I'M BACK!!!!

13^th June

Wow I haven’t blogged for nearly a month. 

Brett has done some sterling work in this time .....

·         He’s roofed the decking; it still needs the palings around it.

The roof finishes it off nicely and ties it into the house

Olive wood palings

·         But, most importantly, he’s wired the house!!! We have working light switches and sockets – he’s so clever.

·         And we have THREE windows in the house one in the kitchen and one in the bathroom – holes had to be cut for these ... oh the mess!!!!!!! And one to replace the one in the living room. It’s much lighter inside now.

A few other events have taken place ...

·         I’ve travelled to UK and back (obviously)

·         The duck has hatched eight ducklings, sooooo cute!

She's such a good mother, very protective (she even sees off the geese!)

·        AND Helen has been to visit, oh we had such fun ...

We did the usual; visiting Monsanto, Penamacor (Medieval quarter) and taking her out for a typical Portuguese meal, but the most exciting, for me, was our ‘project’ – constructing a chandelier for the living room. We fashioned the support from an old, traditional, crystal chandelier which we completely re structured; the arms now look like Medusa’s hair with wire birds and metal coils hanging from them, plus lots of sparkly crystals – very ‘Steam Punk’! I love it.

It's not finished yet, needs loads more crystals and coils

·         The garden has grown massively, including the weeds!!!! And we are now harvesting courgettes (and giving them away), mangetout, onions, potatoes, lettuce, radish, peas, chard, rocket, carrots, cucumber, garlic and masses of herbs. And very soon we will have runner beans and tomatoes; it’s all very exciting but ... the weeds are relentless, I have two, bindweed and a succulent, which have to be hand weeded as any part of the plant left in the soil will regenerate (nightmare!). And now, it’s hot and the ground is hard and the ants are back, it is impossible to grow anything straight from seed; our neighbour says it’s because the ground is hard, I say it’s the ants stealing the seeds! I can’t grow carrots or spring onions and my sweet corn is very sparse.

·         And the chickens are now laying properly, some days we have as many as 10 eggs!!!