, the UK does have a food culture, all local, fresh and of first class standard, to say nothing off the real ale which we enjoyed several pints of! We were also surprised at the prices for food in the pubs which worked out about the same as we would pay for a reasonable meal in Spain, but of course, no vegetables in Spain, we dont understand how they stay so healthy and live to ripe old ages if they haven't been killed on the roads.

Spring really is here, we saw the first swallows today but so far we have not heard the cuckoo, the peaches are now in bloom, just hoping we dont get any frosts now other wise we will loose the crop. The strawberries are in bloom in the tunnel so we should be eating them in the next few weeks the broad beans and leeks and cabbages are all fairing well and so far no slug damage no doubt this will change soon then back to the wonderful job of slug picking, I'm sure they must have some use in the greater scheme of things but we have yet to work out what.

The building work on the independent accommodation is coming on quite well with a new interior wall built and the lintel in place for the archway, it should be good when it's finished but I'm not putting any date on this job, when it's done it's done!Still it's quite exciting planning the new decor and once it's done we only have one more job scheduled, but this will probably change, these things normally do, no doubt we will find another project.

Spring is here

Work has had to come to a halt on the house and the garden has taken first place in our priorities, we have had our first feast of the rhubarb and I've even found some sprouting broccoli for tonight's diner. The last two days have been sunny although we did have a thunderstorm yesterday however, the ground is warm and workable, so work it we must. 25kg of potatoes have now been planted after the area was weeded from the dreaded vipers bugloss, a very pretty weed, but so invasive, then rotovated and compost added, the compost looks really good and is teaming with worms although it seems a shame to disturb the worms who were so warm and snug in the heap.
All the brassica seeds are now planted into modules, quite a time consuming job as I plant just one seed per plug but as organic seed is quite expensive and I mostly source it from the UK I dont want to waste the seed. It is quite easy to get organic seed here, but the selection is very limited and I have not found anything that would be considered unusual, carrots, cabbage and leaks plus salad crops are all that appear to be available, so I depend on Chase organics for my seed, a company that I have used for years and I find the seeds very reliable.
The broad beans are looking good, although that was something that we had to buy another packet of, we found that in the first packet the seeds had been attacked by woodworm! still I guess that it proved that the seeds were untreated, let me hasten to add these were not seeds from Chase! The cabbages have all overwintered very well so come May we will probably be eating cabbage every day.
Chirper and Cheeper the gosling and wee hen are now outside although still confined, the big geese have shown interest in them, but somewhat aggressively, probably because they are very busy laying eggs although not showing any interest in sitting their eggs, when the incubator is free we will set some goose eggs and see what happens this time.

Renewing driving licences in Spain has been quite an experience, we went first to the traffic department in Lugo, explained what we wanted [ at least I think we did] and showed them our nearly expired licences. They in exchange gave us a list of papers that we would need to renew, this turned out to be a load of bunkum. All that is needed is your old licence, two photos, and the astronomical fee, the rest is done by computer, including filling out the form. We then found out that it is not in fact the traffic department that process the whole thing, however, we managed to find the correct place, and duly got processed. We then asked how long would it be for the new licences to arrive, three to four weeks, ah yes, but this is Spain, it turned out to be six weeks, this meant that Simon who was visiting the UK could not get a hire car, so his whole journey in the UK has been done on public transport, very good from the environmental point of view, not so good from a financial and time point of view. He only had seven days there, to visit his mother for her ninety eighth birthday, three of these seven days has been spent traveling, it is understandable why the UK keep building yet more motorways, they just dont have a good or affordable transport system.

One thing that Simon is bringing back are some hatching egg of Buff Orpingtons, a duel purpose bird, so hopefully we might be able to get a breeding stock going and then chicken can be back on the menu.

To say the weather is changeable is an understatement, Thursday we had nearly two inches of rain, Friday was bright dry and sunny, Saturday a bad storm was predicted, cyclone Cynthia, but luckily we only got the tail end of it and the only damage was to one of our chimney pipes, we do know that other parts of Spain were not so lucky.
Our latest helper is making a fantastic job of pointing in the old barn which one day is to become a bedroom, but work on the garden is not possible at the moment as the ground is too wet.
We are rather upset to find that our Mimosa tree so lovingly planted two years ago is dead, eaten by some underground critter, probably the same one that destroyed two of our kiwi's. we have no idea what it is, but it sure doesn't respect tree roots.

We made a detour on our way back from Lugo to have a look at the river, well it is hard to remember which is river and which is fields, the only clue is buildings sat in the middle of the torrent, normally there is a foot path there.

The primroses are now out, so it cant have been that bad a winter, although it does depend on which neighbour you speak to, one says this is normal, well maybe, we've only been here three years and it's not been like the first two, another one says it's the wettest for forty years, and yet another says it's been colder than normal, now I'm sure that's not true, we have had very little snow this year, but we have had a lot of wind and some very cold nights, maybe it's because the winter has been a long one this year, and we didn't get the really warm weather in Feb.

I keep trying to convince myself that spring is just around the corner, the catkins are looking lovely, the willow 's all have their lovely pussy flowers and I have seen primroses out, we even have one very brave anemone out in the garden but the weather is pure rubbish, although we have seen the local deer in the fields and the storks are here, and even the buzzards are calling to each other the weather is the sort that just makes you want to stay in bed or curled up in front of a nice log fire. This time last year I was working in the garden in shorts although we did get cold weather after this, no doubt to prove that I was being complacent about it, this year the winter, although we think has been fairly mild has seemed very long.

We still have no name for the male kid, the name chops has just stuck, the one gosling that hatched has been named chirper, it did seem very lonely on it's own so we gave it a mirror which it cuddled up to, but it didn't seem right that it should have no company so we have bought a chick as a companion, after the initial shock of something else in the brooder that moved, and a few hisses later, { didn't know that goslings could do that so young} the pair of them are now firm friends, we aren't quite sure what will happen when they go into the big wide world and cheeper sees it's mate going for a swim, but it should be an interesting study. I cant see either of these birds ending up as Sunday diner.

From time to time I receive emails or comments about our blog, normally people who are as concerned as we are about commercial food, my advice will always be the same, dont use supermarkets if you want real food. Most countries have farmers markets and most countries have organic veg box schemes, you may not be able to grow all your own food, but it should be possible to buy food that you dont have to read labels on. Although it might take time to prepare a whole meal from scratch rather than opening a can or a packet of frozen 'food' the end result is worth the effort, and in fact it is only the preparation that takes the time, the cooker does the rest.