Gardening from scratch

Not everything goes according to plan, we arrived in Ireland after three days travelling to find the the solicitors had not completed on our purchase of the new house, whether it was our side or the vendors I guess we will never know but we arrived with a van load of boxes and plants expecting to be able to move in and get the garden started to find that we were still homeless, our solicitor was away and could not be contacted for a further four days. Fortunately we have a number of friends there so accommodation was not a problem and the seller agreed that we could put our stuff into the cottage which was just as well as the first thing we found was water runner through the once perfect kitchen ceiling. We turned of the mains and had to leave it at that, it has done some damage but nothing we cant sort out when we get back there. We eventually got the keys four days later and set about getting the garden started, a few days later a friend turned up with her son and daughter plus a helpxer and they helped turn the virgin soil for us, we now have seven rows of potatoes planted plus swede carrots and parsnips, I also had some special seed potatoes which I have planted in the boxes we had transported our goods in.We have also planted some apple trees a Victoria plum, raspberries and blackcurrant bushes so we should have some food later on this year.
The area we are moving to abounds with wild life, foxes, of course, we intend keeping poultry, hares, and pheasants, we also have a nightingale who sing during the day as well as at night. Going back to keeping poultry, anyone who reads my blog knows that we have had considerable problems with Pine Martins, this is clearly going to be a problem again as we have one living in our attic. Sat down one evening after a days graft in the garden we heard loud scampering noises from above, certain that we don't have ghosts or lodgers living up there further investigation was called for, this turned out to be a very smelly job, Pine Martins don't use just one spot to shit, this clean up job has been saved for our return. It had made it's self quite at home there and appears to have been in residence some time, possible driven in during the very hard winter when temperatures were 18c below, it's possible that it is this little beast that has also caused the damage to the water pipes . One things for sure, it will be made to vacate the premises as soon as we get back.

Brittany

The last three weeks have been interesting and when on several occasions we were asked where we were from we didn't quite know what reply to give, we seem to have done a lot of travelling both on ferry's and road and it became quite hard to remember where we had been and where we were headed.
We had a few days in Brittany on route to Ireland and on our way back. We got to see the standing stones at Carnac. Nothing we had read or seen about them had prepared us for the shear size of the site which stretches some five miles, many theory's have been put forward to their purpose but the fact remains that they are a mystery and are totally awe inspiring, there is no way to describe them and to do justice to them all you can do is to stand back take a deep breath and try to go back in time to some five thousand years BC and marvel.
Brittany is a very beautiful place and the people are so very friendly, the food is fantastic and there is a real sense of civic pride, the towns and villages are clean and well cared for with flowers abounding every where. The local councils seem to prefer the use of wild flowers on both their roundabouts and verges as you enter or exit towns, so much nicer, and environmental friendly than bedding plants.

Breakthrough honeybee drugs to treat Colony Collapse Disorder (satire)

Breakthrough honeybee drugs to treat Colony Collapse Disorder (satire)

Disappearances

Over the last few days things have gone missing, things that we had stored in the barn, and we think some chickens, now the chickens could be explained by four legged thieves, although no evidence was found, but when it comes to tools and things such as battery chargers and other smallish things we know that it has to be two legged thieves. Several weeks ago the Gitanos were around and every one in Spain knows these are unwelcome visitors, normally there are two men and a woman who normally has a small child in tow, they all do their respective reconnaissance,and have a habit of coming back sooner or later, this is who we suspect as all our neighbours we would trust totally. The upshot of all this is that we have now had all our stuff that we are taking with us removed and it is now safely in storage until July.

The no meat day

A couple of days ago we visited friends, we had left a message saying we would be coming over to see them and we hoped that would be OK, they can no longer contact us as our mobile went missing at Bristol airport a few weeks ago and we have no land line as it's not our house any more. We duly arrived and found that they had prepared lunch for us, but they hoped we would not mind the lack of meat as it was veggie day! Living in Galicia could very easily turn both of us into vegetarians, if you go for a menu del dia the main course is huge quantities of meat, normally quite greasy and either boiled spuds or chips. The meal that l and S had prepared will go down as one of our most memorably meals in Galicia, it was superb, so thanks guys for a truly great meal.

Being Bored

For many years I have always joked that I would like time to be bored, well now I have and I'm bored being bored. Now we are living in just two rooms and with no garden to tend the days go very slowly, not having a proper kitchen any more does not help, I am used to baking every day, either cakes or bread, now all we have is a gas hob, so not even the pleasure of the Sunday roast.
Some people consider cooking a chore preferring to use tinned or frozen food that requires nothing more than heating up, now that must be boring.
We are still making our own yoghurt which is something, and although the weather is now getting quite warm we are cooking a lot of stews, we don't need an oven for that.
Thankfully we have quite a few friends that we can visit, without them it would not be worth while getting up in the morning. We could go out in the car and do some exploring but that means consuming fuel which we always try to conserve. I just have to bear in mind that it's only for another ten weeks or so and that we are going away for nearly three of them.

April Roses

Following what has been the mildest winter we have known in Spain we now seem to be having a very early summer. There are roses out in the garden and yesterday on our way back from friends we spotted the first bluebells, this is a month earlier than normal. Once again the fruit trees have been full of blossom so it promises to be a bumper harvest for the second year running, it seems strange that I will not be bottling all this wonderful bounty this year, I always find it so satisfying seeing a pantry full of bottled fruit, knowing exactly what has gone into the jars and knowing that no chemicals have been used at all.
Last week we discovered that you can still get good service in the 21st century. We had to cancel the insurance on our old Vitara as she had met her maker, no, nothing to do with us, anyway we cancelled the insurance and surprise, the no claims bonus will be ready for us in a couple of weeks. We then took back a cordless drill which I had bought at Christmas, somehow in our absence the charger had been damaged, we thought the shop would order a new charger for us, but no, they replaced the whole package, drill, the works with no questions asked. It's just a shame that this happens to be the store that we have stopped using due to the loud music, maybe we should give it another try and just use earplugs.